Spread Thin, an update!

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I swear I'm just NOT happy unless I have a zillion things to do!!! Currently, I'm spread thinner than light mayo on a dieter's BLT!

Besides, the fact that I am blogging for ourselves here at Project Motor Boat. I'm Kids as Crew "Topic Coordinator" for The Monkey's Fist, which means I am reading a (bleep)-ton of blogs sorting through them to find kids displaying their knowledge for navigation, provisioning, driving the tender etc. Got any links?? Share them in the comment section!!

I'm doing data entry for my local Bikram Yoga studio, AND washing those sweat-soaked yoga towels (yea. eww.)  all in order to continue my membership and continue my practice, so that I might go to Teacher Training, hopefully in 2013!!!

I'm working with a friend/yacht broker on my Yacht Broker Internship (2 years) so that one day I can sell more than just our own personal boats!! Didn't know a yacht broker? NOW you do!!

I'm also still writing with Raft Up (soon to have a new website) so stay tuned for my next post, February 2nd, I'm the first up on a very touchy subject!!

This weekend I'm looking forward to unplugging (just a little bit) when GR's mom comes to town (tomorrow) and we get to play tourist on Saturday by taking on ride on the infamous Jungle Queen!!!

So if you were wondering?? Now you know!! Enjoy today.

Happy One Year of Felicity!

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." 

Lewis Carroll

This morning as we threw a few slices of egg soaked  potato bread onto our seasoned cast-iron skillet we realized that this time last year we had sold San San (along with almost all of our tools, charts, guidebooks, & crockery)  and were making plans for another boat! (or RV, or a piece of land out West) Truth be told, at that time, we weren't really sure what was going to happen next but, we knew "next" was coming regardless. We knew everything we owned was able to fit into a couple of plastic tubs and together we could go anywhere. (quite happily as well.) Owning less material possessions can be sooooooo liberating! (Third time's really easy!) I encourage all of you to someday just downsize, give yourself a healthy purge and let go of all that baggage!;)

This past year with Felicity has flown by. I never thought when this journey began (2006) that someday I'd sit on a big, ol' beast of a power boat like this, reminiscing about the 2 sailboats we owned previously. Each one unique and serving purpose for our lives at that specific time. Remembering all those cool islands and folks along that way that made it incredible! What's in store for us, we don't quite know. We have now to be grateful and keeping tinkering on our projects. Happy 1 year, Felicity! Your a great girl! We look forward to many more years with you!

Mornings like the one today happen once in a while. The best part about today is we didn't plan around this benchmark date, it just kind of crept up on us, knocked on the door of our conscious and said, "Today is special." We had a sleepover last night and the boat was full of children, blankets, pillows, and canteens. Several times in the span of the day, I took a step back, inhaled and thanked the universe for all our blessings. We have a beautiful, happy family, a beautiful home, an awesome view, more work than we can handle and others to share it all with.



Namaste.

New Guest Testimonial!

If you haven't checked out our Past Guests page, please check it out! It's where our friends and guests say a little something about their experience with us. Last year in Guatemala Franki & Adam came to stay with us in between their circumnavigation of the country! She had this to say about our trip. I love her so much and am so happy that we have these memories to cherish forever! By the way, we'd love to have YOU as a guest! Shoot us an email and let's plan something! Or just keep in touch and when we end up where YOU want to be, come on down we'd be thrilled to have visitors!

Too much fun? I think NOT!

"We were cruising down the serene Rio Dulce in Guatemala. The sun was setting, the calm waters looked like sheets of blue ice and lush mountain ranges towered over us. Jessica and I were sitting arm-in-arm on the bow. In a moment of pure bliss we looked at each other and Jessica said, “This is what office people see on their screen savers”. We relished the moment. We were living the screen saver, a reality.

I consider Jessica, Gordon and Gia to be a rare breed of very special friends. Their sense of hospitality is unrivaled. If you’re after adventure, they’ve got it. If you’re into really interesting conversations about life, yoga, music, literature, cultures, they’ve got it. If you’re into wonderfully organic food and incredibly cool music, they’ve got it. What else can I say, it’s a blast being with them and it will stay with you forever."

