Two years living aboard Tranquility and voyaging on the ocean
Just recently we hit the 2 years or 730 days since we’ve been living aboard our tiny sailboat. I don’t remember the exact date we moved in.
This does not take in account the eight months we spent living and traveling on a primitive Tranquility before we settled in Coastal Georgia, where we moved back on land. That still belonged to a transformative process into full time cruisers.
It was the beginning of April 2016, when we left the apartment in Brunswick, GA where we lived for almost two years with Susan, our roommate and owner of the famous Tipsy McSways, and boarded a barely complete (will she ever be?) Tranquility at the Frederica Yacht Club.
Our Columbia 29 had been tied to the same dock for two years, patiently awaiting the end of all the modifications and tortures she received.
We moved from the comforts of a fully equipped house and the companionship of Susan and the band of house animals (in alphabetical order Beta, Betty White, Fluffy Butt, and Roxy) to the pokey interior of a sailboat and the constant presence of each other. Living aboard a second time was tough, as if those 2 years on land made us forget everything we knew about it.
The enthusiasm for something we waited for such a long time was somehow mitigated by the shock of the transition.
During the two years spent in the Frederica River, Tranquility almost became part of the marsh ecosystem, growing a thick and impervious beard around her underwater surface, harboring a very diverse collection of marine life. She also suffered the transition from long quiet to sudden movement.
We took the boat out of the water in St. Marys,GA to address this extraordinary growth and to complete many other projects that I left behind for lack of time. It was there, after going back into the water, that we officially re-started cruising and living aboard, embarking on a very slow voyage that still endures to date.
We celebrated with a Battlestar Galactica marathon while we were slowly adapting to our new house and lifestyle.
This 2 year anniversary will coincide with another haul out. We are taking arrangements for new bottom paint and a new topside coat for Tranquility, here on the Atlantic coast of Panama.
After two years of almost no boat work (there is no such a thing), we will tackle a couple of big projects that had been slowly taking form on the drawing board.
During the last longer passage from Bahamas to Panama we took note of a couple features to improve comfort during long offshore passages, both for living inside and in the cockpit. She will also get ready for less pleasant weather. You never know.
It is hard to believe how well we adapted to our scarce 200 sq feet of living space. We do enjoy very much when we have the opportunity of staying in hotel rooms or friends and family houses, with real bed, showers and bath tubs, broadband WiFi, huge kitchens with refrigerators and comfy sofas.
For some strange reasons, after a while immersed in such luxury we end up missing our tiny boat.
