Full Circle

We have lived aboard Madrigal for the past four years, nearly to the day. During our time aboard, we got married, I started working from home for our very own business, and we had our beautiful baby girl. Madrigal has been more than just a boat for us, and always will be thought of with love and happiness in our memories.



Madrigal has taken us on many wonderful trips, and we've learned so much about sailing from her. She was exactly what we were looking for in a boat four years ago, and has given us everything we ever dreamed of and so much more. Trips to Gloucester, Ipswich, Salem, Wessagusset (haha) many, many, many wonderful trips to Peddocks Island, and so many other little trips that will never go forgotten. She has been a powerhorse. So reliable, so trustworthy.

Madrigal is a beautiful boat, and as we pack away our books and toys and clothes and things, her beauty begins to shine. The wood looks brighter, and as I wash the bulkheads, I am taken back to April of 2008 when Justin and I spent many hours together laboring to sand and varnish every single piece of teak aboard the boat. I recall the nooks and crannies, the soreness in my muscles from wanting to do as much of it as I could by hand (shun all the power tools!) and most of all, I remember the act as being something which brought me and Justin together so closely. We were building our new life together as we sanded those walls.



Ivy spent her entire first year aboard this boat, brought home on her third day of life. She learned how to walk when she was nine months old because she had a handhold every step of the way. Madrigal gave her the confidence it took to finally let go and put one foot ahead of the other.




Madrigal was not built to be a liveaboard, but she worked splendidly for two people and a dog. I won't lie - she was small, but small is not a bad thing. Too small is, though. So when Ivy came along and started growing like a weed, she started to feel too small. Enter the Creekmore...almost.

So here we are, about to take our own big step. It isn't a step that either of us expected, but it is one in which we feel confident will get us to where we need to go.

As you may recall, we were given the Creekmore 45. The boat is currently holed up in a boatyard about a half hour south of us, and Justin has spent countless hours at the boat getting her prepped and ready for it's big debut on the water. It's first ever debut on the water, I might add. Here's the recap: the boat was owned by a man who worked on her for 20 years as a dream to sail around the world. He suddenly fell head over heels in love with a woman and decided to drop everything with the boat and build her a house. They still sail often, and he regrets absolutely nothing (I couldn't help but ask).



Justin has made immense progress on the boat, and I am sad to say that the labor of love has fallen into the hands of Justin alone, as Ivy has made it far too difficult for us both to work on the boat very often. I help when I can (and hope to help much more frequently in the near future) but really he's done nearly everything. Anyway - he has made leaps and bounds of progress, but we hit a standstill with the purchasing of the lead...we just couldn't afford it.








Brainstormbrainstormbrainstorm. What to do. When is it the right time to sell your home so that you can move forward to afford the next (uninhabitable) home? We both knew we didn't want to go in debt for the Creekmore - that was our intrigue with the boat in the first place. This was going to be an honest-to-goodness boat for us. Ours, through and through. Finally, last summer, we decided that we'd sell Madrigal and rent a month-to-month apartment until the Creekmore was ready. It wasn't ideal, but it would give us a bit of extra space and we figured a few months as dirt dwellers would make us all the more excited to move back onto a boat. We nervously listed Madrigal online and the calls started coming in. Really quickly.

We showed Madrigal to quite a few people. "I'm sorry she's such a wreck - we live aboard with an infant". I wondered how much our crap was going to deter people from seeing her true beauty, but we were both so hesitant to sell that we just did the best we could with the cleaning without going overboard (no pun intended).

Turns out, Madrigal's beauty shined right through our mess of baby toys and books. Quite a few people were quite interested. Oh man. Now what? Are we really going to move to an apartment? Suddenly an offer was put on the table and we were really starting to freak out. We realized that the cost of an apartment in Boston was going to suck up most of that money that we'd get from the sale, and where would that leave us? Dirt dwellers far longer than we had wanted, and still unable to afford the lead. It seemed that there was no answer for us to get from point a to point b without some sort of magical bridge to help us across.

And then...

Well, to tell the rest of the story, you have to remember where we started out, at least where we started out back in 2007 - The Fitzcarraldo.

As you may recall, Justin and I moved out to Boston in the winter of 2007 for jobs and school (man, I can't believe it's been that long already). We knew nothing (NOTHING) of boats but we wanted to be liveaboards oh so badly. Sailboats were off-limits (we didn't even consider the idea that you could liveaboard a sailboat) so we looked at big, fat powerboats. To us, The Fitzcarraldo was just about perfect in all ways, so in May of 2007 we moved aboard.




We were quick to realize the beauty of a sailboat, so it didn't take us long to try and sell the Fitz. We loved that boat, but it just wasn't what we were looking for.

It didn't take long. A woman from the west coast called - she and her boyfriend were moving out to Boston and they LOVED the Fitz. They'd do whatever it took to get her. It took a bit of shuffling, but we finally agreed upon things and Dave and Christina were the proud new owners!

I'm making this story longer than I intended, but I don't want to miss anything...