                           *Franki

Good Times

Doing a little catch-up on the blog. Here are some photos from Friday night. It was sort of a send off for our friends, Shawn & Curtis on SV Papillon. After hanging with these guys for three months we had to say goodbye. They are going to head north nice and slow taking time to smell the salt air along the way to St. Augustine. Follow along on their blog.

Shawn & Curtis

 

 

GR & Me

By the way, Did you know we have been living aboard for 5 months!? We can't believe how fast the time has gone!

Past Guests

 

Here we are with Rudi and Roxanne in Long Island, Acklin Islands, Bahamas 2011.Having guests on board can be the most difficult and rewarding experience of your cruising journey. Sometime you never know what you are going to get. In our situation, Roxanne is my sister and I knew what I signed up for with her. But, when we asked Roxanne to bring a friend for the leg to Jamaica we weren't sure what we had in store. We spent the better part of 3 months living in close quarters and experiencing some of the more incredible parts of our trip with them. The memories we created of that time will live forever in our minds and have created an unbreakable friendship.

These guys were crucial crew in getting San San from Bahamas to Jamaica. I'm not a big fan of overnight unless there is a 4 person rotation! Rudi was my watch partner for the 3 long nights to Jamaica. We talked about everything from our past to our future and shared music and jokes together while we navigated our little home across the Windward Passage, one of the scarier for me passages. GR and Rox were watch partners and I'm sure they did the same, that right there, the sharing of  responsibility for the boat, for the vessel in which we all live in, care for and depend on is another very strong connection made while cruising with guests.

I added a page to the blog called "Past Guests"  where I am asking our past guests on any of our previous boats to leave us a little message telling our readers what their experience was like. I hope to encourage more people to join us, may it be for a season or for a week. We are living our dream and being able to share it with others is our passion. Please take some time to read their words.

*If you would like to write up a few words about your experience with us, please email mvfelicity@gmail.com

The Objective

*borrowed from Pinterest*

So, just what exactly are we planning to do with this blog and this boat?

Although all plans are written in sand we definitely have an idea of how we want this to go down. We will just keep doing what we have always done; pray about it, work towards our goals and let everything else just kind of happen.

When we were looking for another boat after San San we knew we needed a third cabin. Why? Well for the masses of guests we plan on having come out cruising with us of course! Once we are ready, we plan to jump across to the Bahamas and invite people to fly in and experience" Island Life" as it should be. We will practice yoga on the sandy beaches of our "own" private islands and just generally do the cruising thing. We love sharing this with anyone who wants to learn and play!

Through the blog we hope to find many friends who'd like to join us. We'd like to share our knowledge with the boating community. We want to spread the wealth and find companies who will sponsor us and allow us to review products and test gear. Hopefully, we will turn our followers onto their gear. Now that we have entered the mysterious world of power boating we have all new concepts and products to explore!

So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride!

Priorities in Place!

Marianne, Jess & Shawn

Here we are! THIS is what 3 out of 4 weekends have looked like for us since the new year. New year, new you, that's what they say right? Having Felicity has really brought us to a place of contentment. Finally knowing that we can settle in at our leisure has been quite a relief. It seemed like with San San we were always in a rush. We wanted to cruise soo badly but we had so much work to do. With Felicity, we have lots of work, believe me, but it's nothing pressing. We are able to live aboard in comfort while we slowly tackle each project after we've researched the products we want to use.(We'll talk about our long list later!)

This may look like serious fun but believe me, it's a sea trial. (te he he he) Everything checked out alright! Lately, what with the all the "real" jobs and everything we are just happy to come home every night and sleep in a comfy, spacious bed (there's room for 2 but I still hog it up!) with a/c and take a hot shower. Sometimes we get time to sit on the couch and watch a movie, but it all boils down to this. THIS moment where we can call up some friends and say, " Hey, let's go for a boat ride!"

Felicity has a had several guests come aboard already and everyone has really loved it. Be on the look out for our Guest Book page where our guests can sign in and leave a little memory of the day.

While our future is still written in sand, one thing is for sure, our priority is BOATING!!

