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As I explained in last month’s issue, my husband John and I used to spend hours on our porch at our home on Luck Hill, Tortola, watching boats sail by, tucking into secluded bays that could be reached no other way. We fantasized about buying a boat and sailing from island to island, traveling with no real schedule or deadlines, able to stay as long as we liked and leave whenever the urge struck us. Finally, we decided to do it. I didn’t know how to sail, and I knew very little about boats. But the researcher in me went to work. I learned that we needed to start by deciding how we wanted to use the boat and where we might want to take it. Then we would need to list our needs and desires and prioritize them.

We wanted a strong, safe boat, stable with a good “sea motion.”  We wanted a boat we could take across any ocean, which meant one that was moderately heavy and with a relatively deep draft. The draft is how deep the bottom of the keel sits in the water. We decided that less than 51/2 feet would compromise stability in high seas and more than 61/2 would be too deep to take into the Bahamas and much of the Caribbean. 

Needs vs. luxury
I wanted comfort, which meant as much interior space for living, sleeping, cooking, and storage as possible. I wanted two relatively comfortable and private sleeping quarters and two heads (bathrooms), so that we could have guests aboard. Another important feature for us was a berth (bed) with lots of headroom above it. Many boats don’t give you enough room to sit up in bed.
I also wanted to be sure that at least one of the heads had a separate shower stall. I had been on too many boats with “wet heads.” In those, when you use the shower the entire little room gets wet. In such bathrooms, you usually have no place to keep your towel or clothes dry and no place to get dressed when you’re finished, and everything must be wiped down afterward. The water gets on the toilet, counter, and walls and collects on the floor until you finish and pump it out. It is a mess and very inconvenient. A separate shower was a big deal to me. Many boaters and boat brokers teased me and said it was unimportant. But I am really glad I held out for that one.
Another important feature to me was a roomy and comfortable cockpit with a table we could eat at and benches wide enough to sleep on. This is especially important in the tropics, since you live mostly in the cockpit, which is your patio. 
I also wanted some luxuries like air conditioning, a generator, and a water maker (desalinizing unit). I dreamt of a washer/dryer, although I agreed it was only on a “wish list” and not absolutely necessary. 

An inconvenient reality
Finally, we found a boat that we thought we could be comfortable living aboard and that we believed was well-built and seaworthy. She wasn’t perfect. But we liked her, and she had much of what we had decided we wanted. She is a Gulfstar 50 sloop. She is strong and has long, lean lines, a hull design that is very good for sailing. She has a 6-foot draft and weighs 38,000 pounds. She isn’t a new boat but has been very well maintained. She is cozy and comfortable (for a sailboat). She is very well-equipped. And I got my shower, an air conditioner, a generator, a water maker, and even the desired washer/dryer. 
We named her Eris Island (our island of freedom ), and we moved aboard on July 30, 1998. I can tell you now that living on a small and primitive Caribbean island was a good rehearsal and good training for life aboard a boat. If I felt inconvenienced on Tortola, the memory pales in light of my present reality. Life aboard Eris Island is infinitely more inconvenient. 
Life aboard has proven to be much harder than life on land. Everything is more difficult and takes longer. Imagine having a refrigerator that is only a 4-cubic-foot box cut into the corner of a countertop and having to take everything out to get to whatever is on the bottom. Ditto with the freezer. To keep them cold, I have to run a noisy generator for two to three hours a day. The generator runs on precious diesel fuel, makes a terrible racket, and puts out a lot of heat. But without it I have no refrigeration while at anchor or at sea. 
The generator also runs the water heater. Of course, that means that we’re in big trouble if the generator breaks: My frozen food will spoil, as will the milk and other chilled items, and we will have no hot water. Not a nice thought. We also depend on the generator for luxuries like the washing machine. And if it gets unbearably hot when we’re at anchor in the tropics, and we really want to cool off the boat, we have to run the generator to get the air conditioner to work. 

For peace and privacy
Of course, if we are in a place with modern marinas and want to pay $1 to $3 per foot per day  ($50 to $150 per day) to be in a small slip at a dock, squeezed in between other boats, with no privacy and no view, we can then plug into electric power and run those things without the generator. But we want peace and privacy and gorgeous natural scenery, not city marinas.
Other inconveniences include the stove: I have only three small burners. No big pans will fit our stovetop. And my oven is only 12 inches deep. A standard cookie sheet or pizza pan won’t fit. And every time I want to use a burner or my oven, I have to light it manually. And when I am finished, I must be certain to turn off the propane tank or risk asphyxiation or an explosion. 
Ah, and then there is the head. Just using the toilet is a chore. Boat toilets clog very easily, so you must be very careful about what you put into the “head.”  The saying is, “If it didn’t go in your mouth, it doesn’t go in the bowl.”  And to flush, we must pump and pump and pump—10 to 15 pumps per flush. Sound like fun? There is also the joy of having a septic tank on board right underneath your dining table. To avoid odor and dangerous gas buildup, frequent pump-outs are necessary. Of course, in the Caribbean there are no pump-out stations. I won’t bother to explain what that means. 
Showers in our tiny, 2-foot-square shower stall are another delight: We do a quick rinse, turn the water off, soap up, turn the water on, rinse again, and turn the water off. Then we must run the sump pump to pump out the puddle of water that has collected in the bottom of the shower.

