Why?

As we say about our motorcycles, "If you have to ask... you wouldn't understand"!   The above quote pretty much explains it all!

However, to answer the question I'll explain how the idea came about.  In June, 2009 we were vacationing with friends in Hawaii.  On some of the most beautiful beaches of Hawaii were tents with homeless people living in them.  We thought, "Wow!  If that's how homeless people live, we need a tent"!  After returning home, we kept thinking about the homeless people in Hawaii.  We didn't really want to live in a tent, but the idea of living in a tropical area and having no debt to tie us down was really appealing.  We've always been frugal people, and have lived with the idea that debt and "keeping up" were not the key to happiness.  However, with both of us in the home industry our incomes dropped dramatically in 2007-2009 (and still), and we found ourselves working full-time just to scrape by.  So, thoughts of the homeless in Hawaii grew into thoughts of  doing something similar. 

We were at a good friend's home, (Ted who lives on  a sailboat), one evening and he was telling us his hopes to eventually sail his boat out of Louisiana and to Jamaica or Mexico one day.  He spoke of being able to "anchor out" and the ability to sail from one place to another.  The wheels in our head started spinning, and in the following days we knew what we wanted to do.  The thought of living/traveling on a sailboat and "anchoring out" had never really occurred to us before.  We've seen sailboats in waterways, but just never really thought about them staying there for nights at a time at no charge. 

The internet is an amazing source of information, and after doing a little research we were definitely hooked.  So many stories of cruisers traveling the tropics and loving life!  We had no idea just how large the cruising community was.  One of the first sites we came across was Patrick and Ali's Bumfuzzle, and their story really inspired us.  (However, our budget won't allow a catamaran and we won't be sailing around the world - just coastal cruising).  We're confident that we'll meet many interesting people, see beautiful new places, and spend a lot less than we are now going to work everyday and cramming errands into the weekends.  So, why cruising?  Why not?!   It will be a lot cheaper than our landlubber life, and a lot more adventurous too!