A quick update from the recession sailors of Lucky Escape.

Ok. Here is the real reason we had to cancel our second sailing winter in the Carribean and decided to hang up our sailing hats for a period - the arrival of our son (and newest crew member), John Dereck Aubrey !! He was born 2 weeks ago and is keeping us busy ! Already he is showing a real love for the water via his baths.

And, a quick update from Lucky Escape. For various reasons, we decided to take our boat off the sale market and John (with the grateful help of a few friends) sailed it up from Jacksonville, FL to our current location in Buzzard's Bay, MA. (We decided to forego city life to live on the water, after having been sailors for 2 years). Unfortunately, being 9 months pregnant does not bode well for sailing so I couldnt join him. Getting on and off the boat as well as in and out of the dinghy is no mean feat in that condition !

John decided to hang up his real estate hat and is now a licensed Captain ! Our sailing voyage really brought out his love of boating and the water and he is now working in the boating industry (rather than stuck in an office).

Once we became land lubbers, a few readers of our blog asked us about lessons learned from our experience as novice sailors. (For those not following our blog, we bought and moved aboard a sailboat for 2 years, after having been laid off in the 2008 recession). Here are a few of them:

- Everything costs more than you think and you need to budget for that. We poured more money into our lovely boat than we like to think about, including repair bills as well as general cruising costs. Major repairs can run you into the thousands of $$$.

- You can learn to be more self sufficient if you have the patience to learn. We later realised how much you can repair yourself on a boat, rather than pay someone $75-100 an hour to do it. There is also a real sense of accomplishment when you finish the job (properly) yourself. Just believe in your ability, read alot on the subject and don't be afraid to seek out assistance from experienced sailors.

- You can live with less. Living on a sailboat made me realise how much I did not need (while on land) and how to live more frugally.

- Watch out for who you can trust. While we met the most wonderful and helpful individuals during our sailing trip, we also got ripped off on numerous occasions. Having been novice boat owners, we tended to believe what any boating professional told us (namely brokers, boat yards) and then often found out later that they were simply seeking a greater pay check.

- Simplicity is beauty. Some of our favorite moments on the water included sailing offshore or cooking freshly caught seafood on our back grill while at anchor. No need to spend alot of money all the time on fancy restaurants or resort marinas.

- Boating life can be harder than you expect. Having jumped into the liveaboard life without any prior experience, John and I adapted surprisingly well to the change in lifestyle (from our fancy NYC lifestyle). It wasn't the general day to day living we found hard on a boat but the horror of unexpected boat repairs + unexpected bad weather while offshore.