The Time Has Come
After experiencing all 4 seasons aboard Aurelia, summer boating is by far the best and spending extended time aboard is just as fun as we expected. However, the roughly 8 months of non-summer boating, including bad weather, limited daylight, and seasonal closures limit the water and land activity options too much for us to continue full time. Sitting inside the cabin many evenings, listening to the rain outside, and wishing daylight would last a bit longer, made us feel like we were wasting too much valuable time. Missing Aven doesn't help, of course. We had hoped that with Aven away at school, and being a bit older now, beyond the busy work/life schedules, that we could relax, slow down a little, and enjoy more of a homebody lifestyle. Well... we were wrong. We are simply not the stay-home type.
Our current boat home (Aurelia) has proven to be warm, roomy, comfortable, and reliable for us. And after a few months of streamlining the liveaboard process, we are really pleased with the results. In fact, it has proven that we would still be happy with even less living space. A decent sized RV feels very doable.
We have boated steadily since 2009 and have explored the Northwest waters since the start. We increasingly find that even a new bay/harbor/island, feels very much like the others we have visited. Roaming the Northwest by boat is glorious in good weather, but boxes you in pretty fast when conditions degrade. We were never interested in taking the boat abroad or crossing oceans. Its pain-in-the-ass enough keeping to this region. A broader spectrum of scenery would be nice, and so would being able crest a mountain pass, or drive a few hours for drier or warmer weather and new options.
We are ready for the next phase of our retirement - a large truck camper plus cargo trailer for exploring the US and Canada, chasing warmer/dryer weather, and pursuing our hobbies of motorcycling, biking, hiking, and kayaking everywhere we go.
To be painfully honest, we do still enjoy being on the water and on the move by boat, still want to catch more fish, and cruise shallow coves in kayaks or by dinghy, so stay tuned for a boating encore in a few more summers using a faster and lighter craft, that can sit stored more easily all winter, waiting for summer only action.
Keeping the big boat we have plus going to land living is just more than we can enjoy all at once, because we learned long ago that the depth of our experiences carries more weight and generates better memories than simply maintaining scope.
With all this in mind, we arranged for a couple of slips in Anacortes and spent 8 days clearing out most of our stuff from the boat. We are selling Aurelia through North Pacific Yachts. And our small boat Lia through Seattle Yachts.
In preparation for the next phase, we had already been doing a lot of research which lead to ordering a Rugged Mountain X12 truck camper this week. We’ve been informed that will be about 6 months before it is ready. There is plenty for us to do in the meantime including finding a big truck, and building the mobile toybox to tow behind us, and we’re ready for the next steps!
