About Us

We are a family of three – Nick and I are in our early 30s and our son is 4. We have great jobs, awesome family and very blessed lives. We have decided to take a step out of the fast pace, stress full, hectic lifestyle we have become accustomed to. To “cash out” for a bit, to simplify, refocus on our family and our faith and see a bit of the world at the same time.

How did we get here:

We realized the baby sitter was seeing our son more that we were and we spent all of our time working and striving for ‘things’ . . . We were working to support our ‘things’, spending all of our time keeping our ‘things’ in order, arranging our activities around our ‘things’ . . . Don’t get me wrong – having things and keeping them in good working order  – there is nothing wrong with this. But we found that this is where our focus was and that all our energy was being pulled here. It begged the question: “Why exactly are we working so hard and for what purpose?” We were stressed to the max and spinning our wheels. We decided that this was not the way we wanted to show life to our son.

On the way home from work one night Nick had an epiphany . . . we could sell the house, move in with Stacy’s parents (if they would have us), save up for a year, then disappear into the Caribbean till the money runs out. It was an easy sell.

Why a sailboat?

We had several ideas of how we would step out of our current roles – VW Westfalia, remote lake front property and an airstream trailer . . . But the idea of a sailboat presented itself with a lot of pluses. 1. Movable living 2. Small, simple space 3. it includes water 4. fairly inexpensive living if done so with that purpose in mind.

Tactics:

We talked with my folks and they said go for it! So we booked a sailing school in Fort Lauderdale to make sure we knew what we were getting into. After sailing school we thought about it for a few days and decided we would give it a run.

Everything began falling into place. We listed the house in April 2010. We had a contract on the house in June. Closed at the end of July. We gave away and sold the majority of extras. Then have used space in attics for what we just could not let go of at the time. In August we moved home with my folks.

We had been looking for an easy project for a boat. Nothing that needed major repairs, but something we could clean up, learn with and make our own. We wanted a heavy boat with 2 cabins and nice common living area. We were also interested in something that would work well with a small guy on board (center cockpit or similar). We had looked at a few boats, but then we found Night Music. We traveled to Boston in September to take a look at her. She was on a stand in the back yard and we thought she was the boat for us. Offer was excepted and we moved her down to TN in October.

Our Plan?

We plan to set sail between November 2011 and February 2012 (currently leaning more to February) FEBRUARY 29, 2012. We will head down the Tombigbee Waterway bringing us out in Mobile, AL. We’ll keep heading south around Florida and to the Keys then decide where we are going from there. One idea is to head up the East Coast to avoid hurricane season, then work our way back down . . . but we’ll see. To see more details about the route click here.

Stay tuned and subscribe to our blog for updates!!