Today is our official two year anniversary of living aboard our sailboat, Mosaic!!!
My Facebook post celebrating our first night aboard.
I’m going to take a few moments and just be proud of how far we’ve come. As individuals. As a couple. As a family. And as sailors.
I know that sometimes I feel a little down that we’re still “just” living aboard in a marina. We’ve got a home slip. We don’t go out as often as we should. We’ve still never spent a night at anchor with Mosaic. But, really, we’re taking steps toward this adventurous lifestyle every day. We’re LIVING on our sailboat and LOVING it. We’re raising our kids to love the outdoors. To love this earth.
Kali was just 2 years 3 months old when we moved aboard 2 years ago. In 3 months, she will have lived aboard a sailboat for more of her life than anywhere else. And that’s pretty amazing if you ask me.
One of my favorite pictures from our first weeks living aboard.
It was just a couple weeks later that winter slammed us in the PNW and we had to hunker down for one of the harshest cold seasons in recent history. We had snow storms, ice storms, and freezing rain that shut the city down. We caught the boat on fire in the midst of it all and thus started one of the first in-depth projects on Mosaic: rewiring the starter for the engine and the many other wires that burnt up that morning when the engine wiring caught fire.
Since that time, we’ve learned so much … and learned that we could never learn it all. But we’re building skills and the kids are growing. We’re getting ready. We knew from the beginning that we didn’t want to go cruising with a really young child aboard so this has been the plan all along. Buy the boat, live aboard, get used to the boating lifestyle as a family, and then go cruising.
We weren’t really expecting to spend $40,000 on the boat this year with the refit, but we’ve now got a boat that we feel is seaworthy for ocean sailing.
We’ve got a plan and are determined to see ourselves off in the spring. We’re giving up the home slip in May and we’ll be heading up to the Puget Sound, hopefully to begin part-time cruising until the fall while still working remotely to save money and fill the cruising kitty.
Beyond that, it’s all plans written in the sand at low tide. Only time will tell! Thanks for reading. ~Rachel
Evan and Kali on one of our walks around the island last week.
I continue to admire you and your family and your incredible adventure. (I sure didn’t know about the fire!!) Thank you for continuing to share your journey with all of us.