Moving Aboard

We have done it…yeah, but was it worth all the trauma of downsizing from a boutique Bed and Breakfast business, a job that I loved, managing the Maritime Museum of Tasmania to move from our cosy home to a yacht…only time will tell. My partner in crime, Ann Maree (AMOB) has also experienced the trauma of this move and no doubt our children Claire (16), Alec (3 ½) and Lucas (10months) have felt it too.

I guess the best way I can describe our past year culminating in the crescendo of feverish activity during the last 8 weeks is that of being pregnant, and giving birth. The fun part was in the early stages, playing with the idea, then came the stark reality of making all the life changes necessary and then the build up with the expected final experience, never enjoyed and very painful,  before the joy of seeing for the first time a new raw life, with its many new responsibilities and unknown factors.

As a friend noted, “This is like carrying a cargo first class nitro glycerine around”, the ingredients were there to make a big bang and we certainly had our explosion in the days before moving aboard!

Buying a boat and sailing away into the sunset would seem an easy task. We thought of building a new fast cruising yacht to our own specifications, but having gone down that path before I have no illusions about the time, cost and difficulty and juggling all the competing responsibilities of jobs, friends and kids in our lives ruled out this option.

So we bought a second hand yacht that had been cruised extensively and just needed a little refitting. When dealing with boats that there is no such a word as “a little”. What usually happens and certainly happened in our case, is that “a little” refitting, turned into a big and costly exercise. We have however been rewarded with the end result and our Stuart 47 yacht Ocean Child certainly shines brighter for the effort. The yacht feels more like our own now, as many of the renovations have changed her appearance, whilst other work such as the rewiring and sewerage treatment system are behind the scenes and will not be outwardly noticed. A full list of the jobs completed is in the Vessel section of our website. As mentioned at the end of the delivery trip “The Story so far” AMOB had her list

and priorities and I had mine, somehow we had to manage the changes together and this took a lot of discussion and decision making. AMOB took charge of the house downsizing and her mum, Elizabeth travelled over Bass Strait from Melbourne to assist in organisation the garage sales and packing. Elizabeth could have been with us for longer as her help was invaluable, in dealing with Alec and Lucas and preparing the “For Sale” items. But we managed on and during September and October AMOB packed, and cleaned the house.

Check out chick.

Every item needed a decision and every item has a window to you memory, so this packing was very time consuming and stressful, particularly with two small and one not so small children at your constant beck and call.

I managed to fortunately become redundant from my job at the end of August, and threw myself into the job of refitting before the expected move onboard late in October. There is never enough time to do everything and moving onboard with a month of small shakedown cruises in November seemed the best solution for our family and Ocean Child. The timing of this plan would be tight and would not entirely suit Claire who is finishing year 10. She was positive about it all however and looked forward to moving into a flatette with a friend, under her friend’s parent’s house. Claire managed brilliantly cleaning her room and assisting AMOB in cleaning and packing our house.

I have been completing my Master V qualification with the Australian Maritime College in Launceston and Seafood Training in Hobart during the year and it didn’t assist matters that the final module for this course coincided with our last week of moving. AMOB was not impressed and after a week of dealing with the move alone exploded with plates of food and various items being hurled around the kitchen. I gathered up the two small children and went for a long drive.