Bittersweet. It’s always that way when you leave a place you love for another place you love. But after four and half years in Southwest Florida, with two and a half years living aboard, we couldn’t help but want MORE. 

We Want More!

Living on a boat at a marina isn’t a bad way of life by any means. In fact, we bought our first boat, Wiffersnapper, knowing she’d just be a big “dock queen.” And that was great for the first year as liveabords. But like most boaters, we’d rather be off the dock, out on the water, actually boating. That’s why we purchased RumHaven, so we could get out and explore! 

It wasn’t until after the wedding that we could actually focus on getting RumHaven ready for that type of exploration and regular cruising. So we set ourselves a deadline because we know that if you wait until everything’s perfect, you’ll never leave. It took us 6 months, but that’s not too bad considering all we went through. 

Boat Yard Junkies

In three months we made 4 trips to the boat yard. Anyone who’s been to the boatyard knows you don’t escape for less than a grand.

Trip #1 – Removed the old (500lb) generator, installed the new generator
Trip #2 – Removed the new generator to replace the rotten board, removed sinking swim platform, got bottom paint while hauled out
Trip #3 – Reinstalled new generator
Trip #4 – Reattached swim platform 

Will Hard At Work

Thousands of dollars later, we finally had everything back attached to the boat, with only a week to spare. Will was a champ with project management. There were many times I’d come home to tools spread out all over the salon and impeding into the galley.

He dissembled and reassembled our new big red generator, got the smaller generator to work, installed our new beastly inverter, and finished the solar wiring, amongst other things. 

Tiff Hard At Work

I was the keeper of the to-do and to-buy lists. We ordered everything from bike locks, to cat food, to wifi extenders, and also picked up things from Walmart that I knew would be less accessible in the keys where there is no Walmart, but there is Publix and Home Depot. Most importantly there’s West Marine, where we spend most of our time anyways.

The Cats Hard At Work

The cats were put to work, helping with the bow sun-pad, a project we tried to outsource, but couldn’t stand to spend another $2k on. So, as much as I hate sewing projects, I took on this one for the team (and only cried once and quit four times.)

In the end, we got ‘er done and were able to test them out with a nice sunset the evening before we left Fort Myers Beach.

Here’s our Farewell to Fort Myers Beach video blog!