"Amy"

My name is Amy and I am 49 years old and work in law enforcement in Tidewater Virginia. I have two sons, 21 and 15 and was fortunate enough in 2011 to have met my love, J, who brought to life my then unknown dream to live aboard.

It was on our first date when J tested the waters and was bold enough to tell me of his desire to retire aboard. That dream resounded deep with in me - yes! I want to live aboard too! I was taken immediately back to when I was 12 and fortunate enough to spend a week living aboard a 50'+ monohull sailing the USVI and BVIs. What more is there to say? The bright, warm sun, the soft, endless sand, and the deep blue water flowing through the most peaceful natural would - I have secretly been in love ever since.

I have been on numerous boats over the years but short of taking out an occasional Sunfish, however, I have no other sailing experience. Let’s call a duck a duck - I am a sailing novice and have everything to learn.

And now, it is finally time for J and I, along with our youngest, Ben, and our 5 year old Corgi, Jenna, to begin our adventure and search for our new floating home. Ben will be driving soon, which gives us the freedom to consider making this “drastic” lifestyle change. We have taken Ben to the Annapolis Boat show and had him crawl about on all shapes and sizes of boats. He is a great kid, who is open minded and loves to travel and is embracing this new experience, excited to learn to sail himself.

For J and I, retirement is hopefully about 7 years off - so whatever boat we chose will have to function both here in Tidewater and for island hopping in the years to come. Given our work situations, we have a basic idea of which marinas are a workable base and now we begin the boat search in earnest.

We have struggled to find information, consolidated in one place, for a journey like ours, and hope that our experiences will bring insight and help to others that will follow on similar seas.

"J"

I’m J and the technical one here. I don’t like to write but I agree with Amy that It would be good to have this journey memorialized with the hope of providing some form of guidance to anyone wanting to  attempt to do "this - live aboard" thing, as I found it very difficult to find quality real world information.

I believe that you can’t have too much research. 

I started drawing boat plans as a small child, many of which had a series of garages. So living aboard has always been a draw, sailing, snorkeling, and SCUBA  with friends reinforced it. I was in my 20’s when I started seriously considering the lifestyle and at the time became totally sold on a center cockpit idea because of the headroom and better visibility from the cockpit. The first serious contender was a Hunter Passage CC which carried me all the way through until I met Amy. 

Amy and I went to a boat show in 2012 and she hated the vertical stairs on the center cockpit and the enclosed cockpit which I have to agree offers 

"at best" difficult water access. We then went to larger deck salons around the 50’ mark because they gave us the cockpit/water access she wanted but the spaciousness in the master that I thought I wanted. Several things caused us to reconsider that path but it can be summed but by saying a bigger boat means bigger everything: cost, repairs, berths, insurance and maintenance. And then at the last show, we got a good talking to - the same man who preached the 80/20 rule like a Bible verse. He talked about how the larger boat limited your access throughout the Bahamas and the Caribbean. He talked about rough seas, handholds, and wants versus needs. That’s when it snapped to being more about self-sufficientcy and not being a slave to more boat than we needed. When we stepped on board a Hunter 41 ,a then a brand new Beneteau 40.1, we knew we could do this. It was here we learned that the 2008-12 Beneteau 40 wasn’t much different in layout and would easily meet our needs. We found one locally and it checks the majority of the boxes and truly meets the 80/20 rule. 

The search and voyage now begins in earnest.