We Bought A Liveaboard Boat. How'd we get here? (Post 2 of 6)
When we got back home from our Key West vacation, and since it would be a few more years before we could even contemplate making a liveaboard lifestyle move, I didn't do a lot of research back then. At that time, I was concerned about hurricanes and how you protect yourself from them. So I began to get skittish about the whole thing and put it out of my mind. Not Tom, though. He already knew what type of boat he liked (trawlers) and he started his research. But then again, he knew I was nervous about "outrunning hurricanes" so the topic just kind of died out between us.
Fast forward 2 years to December 2014.
First, let me clarify. We have 2 children (girls) but only 1 of them was living at home back then. Our oldest daughter was married with children. Between those 2 years, my oldest and her husband & child had to move in with us for a year when he was force out of the Navy due to the sequestration. When they were working on getting their own place, I started helping by looking at apartments near his new work location. For a 2 bedroom apartment, I couldn't find anything decent under $1,000 a month! There was no such thing as a $600-$700 a month apartment, even in a bad neighborhood! I was floored how much rental properties, both apartments & houses, have gone up so much. That got me thinking about our situation when we become empty nesters.
Back to December 2014. One day when I was on Facebook, somebody had "Liked" a page called Live Aboard Boats, which then showed up on my page. The person who liked it was the bartender at the Southernmost House who we had friended during our Key West trip. We became FB friends and watched how he met and married his new wife. Anyway, I started following the Live Aboard Boat page, but I didn't tell Tom! I knew if I did, we'd be back on that topic. I wanted to follow along the page and see what they all talked about. What was their life really like, what type of issues and obstacles did they deal with, what size boats did they live on, and did the ladies enjoy it just like the men? For 2 whole months, all that I read was how much they loved living on the water (not beside it), how much they enjoyed cruising (whether full time or part time), that if you didn't like your neighbors you could always move, how much work and maintenance boats REALLY are, and no matter how much work you do on the boat, it is so worth it. We're talking people who have done it for a few years to people who have done it 30+ years. Almost everyone said "they wish they had done it sooner", and they would never go back to living on dirt if at all possible. But, mind you, this lifestyle is not for everyone! It's not just a matter of moving on to a boat and make it your home (like the houseboats that you might see near Seattle). So I read silently and soaked up all the information I could from my new FB group.
Two months later, in February 2015, Tom had to go to the Miami International Boat Show for work, and I was able to join him. I thought this would give me a good opportunity to see the larger boats in the water, since I was only use to going to our local boat shows in the DFW area. I wanted to get a feel of what the trawler boats were all about that Tom liked, and if they were in fact roomy enough to live on. The only trawlers at the show were brand new, which there was no way in the world we could even dream of buying new. Tom had said we could get a 1980's model in the $80K-$100K price range. However, the boats at the show were Kadey Krogens and Grand Banks, which were both over $1 million dollar range. But at least I can visualize the sizes. We walked on a 42 foot Kadey Krogen, priced at $1.2M. I looked around and said "I could live on this." Tom was like "What?, the broker showing us the boat was like "what?". So needless to say, the broker behived to me, showing me the boat, even though I said we were just looking. That night, back at our hotel, Tom said "What did you mean when you said you could live on this?" I then told him about following the Live Aboard Boat page on Facebook and how I wanted to see what size the trawlers were and if it was something I though I could live on. So the talks about living aboard started up again.
We still had at least 3 more years before we could even do something like that, since our youngest daughter was only a sophomore in high school. I wanted to make sure she was out on her own and self-sufficient, either in college or out in the workforce. But then I began researching with Tom, looking at trawlers on www.yachtworld.com and www.boattrader.com. The housing market was doing very well in the DFW area, and it looked like we would have some decent equity if we decided to sell our house. We could sell the house and buy a boat outright, if we could keep it under $80K. We were finding many boats between $75-90K. Now mind you, we are not able to retire, and we will have to work. But both of us have entrepreneurial spirits, or would like to do something remotely where we can travel and not stay in one spot. That was also part of the research process.
So over the next few years, between 2015 & now, we've been doing our whole research. Researching boats, researching marinas, and researching jobs we could do remotely, and research starting our own business to work remotely. Stay tuned for what's been happening recently about finding a boat (or boats) and dealing with the hurricanes in 2017......
Fast forward 2 years to December 2014.
First, let me clarify. We have 2 children (girls) but only 1 of them was living at home back then. Our oldest daughter was married with children. Between those 2 years, my oldest and her husband & child had to move in with us for a year when he was force out of the Navy due to the sequestration. When they were working on getting their own place, I started helping by looking at apartments near his new work location. For a 2 bedroom apartment, I couldn't find anything decent under $1,000 a month! There was no such thing as a $600-$700 a month apartment, even in a bad neighborhood! I was floored how much rental properties, both apartments & houses, have gone up so much. That got me thinking about our situation when we become empty nesters.
Back to December 2014. One day when I was on Facebook, somebody had "Liked" a page called Live Aboard Boats, which then showed up on my page. The person who liked it was the bartender at the Southernmost House who we had friended during our Key West trip. We became FB friends and watched how he met and married his new wife. Anyway, I started following the Live Aboard Boat page, but I didn't tell Tom! I knew if I did, we'd be back on that topic. I wanted to follow along the page and see what they all talked about. What was their life really like, what type of issues and obstacles did they deal with, what size boats did they live on, and did the ladies enjoy it just like the men? For 2 whole months, all that I read was how much they loved living on the water (not beside it), how much they enjoyed cruising (whether full time or part time), that if you didn't like your neighbors you could always move, how much work and maintenance boats REALLY are, and no matter how much work you do on the boat, it is so worth it. We're talking people who have done it for a few years to people who have done it 30+ years. Almost everyone said "they wish they had done it sooner", and they would never go back to living on dirt if at all possible. But, mind you, this lifestyle is not for everyone! It's not just a matter of moving on to a boat and make it your home (like the houseboats that you might see near Seattle). So I read silently and soaked up all the information I could from my new FB group.
We still had at least 3 more years before we could even do something like that, since our youngest daughter was only a sophomore in high school. I wanted to make sure she was out on her own and self-sufficient, either in college or out in the workforce. But then I began researching with Tom, looking at trawlers on www.yachtworld.com and www.boattrader.com. The housing market was doing very well in the DFW area, and it looked like we would have some decent equity if we decided to sell our house. We could sell the house and buy a boat outright, if we could keep it under $80K. We were finding many boats between $75-90K. Now mind you, we are not able to retire, and we will have to work. But both of us have entrepreneurial spirits, or would like to do something remotely where we can travel and not stay in one spot. That was also part of the research process.
So over the next few years, between 2015 & now, we've been doing our whole research. Researching boats, researching marinas, and researching jobs we could do remotely, and research starting our own business to work remotely. Stay tuned for what's been happening recently about finding a boat (or boats) and dealing with the hurricanes in 2017......
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