Tuesday, June 24, 2008

home, sweet home

Here she is. The dream boat. Yes, she's a bit on the unattractive side, but aren't we all? Plus, we'd never lose her in a marina full of beige and white vessels, eh? 
Josh found this beauty on yachtworld.com and she's out of Beaufort, NC. She's a 29' custom steel cutter with all the bells and whistles that we are looking for.  She has roller furling on the forestay and the innerstay, a wind generator and solar panels, a watermaker, raytheon radar, vhf and cb radios, etc. She has been fully equipped beyond those little tidbits, but much of it still doesn't mean all that much to me. I am learning, though. She's a bit shorter than we were looking for, but Josh has been doing some reading about the benefits of a shorter LOA (length over all) with a longer beam (wider), which means you could have just as much cabin space without the extra length.
The only problem is that she's for sale now, and as we were hoping to start our voyaging sometime in the spring, this is a bit of a problem.  I think we're going to try to see if we can go see her over Labor Day and see what we can do... 

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

only $30,000 to go!

I recently accepted a job to be a full-time layout and design coordinator here in the city. However, I did NOT tell my new boss that I only plan on being in Chicago for one more year. I'm trying my best to keep it on a "need to know" basis (though on a side note, I'm so excited about this new venture that I'm finding that hard to do!). The major reason I accepted this gig is the money. I won't lie. We will need money to make our dreams a reality, and fortunately for us, my money is mostly considered what Josh calls "play" money. And that means that my checks go right into the bank...more specifically into the boat fund. As of yesterday, our fund has grown to $19,999. Yep. That's right! Josh and I have grown extremely used to living a little more frugally in the past 2 years and now we have a wonderfully sized nest egg to prove it. So over the coming year, I look forward to seeing this egg hatch into our dream boat.