For someone new to boating, it may seem a bit intimidating at first to learn how to sail.  Learning the proper words for things on a sailboat is a separate vocabulary itself!  However, don’t let that stop you from trying something new that may become a lifelong hobby. Learning to sail takes a lot less time than you may imagine. Most would-be sailors can pick up essential skills in just a few weeks, with help from sailing lessons. Some lucky individuals are natural-born sailors with an intuitive nature on how to steer the boat. Those who don't know the difference

Lots of changes have been happening in the past month for team Sansbury! The biggest being that we’ve returned home from Key West and are living in Annapolis again! Wait… What?!We get it… February probably isn’t the most ideal time to leave a tropical paradise and take up residency in an area that just got hit with a record-breaking snowstorm. And we definitely weren’t prepared for just how cold 40 degrees actually feels like. Let’s be honest, we’ve been calling our sweatshirts “outerwear” for the past two years, and our feet feel uncomfortably confined in anything other than flip flops.

Welcome, Bimini. Named after one of our favorite islands in the Exumas, she entered our lives and filled it instantly. She’s the fresh start that we’d been searching for since we moved to Key West almost a year ago.But boy, did we forget about the puppy stage! The razor-sharp teeth and new puppy smell; the boundless energy; the crate training. Oh, how I hate the crate training! She’ll cry and whine to be let out, but we want to avoid any accidents in the house. It seriously breaks my heart to hear her get so worked up. But I know

Such a lovely time of the year in a lovely place..

Hey there! It's been a while! Let's get y'all caught up on what the hack we've been up to the past few months!Matt & a friend started a bike rental company called Iguana Bikes and placed them at the hotel he's working at as the Chief Engineer. Guests can rent them right at the hotel and use them for the mile or so ride to downtown. He added baskets & provide a lock for each bike so they can lock them up where ever they leave them. Bikes and scooters are THE best way to get around, so we're looking

Oh, hey there! Remember us? The crazy couple who quit their jobs, bought a boat and sailed away into the sunset? Yeah, we’re still here.I know…. it’s been forever since I last posted. Forever being almost two months. Eek. What a slacker. I used to freak out about not posting at least once a week, and here it’s been several months since the last entry. It seems the Conch Life has relaxed us more than I thought. Guess we’re more like Type A-minus people now.We’ve been getting quite a few emails from followers and many (not so subtle) hints from

Well, after just over ONE MONTH of being on the market, we have a buyer for Foxfire. We honestly can't believe it happened so quickly. Probably should have listed it for more! Ha! As excited as we are about the next part of our life as Key West-ers, we're having a much harder time than we thought we would with the whole sale. In fact, the day before survey, we were onboard cleaning & prepping the boat, and were trying to think of every way possible to keep her. If slips would have been more plentiful (and affordable) in KW,

We’ve officially been living in Key West for one week now, and we haven’t gotten lost in the 24-7 nightlife of Duval Street or attacked by any of the many lizards and chickens roaming the island. Matt’s even found himself a job. I’d consider that a successful first week, wouldn’t you?But what a week it’s been! After our visit home, we made the loooong drive from MD to FL with a loaner truck from Matt’s uncle stuffed to the brim with stuff we’d need for the house (yard tools, paint supplies, tools, etc). Google told us the trip would take

We’re about to wrap up a whirlwind two week trip home, visiting family and friends that we haven’t seen since October. I really can’t believe it’s been six months already… feels like we just left. Damn, time flies. And while we’ve been gone, nothing – absolutely nothing – has really changed. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Everyone just kept on doing their thing, and now we’re back and it feels like we don’t quite fit in anymore. It’s an odd thing, feeling like you’re no longer connected to your old life. Like we could

So…. we’re back in the good old US-of-A. Ft Lauderdale, actually. And the feeling is…. EHH. Sorta anti-climatic. Not gonna lie… We’re split between being super happy and super sad. The Bahamas we nothing short of ah-mazing, but man, did we miss the amenities of home. Seeing family & friends again? Can’t wait! Free water that’s not reverse osmosis (and tasting a little funky)? Yes! Grocery stores that stock everything under the sun and where we can find a can of Pringles for under $5? Sold!! McDonalds? I’m Lovin’ It! The shitty brown water here at the marina? The

It’s the beginning of the end of our trip. Bummer. It’s been a quick five months, that’s for sure. Good news is that we’ve finally made it out of George Town, after 18 (!!) days of being at the marina. Thank God for that. I think we were both ready to just start swimming north – seas be damned! – if we didn’t make a break for it soon.Jeremy left us on a Thursday and Alex & Char left us on Friday. They met the owner of a 70' motor yacht who was looking for crew to help him and

Our friend Jeremy paid us a visit last week. We’d been getting pretty stir crazy being stuck at the marina for so long and were really, REALLY excited to see him. Like, literally counting down the days and hours. Unfortunately for all of us, a massive snowstorm decided to dump a foot of snow in the Baltimore/DC area the same day he was supposed to fly out, so his arrival was delayed by a few days. Bummer. But hey, we’re used to running on Island Time down here in the Bahamas, and are totally used to the couple two-treehours/days delay

Hello there. Yes, we’re still alive. I know… I’ve been such a slacker in posting lately. I’d blame it on the hit-or-miss Internet connection down here in the Bahamas, but I’d be a liar. Truth is, we’ve been having such a great time just soaking up the surf and sun the past week, that blogging has been the last thing on my mind. I keep reminding myself (or rather, Matt’s been reminding me) that this is a journal of our trip and that I really need to do a post, so here goes.Exactly what have we been up to? Not

We had our first visitors from home aboard Foxfire last week, when Tim, Mischelle, Luke and Noah flew down to George Town to share the dream with us, if only for a week. I can’t even describe how good it felt to see friends from home, especially Tim & Mischelle, who were by far our biggest supporters and mentors through the whole process of buying a boat and making this crazy dream of cruising a reality. They were the ones who picked us up and encouraged us to just do it, even when our family and friends thought we

Continued down to George Town after leaving Farmers Cay the next morning. Tried to sail with no luck. Tried to fish with no luck. Did manage to learn a new card game that was pretty cool. Other than that, it was just a loooong day of motoring the final 40 miles or so to GT. We had to enter in from the ocean side through a cut in the reef called Conch Cut. I’m sure it’s normally pretty tame, but when we approached it, all we could see were these massive curling waves with what appeared to be a

We wanted to spent a few more days in Staniel Cay after the anchor incident, but decided to move back around to our original anchorage just off piggy beach the next morning to avoid any additional mishaps. We were thankful that we got out unscathed and didn’t want to stick around tempting fate any longer than we had to. While having post PTSD drinks aboard Dealer’s Choice that night, we met a group of twenty-something cruisers – we’re NOT the youngest ones! – who also had some issues that same night. Turns out their anchor not only dragged, but

We met some fellow cruisers on the boat anchored next to us who were nice enough to invite us over to their boat for some sunset cocktails. Up to this point, Matt and I have been feeling a bit isolated, as most cruisers seem to have already formed their “groups” and have little in common with a bunch of younger, inexperienced sailors like us. Or they’re from Montreal only speak French, which makes having a conversation somewhat difficult. We were really surprised at how many Canadian cruisers there are here. Bet this is the largest source of maple syrup

After our stay at Norman’s, we continued south to Staniel Cay. On our way we passed this HUGE mega yacht, complete with the helicopter on the back. It was definitely the biggest yacht that we’ve ever seen. EVER. All we could do was stare at it with our mouths hanging open as it slowly passed by. You know there had to be someone pretty darn rich important onboard. We heard later that Johnny Depp was getting married on his private island which was like 10 miles north of us. We literally passed it on the sail down that morning. I’m

