Beginnings

Well here I am, 23 years old, poor, but with a dream. I love the water and always have. In fact I'm sure I'll die still loving the water. I love boating of all kinds as well. Everything from sailing to fishing, to powerboats, to trawlers I like them all. Sailing however has captured and held my dreams for nearly a decade. I grew up fairly land locked even though I was a native Floridian, born in Cocoa Beach. It wasn't until my sophomore year of high school while vacationing at a beach in North Carolina that I became infatuated with sailboats. Ever since a single magazine sparked my intrest it's been an obsession of mine to get a boat of my own.

When I got to Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida sailing became even more obsessive. I still didn't get to sail very often but the sheer amount of boats here was astounding. I ended up joining their student run search and rescue team which is a huge benefit for anybody in the Tampa Bay area. A free service ranging from out of gas, to tows, to groundings, boat fires, medical you name it. I gained a ton of experience about boats, worked on quite a few, outfitted a couple and generally had a good time. I met friends that loved to sail, took me out with them and kept my love alive. One of these friends eventually bought himself a nice 24ft offshore racing keelboat and spent a ton of time on it, even becoming quasi liveaboard. It was then that I really became interested in the prospect of living aboard.

A year later when I was pulled out of college due to my father's illness and our lack of funds the idea of slipping away on my own boat became of the few things that kept me going. After my father's death nearly a year after I left school I decided it was time to go back to Florida and chase my dream. Little did I know how expensive living on my own could be. I eventually got a job working for West Marine where I've made a bunch of contacts and met many great friends, but after yet another year without putting any true effort into my dream I figured enough was enough.

Today I took my first real steps towards purchasing a boat to live on. I opened a separate savings account into which I will put $100 a week (or 200 each pay check at least) towards a boat. I was actually amazed at how easy it is to open a savings account nowadays. A three minute phone conversation was all it took, and when the guy asked me how much I was going to deposit today, I replied 200. He quickly informed me that the minimum balance was 300 but they gave me 60 days to build up my account. In the back of my head I was thinking in 60 days I'll have around a grand in the bank. I left the bank feeling that I had finally taken a concrete step towards my dreams, it's almost like a huge weight off my shoulders to know that I'm finally trying to make it happen. It will probably take me at least a year to get enough saved up to buy a decent fixer upper, but as my friend always says, nothing worth having comes easy.