When we purchased our 42 ft 1979 Tayana Vancouver sailboat in 2009 we had hoped to take a sabbatical from our jobs in 2015 to do some cruising. We chose to name our boat Sonho, as it means “Dream” in Portuguese and adopted the motto, “Vivo O Sonho” … Living the Dream.
But Life Happened: lay-offs and, most importantly, my care for my beloved Nana kept us tied to the dock. There was no way I’d leave her; we just didn’t expect her to live as long as she fortunately did. After Nana passed in the fall of 2017 just shy of her 99th birthday, my sister and I made the decision to sell her home that we had inherited. Aaron and I would use our share of the proceeds to finish the work on the boat and invest the rest to take early retirement.
Yes, it’s true. Sleeping on a boat is like being rocked to sleep every night. We keep our stateroom hatch open a crack year-round and can hear the waves and seabirds as we drift off and awaken. When it’s stormy it can be a wild ride, but still so comfy to be cocooned in our bunk while Mother Nature and Father Neptune battle it out.
Amy saw the poster tacked to the phone pole at the bus stop.
Do you have electricity and water? Heidi and Aaron get this question quite often. Yes, I am a boat. But I’m a finely appointed vessel, built to cruise the world. So although I don’t offer amenities such as a dishwasher and washing machine, I have systems that provide far more than a roughing-it camping experience. These systems are quite complex though, and we are very fortunate that our Captain is an electrician who understands the intricacies of maintaining my electrical system and will be well-versed on my new water-maker in the coming months.
Aaron and Heidi were both raised by sailing fathers and being on or around water is as natural as walking on a sidewalk for landlubbers for them. Their prior spouses both enjoyed boating … at a much faster speed than sailing generally allows. And definitely not on a full time basis. So, neither got as much water time as they craved until they bought me. Now it’s water-time all the time!
