Family's Adventure (aboard) for Years- Help Please!

[robert.]

We bought our 37' 3375 Cruisers Yachts a couple years ago and it was always my dream to retire in the Caribbean but I never really believed my dream would come to fruition. I met my wife a year ago and we married shortly thereafter. I told her my dream but she had a serious fear of the water. I thought my boat, Miss Lone Star, would just have to stay in Austin Texas.

I am retired Army and it was sad that we could live anywhere but had to be on dry land. Life is so short and we don't get second chances. We spent a few nights aboard and she (and our 2 small kids) seemed to love it. Somehow, my dream still seemed possible. We had too many things, that we didn't use. In so many ways, our life didn't make sense. I started scuba diving and educated myself full time for a few months through Divemaster. I knew I wanted to teach scuba to Veterans with PTSD and TBI. My wife tagged along to my training sessions and watched. One day she said she wanted to get certified, but I didn't get my hopes up. I thought her fears would preclude her from seeing life underwater. She had fear about stepping into water walking from the boat to shore. Her training went off without a hitch and her fear was gone. I wasted no time and started peppering her suggestions about living a liveaboard lifestyle.

We decided to move aboard our boat about 6 months ago. We went in with both feet, selling all that we owned (except what we wanted to keep forever). Our departure date is July 14. We are accepting our storage POD in a few days and we will store what we want to keep forever. We have completely renovated our boat, save a few things that couldn't get done before we left. I think the boat will feel new with all of the upgrades. It was lightly used by its prior owner. We went through a painful hailstorm and the repairs will upgrade most of what needed to be done on the outside. Our boat will be transported to Galveston Bay, TX and dropped in the ocean. I have to pick up a dinghy we purchased and the next day we will be off.

We will make our way around the Gulf into Louisiana and we will do the ICW into New Orleans. I have our course plotted to get us to Key Largo, FL and we will stay there until December. I will take my scuba instructor and master instructor courses while we are staying at a marina. I plan to teach part-time and we will do a lot of exploring. We will homeschool the kids. My faithful war dog, who doubles as a service dog will be aboard.

In December we will set off for parts unknown, with no schedule or set plan. Generally, we will travel South. We want to go to Cuba and we will visit every country in the Caribbean and Central America before we are through. Our plan is to liveaboard for a few years before we find a new home. We may love the lifestyle so much that we buy a sail boat to go further or we may buy some land in Panama, Belize or Florida.

We started a travel blog and my wife is a professional photographer. She has gotten really good at video editing and we will chronicle our travels on YouTube and through our blog. I wanted to reach out to the other Cruiser Yachts members and invite you to follow our journey as we figure everything out. Our story is about a lot of things and I figured that there are a lot of others who have came before us, or may come after.

We would really love to hear from people who have lived aboard a boat with kids, travelled to some of the same places or anyone who has tips and advice. We are especially looking for local advice on all sorts of things to do. We would love to hear from people who have good advice on local churches to attend, dive sites, homeschooling issues, local Veteran's organizations that have needs, fishing information or safety tips.

We plan to catch much of what we eat, except the normal provisioning types of things that all cruisers have to deal with. This is a new adventure for us but I can't wait to see what the rest of life has to offer. Cheers!

[Steadman Uhlich]

Howdy Robb!

That is an interesting intro note.

Sounds like you have a plan and I wish you the best of success with it.

Your title says: "Help Please"

I think it might be easier to get the helpful answers you seek, if you post specific questions in other forum (sections) here like the "Liveaboard" forum etc.

I will post some of my favorite tips for new members below. They may not be what you expect, but I believe they will help you in the near term and in the long run if you intend to spend much time here on this forum and if you wish to gain the most from the knowledge available and shared here etc.

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There is a free Cruiser's Wiki associated with this forum.
There is a LOT of free content in that wiki. Including "cruising guides."

There is a LOT of additional information there too. I suggest looking at the contents to see. http://www.cruiserswiki.org/wiki/World_Cruising_Guides

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There are also some "social groups" that are more focused on special interests, and as I saw, they can be fun for their members. I am not a member of those groups, but you should be able to find them if you do some exploring of the forum website, look for "groups."

Cruisers & Sailing Forums - All Groups


A Few of my Favorite Tips for New Members to this Forum Who Have Kids:


Mermaids Group
It is for women sailors and boat owners. It has 206 members. Cruisers & Sailing Forums - ~~Mermaids Group~~

Cruising with Kids Group (58 members)
Cruisers & Sailing Forums - Cruising with Kids
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Looking for Quick Answers?

This is the best and fastest method I have found to the answers I seek here.
Since you are relatively new to the forum, here is my favorite friendly forum search tip: Look at the green menu bar on the forum pages for the drop down "Search" menu. Click on that to drop down a list of search functions. From that drop down menu select the GOOGLE CUSTOM search feature (the second box down) and then enter several different descriptive terms for your topic of interest. That will do a Custom google search of ONLY this site and it is likely to find answers to your questions or results for you. Note: this is different from using the regular forum search box or field. Also note, this is NOT found if you use the CF app. It IS found if you use a web browser such as Safari, etc.
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Bon Voyage!

Steady

[robert.]

Thanks for the recommendations about the groups, I've already shared them with my wife. I just wanted to do an intro about us and start from there. I am already getting a few course questions answered in the power boat forum section of this site. There are so many nice people with goo information.