Nan's Idea - Our Liveaboard Adventure

We arrive in Sebastian, FL on Mon Sep 25th, and started looking at boats the next day.  Over the next 4 days we drove over 1,000 miles from Fort Lauderdale to Cocoa Beach, with no luck of finding what we wanted or what we could afford. After exhausting all the boats on the east coast of Florida, I decided to post a question about our search on Facebook. On both the Live Aboard Boats page and the Trawler Living & Cruising page, I told them what type of boat we were looking for and asked if anyone has a boat for sale to give me the sales link online or PM me the information. One nice gentleman PM'd me that he had a 40' Heritage East trawler for sale and was asking $40K for it. Way under our budget! I responded and asked if he had any pictures and where it was located. It's located on the west coast of Florida, in a boat yard in Placeda which is north of the Fort Myers area. I told him my husband would be calling him. The picture of the boat that the owners sent us. ...

The Viking owners finally made it down to Port Aransas the first week of September, driving from the east coast, about mid-week or so. Hurricane Harvey was moving north of Louisiana at that point, but they had to navigate around the flooded areas of Houston to get there. As stated earlier, the Viking's fly bridge hard top was ripped off, and all the canvas was torn off. Plus the boat had some dock rash, but no holes thru the hull. They said the engines and generator started right up, and there was no damage on the inside of the boat. The flat screen TV, which was just sitting on a shelf, didn't even fall over. This was all great news, but the logistics of everything had us questioning what we should do. The owners asked if we wanted to back out on the purchase, and we said "Yes". The logistics would be a nightmare, and they gave us back our earnest money.  Hurricane Irma was hitting the Caribbean islands of Barbuda and the Virgin Islands during this time as a Categor...

We accepted an offer on the house on Aug 22, 2017, and were scheduled to close on Sep 18, 2017.  Three days, just 3 days later, Hurricane Harvey hits the Texas gulf coast as a Category 4 hurricane. The eye of the storm crosses right by Port Aransas, located on Mustang Island, where our future liveaboard boat was located. We hadn't finalized the purchase of the boat, but we did give the couple earnest money down and were planning on finalizing the purchase after we closed on the house sale. See Port Aransas Tx, located south of Rockport Tx where Hurricane Harvey's eye passed. When Harvey made landfall in Rockport Tx, maximum sustained winds was 130 MPH, and Port Aransas had storm surges of 9-13 feet ( https://texasstormchasers.com/2017/08/25/category-4-harvey-makes-landfall-port-aransas-port-oconnor/ ). It made landfall on a Friday night when the owner's had just been on the boat the weekend before and left on Monday before the storm was even past Mexico's ...

In May 2016, our youngest daughter graduated from high school and moved out on her own shortly after. She knew how much her dad and I wanted to move onto a boat, and she felt like she was holding us back. I wasn't expecting her to move out that quick, but she was ready for her independence. We always told her that if she ever needs a place to come home to, we'll always have a bed for her.  Being a young adult is hard in today's world, and I wanted to give her time to be settled before we pressed forward with our plans. My busy season at work is in the Fall & Winter, so I didn't do a lot of research during that time. But at our Christmas break at work (between Christmas & New Years), Tom and I decided to go stay at our friend's vacation home in Aransas Pass (close to Corpus Christi TX). During that trip. we went to a local restaurant/small marina to enjoy dinner & cocktails. As we were walking into the restaurant, Tom saw a trawler type boat with a sun...

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 he...

It's mid-October, 2017, and we just bought our liveaboard boat. And, boy, are we tired! It's taken us many months to get here, and these last few months have been a real whirlwind. Literally! In the process of buying the boat, we have dodged 4 hurricanes over the last 6 weeks. Hurricane Harvey, Irma, Jose, & Maria. But, let's back up a little. How did we get here? We are starting to get the question "Why do you want to live on a boat?" You see, it all started back in Key West Fl, a little over 5 years ago, when Tom and I were celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. We stayed at a cute littl bed & breakfast on Duval Street called The Southernmost House . It's a beautiful, historic home and was exactly what we were looking for..... a little peace & quiet on this eclectic little island. While we did some of the fun touristy things like tour Earnest Hemingway's house, and ride the Conch Train that is a guided tour all over the isla...