Every January, we take a week off for vacation. For the past few years, we’ve been vacationing in Jamaica (mainly because the airfare is much cheaper than the other islands). This year we went to Ocho Rios on the northwest side of the island. It wasn’t really our favorite. The water was a bit rough every day and we did go to Dunn’s River Falls on a catamaran and again the water wasn’t very tropical. But the cruise was a blast! Rain or shine, they know how to have a good time! Plus, this was a huge catamaran – 65 feet. The captain took us on a tour of the engine room, where it had two Cummins 250hp engines.
Back in Seattle in the middle of January and we are excited about the Boat Show. Our boat show is in two locations: Century Link Convention Center and down at Lake Union. At the big show, they mostly have weekend cruising boats and a few 40+ SeaRays, but that was about it. Down at Lake Union they had a good selection of yachts and sailing boats. They had a Lagoon 35 there again, along with a Fontaine Power Cat. The power cat was not our style at all.
What we did start to look at was power boats 45-60′ that we could possibly live on. At least the style of them, but we would have to buy a much older and less expensive boat than the ones in the show. If we lived on a boat here in Seattle first (and rented our home), we could make sure we enjoyed living on one before we invest too much money.
Marine West knows me well now, because each month I stock up on about 6 magazines and one of my new favorites is Cruising Outpost. It’s a bit of a quirky publication, but I love all of the cruiser’s stories. It’s a whole another world that most of us don’t know about.
This summer we bought a groupon for a day sailing trip on Elliott Bay. It was a big boat, about 75 feet long. It was a gorgeous sunny day, but not a windy one. Great views, but not much sailing – hey, at least we were on the water!
Last weekend was the Lake Union Boat Show (they do 2 a year) and it’s nice because it’s normally warm and sunny. Our objective was to find a liveaboard and really look at them and see if we could actually live on one. We actually found a boat that would be ideal, (if only we were ready to buy) which was a Meridian 38 foot Sedan. It had a nice salon, big galley and two big staterooms for only $179k. Maybe down the road it will still be for sale?
We’re looking forward to the Anacortes Boat Show in a week and we’re also going boating with my sister and her husband on their trawler!
We’ve booked our trip to Annapolis, MD for the US Sailboat Show in October! We’re so excited and we’ll finally be able to see a variety of catamarans and talk to some charter companies for our trip in 2015. We’ll be sure to take lots of pictures and share them.
So for now, it’s back to reading our magazines. We lucked out this month, because SAIL magazine put out their first issue of Multihull Sailor, which was fantastic! Two other great magazines for following cruisers and their stories are Cruising World and Passage Maker. As you can see, we read a lot and are absorbing as much information as we possibly can. Good thing we have boaters in the family that also like the magazines, so we can recycle them to them.
. This was a great story about another couple, our age, who sold everything, bought a catamaran and sailed the Caribbean and with no sailing experience! Well, if they can do it, so could Scott and I and we both read that book fast! The author, Renee Petrillo has been so gracious answering all of my emails and answering our questions over the past two years. It’s a great book, so this is a must buy!
 (a book about a local PNW couple), 
and 
. For birthdays & Christmas, we found ourselves giving each other books about Catamarans, Nautical References and Galley Recipes. Currently, I’m reading 
, a story about a Toronto couple that heads down the ICW to the Caribbean. So many people have done it and so many are doing it, that we know in our hearts we’ll be there soon too.
