Moving onto a boat!! It’s a new adventure

Perhaps the only thing harder to find in Vancouver than liveaboard moorage is an affordable detached home. Some of the marinas have years-long lists. If you’re lucky you might find a boat you love (or maybe can live with) that comes with that golden ticket. And sometimes, once in a blue moon, you just get lucky and the next thing you know you’re moving onto a boat.

Handsome Hubby and I have talked about living on a boat for a few years. Often it was in the abstract – “wouldn’t be great to live on a boat” but we really didn’t do too much about it. Then in the last six months, it changed from a dream to something we wanted to do.

And even though we were now serious about moving onto a boat, I didn’t expect it would happen quickly. But I was inspired enough to start pruning our possessions and scanning photos and other memory documents to the cloud. We gave some furniture to Handsome Hubby’s son. And we made numerous donations to thrift stores.

And in fact, our condo had never looked better! No clutter, less furniture and easy to keep clean. I was happy and quite content to enjoy our space while we waited for our on-water home.

We found a slip AND a boat

So imagine my surprise when Handsome Hubby texted me one morning in September to say we had a liveaboard slip. It was available within a month and all ours.

All of a sudden this amorphous plan of living on a boat was about to become a reality. Which resulted in numerous questions. Could I really downsize to 300 feet? Would I miss the convenience of our condo? Were we ready for this?

And when the moment of doubt passed I knew we were ready.

Then the hard work began. We needed to sell our condo. Buy a boat. Get rid of more furniture and possessions. Assure family and friends this is a great idea (for us).

Somehow it all came together. We found the boat. The condo sold just a few days after listing. Purging is much easier when you really need to! And luckily, those close to us, support us in this adventure. It may not be something they would do, but they know it’s right for us.

At the moment, we’re half on a boat and half in a condo. And chaos and clutter reign in both. But with two weeks between taking possession of our new-to-us boat and the closing on our condo, we could find out what works (our comfy couch) and what doesn’t (my plan to keep our dining room table).

It’s a little hard to believe that as of this Friday, we will live full-time on the water. It’s going to be an adventure!

Stay safe and happy cruising!