10/29/18
Southport NC
Posted by Bill
Well, we have been dirt dwellers for over a year now. We absolutely love our house and living in Southport NC. It is funny to see the drastic change from living aboard for 3 ½ years…we have fallen back into some of our old habits like watching way too much TV. We have gotten accustom to limitless running water, flushing toilets, a washer and dryer steps away, a professional kitchen with ample storage and counter space, limitless power, lightning fast internet connections, vehicle access to stores and restaurants, and especially (at least for me) our walk in shower…that thing is the bomb! The down side is, we have also spent very little time on the water and for the most part have been disconnected from nature. It was a weird transition moving everything off the boat and living on dirt again.
It has been more than 4 years since we moved everything on the boat, and we sure underestimated the level of effort to get everything back on board and stowed away. We started the process early, but we had 2 hurricanes to deal with which set us back several weeks. It has been stressful and we are exhausted, but we are ready to go. It’s funny, but we are asking ourselves “I thought we had a lot more stuff on the boat when we loaded it up 4 years ago…where is this all going to go?” Kudos to Tricia, as she is really good at finding room and organizing everything. Of course, we started our inventory spreadsheet from scratch, which is essential to finding something. The Island Packet sailboats like ours have a tremendous amount of storage scattered all over the boat and it is amazing how things get lost…even with an inventory list.
We are traveling again with Matt and Shirley on Sofia Jeanne, and our friends Larry and Dianna are coming along for the first time on At Ease. Our good friends Kurt and Sharon, formerly on Byrd Ketcher, purchased a Grand Banks trawler in Little River, SC, and they will join us as we pass them on our second day out. Tomorrow is departure day! We hope you will follow along.