The Accidental Boat

My husband, son and I have been living in a rather pricey rental house near downtown St. Augustine, FL for the past few years.  It's a nice 3 bedroom house with 2 bathrooms and an in-ground pool, but since my daughter moved out, there's too much room for just us.  It's time to look for a new house.

As always, I checked Craigslist and browsed the papers, but after an unsuccessful search, we kind of puttered into our normal routine again and let the search die.  Then Bob saw the ad.  Not just any ad, but THE ad that changed our lives.  It was a boat.

Before I actually saw THE ad, we saw a post from someone desperately trying to get in touch with "the person with the 26' sailboat" and after skipping down a few ads, there it was.  A small, ready to live in sailboat within our price range (which turns out be just less than a months rent on our house).  The wheels started turning and I remembered my misspent youth working on sailboats in the Caribbean.  Ah, what good times.  I miss being free like that and I was willing to try and grab onto a little of that freedom now!

Bob and I made an offer and we now own our first boat!  There are good sails, the boat is solid with one tiny leak (which I have taken care of), a dingy that sank (a total of 3 times~I eventually gave it away) and no engine.  Not much when you think about it, but just enough to make us happy.

Our boat is currently at anchor in the bay and we need to find someplace to move it quickly so we could get out of the house within 3 weeks and avoid another month of the dreaded rent check (did I say our rent was pricey?).  Time to start visiting marinas, talking to friends and checking on-line.

Our boat may not be pretty, it may not be perfect, but it is all ours and we are happy to have it.  We know that it is too small and we are going to be SO frustrated by the time we get a new one, but for now we love her and can't wait to start this new adventure.