Still, it’s home
Yet, after almost 13 months of living aboard, I am not ready to give her up. On the contrary, when we have left the boat to take trips to visit family members or friends, or to attend conferences at luxury hotels, I have missed my little Eris Island and have longed to return. I’d much rather be aboard my little floating home than in anyone else’s home, however nice, or in any luxury resort in the world. This surprises me. But it is true. John feels the same way. And it’s a good thing, because Eris Island is our home now. Our only home. 
The house in California has been sold, we gave up our lease on the house at Luck Hill on Tortola, and I have put my house in Tucson up for sale. Most of our worldly possessions have been sold (after moving aboard, we went back to California and had a huge garage sale) or are in storage. We are busy cutting old ties to land and our land-bound lifestyle. We are moving “offshore” in the literal sense. 
It has taken a big leap of faith and a lot of courage to make this our only home and to plan to be on the move for the indefinite future. I still don’t know how to sail the boat. And although I have been a passenger on many sailing trips, I have not yet been so far out on a boat that I was out of sight of land. And I must admit that the idea of heading out to sea beyond visual contact with land is scary for me. But it is also very exciting. 

A dream of freedom
The excitement of the dream of freedom and exploration on the high seas has kept us motivated over the past several months of hard work. For almost a year now, we have been busy learning the ins and outs of living on our boat, working to improve and maintain her, and making a lot of unexpected repairs along the way (which all the boat owners we have met assure us is just a part of boat ownership). I have been very busy provisioning for a major cruise far from supermarkets. I have been learning to read charts, to navigate, and to “drive” the boat. I like being at the wheel. I have yet to learn how to work the sails, however.
During these months since we bought the boat, we have been from Brunswick, Georgia, down the coast of Florida, mostly on the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway), with a couple of legs on the "outside" offshore. It doesn’t sound like a very great distance, but, remember, we move at about 7 miles per hour. And every several hours we must stop for repairs. Or so it seems.
We had expected to be in the Bahamas months ago, and to have sailed to the British Virgin Islands well before hurricane season. We had fantasized that we would have Eris Island down to Trinidad before the end of July, since that is below the 12th parallel and considered safe for the hurricane season. But none of that was meant to be. 
As with any new career, new business, or other unfamiliar large project, we are enduring a very steep learning curve. And Murphy's Law definitely rules the boating world.
Yet I love it. It gives me a great feeling of competence, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and self-esteem to be able to do what we are doing. And it gives me a wonderful sense of freedom. I love knowing that I have the option of taking off and going anywhere I choose. I love having my own power generation and storage system, as well as my own water-making system, and knowing that I have enough food and other essentials aboard to survive for at least six months. I also like learning how to manage and maintain our floating home. For us, the sense of freedom and independence and the potential for great adventure are well worth the price of the inconveniences and hard work. 

Life is not predictable
But this life definitely isn't for everyone. For the kind of person who needs to be in control, who lives by schedules and plans, who would never be caught dead on a camping trip, who always wears a tie, who travels first-class, and who can’t imagine staying anyplace without room service, this life would be the perfect description of hell. For John and me, hell is being locked into a daily routine that is predictable. Life on a boat is never predictable. 
There are two things that can never be controlled (or even accurately predicted) but that rule a boater’s schedule: weather and the working condition of the boat. All plans are vulnerable to these variables. We are still learning how to cope with this boater’s fact of life. We must learn to accept constant changes in plans. We must learn to accept that we can plan to do something but can’t expect that our plans will necessarily work out—we can only hope that they will.
Our hope is to spend the beginning of the next century exploring places off the beaten track. And we’ll share our experiences with you in the pages of International Living.
Our current “plan” is to head to the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and our beloved Virgin Islands. From there, we’d like to continue south to explore the entire West Indies, Venezuela, the rest of the Caribbean, and perhaps beyond. We have heard that Cartagena is a fabulous port. And we absolutely must visit the San Blas Islands on the Caribbean side of Panama. We hear they are primitive and delightful, not yet spoiled by tourism. We’d also love to visit Cuba now that it is opening up and cruisers are being allowed in. These are our dreams of adventure and freedom. We believe they will be worth the inconvenience and risk. 

Kiana Delamare and John Pugsley have set sail at last for the Bahamas and beyond. Look for the next chapter in their adventures in an upcoming issue. 

"The sense of freedom and independence and the potential for great adventure are well worth the price of the inconveniences and hard work.".