Wayne has wanted a sailboat for years now. Decades really. Ever since we moved to Jacksonville, Florida, in 1999.
There was always some reason not to get one. No time. No money. No place to keep it.
Money was always a big one. Even when we have it, Wayne is a super saver at heart.
Plus, he could usually satisfy his desire to be on the water with one of our many cruise getaways.
However, thank to the coronavirus pandemic, it’s unlikely we’ll be cruising again anytime soon. We’re both going through withdrawals. Through travel withdrawals period.
Travel Video Overload
Wayne is killing me watching travel YouTube videos. He’s found some couples with channels who travel either by sailboat or RV. They’re all stuck in various countries due to the pandemic.
That’s Wayne’s other big dream: to live abroad. When he retires he hopes to live on a boat and go from port to port and/or drive all around various countries in an RV.
So he’s been enjoying watching and learning from others living that same dream.
But the YouTubes he likes best are the people living on sailboats. He’s been binging those like crazy.
I’ve always been curious to have a boat but I have no interest in sailing. Wayne signed us up for lessons once.
Sailing School Dropout
I can’t remember if I even made it to the second class. I think I did. I think the first class was on land, then the second one was when we hit the water. It was Wayne, myself, another student, and the instructor.
I love cruising but found myself super intimidated in that sailboat. The instructor was really good, but the terminology, the sails, the physics of it all…
And then when it keeled on its side and everybody else was hooting and hollering with glee and I was clinging to the rails in pure terror? Um, yeah.
Intimidating.
There was just too much going on all at once. Like learning a second language and a new activity all at once.
And did I mention it involved physics?
I’m lazy. It was all too much work for me –mentally and physically. I dropped out.
Just like how Wayne isn’t into my “ghost thing,” I wasn’t going to be into his sailboat thing.
But coronavirus is going to change that.
The Boat
Wayne started boat shopping in June. In July we went to look at a little sailboat. But it was too little. Not a bad price, but even Wayne felt he wanted something a bit bigger.
Then we went to check out a second boat. Much more expensive than the first one we looked at, but something more up my alley because it’s like a floating condo. It has a bathroom, a teeny galley (the sailing term for a kitchen), an aft berth, a forward berth and the cabin’s sofa converts to as bed too so it can sleep 6.
The other smaller boat had none of that. Just a cabin.
We went to check out the second boat and I knew the moment that we got to the marina this was it. This was where we’d be spending the rest of our summer and every second in Fall until it gets too cold to be on the lake in winter.
Wayne said I’d been to our new marina before, Nashville Shores, but I don’t remember ever being there. To the water park next door, yes, but never the marina.
But I have to say it felt right the moment we started down the long, winding drive.
And when we headed down the pier to check out the boat and I saw the slip? I was sold.
The Slip
Because even though Wayne didn’t want to have a slip fee, it’s kind of hard to trailer a sailboat. If that’s the kind of boat he wanted, he was going to have to cough up money for a slip too.
When I saw the kind of slip we’d inherit with the boat, I was fully on board with buying it.
It came with a type of slip that I didn’t even know existed: a patio kind. Right on the water!
I immediately could picture us hanging out there.
And then the boat…she’s over 30 years old, a 1989, but the owner kept her up. She’s slick.
I’ve got a lot of learning to do about jibbing and tacking and maintaining a sailboat because it is more work than a cruiser.
However, I have a good feeling about it. Especially because there were signs galore.
The Signs
A blue heron flew right over the boat when we were below deck first looking at her. They’re my favorites. Good things always happen when I see those kinds of birds.
But then there was also a number seven involved. That’s my lucky number.
I hadn’t noticed it when we first arrived but I spotted it on the slip after we’d had a look inside the boat. Yes. The slip number was seven.
Becoming Boat Owners
I’m really proud of Wayne, because he works so hard and has always wanted a sailboat. This is maybe a bit fancier than he envisioned, but he’s upgrading because he wants me with him and wants me comfortable.
I’m grateful, excited, nervous and more than a bit terrified by it all. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I know this will allow me to get on some kind of water until travel opens back up.
Plus, all this boat shopping introduced me to my new dream retirement goal: a cabin cruiser. The gentleman we’re buying this sailboat from is selling it to get a 40 foot cabin cruiser instead, because it’s less work.
So now I’m fully on board with stashing more into the retirement fund too, because I’ll agree to sail from port to port abroad with Wayne on a certain type of boat. (More akin to a yacht. Which becomes affordable if we’re cool living on it. And I found ones that oh yeah. I’d be okay living on.)
But will I end up loving sailing instead?
Not sure, but it’s a nice diversion during coronavirus craziness.