Week 2 of cruising the Bahamas, and we find ourselves in the Caribbean dream that is Norman’s Cay. It is absolutely beautiful here… not a bad place to hole up for a few days to wait out a strong Northerly wind that’s supposed to come thru towards the end of the week. This is the place that was once owned by a Columbian drug runner during the drug trade era of the 70’s & 80‘s. The drug running has since stopped, but the remnants of the island’s shady past are forever immortalized by the remains of a sunken C46 plane

Stopped in Nassau for a few days to wait out weather, reprovision and to use as a hopping off point for the Exumas, a mere 30 miles to the southeast. I’ll admit, we had a preconceived idea of what we’d find in Nassau, partly fueled by our cruising guidebooks and their geriatric writers, and by the mass of cruise ships we saw anchored off the west side of the harbor. We thought it would be a crowded and dirty piece of land, that held nearly half the population of the entire Bahamas, most of them who were most likely

Caught a fish yesterday! Matt proved that, in fact, he is NOT a Jonah. We’re pretty excited because it’s our first edible fish aboard Foxfire! Our past two catches were a Craville Jack and a big ol’ Barracuda. Both duds. So, this catch was a pretty big deal! After loosing one hit earlier in the day, Matt was able to catch us a big, bright, beautiful Mahi Mahi. He took nearly half a bottle of vodka to sedate before he stopped fighting. This whole fishing thing might get expensive. These big boys aren’t cheap dates! We got lucky in

After recovering from our exciting Gulf Stream crossing (re: sleeping our first day away), we set off to explore this tiny speck of land that hails itself as the ‘Island in the Steam’. The first thing we noticed was the color of the water. Key West was more green/teal, where this is more aqua/turquoise. It’s beautiful. And warm! Matt was ready to jump in right at the marina, but was warned that bull sharks frequent the area looking for the scraps the local fisherman throw out, and quickly changed his mind about going for a swim. We set out

We’re finally here! Bimini, Bahamas, baby! Woo Hoo! Wow, what a trip it was too! But let me back up a bit. We finally untethered the mooring line and departed Key West on the 21st, making our way up the Hawk Channel, using the same route we did when we came down. We planned on making the same stops we did before – Key West to Marathon to Key Largo then finally into Biscayne Bay, Miami. The trip to Marathon was rough. Winds from the east at 15-20 mph gave us 3?-4’ waves in the channel. Obviously we had

Alas, it’s come time to say goodbye to Key West. I guess it’s not truly goodbye, rather more like a reluctant ‘see ya later’. We plan to return to this crazy, wonderful slice of paradise after we complete our Bahamas trip, and may even have the distinction of becoming “Fresh Water Conchs” (the term for non-native residents living here for seven or more years). We'll see how it goes. It was actually a lot harder to leave than I thought it would be, even with the bitterness of our stolen bikes fresh in our minds. We’ve met a ton

We got a nice little surprise this morning as we headed into town for breakfast and found that BOTH our bikes had been stolen. They were locked up together on the bike rack right here at the marina too. It must have happened sometime between Sunday night and early this morning, and whoever took them was prepared. I found our lock tossed on the ground with a clean slice through the lock rope, meaning they must’ve have had a bolt cutter with them and were in the mindset to steal some bikes. The ironic thing is that we normally

After our, shall we say adventurous, first night on the Bay, we decided to spend Friday in Deltaville, VA to let the winds die down before we headed offshore. We were all a little edgy and needed some downtime to recover from the night before. And to triple check the weather to make sure we were staying clear of any more of that crap. Just getting into the marina in Deltaville was an adventure, with a narrow corkscrew channel that had us just a few feet away from a sandbar on one side and the beach on the other.

So we’re back in Maryland, sailing someone else’s catamaran down the Bay in below freezing temperatures and gale force winds. I guess we were getting a little too soft in Key West and needed the kind of ass kicking only the Chesapeake in the wintertime can give you. Wait. What? Let me rewind to just two short days ago: it was a beautiful sunny afternoon and Matt and I were frolicking down Duval Street, celebrating one of our last days in Key West. We’d been analyzing the weather and decided that the end of the week would be the

So… I’m about four days late in writing this post. In fact, it’s been nearly two weeks since my last update. Don’t judge. I’m totally admitting to being a complete slacker here. Truth is, we’ve just been enjoying the time we have left here in Key West before we head out in a few days. We had some very productive days (Provisioning done! Boat clean! Tanks topped off!) and some very un-productive days (four books read in the past two weeks, Matt is now a master of Boom Beach, and interactive Sims like game – hello!), but we’ve absolutely

We had our first visitor aboard last week when Matt’s Uncle Rich flew in for a few days of fun, sun, and lots and lots of fishing. He’s been coming down to Key West on and off since the 80’s, so it didn’t take much convincing on our part to have him meet us down here for a few days. It was so much fun spending time with him and exploring the Island, discovering some fun new places, and did I mention the fishing? I’m not over exaggerating when I say that he and Matt had a rod in

The US lifted it’s embargo on Cuba today, finalmente. Talk about holding a grudge. That’s a pretty big deal down here, considering we’re closer to Cuba than Miami. There’s probably going to be a parade down Duval later this week. They DO love their parades down here. It also means that when we sail to Cuba we won’t have to ask them not to stamp our passports. Viva Cuba! So, aside from eating our fair share of Cubano sandwiches and drinking endless cups of cafe con leche, we’ve been out doing our own little bike tour of the island.

Ever since we left Annapolis, our starboard engine has been acting a little funky. Literally, the day after we left. It had been acting absolutely fine the entire time we were tied to the dock, and all of a sudden it decides that it wants to start acting up as soon as we leave. What's that called? Murphy's Law? It began acting a little hesitant when we went to start it, often turning over a few times before the engine would actually start. We thought that maybe it was an issue with the start button, or a loose connection

We’ve been spending the past week bummin’ around town, exploring all of the little side streets and hidden gems that make this place amazing. We learned pretty quickly that spending more than one or two nights a week down by Duval Street is not sustainable if you’re planning to stay here for more than a few days. That place is absolute craziness, which is great, but not our thing for more than a few hours at a time. Plus, it’s expensive! We’ve been learning to take advantage of the Happy Hour specials for 1/2 priced food and drinks. That’s definitely

We did it. We finally arrived at Key West and paid for a month at a mooring ball in Garrison Bight. We’ll be here through the 29th. Looks like it’s going to be a Key West kind of Christmas. Now, I’m sure many people will say “Why are you wasting your time in Key West? You should have just went straight to the Bahamas”. To them I say: Our journey, our decision. And you know what? We really like it here so far. And it feels really, really good to be in one place for more than a few days.