Making an Appearance!

"When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses." 

~Joyce Brothers

We left Ponce Inlet October 2009. We had just bought San San and our plans we endless, we couldn't wait to get "out there" and see what kind of trouble we could get into! We had a killer going away party and all our family and friends showed up to bid us farewell. Well, now it's been two years and we made it back!

On the Bow: Bernie (lil' brother), Jessica, Gia On the Dock: Cynthia (Step Mom), Scott (Step Brother)

As soon as we tied up I made our position known and we had visitors within 20 minutes! My Grama came by for hugs and kisses as well as a quick tour of the boat. She even donated her Crock-Pot, since we can now plug things in and I could make my famous meatballs (recipe to follow). Sunday was full of visitors. They really impressed by all the space we have now. I was able to have the kids running around on deck, the grown-ups down below eating and some of the smokers on the fly bridge! It really was a good test of the party hosting abilities.

Grama was definitely impressed!

Having Grama on board was a big deal. It made me so happy to know that she could not only easily step aboard but that she didn't mind hanging out for a while! My Step Mom and brothers also came by and we enjoyed catching up. The weather was perfect today and I even had to change into a tank top. Man, does it feel good to be back in Florida!

Gia and her friends had a blast rocking out on the massive deck!

Although we are trying to make it down to Miami quickly we knew we had to squeeze in some quality time here and we are so happy we did! This photo alone makes it all worth it!

Five Reasons Why We Bought a Bigger Boat

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We knew we wanted something bigger, we just didn’t know it was going to be THIS big! When we first started looking at other boats our goal was just to gain more living space. We’d been bumping into each other for a while and having guests was leaving us all longing for a bit more privacy. Since our real goal is to be able to take more people along with us on trips an extra cabin was essential. Trying to find a sailboat with 3 cabins was difficult because there are certain things we look for in a boat. Think about what San San looked like, she had classic lines and a truly unique look. While there are plenty of production sailboats that offer 3 cabins we just don’t love their design. So when we stumbled upon the Hatteras, she took our breath away with her classic style and the quality behind the Hatteras name made her a clear choice. Not to mention we got a great deal on it!

5. A Bigger Bed - Not that I don’t love being close to my love in our cozy little bunk but I’d also like to stretch out. REALLY stretch out. GET THIS: We both sleep with a body pillow. That’s almost like 4 people trying to sleep in a double bed.  An island queen bed has long been the dream when we visited the boats of Strictly Sail Miami.

4. Another Project – I know, I know you can say. We are SICK! Seriously, we have an addiction to working on boats. I once saw an author ask, “Do you enjoy working on your boat more than you enjoy sailing?” Sadly, I think my answer is yes! GR and I work so well together. We just love tackling a project and all that it entails. Our previous ventures have shown us that we prefer being busy over being idle and our lifestyle reflects that. All boats need work, we think it’s our gift to buy them, make them pretty and fully functional and then move on.

3. Change – Make no bones about it, we are all about change. We can’t sit still for too long and are always looking for the next adventure. Everyone thinks about change. What would it be like to anchor like the catamarans do, way up close? Wouldn’t it be neat to have this many people on our boat? I’ve been on bigger boats and gotten that little tingle in my chest that says, “Man, wouldn’t this be cool?” Well, we are giving it a shot, we are trying something new. 

2. More Living Space - I once read an article that talked about sacrificing comfort at sea or comfort at anchor. We live on our boat ALL the time. We are more often at anchor living and working and less often traveling to and from destinations.  More living space means more comfort, no doubt about it! I’ve now got more room for clothes, bedding, as well as more storage for provisions and room for people of course!

1. A Third Cabin - Having another cabin for guests is the REAL Number 1 reason why we bought this boat. We just love having company but our last bought just wasn’t set up properly. It was okay for my sister and Rudi but they were still basically living in our salon (living room). Now guests will not only have their own room but their own head too!

I’m not saying bigger is better, it’s way too soon to make that statement. Bigger is definitely more costly, but we were prepared for that weather our choice was power or sail. For now all we can say is bigger is definitely different and different is good!

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