In case you haven’t heard, we sold our company. Over the past year we have been working with the new owners to take things over. Shannon still does a little training (school administrator training) and accounting for the company, but for the most part the new owners are doing most everything and they are doing great. We will continue to work with the new owners to ensure their success.

Our Blowing Rock house is on the market (to help pay for our adventure). You can check out the listing here.

Makenzie is enjoying her freshman year at Appalachian State University. Currently she is in the middle of sorority rush events.

Ella is a senior at Watauga High. By taking a few online classes over the past year she was able to skip her junior year entirely. She is getting ready to submit applications to Duke, NC State, and a few universities in Florida.

Addie is in 7th grade at Blowing Rock Elementary. She is excited about our sailing adventure as long as we have internet and she can visit her friends occasionally.  A lot of people she meets are jealous that she gets to be “boat schooled”. She started a bakery business this summer but we have pretty much stopped taking orders since she started back to school. It was a lot of fun to do this summer, though!

Caper and Chance are spending a lot of time at their friend Lin’s house as we travel to boat shows, look at boats, etc.   Lin spoils them, like letting them sleep in bed with her, so they really love going to doggie camp.

We (Shannon and Ashley) have been chartering boats for the past couple of years and have been taking sailing classes in order to confidently sail a large catamaran.

We made an offer on a 2017 Lagoon 450 F!

We really love this model (learn more about it here). It has 2 cabins on the port side, each with an en suite with their own full showers. It has an owner’s suite on the starboard side with tons of room and storage and, of course, a big en suite. It has a forward cockpit (sitting area), a huge aft cockpit, and our favorite sitting area – a flybridge. The flybridge is also the helm station and offers great visibility. There is quite a bit of debate among cruisers regarding the flybridge. There are a couple of drawbacks (such as not being a part of the aft cockpit and being exposed to weather on your way to/from the flybridge), but over 95% of the time we are going to love this particular feature. Those who have the flybridge model overwhelmingly love them.

The cat we made an offer on was practically a brand new boat last summer (2017). It was in at least one hurricane (Irma or Maria). As a result of the hurricane it was dismasted though. It has since been completely restored. However, due to receiving hurricane damage and the fact that the owners have purchased a larger boat, we were able to quickly get a like-new boat with our list of requirements.

It is currently docked in Fort Lauderdale. It gets surveyed on Sept 26th and we take it out for a sea trial. Barring any unforeseen issues, we will close on it sometime during the first two weeks of October.

If we purchase this cat, we will spend between October 2018 and at least June 2019 traveling back and forth between Blowing Rock and Fort Lauderdale getting it ready for full time cruising and getting it ready for living aboard.

The first week of October we will be at the boat show in Annapolis checking out the new models, but more importantly shopping for some new equipment and items for this Lagoon (we will know by the show if we decide to purchase it or not based on the survey).

We will update you after the survey/sea trial!