Welcome to Moxie en mer (Moxie at Sea). It’s quite unbelievable that I’m writing my 1st post about our soon to be new home – Moxie! It’s been more than 13 years since our last sailing trip and now we’re ready to go again! It’s been a long journey to get to this point, but I’ll try to start at the beginning….
So, for the past 10 years, Anthony has been looking at pictures of boats (what I call “boat porn”) and dreaming of getting back to the sea. But, like many other people, we were busy raising children – watching soccer games and golf matches, attending parent-teacher conferences, working, saving for college, sending them off to college, blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. Now we’re “empty nesters” and the call of the sea is stronger than ever…. so, we started trying to figure out how we could go sailing sooner rather than later, especially since sailing is sometimes a physically demanding activity and we aren’t getting any younger! :).
While still in the somewhat preliminary planning stages, I was diagnosed with breast cancer which meant surgery, radiation, and chemo (yuk!). In some ways, my diagnosis was just the incentive we needed…. life offers no guarantees so why wait! We got serious about our plan!!
And here we are…. just over 3 months until our new home is ready. (April 6th). If you’re interested in seeing how she’s put together, check out the construction pictures. If you just want to “skip” to the final product, check out the video from the builder.
We are both incredibly fortunate that we can continue working from the boat. COVID has been devastating in so many ways, but one thing we’ve learned is that remote work is feasible! Since my area is online teaching, the only thing that changes for me is the locale and time zone!
Currently, the plan is to put all our belongings in storage, and head to France (assuming they’ll let us in) at the end of March. We’ll spend the summer sailing in the Mediterranean (that’s sounds so unbelievable right now!) and come back to the US in mid-September. At that time, we’ll leave the boat in Las Palmas, Spain and fly back in November to sail across the Atlantic as part of the ARC rally (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers). After that, who knows….. The possibilities are endless!
Of course, everything is subject to change, so stay tuned for updates about the launch and travel plans! We’d be so happy to hear from you!