Very quickly, Dave and Christina grew to be some of our very best friends. They've been aboard the Fitz ever since the sale, but as it is, they too outgrew the small box-of-a-boat. And then, a couple of months ago, they were also given a fantastic opportunity to move aboard a larger boat. The boat needed some major fixing up, but Dave suspected it'd be ready for habitation by April or May if he got to work immediately. And work he did. Day in and day out, Dave was on that boat fixing things up.

And here we are. It's April now, and Dave is moving their things aboard the new (soon to be named) boat. And how does that play into everything for us?

Well, the Fitz is now nearly unoccupied. And being the wonderful friends that they are, Dave and Christina offered for us to live on it until we get the Creekmore in the water this upcoming fall.

So there you go folks. After working our butts off to move off of the Fitz and onto Madrigal, then working our butts to move off of Madrigal and onto the Creekmore, we've come full circle for a few moments in our life to re-appreciate the good ol' Fitzcarraldo.



Phew. Sorry to be so long winded. I know it could have been told with a bit less detail, but I thought it'd be fun to include it all. I have to be honest - I was initially dreading the move back to the Fitz. I thought it was such a step down (only because we had already moved on from that boat, and for no other reason). But then it got me thinking about the things that we used to love about that boat - the big fridge! The freezer! The stand-in shower! And Dave put a lot of time into the Fitz, so the floors are all new, the head is renovated, and some of the gross stuff that we never bothered with because we were clueless got taken care of while under their ownership. We think it's going to be fun for Ivy, once she figures out that the Fitz is "home". We're going to clear out the main salon and really keep it as open as possible so that she really has a good amount of room to play. I think it will actually be easier to babyproof than Madrigal. And Willie loved that boat. Oh man, he really loved that boat.

Wind

It's been incredibly windy here in Boston this winter. Which is not to say that the wind is an unusual visitor in the winters, it's just that I've noticed extra windy days this year.

It seems that people's shrink wrap is not holding up as well this year as a result. We even have our first ever wind-related hole in our wrap (not detrimental - only about a 10 inch gap or so) from all this stinkin' wind. Thankfully the tarps on the Creekmore are holding up well, and Justin goes down frequently to check on them.

Anyway, it's currently blowing like stink out there and it reminded me that I took a few pictures last week when we had such a blow. It's hard to *see* the wind but I took a few pictures of the damage.

Bill's shrink wrap goes up...

And down.

That's a big hole up top. They ended up tearing off the wrap later that day.

Dock carts were smashing into the boat next to us. Ugh. New paint job too. At least they have some spare touch-up paint.

Together in Motion

Lately we can tell that Ivy has been feeling downright cooped up. Crap. That's totally my fault. I'm a homebody and if it were up to me, I would only leave the marina a couple of times a month, aside from walking the dog, playing outside, etc.

But Ivy seems to love being social, she loves being in new places, she loves new toys and new things to look at. So, instead of driving her batty for the rest of the winter, I stepped up to the plate and we've started getting out and about.

Once a week, we go to the library. We initially were going to the library on the North End, but the walk isn't entirely pleasant and it's also much further than the library in town. It also seems like they've made a fair bit of changes to the children's room since I was last up there (for a job interview, haha!) and it's rather pleasant now. Hooray! It's been fun for me because I'm re-remembering all of the children's books and authors that I once knew and loved so deeply. It's not like I've forgotten about those books, but some of the details have been lost with time. There's also something so much more magical about a loved book when you can share it with your daughter, even if she is just trying to eat the pages.

Once a week, we go swimming. We were taking Ivy to swimming lessons but those are done now so we're going to the pool here at the marina. She love love loves it and it's so fun to take her in.

Our newest excursion took place this week, when I realized that we still weren't getting her out quite enough. I did a fair bit of scouring before I came up with Together in Motion. TiM is an indoor gymnasium type of place but during certain times they set up blocks and things for kids to play with. The group we took her to was for ages 0-24 months, so it really was perfect for her with being right in the middle. Most of the kids were right around her age, so she fit right in. We were there for just over an hour and man, that kid had a blast. Admission was $6 and it was well worth the cost. We had to drive to get there, so Justin has to come with us (I don't drive) but we both had fun watching her.




And the pictures don't show it, but she was playing with a couple of kids and did great. She was inquisitive but slightly apprehensive with the other kids. I'm glad we're able to get her around others her age and hope that we'll be able to find the time to take her here nearly every week until we move to Weymouth, because I do think that socialization is important, especially since I do stay home with her instead of sending her off to daycare.

We've also been able to keep her busier at the marina. When we take Willie for walks, we're finally able to set her down and she'll walkstumbletrip her way along so that she can throw Willie's toy to him. She lets out a shill scream as she's going for it and another as she tries to whip it. It generally lands about an inch away from her feet, but Willie is generally pretty good with acting excited and he'll pick it up and let her do it again. Good dog, Willie.


Lastly, we decided to clean out the cockpit and let her play out there. Supervised, of course. This new play area has been fantastic for her (and for us) and has really seemed to break up the monotony of staying at home. She has an entirely different set of toys out there, the shrinkwrap keeps the area incredibly warm, and it's almost like she's surrounded by a huge table to set her toys on. She seems to really dig it.




So yes. Ivy may be getting a bit tired of living on a tiny boat in the winter in Boston harbor, but we're doing much better with things now and are enjoying ourselves immensely.