Hello! Thanks for checking us out! We are Dave and Jill!
Two adventurer’s who love to travel and experience new things. I think it is probably best to start at the beginning of our story.
Dave and I met in the winter of 2012. On our first date, we hit it off immediately with our connection over travel, experiencing new things, and love of adventure. Our first year together we traveled somewhere new almost every month. Including our first sailing trip together. Dave had sailed before and owned a small sailboat several years prior. This was my first sailing experience and I was hooked.
Over the next couple of years, we continued to travel, bought a plane, and a 35′ Motor yacht. In April of 2014, we adopted our first dog together named Izzy. 
That fall we got engaged and early that spring we started flying flights for Pilots For Paws. A great organization that helps needy dogs get to an adoption, surgery, etc. All done via volunteers flying planes transporting them. Check them out they are a great organization. O.k. Sorry where was I?
We bought our first house together in March of 2015 and bareboat sailed the Greek Isles in May. We learned even more on our sailing trip to the Greek Isles. Especially, how much we loved sailing and being on the water. We enjoyed sailing so much more than the Motor yacht we had. We started talking about selling it and sailing full time when we retired. After our wedding in the November of 2015, we took our honeymoon on another sailboat charter. This boat was named honeymoon suite.
We had the best honeymoon ever and knew this was for us long-term. It’s funny when I think back to when we met. I loved how much life Dave had in him and often wondered if I could keep up with him. He said that he loved that I was up for anything, I didn’t have any preconceived notions, and always had a positive attitude about life.
Well, a year would go by and on our first anniversary, we headed back to the BVI’s for another sailing week with family to celebrate. We found that more and more all of our vacations were becoming sailing trips and decided to start looking for a sailing boat. We started talking about making this life a reality before we retired.
Finding a Boat and a New Addition
First, we had to find a boat. we looked at boats for over a year and even had a contract on one but the survey revealed way more work than we wanted to do at the time. Then at the end of 2017, we found her. along with another puppy. Yep just after Thanksgiving, we would adopt Sadie our other pup on board. (We had two cats, one that Izzy was very attached to, and due to health issues they had been put down a few months prior. Izzy was devastated and just moped around the house looking for her buddy. So, we thought it would be a good idea to get her another friend). 
At the beginning of December, we put a contract on the boat sight unseen. Dave had done hours of research on the boat and thought if she was in good shape we could deal with some of the issues that we had heard about. Dave flew to St. Augustine for the survey and took loads of videos and pictures to bring back and share with me. He immediately said he thought I would love it, that it was perfect for us.
Dave and I went over the survey, the pictures, and the major issues and decided it was going to work out so we pulled the trigger and closed on her on January 12, 2018.
We had to have a few major issues dealt with before bringing her home to Galveston. Once all the work was done she arrived via Captain Bill on March 31, 2018.
Selling it All
While we were waiting for the boat to arrive we decided to meet with a realtor to possibly put the house on the market later that summer if it was a good idea. She told us due to the very low amount of non-damaged homes due to Hurricane Harvey. It would be best if we put the house up in April at the latest. She said we would make the most money and if we waited people may not be looking by then, as much as they are now. We talked it over and couldn’t possibly imagine how we could get it ready for the market, sell everything we own, or almost everything.
Not a lot fits on a boat, and we had to not only sell but go through everything we had collected over the years. To be honest, it was a lot but I was probably the driving force because I just knew we could do it. It would be stressful, but worth it in the end. It is a very freeing feeling. Lucky for us we have a great family and they helped us out whenever they could, especially for the big garage sales that we had. It was down to the wire but we did it and closed on the house and moved full time on the boat on May 24, 2018.
We spent the next few months completing major upgrades and at the end of August, we left Galveston for our first major sail of 5 days to Panama City, Florida. It was both Dave and I’s first taste of night sailing and longer passage sailing. It was a great trip!
We are full-time liveaboards now, and I would love to have you follow along on our adventures. Pop on over to the blog to see where we are today.
