The giant jigsaw puzzle

So how did we get to this point? How much time have you got?!

In a nutshell, this dream started materializing in September 2021. Nine months later, all the pieces miraculously came together. 

We have some big puzzlers in our family. So, I’m likening the last nine months to completing a huge jigsaw puzzle. Imagine how you find the edges first to create the framework. This involved asking tons of questions (and sometimes identifying the right questions to ask) and lots of research (thank you to Garret & Flora, as well as Google and YouTube!) to learn how to solve for everything. Conor, of course, was researching boats and skipper licenses and geography, etc. I was asking the more mundane life-related things like how do we find doctors, handle our mail, do laundry at sea, get haircuts (ok, really how do I keep hiding my grays?!), find gluten free foods, etc, etc. 

Once we knew what we needed to know, it was time to start filling in the interior puzzle pieces. From the time Conor and I were first dating all those years ago, he held a simple mantra – Where there’s a will, there’s a way. It just takes figuring it out. So off we set.

Have you ever bought a car sight unseen over the internet? We have. Have you ever bought a house by viewing it online to remember what you saw months prior? We have. Why should a boat be any different?! We took a trip to Lisbon, Portugal in November 2021 to see a Lagoon 440 catamaran that Conor had identified as a great option online. If we liked it in person, we’d sign the deal. In short, there was no deal. We still had a fabulous first time in Lisbon with dear friends Ava & David and saw some different type boats and learned what we’d prefer more. Back home, Conor was scouring the Mediterranean to find a Bali 4.1. We loved the open design, the large convertible salon area (because of a really cool ‘garage door’), the great space, etc. He found one available in Tivat, Montenegro and this time we used a broker. Totally use a broker! Holidays, an Omicron Covid variant, a Russian-Ukrainian war and several months later, we finally closed on the boat, sight unseen. 

April arrives and we visit Montenegro for the first time. The boat was real! Thank goodness. And, in fabulous condition. I think Conor let out the largest sigh of relief on record. We spent a few days with an instructor to learn all of her systems and how to sail her in particular. Then we visit every shop in Tivat to try and begin outfitting her, outside and in. We also settle on her new name. 

Back home, we devise our plan and enter into serious implementation mode. We have two months to make it all happen! Clean out the entire house (our neighbors were loving me on BuyNothing!), rent out the house, sell our cars, cancel utilities, shop like crazy (for all the things we can’t find in Montenegro, which is a lot), shop for new wardrobes, visit all of our doctors, figure out health insurance, set up our nomadic mail service, order stickers for the boat along with boat cards and a boat stamp, download Google Translate along with several languages, make lots of travel arrangements, organize credit cards with no foreign transaction fees, set up a banking service for wiring money in Euros, get another round of Covid booster shots, load up the Kindle with books… shall I go on?! Yes, the list was endless and we were finishing things up all the way to the very second our dear friend, Katie, arrived to take us to the airport. 

If you’re ever tempted to give this lifestyle a try or you’re simply just curious, feel free to visit our Contact page and send us your questions! Happy to share what we’ve learned along the way so far. Or, just get in touch to say “hi!”