We finally made it to the Keys! Woo Hoo! Not sure why, but in all our travels down and around the Caribbean, we’ve never been here before. I guess we thought since it was still the US, it wasn’t exotic enough. We left Miami / Biscayne Bay Wednesday morning and man, was I happy to put Miami, and the crappy previous two days, behind us. Not saying anything against Miami – I’m hoping we have a better outlook when we return to provision before we shoot across to the Bahamas. But this time, it was no bueno, as they

We finally made it to the Miami inlet a little past midnight Monday night, after what was a really nice night trip down the coast. The moon wasn’t very bright and the city skyscrapers packing the coastline gave a soft orange glow to illuminate our path. Other then an few unmarked mooring balls we had to dodge, we had a pretty uneventful night. That is, until we turned into the Port of Miami shipping channel. That’s when our night got really, really eventful. As we approached the inlet, Matt tried to hail the Port of Miami several times to

This past week has been a blur of nameless anchorages, long narrow canals and more bascule bridges than we can count as we’ve snaked our way down the ICW from St. Augustine to North Palm Beach. We’ve been averaging 50 miles a day, waking up at dawn, pulling anchor by 7:00am and motor sailing for about ten hours a day, setting anchor by 5:00pm each night, only to wake up and do it all over again the next day. Finally around Jensen Beach, the weather got warm and has stayed warm. Today we officially swapped out our coldgear for

Well, we’ve officially been “cruisers” for one month now! Hard to believe. In some ways it feels like we just left Annapolis yesterday, and in other ways it feels like we’ve been gone six months already. We’re really enjoying the trip so far, but it’s been a lot colder than we imagined! In fact, there’ve only been a handful of days where the weather reached the mid-sixties. I know, much better than the Arctic temps back home, but still cooler than what we had expected (especially in Florida!). Coldgear and sweatshirts have been in the wardrobe rotation way more

This morning we made it into St. Augustine and searched for a place to anchor. We noticed all of the other boats were on mooring balls and had read that moorings here were in the $20 range, perfect for our cruising budget. We decided to grab the first one we saw, which looked like 4 times the size of a propane tank floating in the water. Seriously, the biggest mooring ball we’d ever seen. Once we were tied up, we called the marina to let them know we were there, and were promptly chastised for not making a reservation.

After our exhilarating offshore experience the other night, we were more than happy to pick up a mooring ball in Fernandina Beach for a couple of nights to calm our nerves and get our bearings again. Plus, there were some minor boat projects that needed to be done like changing the oil, impellers, and giving the boat a good rinse to get rid of the thick layer of salt she’s accumulated over the past few days of being out in the ocean. Fernandina Beach is the northernmost city on the Florida coast, about 25 miles north of Jacksonville. Interesting

UPDATE: we are now safely anchored in Fernandina Beach, where we’ll stay a few nights until the ocean calms down and we can be on our way. It’s freezing here! We never thought we’d be wearing layers of winter clothes in Florida! It’s 4am, and we’re about 20 miles off the coast of Jekyll Island, GA, eight hours away from our destination of Fernandina Beach, FL. Let me just come right out and say it…. This overnight has been absolutely horrible. What started off as a nice calm day, has turned into a tumultuous night with winds howling from

Our next stop after Charleston was a small town just 30 miles or so south called Rockville, SC. We have a small gear oil leak in our port engine and we were told that there was an excellent marina just off Adams Creek in Rockville, SC which was owned by, Anthony Black, a man who would be able to help us out. Matt already knew how to repair it, but figured having a second set of (trained) eyes to confirm that it was just the leaky seal and not something bigger was worth the stop. And so we headed

We’re getting ready to wrap up our stay here in Charleston and head out tomorrow, which we’re both pretty excited for. Funny, because when we pulled into the marina after two days at sea, I said how happy I was to be tied to a dock again. Now, almost a week later, we both have that traveling itch again and can’t wait to get on the move again. It seems our max stay at any given place is only a few days. Even though we’re ready to be on our way, our stay in Charleston was beyond awesome. Let’s

Charleston is proving itself to be a pretty awesome place, and we haven’t even made it downtown yet! Our first night in town, we met up with Matt’s high school buddy, Zane, who took us out to this amazing outdoor music venue called Awendaw Green, located just outside of Charleston in Mt. Pleasant. Every Wednesday, they hold a barn jam featuring local and regional musicians of all types. The line up changes each week, and includes half a dozen acts per night with genres ranging from bluegrass to punk to country to rock. A few bands get there start

It’s 2am and I’m at the helm on my first official night watch at sea. The water is calm, the moon is bright, and there’s nothing but open ocean all around me. Pretty cool. We finally made it out of Moorehead City around noon on Monday, after holing up in our boat for nearly three days being sloths and binge watching the first three seasons of Game of Thrones. The weather was cold, windy and rainy, so our options were limited. We tried to save them for when we got to the Bahamas, but decided that being stuck in

Ah… it’s good to have Internet connection again. We made it to Coinjock the other day. Tuesday night, I think. It’s hard to keep track of what day it is now that we’re not on a schedule. We keep looking at our phones to remind us of the date which is pretty pointless since we really don’t have any place we need to be. I think knowing what the date is helps us keep our sanity while navigating down these boring long stretches of the ICW. Constantly following that damn magenta line. No chance for auto-pilot here. Ugh. Along

Made it into Norfolk on Sunday after a 70 mile trip down from where were were anchored off the Indian River, in Reedville, VA. We pulled anchor at 4:30 in the morning and were out on the bay in the pitch black, waiting for the sun to rise at 7:30 so we could see where the hell we were going. It was pretty eerie out there in the darkness, with nothing to rely on other than our GPS and trusty spot light to make sure we weren’t running over any crab traps or fishing structures. After two hours of

We ended up staying in Solomon’s Island an extra night to hang out with friends that were coming in town for the weekend. The winds had died down and it was a really peaceful day on the boat. We kind just hung out and tried our best to downshift into a slower way of life. It feels weird not doing something all of the time, which I realize is not necessarily a good thing, and something that I hope to become comfortable with during this trip. I got some reading in, which was nice. Last night we went out

Hey, anyone notice that it’s getting COLD?!? We sure have. Finally broke down last night and ran the generator so we could turn on our heat. We went from 55 degrees to a balmy 78 degrees in about 15 minutes. Not sure why we chose to wait so long and freeze our asses off the past two nights. While the heat was cranked up, I took a shower (which taking a shower on a boat is a whole other experience in itself). When I went to turn on the shower pump to pump out the water, I noticed that

So we did it! We’re off the dock and have officially started our trip South. It feels really good to have done the one thing that everyone warned us would be the hardest to do… To just leave! I admit, with the stress we’ve been under the past few weeks preparing for our trip, saying our farewells, and trying to imagine what our new life would be like, there were quite a few conversations about pushing our departure date back a few days but I’m so glad we stuck to the plan and just did it! Yesterday morning we

Since we’ve lived in Annapolis for so long, I figured I’d do a post on some cool things/places we’ve learned along the way. Checking out new destinations is always a cool experience, but it really helps to have a little insider knowledge of the place before you go. I don’t know how many times we’ve been someplace, stuck walking the same few blocks usually “downtown” (aka tourist trap area), only to learn after we’ve left of the cool local neighborhoods where the locals hang out only a few blocks farther. Annapolis is a great little town with so much

Saying goodbye is so hard to do. Seems like we’ve been doing a lot of that this past week. It never really sinks in until after you’ve left and you think “Damn, I’m not sure when I’ll see them again”. Sort of surreal. Amid all of the excitement of us preparing for our trip, there’s that undercurrent of sadness of having to say goodbye to the people that mean the most to you. Trust me, it’s a real buzzkill. Our friends and family threw us a big farewell party at our old neighborhood beach last weekend, which was awesome!

