11 years ago, Randy and I made a decision that would greatly change and impact our lives for the better. We purchased a 1974 Defever Passagemaker trawler and quickly learned that life would never be the same. A wonderful world opened up for us as we lived aboard our boat full time and cruised all over Southwest Florida, the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas. We lived aboard our trawler, Blue Turtle, for 9.5 years while working full time and raising our son. I even ran my graphic/web design business from the boat for the majority of the time I had it. We embraced living minimally, selling most of our stuff and moving everything we owned onto the boat. We never even had a storage unit until we sold the trawler and had to wait on the sailboat to close. It turns out that living below our means all those years actually allowed us both to retire early and cruise full time.

In 2021, we sold our trawler and purchased a 1978 CSY Walkover sailboat, which we also named Blue Turtle. In April 2022, we began cruising full-time along the eastern coast of the U.S. with plans to (hopefully) explore the Bahamas this winter. Cruising full time without a home port definitely has its own set of challenges and I can’t say that living aboard has been all sunsets, rainbows and cocktails, but we couldn’t think of life any other way. The experiences we’ve had with our family and friends and the amazing people we’ve met along our journey is what makes this lifestyle so incredibly amazing!

I began pulling photos of our journey over the last 11 years and ended up with over 350 images (and I was being selective!). We have so many amazing memories from our live aboard journey, I decide to throw them into a video slideshow. Hope you enjoy the walk down memory lane in the video. To those who’ve been with us from the beginning and even those who’ve just started following, THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts!!!

Past living aboard anniversary posts

• Blue Turtle crew celebrates 10 years living aboard
• 9 Years living aboard! Blue Turtle then & now
• Celebrating 8 years living aboard
• Celebrating 7 years living aboard our trawler
• Blue Turtle crew celebrates 6 years living aboard
• Celebrating 5 years living aboard – reflections and observations
• Four years living aboard!
• Third year living aboard recap
• Celebrating 2 years of living aboard
• Celebrating 1 year living aboard!