We all make choices in life that are right for us, ours was to move on a 40 ft sailboat with our 5 year old grand daughter. We gave up a dirt dwelling home that was stability for our family, knowing our dream was to wake up to gorgeous sunrises and end our day with water filled sunsets.

We had a 5 yr plan, sell our home and move to the Eastern Shore of Maryland and pursue our search for a boat. We sold our home in one day, found a rental and started our search, three years later we found our dream boat. We had done our homework and knew a Gozzard built boat was the one for us, we found a Bay field 40 cutter/ketch that suited all of our live aboard needs. Side by side quarter berths and a full head with a huge 2 seated shower. So , again we got rid of everything we owned and moved on the boat names Adventuress.

Did we think of living aboard during the Winter, of course not. . .did we stop to think about the water being turned off on the docks. . .of course not. We were the only liveaboards during the Winter at this marina, we were on our own with a 5 yr old!

We moved on our floating dream home in mid October, the rains came as well as 40 mph winds. . . we learned to quickly how to pull the boat over and quickly jump aboard before the winds took her to the other side of the dock. The next step was to tie bungee lines to the pilling across from us so that if our grand daughter slid across the finger pier she would shoot back on our boat, ( never happened but we were prepared).

Our grand daughter was attending a private school 50 miles one way from the boat at that time and my husband was working in Washing , DC. He left the boat at 4:30 am and we needed to be exiting the boat by 6:45 am. Never once did we consider low tides or high tides, and they came.. . .Ava ended up missing 32 days of school that year, thank goodness it was kindergarten. Along with high winds came two snowfalls of over 1 ft. each time. For heat we used an electric ceramic heater, warming blankets for our berths and two little electric boat heaters one at the bow and one aft. The boat stayed a balmy 58 degrees, which is quite warm in such a small space.

I can honestly say the only hardship we encountered during that Winter in Maryland was cooking. The snow acted as an insulator so we were snug and warm, but when you are used to cooking on a gas grill you need to have an alternate plan. Neither of us had used a 2 burned propane stove, we learned quickly . . .however I went right out and bought a griddle and a crock pot. . .we were back in business.

We knew the only way to learn the In's and Out's of  our sailboat was to move on her full time, Ava saw this as an adventure and was completely happy. Our meals were simple, we had warm clothing hanging everywhere, not to mention our two cats that lived aboard also. We shoveled docks instead of sidewalks, we walked to the bath house to take showers in 32  degrees and below at night, we were in bed at 7:30 in the evening. We carried  4, 25 gallon jugs of water to fill our tanks once a week,(100 gallon tank) and never ran out of water.

We learned to live in small surroundings with a TV that got very few channels, we read and put together many puzzles and laughed a lot.There is not one inch of our boat or one sound that we can not tell you what it is.

We have now owned the boat for 3 years and love every experience, our plans are to head south next Winter. . .but we still have a few Maryland Winters to conquer.