Were in the home stretch now, baby! Woo Hoo! And thank GOD, because our nerves are shot and our heads are about to explode thinking about all of the last minute stuff we need to do. Definitely not the state of mind we’d thought we’d be in the week before we left, but I suppose it’s par for the course. We’re about to embark on an epic adventure that we’ve been dreaming of for years and honestly, we’re having a hard time trying to wrap our heads around it all. Being big planners, we’re finding ourselves constantly bogged down

O.M.G. We’ve made it…. Into SpinSheet, THE leading sailing publication on the Chesapeake Bay. Let me tell you how crazy it is to see your name in print. Mind = Blown. And even crazier to think that people actually find our story interesting enough to write an article about it. Too freakin’ cool. Well I suppose if you’re reading this right now, you also find our story interesting enough to follow. Noted. So, if there’s anyone who’s been directed to our blog because of the article: Well, Hello! We hope to entertain and inspire you enough to maybe do

Holy crap! Just about two weeks until we leave. I can’t believe we’re so close, yet we still have so much more to do! AGH! Before I unleash a word tsunami here, I want to apologize for basically falling off the face of the planet since the last post 10 days ago. Didn’t mean to leave you hanging out there (whoever you are). I guess I really should be increasing the frequency of these things since we are practically swimming in projects that some of you may find pretty interesting. We catch ourselves at east twice a day doing

Exciting news… our sails were removed last week! We’re having them restitched (reinforced) around the stress areas where the lines connect, as well as having a new stack pack (the bag that the main sail drops into) and a new UV shade for the front sail made. We went with a charcoal grey for the stack pack and a bright orange for the UV cover on the front sail (see very bad Photoshopping attempt above). The guy at Quantum Sails where we’re having the work done, said our boat is going to look “so pimp”. His words, not mine.

That’s right folks, we’re gearing up to head out in ONE MONTH. Eeks! We are a mix of emotions ranging from excited to nervous to a bit sad as we start to say goodbye to people and places we wont see again for a while. It’s taken us a long time to get to this place and while we feel pretty prepared, there are just some things that haven’t hit us yet, like the fact that we’re this close to finally getting off the dock for good and beginning our adventure at sea. However, in the heartbeat of time

The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do. Sarah Ban Breathnach While we were on the hard two weeks ago, working long exhausting days fixing up the boat, we talked to quite a few people who told us that it was their dream to do what we were doing. As in, buy a boat, fix it up, and go sailing. “Really?” I’d ask skeptically, as I could only imagine what sort of hot mess they were staring back at. About 85% of the time we were covered in some

Well, folks, that’s a wrap. I’m sitting here on our boat which is now back home in Annapolis, bobbing gently in the water, all clean and organized, with the AC on full blast. Life is good! We were singing a different tune just a short time ago when we were in the final days – hours, really – of our big boat haul. After ten days of working our asses off, we were completely spent by the time the engines and sail drives were put back together late Sunday night. Our bodies literally wouldn’t move, even with the help

Has it really been ONLY nine days? God, it feels like an eternity. We’re coming down the home stretch now, and the timing couldn’t be any better because I don’t think we can go on much longer. We’re at the point where our bodies and now our attitudes have taken a beating. When you’re running on empty, even the simplest task feels like it requires so much effort. And we’re getting all pissy with each other. No bueno. With the finish line in sight, we’re powering thru the last of the remaining items on our list and crossing off

Quick update on our progress so far. I say quick because it’s past 10:00, we’re physically exhausted with throbbing feet, mangled hands and a boat that looks like a bomb went off in it. Fun times here in the yard. We’ve come a long way in the past three days, but still have SO much more to do. It seems like it takes forever to do just the smallest of projects. Like removing the teal pin striping, which took me a full day to scrape and clean the adhesive. Then there’s the daily runs out to West Marine to

Quick update on our progress yesterday. We were derailed from our original task list that we put together the day before, yet again. Oh well, shit happens… as it did, literally today. But more on that in a bit. Well, we didn’t get all thru hulls installed yesterday. We did get three of the eleven – upped from the original count of eight – installed and they look great. Looks how shiny and pretty they are. SO much better than the old corroded ones we removed. We were only able to get three done because we decided to bite

We woke up this morning to a sky full of sunshine and a nice cool breeze blowing through the boat. Thank God. If we had to deal with another day of downpours and mud, I might have rolled right back over and said “Screw it, i’m done”. Instead we were ready to get our carpe diem on and sat down to get a plan together for the day. After Advil and coffee, of course. We realized that we may have been a bit too aggressive on our task list yesterday and didn’t get everything done that we wanted to.

We hauled our boat this week to do some major work before our big trip south this fall. It’s been over a year since it’s been out of the water and we were excited (and nervous) to see below the waterline now that we actually know what we’re looking at. We have a pretty aggressive list of things we need to get done, meaning that this is going to be a very long week. On the agenda:  replace the thru hulls (all eight of them) replace all sanitation and water hoses install new automatic bilge pumps in both hulls

Whew! We’ve been on a bit of a mini Mid-Atlantic tour lately, hitting up Delaware and New Jersey the past two weekends, and finally wrapping up our travels on the eastern shore of MD in beautiful, St. Michaels. Last time we were here, we ran a 5K, but this time we were looking forward to relaxing and exploring the town with friends of ours. We took the boat, which was great because she’s been sitting here tied to the dock for nearly the entire summer and probably had a bit of fur on her hulls for sitting still for

We took a long weekend to join Matt’s sister and her family in Avalon, NJ for a little vacay. Honestly, I wasn’t sure of what to expect from the Jersey shore; my experience only being a bachelorette party in Seaside Heights (from what I can remember anyway), and the ever infamous MTV series, Jersey Shore, both of which were not what I would compare a quiet family vacation to. And what’s up with using the word shore, anyway? It’s a beach, damn it! Anywhere else in the world one would describe a place with sand/ocean/lifeguards/coastline as a beach. But

So we sold our house. Awesome. This means no more mortgage. No more experiencing the frustration of waiting for the cable guy to make an appearance to basically plug in the box and talk to you like you’re an idiot. (Funny how they always show up at the very end of the four hour window they give you, or even better, never show up at all.) No more grass to cut. No more raking leaves until your hands blister and you feel like you have arthritis at the ripe old age of 28. No more spending hours at Ikea

This weekend we took a trip to visit Matt’s dad and step mom at their house in Fenwick Island, Delaware. We settled on our house last Wednesday (finally), and wanted to get some family/beach time in before the wave of boat projects start up again. Surprisingly, it felt sorta strange to not be be homeowners anymore. I expected to feel more indifferent, considering we’ve been on the boat for over a year now. I guess cutting that one last tie made our situation seem so much more… permanent. Not that we’re regretting our decision to live aboard for one

We’ve been slowly trying to check off stuff on the never ending project list lately. It’s crazy that summer is nearly halfway over. We really need to get on it if we’re ever going to get thru what we need to before we want to leave. Our list of ‘Things to put off until we’re in the Caribbean’ is getting longer and longer. If we keep up this pace, we’re going to be busier down there than we are up here! Matt’s been trying to resuscitate our old Northern Lights generator for quite some time now. It had been

Hope you all had a great 4th of July and were able to catch a firework show last night. We weren’t sure if the show was going to go on, with a hurricane (!) barreling up the east coast. What a bummer for all those folks at the NC beaches that were forced to evacuate just before the holiday weekend. Turns out this storm made history by being the first hurricane to hit the east coast this early in the season. Lucky them, huh? Lucky us, because the storm brought a cold front up the coast that pushed out

It’s officially been one year since we’ve been living aboard, can you believe it? The time has sailed by (ha ha), except for this winter, which we’d really like to forget. We’ve settled in quite nicely, and now consider it totally normal to live on a boat, a major lifestyle change we approached with a bit of apprehension not too long ago. This was pretty obvious when we spent a few nights at the house not too long ago and spent all of our time in the living room – eating, sleeping, working – because we thought the rest

