Becoming a Sailor

27 posts

Packing up and moving

Packing Up and Moving describes how we transitioned from life in a house to a life on a St Francis 50 catamaran. The blog posts in this sub-category covers the pure chaos of downsizing to being able to reflect back and provide some lessons learned and checklists.

  1. Long-Term Storage While Traveling: Is It Worth the Cost?

    Eleven years of paying to store a piano, furniture and a snow blower while we sail: what went wrong, and questions to ask before renting a unit.

  2. Moving Aboard a Sailboat: The 4 Checklists We Wish We’d Had

    Our checklists for moving from a house to a sailboat: medical and dental prep, selling the house and car, storage, downsizing, paperwork, homeschooling.

  3. CBC Radio Interview with Stu Mills: Listen to the Audio

    Listen to the MP3 of our first CBC Radio interview, recorded with Stu Mills, who kindly sent us the audio file after the segment had aired.

  4. House to Boat: How We Downsized, Stored and Shipped Our Gear

    Moving a family of six from house to boat: selling beds and the van, a basement storage room, scanning every paper, and shipping gear to Florida.

  5. Living in a Campground Before Sailing Away: A Family of Six

    Living in a campground for weeks before we sailed: an 8-person tent, morning campfires, refit phone calls, and four kids running in all directions.

  6. CBC Radio Visit: How Our Sailing Plans Became a News Story

    CBC Radio's Stu Mills found us through our ad selling our camping gear, then came to our Ottawa campsite to hear our plans to move aboard a catamaran.

  7. Camping Solo With 4 Kids: Mama Bear Mode in Ottawa

    A week camping alone with our four kids while Rick worked on our catamaran refit, and what solo bike-camping in California taught me about vigilance.

  8. Canada Day in Ottawa: Celebrating in a Campground

    What Canada Day in Ottawa is like on Parliament Hill, the best spot to watch the fireworks, and our last Canada Day at home before we sailed away in 2015.

  9. Moving from House to Boat: Our Family Camping Gap Month

    We handed our house keys to tenants and moved our four kids into a tent at an Ottawa-area campground before moving aboard. Night one: a downpour.

  10. Shipping Gear from Canada to the USA for Our Boat

    We shipped 11 boxes, 418 pounds, on a pallet from Ogdensburg, NY to our catamaran in Florida for $541.70 CAD using My US Address. What we packed.