Its been 7 years since we first began our trip aboard Crazy 8 from Cincinnati to Southwest Florida!
Since then, we have been boating on the waters of Southwest Florida, aboard 4 different vessels, always searching for the Perfect One! After our river adventure, we sold Crazy 8 searching for a smoother ride for the Gulf waters, so hence came Cloud 9, a 48′ Cantius.
We enjoyed Cloud 9 for a while, then realized we were missing some of the comforts from home… mainly space. Perfect 10, a 53′ custom build Marlow was purchased. And she was Perfect! A great Covid quarantine yacht with lots of room, a king size bed, 3 staterooms, 2 heads with showers, a wonderful galley, a relaxing salon, and even a washer and dryer! But all the perfection comes with a price. The cost to maintain and insure, along with the amount of upkeep to operate and the availability of slips, all combined to make a less than perfect boat for our needs.
After much contemplation as to what kind of boating we wanted to do over the next several years, a decision was made to sell Perfect 10 in this hot boating market and downsize to a boat in which we can travel more economically, faster and easier. We made the ease of travel a priority with our first goal set on the completion of The Great Loop, of which we have traversed a small portion on Crazy 8.
Keeping with our numbering theme, we name our new ship, a 41′ Back Cove, Prime 11. While she doesn’t have all the amenities of Perfect 10, she is a nice running boat, definitely more economical and much easier for the two of us to handle and maintain. We call her our “tiny” boat and so far, we are adapting well to tiny boat living.
Besides the boat changes, our new live aboard family has also changed. We no longer have our two salty dogs to keep us company on our travels. We had to say goodbye to Bailey in October 2018 at the age of 16 and we just recently lost Buster in February of this year, at the ripe old age of 17 1/2. We will miss them but we know they are now together chasing all the pelicans and squirrels they can!
With the pandemic behind us🤞, we are eager to travel again, by waterways, and explore the eastern half of our wonderful country in which we are blessed to call home.