Hi there! It’s been nearly two weeks since our last post. Yeah, we’re slackers. Actually we’ve been up to something pretty awesome, which I’m about to lay out in this post, so get ready!We’ve been… wait for it… sailing a boat up the east coast on a delivery from Fernandina Beach, FL back to Annapolis, MD. That’s 6 days and 550 nautical miles of off shore sailing. Not bad for a couple of liveabords who, just a year ago, knew basically nothing about sailing. Ah-mazing.So, how the heck did we get here? Matt had been on two previous off shore

Matt and I took a dinghy ride around Spa Creek the other day, which is one of our favorite spots in Annapolis. It’s a quiet little neighborhood cove far enough away all the chaos of Ego Alley, yet still just a short walk or dinghy ride to the downtown attractions. To get here, head past the Annapolis Harbor towards the draw street bridge we locals like to call the Eastport bridge. Spa Creek separates the downtown Annapolis area from Eastport, a funky little neighborhood with a great laid back vibe. Each year they feature a huge Tug Of War

Wanted to give a little update on the post I did a while back that covered some of my kitchen essentials on the boat. I still have all of the go-to appliances and tools (recently adding in a garlic press that I LOVE! No more chopping garlic – woo hoo!) however, now that the weather has turned hot & humid, cooking inside the boat is no longer an option. In the time it takes to boil a pot of water, the salon is morphed into a hot, stuffy, miserable space that takes all the fun out of cooking. Seriously.

One month. What’s in one month, might you ask? Well, that’s when we will have handed our house keys over to the new owner and will be officially released from our obligations in the ‘burbs. Yep, we’ve sold our house and now have no other option but to plow forward with this crazy plan that we dreamed up one night not so long ago. The safety net has been taken away and now it’s go time. Just two weeks after going on the market, we had two offers and settled on one that was above our asking price. It’s

We experienced a real Annapolitan treat last week: the Blue Angles flight show, put on as part of the Naval Academy graduation week. This is a pretty big deal around town and we were excited to have a font row seat for the action for the first time ever.People were out in full force this year, especially since the show had been cancelled the past few years due to budget cuts. We knew we would have to get there pretty early to get a good spot, so we meandered over around 9:00 in the morning, set anchor and went about

Last weekend we took the boat across the bay to St. Michael’s to run our first 5K together. It was a big weekend for us in many ways… It was the first time we’ve taken the boat on an overnighter since we brought her back up from NC nearly a year ago, and it was also the first time I’ve done an official race, running more than one mile continuously. What can I say – we like to go big! Sources told us that the trip over would be about 6 hours depending on the weather, so we planned

Big news! We officially put our house on the market last week! All of the hard work we’ve put in the past 3 weeks has totally paid off – it looks bright and fresh and is ready for it’s big debut! I have no doubt that it’ll sell quickly, and we can make our final transition from the Suburbs to a life of Sailing. We thought it would be fun to see the before & after pics and reflect a bit on this time in our lives. Had we know 5 years ago when we bought the house that

Holey Moley, have we been running like crazy these past few weeks! Just when we think it will all slow down, we manage to add another layer to the fold and yet are some how managing to still stay afloat (pun intended). Our lives right now look like the first round of Thanksgiving dinner with lots of little portions – or in our case projects – crowding every square inch of the plate. Just when you think you couldn’t possibly fit anymore, another side dish is passed around and you somehow make room. That’s what we’ve been doing… making

Spring is finally here to stay and we couldn’t be happier. I think I’ve mentioned that in pretty much every post since the temps started staying above 30 degrees with some sort of consistency, but it feels great to know that it’s actually here for good. The first few days of 50 degree weather made me anxious to haul out my summer storage bags and begin hunting for my flip flops. Time to let the toes breathe again! Seeing all of my summer clothes in their bright colors made me want to put away my drab grey wool for

Determined not to let Wednesday’s attempt to discourage us, we packed up our sh*t (again) and shoved off. Of course after making sure that our space was definitely unoccupied. It felt so great to have the boat in motion again. Being tied to the dock unable to move while living in a plastic bubble for the last 5 months gave us a mild case of sensory deprivation. Even Yingling seemed to be enjoying herself, and normally she’s all worked up by this point and is shaking and salivating like crazy. She definitely does NOT enjoy the feeling of the

As part of our New Years Resolution to become a healthier version of ourselves, we’ve made the switch to organic meat and produce. Although the fruits and veggies have been easy to find, it’s surprising how few grocery stores carry organic meats, especially beef. So when Matt’s sister told us about a farm near her who sold grass fed beef by the cow, we were all about it. We decided to split a share with a few other families and ended up with an 1/8th of a cow to call our own. I don’t think we fully comprehended how

So winter is finally over an I’m happy to report that we survived. Barely. It was a lot harder than we expected in most ways, but surprisingly easier in others. Overall, this was the worst winter in, like, 20 years for most of the East Coast. That whole Polar Vortex thing was certainly unexpected and has made the past month especially hard with its gusting winds and frigid temperatures. Talk about an initiation! If the Scouts had a ‘Living on a Sailboat During the Worst Winter in Decades” badge , then we definitely would be rocking one on our

It’s 62 degrees outside and life, my friends, is all good. The temperature on our little outdoor thermometer measured 77 degrees out in the cockpit. The clear shrink wrap has quite the greenhouse effect when it’s above 50 and sunny out. I think it’s a bogus read, but just seeing numbers that don’t begin with a 1 or 2 makes me downright giddy. Isn’t it amazing what some warm weather and sunshine will do to your soul? I firmly believe that warm weather has a direct correlation with peoples attitudes. As the temps start rising, people generally become happy

Hi there. Sorry for the delayed post…. I figured I’d hold off on posting yet another entry about the unbelievably cold temps, lots of snow and/or us hating winter until I had something new to talk about. I’m generally a glass-is-half-full, lookin’ on the bright side kinda girl, and prefer to keep things a bit more upbeat. This was a hard winter, not gonna lie, but it’s nearly over! It’s March already and we’re currently only 14 days until the official start of spring! That’s all I need to keep on going. Every morning as I do the long

Yet another snowstorm hit the east coast today. Winter storm Pax. We only got around 10 inches, but just north and west of us had nearly 2 feet. It’s almost ridiculous how cold and snowy this winter has been, and we still have a month to go. For the record, March 20th is the first day of Spring. Not like we’re counting down or anything. We’re finally getting used to seeing icebergs in the water and hearing them bump up against our boat all night long. Pretty sad. Because the shrink wrap covers the salon windows and the view

Don’t you just love it when you get to replace appliances unexpectedly? It’s one thing when something’s on the fritz and you can make plans to replace it before it finally breathes it’s last breath. When it finally gives, it’s expected and you have most likely budget both the time and the money to replace it. But one with no past issues that was a solid performer (or so you thought)? Man, that’s just a darn shame. Last Friday turned out to be our lucky day when Matt discovered that our hot water heater was corroded to the point

It sure does help having an electrician on board. Last Sunday Matt opened up our electrical panel and was horrified at what he saw. Talk about a fire hazard! He spent all day rewiring the panel, taking care to label every wire and replace any damaged ring terminals. He also rebalanced the load so that we weren’t drawing too much from one panel. It went from looking like that jumbled mess above to this: We mapped out all of the outlets on the boat so we knew which ones ran off the inverter and which ones were 120V. Matt

Well, January is officially over, and we’re excited to be waving goodbye as it disappears in the rearview mirror of our lives. Not that we have anything against January… it was a pretty good month for us, despite two snowstorms, a Polar Vortex and temps below freezing for most of the month. Lately we’ve had one thing on our mind – SPRING – and with January over; we are one month closer to warmer weather and living the good life again. Our big accomplishment for January was completing the intense Whole30 plan we began as part of our New

