(Full Disclosure: While this post says 2009, I’m not really sure when it was first published. Could have been anywhere from 2007 or so until now.)
Well, I thought it might be a good idea to start blogging about this entire process. So let me take a step back and explain how this all began.
Vacations are normally pretty difficult to come back from. Especially when the beach and sand and surf is involved. At least for us they are. This year was particularly difficult. One, because neither one of us really wanted to go back to work and two, because we realized that we may not be able to wait until the kids are off to college before we head to our beach shack. The beach shack was an idea that we came up with somewhere along the way. We both agreed that once the kids were out of the house we would sell everything and move to the beach somewhere. Shortly after returning from our vacation we began to look at real estate along the Florida & Alabama gulf coast. Not being satisfied with just limiting ourselves to that specific geographic area our search broadened to include the entire coast of Florida both the Gulf side as well as the Atlantic side. That grew even further to include the entire eastern sea board.
Then, one day it dawned on me. I’ve always wanted to travel the world again and I’ve always loved yachts. So I began to look around. Two things became quickly apparent: It is extremely expensive to buy a motor yacht and it is extremely expensive to maintain a motor yacht. Just the cost of diesel fuel alone made me shudder. Add all of that on top of the fact that motor yachts are just really not that great if you want to greatly reduce your carbon footprint. Then I thought about sailing vessels. I have never been fond of the heeling (rolling) action of monohull sail boats and sailing in blue water heeled over at such angles just doesn’t appeal to the laid back lifestyle that I imagined (even though I knew that many of the motor yachts I saw were subject to some of the same rolling action). But I looked anyway. That’s when it hit me, I sailed a couple of small spritely catamarans when I lived in Saudi Arabia. Let’s see what’s out there catamaran-wise in the blue water size I would need for a family of six. That’s when a whole new world opened up to me. There were catamarans out there that were far larger than I had ever imagined. That’s what I get for not paying attention for so many years. The basic sailing concept was the same as on the smaller cats just of a different scale. A much larger scale. Even better, I didn’t have to worry about hanging out on a trapeze. So there began the research. Hours and hours of my evenings were devoted to learning and discovering all that I could find on this new world. I found designs that I liked and many that I did not. I discovered people and families that have been doing this for quite some time and some that were new to the cruising lifestyle. I discovered some that were sailing around the world after having only stepped on a boat once in their life prior to buying a catamaran of their own.
With all of this new found knowledge and resources to investigate the options I dug deeper and deeper. As I did the dream grew from just a spark to a full roaring idea of how to make it happen. This blog is our way of documenting that process.
First, a few rules:
We are a family of six. That means that there are four kids running around here and we both have full time jobs as well as a photography business that we run on the side. As such, it occasionally becomes extremely difficult to present timely blog updates. So we ask for you to please be patient.
We both have ADD. Whether or not it’s a valid diagnosis or just the fact that we are frazzled by our hectic lifestyle it happens. So if we repeat ourselves or just blabber on aimlessly you’ll know why. That may include our lack of short term memory from time to time.
We are not writers. Although I believe that Michelle is better at it than I am (English & Literature were not some of my best subjects) we still try to succinctly get the point across. Sometimes that works out for us, sometimes not so much. You will probably be able recognize when Michelle is updating versus when I am updating simply by the fact that her posts will be well thought out and presented in an organized manner whereas mine will be more like a shotgun with random points all over the place.
I am anal. What this means is that I focus on(it’s OK if you read that as “obsess over”) specific things (obviously not writing, we’ve established that already) mainly technical details. That means that it will most happen that you will read a post where I have gone into much detail over small items like stainless steel winch bearings or the fact that I obsess over bridge deck clearance and shallow draft (no that’s not a new beer). That also means that I like to study things in great detail, it also means that I get derailed quickly due to the aforementioned ADD issue.
We are not looking at racing catamarans. However, that does not mean that we are willing to accept a lead sled of a boat. Our primary goal on finding “the perfect catamaran for us” (note the emphasis there, “perfect catamaran for us”) falls into the following categories: Comfortable (we have to live on this boat for quite a while), spacious ( we aren’t claustrophobic but we don’t want to be crawling over each other all the time either), safe (yes, safety is a huge concern, this is my wife and kids we’re talking about here), somewhat fast (~200 mile days possible on passages with good wind? Friggin awesome!), decent payload (see comfortable and spacious above), high bridge deck clearance (I don’t like the idea of wave slap on the bottom of the bridge deck in moderate conditions, in rough conditions it’s mostly unavoidable), and finally shallow draft (yes, I want to be able to park my family in a shallow reef anchorage). Of course this list is by no means it. These are simply some of the major points of contention that I have identified. There may be more but these are likely the ones that we will be the least likely to deviate from.
This is a process, and it has the potential to be a long process. We are not rich, we have not won the lottery and we are planning this next step in our lives accordingly. Now, if we were to win the lottery the dynamic of this entire process would change greatly but the end result and more than likely the boat will all be the same. You’ll just get to hear more about how much we’re enjoying the “ocean view of our new home” a little sooner than later. I’m just not betting the farm on the lottery being there to make this happen. Besides, you have to play to win right?
And finally, (I know, no one likes rules), we are stuck in a non coastal city. Given the size of Texas we may as well be in a landlocked state like Oklahoma (also given our proximity to OK it’s not much different) so cut us some slack. We know where we are and we don’t need to be reminded of it. Nor do we garner any respect for nay-sayers, oceanophobes, pessimists or any of the like. This is our dream, if you don’t like it fine, you don’t have to read about it just don’t attempt to ruin it for everyone else.
Whew, that’s a mouthful. I honestly didn’t mean to write War & Peace so I’ll save the rest for more posts later.
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