Today we went to the Dallas Boat Show. It was a major disappointment. It was HUGE! Tons of pontoons, jet ski's, and ski boats with only 2 sailboats. I guess that's to be expected since we are landlocked, but we had really been excited to check out some sailboats. The 2 boats they had were both Beneteaus. We enjoyed checking them out and were pleasantly surprised by the space on the 31' and 34' models. We really want to check out some catamarans though! That's what we think we want for our family, but we've never actually been on one. I've heard mixed things from various sailors, it seems people either love them or hate them. Besides attempting to check some boats out, we've just been working on cutting our living expenses back even more and I have a few projects that I am working on that I am hoping will turn into my big idea to get us cruising!

Well, it's been a while since I updated. In the past couple of months we have cut a ton of our utilities and expenses of living in a house. The extra money is going straight to our cruising kitty! Now we are researching coastal cities that we could move to while we pop out a couple more babies, save more money and come up with an ongoing way to make money while at sea, and of course-learn to sail! For some reason I have my heart set on Melbourne, FA. Anyone have any thoughts on it? I've actually never been but done a lot of research on it. It seems to have a little of everything we want and seems to be more affordable than a lot of other coastal towns. Does anyone else have any other ideas?
We'd like to start out with a home base so that we could learn how to sail and take regular trips before leaving for good. I know, some would say to just do it, but since we're a family I think we better take the more steps approach. Plus, I do NOT want to have babies in a foreign country! haha So the plan is to have all kids here, get experience, and of course SAVE MONEY all in a coastal town.
If anyone has any other plans or ideas, please email me or comment below. We'd love any advice that could help us.

Hi! Well, this is just the very beginning of our goal to set sail! My whole life I have LOVED the ocean and longed to be near it. I have been scuba diving since I was 12 and spent a lot of time traveling to Mexico, the Florida Keys, and the British Virgin Islands. Five years ago my Dad bought the Raindancer and since then both my husband and I have been hooked on sailing. We spent some time last year with him in the BVI and met so many sailing families that we decided we want to be one! Check out the Raindancer here: http://svraindancer.com/

We recently purchased and read "The Cruising Life", by Jim Trefethen. It is all about how to set sail within 5 years, even if you don't have a boat. So we are currently implementing what we learned. We've started by cutting back even more on our frugal lifestyle and cleaning out the house! We are selling everything that we don't need and putting the money into our cruising ktty. We are practicing a more minimal lifestyle to prepare for the cruising life and save money.

We try to do one thing everyday towards the boat and my hope is that keeping this blog will help connect us to the cruising world.