Well, we really had a trifecta this week. On Tuesday, winter storm Janus graced us with her presence, bringing us 6+ inches of snow. Then we had a second polar vortex on Wednesday, which caused temps to plummet into the single digits, freezing the hose that brings water from the main marina house down the dock to the boats. Ugh. This winter is really wearing us down. This is what happens to warm, wet hands when temps are absurdly cold. Kinda trippy, right? They’re in the process of repairing the water hose, so we stocked up on a few large

Well, we’re only 3 days into the new year and the first major winter storm – Hercules – has reared it’s cold, ugly, snowy head. What was supposed to be 2-4? ended up being about 6?-7?, with wind gusts around 25mph. I’m sure this seems like a trivial amount, but trust me, it’s exponentially more difficult to deal with living on a boat. Especially when you need to maneuver too large, aging dogs on and off the boat several times a day to use the bathroom. Snow on land = FUN! Snow on a boat = ugh. At least

This past weekend we stepped away from the boat and it’s long list of projects to spend some quality time on solid ground with family. Matt’s dad just moved into a house at the Delaware beach (ah, retired life) and we were meeting his sister and her family there to celebrate Christmas. Part III. That’s the beauty of having extended family everywhere. You get to repeat all the fun holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving again. And again. We were really psyched for the weekend because it involved two things we love very much – family and the beach. On

Happy New Year! Hope 2013 was a fantastic year and 2014 is shaping up to be a winner as well! ? Matt and I went out to dinner on New Years Eve and had a moment reflecting back on all of of the things that happened in 2013. ? We bought a BOAT that we now live on. ? We went thru a major downsize, selling off nearly everything we had and renting out our house for the past 5 years. ? We both had a career change, leaving companies we’d been with for nearly a decade. ? We’ve

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! Did Santa bring you everything that you wanted for Christmas? He (and by HE, I mean Matt) certainly delivered my one Christmas wish… a floor! Yes, that’s right… our epic floor project that stretched out over the past four months has finally come to a close. (Check out Part I and Part II for a recap). Way to end the year on a high note! Whoop!After looking at every type of flooring from wood to cork to bamboo, we finally decided on vinyl. Why vinyl? It’s moisture resistant, won’t swell or scratch (important with

We’ve really been trying to get into the Christmas spirit lately. We’ve found that no matter how hard we try, it’s just not the same this year on the boat. Which stinks, because normally we LOVE Christmas. I’m that girl who starts listening to Christmas music in early November as she’s sipping her Peppermint Latte wishing for snow in the forecast. By early December, we have the tree up, every nook of the house decorated and our annual Christmas cards addressed and in the mail (they were even homemade last year!). But this year? Nada. Zip. Zero. The pathetic

Well, the day we have been dreading for the past few weeks is finally here… our first snowfall. Normally, we would have been celebrating this day when we lived back on land… obsessively monitoring the weather reports and watching all of the activity outside thru our big bay window. Now, we (well, me at least!) worry about the slippery conditions getting on and off the boat and walking down the long and icy dock with two excited dogs who seem to be unaware of their spatial boundaries. We knew it was close when we woke up last week and

I know what you’re probably thinking… “Good Lord! Another floor post? Isn’t this project D.O.N.E. already?” Alas it’s not. However, we are definitely on the home stretch now. As in, we finally have a level, solid floor for the first time in months. Wait… I take that back. We finally have a level, solid floor for the first time EVER since we’ve bought the boat. Perhaps the previous owners preferred the moon bounce feeling, but we do not. Let me tell you, it feels great to be standing on solid ground – err floor – again! Let’s pick up

I was checking out a few of my favorite cruising websites tonight and fell in love with this post on Windtraveler. It’s a great blog by a young family of 3 (soon to be 5 – she’s preggers with TWINS!) who have been out cruising the Caribbean for several years now. I really like her writing style – she tells it how it is – and they always seem to be up to something interesting. Plus, they seem so completely normal and the type of people that would actually be really cool to hang out with, a rarity in

Well, we finally started part II of the big floor overhaul last weekend. It certainly took us a while to get here, mostly because we were trying to figure out the best way to proceed. You may have recalled our first post when we discovered that a hose coming from our fresh water tank was cracked as well as condensate drains had been leaking water into the area of the floor in between the fiberglass and balsa core. FOR YEARS. When we cut out a small section for inspection, we saw that it looked like a lake under there –

We had our boat shrink wrapped the other day, another step in preparing for the cold winter months ahead. This creates a sort of cocoon that not only gives us additional living space by enclosing the cockpit area, but it gives additional insulation to the boat as well.Sorta looks like a circus tent from the front, doesn’t it?And yes, the Salisbury Soccer Tee is still moonlighting as a fender cover. We bought additional black covers to match the others, but haven’t gotten around to replacing it yet. Maybe this weekend. We asked for clear wrap to be put on the

If you’re looking at this picture and wondering if that’s a cut off Salisbury University soccer tee circa 2000, then let me put your mind at ease. Yes. Yes, it is! It’s currently being re-purposed as a cover for one of our fenders – a new use for an old thing that we discovered around midnight last night. Let me explain… For those of you not familiar with the sound a rubber fender makes as 16,000 lb boat crushes up against it, let me enlighten you. You know that horrible squeaky sound a balloon makes when you rub it?

This weekend, we finally decided to accept the fact that winter is nearly here and we should probably start preparing the boat for the long, dark, cold months ahead. We’ve been procrastinating partly because it’s unseasonable warm here lately, and partly because we weren’t ready to let go of the summer just yet. However, there’ve been a few days where it’s been in the 30’s at night. And it gets dark at around 5:00 now. Looks like winter’s here and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.The marina is consolidating all of the liveaboards to the two main piers

Now that the weather’s getting colder and we’re no longer leaving our doors wide open, we’ve been noticing that there are some funky smells going on in this boat. Worse, it’s a combination of smells all co-mingling together to create one heck of a stink. The obvious – the smell of dog, coming from these lovely ladies. Not sure why, but they seem to be shedding a heck of a lot more lately too. Because shaving them bald is NOT an option, this is an odor that we have learned to live with thru excessive vacuuming and candle burning.

The Annual US Sailboat Show was in town last weekend, and boy was it fun times downtown. The show touts itself as being the largest and oldest in-water boat show, featuring over 100 sailboats – about half of them being catamarans. Matt’s company had the largest and best in show display with all of the brand new Beneteau beauties we’ve been lusting over all lined up like ducks in a row. See, that’s the best and worst part of these shows… seeing all of the beautiful brand new boats, fresh from the factories oversees, with their shiny gelcoats, polished stainless

Wow, if last week was BUSY, this week is BUSIER. Just the fact that we haven’t posted in over a week should be a sign that we’ve been going fast and furious lately. We took a (brief) break last weekend and did something very cool and totally unexpected… we participated in a commercial for Maine Cottage on a brand new Beneteau Sense 50. Maine Cottage is a cute little boutique featuring high end coastal home decor and furniture. Think Pottery Barn meets Nantucket. They have some awesome stuff, albeit a little out of our league. I was ogling a

So the last couple of weeks have been EXTREMELY busy for us! The only boat work that has been done, is the replacement of all halogen light bulbs, with LED’s. We are still desperately looking for a matching laminate flooring for our 1999 Lagoon 410… (Hint Hint… HELP! suggestions appreciated) , but I think we're going to have to lay a new floor down since they no longer make the one we have now. We've have been working a ton during the week, and had made plans for this past weekend a while ago. Matt has been helping his

