Hello and welcome to all our recent blog followers! Since arriving in Virginia, we have met some wonderful new people (while staying 6ft apart) who have inquired about life on Story Time. Considering I started this blog four years ago, I thought we were due for a re-introduction. Here are a few questions I’ve gotten over the past few weeks:
- How long have you been living aboard and how many kids do you have?
- We have been living aboard Story Time for 3.5 years. She is a 2002 Catalina 380 and used to be called At Last. We bought the boat in New Bern, NC and moved it down to Camp Lejeune. During the past three years, we had our two kids, a girl ‘W’, and a new baby boy, ‘R’, while living aboard full-time.
- Why is your boat called ‘Story Time’?
- I am an author. I have two books out right now that were published by The Wild Rose Press in 2018 and 2019. You can read more about Cloaked and Sonder Village here! It was also a fitting name because we have kids onboard. We plan on making and telling a lot of adventurous stories on this boat.
- What do you write?
- I write mostly women’s fiction, sometimes with a hint of fantasy. I am halfway through a draft right now, but it has been on hiatus since summer due to the whole ‘giving birth’ thing, then moving states + getting out of the Marine Corps. It has been a busy few months! I’m about to pick it back up any day now, as soon as I get the motivation…any day now…
- What’s your endgame with the boat?
- We will head down to the USVI in the near future. COVID changed a lot of plans, but we will still end up in the Caribbean.
- Where do you put everything? Where does everybody sleep?
- We have embraced the minimalist lifestyle, so most of what we own is on the boat. We do have a small storage unit for Conor’s military gear and our seasonal wardrobes. Our boat has two separate ‘bedrooms’. Our daughter is in the v-berth, while baby, me, Conor, and Scout are in the aft cabin. We all have doors that close, thank god. Eventually the kids will share the v-berth.
- How often do you sail?
- Not as much as we would like. In North Carolina, we tried to leave our slip at least once or twice per month. Our 10-day trip up to Virginia was our longest trek to date. We are very excited to rack up some nautical miles this summer on the Chesapeake though!
- Do you plan to do this forever?
- Nope! We LOVE living aboard, our boat, and the opportunities it has brought us, but Conor put a firm 10-year deadline on this plan. Our dream is to keep the boat, but also have a house with a large kitchen one day. This lifestyle gives our kids an incredible childhood—wild and free—while also giving us the financial flexibility to travel. When the time comes, I want W and R to use the boat to go have their own adventures as they enter adulthood.
Anything else you’re wondering about? Please put it in the comments or shoot me an email on our contact page! I am happy to help, especially if you are thinking about a major lifestyle shift along these lines. Tiny homes, RV’s, minimalism with kids—I wanna hear about it! I’m also planning to revamp the layout of the blog in the coming weeks. I never thought it would have so many entries!
Love,
Taylor, Conor, W, and R
Cannons to Cruising 