Previously on… We had left Roanoke Island in the early morning, heading south. While the sun rose and sent fractals of light glittering across the calm surface of the water, a pod of dolphins surrounded our boat and traveled with us for a little while, delighting us beyond measure. It sounds like a set-up to a perfectly pleasant day. Our luck never seems to last that long. Pamlico Sound Scaries Besides the dolphin encounter, the first half of the day was rather boring. We j

Previously on… There we were, sitting in the cockpit of our rollicking sailboat, a meteor having just streaked across the sky. The boat had rocked and rolled all night long, overwhelming us with nausea. The moment the sun peeked over the horizon, we took off, ready to leave this anchorage behind forever. Kadin set our course on the chart plotter, and began steering us south towards Norfolk, Virginia. As the sun climbed higher the wind receded, but the steady lope of the bo

The day Kadin and I decided to make our relationship official, he asked me what I thought about living on a sailboat. I put exactly zero thought into my answer and said I was totally down. Damned hormones. Fast-forward a year, and we were driving to the northernmost point of the Eastern Shore of Virginia to look at a nearly derelict sailboat. It had been sitting in dry storage for ten years. Dry is a misnomer. Although the fiberglass hull is solid, various bad spots on the de

Kadin and I had independently dreamt of seeing Machu Picchu, the mountain complex of Inca-era ruins in Peru. He wanted to hike the Inca Trail. I had grand ambitions of joining him. After loads of research, we eventually settled on an alternative, the Salkantay Trek. Although only a portion of this trek would include traveling along the Inca Trail, it would have the benefit of being less populated. And even better, we would be staying in permanent camps with solid buildings an

We were moving into Spring of 2021 and the Eviction Moratorium was ending in April. Since I had to cut power to the house to repair bad wiring at the meters and the rotted wall that the fasteners penetrated, I informed Sam and Sherry that they would need to leave the apartment soon. They were none too happy. On several occasions, over the past 6 months I let Sam and Sherry know that at some point I needed to terminate their month-to-month lease to start repairs and renovati

1) The very first day after signing the title of the house over we had a break-in. The back door of the triplex was broken open and the intruder went upstairs to the top apartment and completely shattered the heavy wooden door of the apartment. After entering, he destroy all the furniture left behind and the cabinets leaving smashed glass everywhere. I called the cops to document the break-in and they suggested that someone probably was looking for drugs that was stashed so

It was in the middle of Covid, the biggest social experiment in a lifetime, when we bought the property. This made the first order of operations difficult and to add to the frustrations the first day of owning the building we already had a break-in of the upstairs apartment. Probably someone looking for stashed drugs. We shook off the initial damage and focused on forming a plan. We needed to end the month-to-month lease with the inherited tenants so that we could start r

Back in 2015, we knew that we were taking a risk buying our house. Our side of town in East Burlington, NC used to be the original start of the city and a nice neighborhood to live in. However, as time went on and the textile industry boomed and died the jobs left and houses started to become neglected and run down. I'd like to stay that we were savvy buyers that researched the market thoroughly but really we were just looking for the cheapest deal and relied heavily on in

When we bought this house the garage was nearly unusable. It leaked through the roof so badly that pretty much anything we kept inside would become damaged. In addition, it was dark creepy and full of spiders. It was time to rebuild this thing. There will be a lot of pictures for this project. First step was to remove the siding to see what I would be looking at. The siding was rotten in so many places that I determined it was not salvageable. Once I got it down to the s

In an effort to beautify the house as cheaply as possible sometimes you come across a jackpot. Our friends Tom and Suzanne had a large house they were selling and they needed to let go of a lot of stored items. Among the items they had were two pallets of Airstone which is a synthetic stone veneer. Tom had bought the Stone to finish off the walls of their basement but were initially over zealous. Since they knew about my house remodeling projects, they decided to sell the

We've all seen the trend in recent years where individuals, couples, or friends build a tiny house, live in a van, or travel by sailboat and then vlog about their experiences on YouTube. I personally love it and I've followed quite a few channels where the creators explore the world and share what they see and how they live. This platform allows us nine-to-fivers to peer into a life that for so long seemed incomprehensible and it gives us a vague idea as how to replicate th

Sometimes opportunities come up and it's difficult to see them. Fortunately, I was able to see this one. Renovating the house is something that takes a lot of time and money so when there is a way to cut some expense and still get good results I try to take advantage of it. Downtown in Burlington, NC where we live there was an old warehouse that was being demolished. Interestingly enough, Savannah worked at one time for the company that was contracted to do the demolition

The roads are finally all passable a few weeks after Hurricane Florence hit the North Carolina shore. I knew our boat had survived because I had gotten pictures from Russ the owner of the slip. However, I needed to look in the boat and make sure that it had not taken on too much water and that the bilge pumps continued to perform. As I headed out I realized that there were many who experienced quite a bit of loss. Don, a friend of ours, has a home right in Oriental that wa

We knew it was going to happen at some point and now we are in the middle of riding out our first hurricane. Our boat is sitting in a private slip in Oriental, NC. While this town only has a population of 900 people it is the center of the sailing universe in NC. Nestled in the mouth of the Neuse river where it opens into the Pamlico sound, Oriental offers good protection and easy access to major waterways. We discovered Oriental on our way back to NC after we purchased our

Even though we were living in the house we needed to get started on projects. One project that was dear to our hearts was fixing the downstairs bathroom. We were sleeping in a downstairs bedroom but every time we needed to use the restroom or take a shower we had to use the upstairs bathroom. Our downstairs bathroom was a complete disaster. The floor was completely rotted and unlevel by several inches. So by employing 20 ton bottle jacks I leveled the floor and added new

Sometimes I bite off a little more than I can chew. Fixing up the sailboat is not the only thing left. Although, we wanted to cast off the lines and roam the seas till we are too weak and feeble, we needed a little bit more financial security to make things flow better. So just before we got married we decided to buy a house. This is not only to build equity but to hopefully rent out the house and to have a passive income stream to continue our adventures. While tempting

Back in 2014, I was in my little office looking at YouTube and I came across SVDelos. I am sure that most people in the sailing community have watched at least one of their videos. I was completely mesmerized by their lives. At that time there wasn't a ton of videos that they had uploaded so it was easy to start from the beginning of Bryan and Brady's adventures and binge with a healthy jealousy. Soon, I had run out of video content and I needed more to feed my appetite.

Doing an inventory on everything on the sailboat and then deciding what is salvageable and what is not. We soon realize that less is salvageable than we hoped. We bought this sailboat on the cheap. We were expecting there were going to be things that we needed to fix. My anticipation of projects far underestimated what we were going to have to do to make this boat seaworthy again. Here are a few pictures of what the boat looked like when we first stepped in.

“We bought a sailboat.” “This is crazy. You know this is crazy right?” “Do you think we can call her and tell her we changed our minds?” “WE BOUGHT A SAILBOAT.” “What was I thinking.” “Babe, we own a sailboat.” “This is crazy.” And that was just Kadin. We took a walk around the boat one more time, Kadin inspected some questionable spots with the Marina Owner and asked his opinion on repairs, while me, my mom and the boat owner, Heather, muddled around and made small talk. I t