Matt and I crewed in the annual Hospice Cup race this weekend, on a boat sponsored by his company. Wow what an experience. We’ve only raced once before and it certainly wasn’t as big time as the Hospice Cup. In hindsight, probably not the best time to volunteer with basically no experience, but of course that didn’t deter us. We really wanted to see what the hype was, since it seems like everyone who’s any good with a boat has some sort of racing experience. Most all of the guys Matt works with are big racers, and nearly every time

The times, they are a changin’ around here and boy, we can feel it. There’s a crisp chill in the air, the leaves are starting to change, and the Great Migration South has begun. No, we’re not talking about geese. We’re talking about the hordes of cruisers who are now beginning to make their way south to warmer weather. We can’t pinpoint exactly when it started, but all of a sudden… BAM! They’re here. We saw the first signs last weekend, when we noticed that all of the moorings downtown were taken. Odd, we thought. The annual boat show isn’t

Boat work continued this weekend, and I’m happy to say that we located the source of the leak and successfully fixed it. Turns out we had a slow drip in a hose that carries fresh water from our 100 gallon water tank to the starboard side of the boat. From the amount of mold growing in and around the hose, it looks like it had been happening for quite some time. It looked like a petri dish under there. The ick factor was thru the roof. First, we removed the piece of wood that separated the two compartments under

Another popular question that people tend to ask us after discovering that we live on a boat is “What are your neighbors like?” This is definitely a fair question, especially for those who haven’t been exposed to the boating community – live aboard or not. I think the best way to describe it is to compare it to living in an apartment complex. You have a lot of people, from all walks of life, living in a small area, who all have their quirks. Sorta sounds like the tagline for a reality show, doesn’t it? I’ll start off by saying

This weekend’s project was tearing the rotten wood flooring out of our saloon. Fun, right? Turns out water has been leaking from somewhere in the fridge / air conditioner area and has created quite the water pool underneath the floor. What we thought was two small areas of rot, turned out to be a 6×8 section, which is over half the floor. How this was missed in the survey is beyond us. The more we had to cut out, the more pissed off we got. What kind of competent surveyor misses a rotten floor? What an idiot. Actually, I guess

We were catching up on one of our favorite websites the other day – bumfuzzle.com – and were inspired by their latest post talking about how they’ve been living the dream for a decade now. A decade! They just decided one day to change their lives, bought a boat and began their adventure. And they’re still going at it 10 years later. This is the very same site that we stumbled upon almost a year ago and became instantly hooked, reading thru nine years of blogs in about a month. About six months after discovering their site, we too had

We spent the past week soaking up the sun at Ocean Isle Beach, NC, scouring sandbars for seashells, eating like scales don’t exist, and generally taking a break from the Real World for a while.It was fantastic.We haven’t taken a proper vacation in nearly two years, so when Matt suggested that we finally go somewhere earlier this year, I jumped at the chance and we booked that night. He really wanted to go back to Ocean Isle, NC – a place where he used to go with his sister and dad when he was a kid – for a week

How did you get a chance to do this trip? The owner of the company I work for came up to me one day and asked if I wanted to get some experience in off shore cruising, knowing that we were headed down to the Caribbean eventually. I said of course! That’s when he asked me to help him crew a boat back from Miami to Annapolis. It’s hard to believe that I actually got paid to come along. Surreal. What type of boat? A 2013 Beneteau Sense 43 How was it living on a sailboat and sailing in

We got this in a fortune cookie today and looked up to our view. Wow. Nailed it!

Hi there. How’s it going? It’s been a while since I’ve posted and many of you are looking for an update on our little world. We’re flattered! We’ve been super busy, per usual, however this time, travel for both of us, was to blame for the delay. While it’s usually me who is doing most of the travel for work, Matt had a little adventure of his own this past week when his boss asked him to help crew a boat up from Miami. It was a great opportunity for him to get some open ocean sailing experience – which

As I eluded to in an earlier post, we chose not to use the bathrooms (heads) on our boat, and use the marina facilities instead. Why? Well, we found that there were a few, shall we say, unpleasant, side effects of using the head on your boat. The main one being the slight odor that seems to radiate from the pores of the toilet piping/holding tank. Even after we went all OCD and flushed out our holding tanks, we’ll get whiffs of it every now and then, which is enough to give me that “ick’ feeling. Some people claim they

We did it. We untied the dock lines and went out on our first sail since bringing her back up from NC nearly a month ago. And – here’s the part that we’re proud of – we did it SOLO. No extra deck hands, no one with a vast knowledge of sailing experience to coach us along, nada. And it actually went surprisingly well considering once we were out in the bay, we discovered that we didn’t have any auto pilot or GPS. Oh yes, the plot thickens. Our first job, after getting untied was to travel a short distance,

We attended a wedding this weekend and saw a bunch of friends that we haven’t seen in a while. It was wonderful, but it really made me realize how life seems to just get away from us. We get into our little routines and before you know it, the days turn into months that slip into years. Just like that. I’m so glad that we decided to get out of our comfort zone and do something truly adventurous with our lives. Even if we never leave the dock, we can look back at this time in our lives with a

Well, today was supposed to be the big day that we took the boat out for the first time since bringing her back up from NC (I can’t believe its almost been a month already!). Route determined: Severn River. Check. Friends invited as an extra set of deck hands. Check. Oil changed. Check. We were all ready to go. And then… Matt pulled his back out. Yep. Friday night it was pouring rain and he was trying to hurry up and straighten up the cockpit area. He leaned over to grab the ramp we use to get the dogs on

We did it. We overcame our performance anxiety and changed the oil in the boat this weekend. I’m sure this may not seem like a monumental task to most, but to us it was HUGE. Why the angst for a seemingly simple project? First of all, we have never changed the oil for anything. Ever. It’s not like we’ve been changing the oil in our cars for the past decade. Oh, no… that’s what we rely on the good ol’ boys (and gals) at Jiffy Lube for every 3,000 miles or so. Second, have you ever looked closely at

That seems to be the theme of the day for us today. We spent the better part of the morning driving around town gathering the supplies we need to do our first oil change on the engines. This is something that we haven’t done yet and need to do before taking her out again. We’ve been sort of putting it off since, let’s be honest... we have no clue how to do it. We were in West Marine getting the oil and decided to ask an associate if that was the right type just in case. We know we needed

We took the dinghy into town yesterday morning to pick up a few things which was a lot of fun. I love the fact that we are a 5 minute dinghy ride away from downtown – a trip that would have taken twice as long by car. There’s a spot at the end of Ego Alley where we tied up and walked around for a few hours being a tourist in our own city. Around 11am, as the temperature – and the amount of people out and about – started to rise, we decided to head back to the boat.

Since we moved aboard, everyone seems so interested on just how different life aboard is from life on land. The adjustment hasn’t been hard… just different. The biggest question we get is about the dogs. How are they doing? What do you do when they need to use the bathroom? Where do they sleep? Etc. They are adjusting quite nicely, actually. Since the boat is so wide and flat, they are comfortable roaming around the cockpit and spend their time while we’re at work lounging in the air conditioned salon. Since it's nice out, we spend most of our time

We’re finally moved in! Saturday was spent at the old house cleaning for the move out. Sunday was spent on the boat cleaning for the move in. By 6:00am Sunday morning, we were getting all close and personal with our starboard bilge trying to find the cause of the slight poo odor that is plaguing the boat (more on that later). It was a busy weekend to say the least. We’ve started a new routine here at the marina and have been embracing changes of all kinds, but this is hands down our favorite. Can’t beat the sunsets and the

Shit happens… literally. And on the first day we had her back in Annapolis, no less! Figures. We noticed Sunday morning that the, shall we say, content level, in our one toilets was unusually high. Like to the point where it may actually overflow, leaving us with a nasty mess on our bathroom floor. We fumbled around on the VHF to contact the Harbor Master for the pump out boat schedule. The pump out boat is exactly what it sounds like, a small boat with a tank on the front that makes it’s way around to the marinas to pump

Headed North on the ICW - Day 1Wednesday 6/19By 5am Matt, Simon (the captain we hired to help us navigate back) and I were on I-95 heading south. We ended up renting a Town & Country mini van for the one way drive down allowing us to leave the car in NC and sail back. At first we were very resistant to the whole concept of the mini van but let me tell you… with enough room to pack up half our belongings AND seat 3 comfortably for a six hour drive, we are now believers.We arrived in New Bern,

Well, it’s officially official… we are the proud owners of a 1999 Lagoon 410 catamaran! We closed this morning and it’s finally, actually ours. It still hasn’t sunk in that we bought a boat and will be sailing it back to Annapolis in about 24 hours. We’ve been planning and dreaming about this day for so long… a serious build up for something that all just happened so quickly. Sort of anti-climatic. (Rereading that sentence it occurred to me that using the word ‘sunk’ to describe any part of the boat may be a bad thing. Whoops). The actual closing

Whenever we tell people that we’re selling everything and moving onto a boat, we get two very distinct reactions… One is excitement and awe that we’ve decided to make such a bold move, and the other is a look of total confusion and the inevitable, ‘but, WHY?” We believe that life is an adventure, and the best days lie ahead of us, not behind us. We spent the past few years stuck, just going thru the motions, and getting comfortable. That was the most dangerous part for us… the getting comfortable in the every day routine and not setting new

After a whirlwind 2 day trip to NC and back, we are excited to be the (almost) proud owners of a 1999 Lagoon 410 catamaran (paperwork pending!). We found this one the day after our less than stellar survey on the other boat put us back on the search. The pictures and description online made it seem almost too good to be true, so we were slightly skeptical whether or not everything would hold true when we saw it in person. Of course we had been stalking her via Google Earth, so we knew exactly which slip she was in

This was our last free weekend at the house before *hopefully* bringing the boat back up to Annapolis. And man, Did we get after it! True to our style, we promptly put a TO DO list together on Friday night of everything we wanted to get done before we were ready to walk out of our house for good and turn it over to the renter. Can I just say how much I love making lists? They make me so happy. I love to write everything down and feel the pure satisfaction of crossing off items I’ve done. It’s a

Living the easy life is turning out to be pretty hard. Sort of ironic, right? This whole situation is getting kind of stressful. Between trying to downsize our lifestyle, rent our house, and get everything with this boat situated, there have been many a tense conversation going on in the Sansbury household as of late. Our most recent has been trying to schedule dates to drive down to NC to have the new boat surveyed, then, drive down AGAIN to sail it back up to Annapolis. I’m freaking out because I’ve had to rearrange or cancel several work trips since

Do you ever think that everything happens for a reason? We’re big believers in this. After brushing off the disappointment of having a less than stellar survey on the last boat, the search was back on this weekend! We cancelled our plans to go camping (the weather was crappy, so it worked out) and hit the highway to look at a Lagoon 380 in Lewes, DE. Not a long trip, but a risky one considering it was Memorial Day weekend and there was a 50/50 chance that beach bound traffic would turn the Bay Bridge into a parking lot. It

Yesterday we had the survey for the Leopard catamaran that we put a contract on.  True to Sansbury style, we  were at the marina bright and early and were excited to see the boat at the end of the pier waiting for us! We were a bit nervous about the weather – they were calling for an 80% chance of thunderstorms and we hoped to get started before the bad weather rolled in. Thankfully, everyone showed up at 9:00am sharp and we were soon underway poking and prodding and examining every inch of her. We were a bit nervous about

We went to visit the boat again today to take one last look at her before the survey and sea trial next week. I say again like we’ve seen it a million times already. Actually, this was only the second time we’ve been on the boat and we wanted some more time to look around, peak in every nook and cranny, and be 100% positive that we were ready to go thru with this plan. Turns out our gut instincts were right on and she’s an awesome boat. Good thing since we’ve already sold most of our stuff and rented

Just to confirm, yes…we found a renter for our house, and WE HAVE A CONTRACT ON A BOAT!! A 2003 Leopard 3800 to be exact. This was Matt’s dream boat, but there is hardly any inventory on the market and those that are for sale were well out of our price range. The fact that we found one that we could afford, already here in MD is fate. We put an offer on it within 15 minutes of being on the boat and we had a signed contract the next day. Unfortunately we don’t have any pics, but this website

The burning question everyone is asking us…. Have we found a renter yet? Sadly, no. We keep reassuring ourselves that it’s only been 2 weeks since our house has officially been on the market, and we’ve had ALOT of showings in those two weeks. I think the running tally is somewhere around 15 right now. If we’ve had so many showings, then why no applicants yet? We’re getting frustrated because we like to see immediate results, and with someone coming thru every other day, we should have had at least one bite already, right? Maybe we’re off price or maybe

Well, we’ve made some big moves recently to go from the suburbs to the sailing part of life. We’ve decided to rent our house and to move into a small studio apartment in Annapolis while we continue to look for a catamaran. We’ve seen a few boats we were really interested in, but couldn’t make a move because we were still tethered down in the house with all of our stuff. So, we’re taking the initiative to transition towards our goal. Over the past week our house has gone from this: To this... From This: To This: Yep. That’s about

The main factor in us considering a monohull is price. Hands down. You can get a decent boat for around $100k… go a little older and you’re looking at around $60k-$80k. That is about half the cost of a catamaran and cuts our wait time down considerably. Plus, there are so many choices and so much inventory on the market right now. So, we headed over to our playground Matt’s boat yard to find ourselves the perfect monohull. There are a few non-negotiables we had with considering a monohull. First, we wanted a boat with a flat upper deck to

Matt and I went down to the Annapolis boat yards today to check out his new turf and to play on some big boats. He has been working on some pretty sweet Beneteaus, and wanted me to come check them out. Although still a monohull skeptic, I must admit, these ladies were beautiful. Even though nearly all of these boats yachts were well out of our price range, you cant blame us for taking advantage of the insiders tour.There was one monohull that Matt had just finished working on that was pretty amazing. The owner had a flat screen TV,

Hey guys, guess what? We found ourselves the perfect boat. She hails from the Boston Market and was no doubt made from the finest craftsmen around. I think we’ll call her Better with Butter.

Wow, a lot has been happening lately to push us from the suburbs to the sailing part of our plan! We’re big believers that things always happen for a reason in life, but the way things have been falling into place for us has made us wonder if there's some divine intervention or something going on that really wants us to accomplish our goal. It’s really crazy how things can happen when you least expect them to. We also realize that it’s been a while since we posted, as we were waiting for something relevant to post about. Well,

Wow. It’s barely into January and we’ve really been put to the test already this winter. For the past several YEARS, we’ve had the mildest of winters around here – higher than average temps, hardly any snow (thank you global warming!) – that have been generally bearable. This winter? Geeze! Eight days into the new year, and we’ve already had a mythological snow storm and now a polar vortex. What the heck? 2014 is shaping up to be one hell of a winter. Lucky us. Before the bitter cold air of the arctic came our way via a drunken