Paul and I have been preparing to live aboard Moonshadow for about 5 years now and we have successfully been living aboard for 6 months now. Life is great! Over the past 5 years we have gone through many steps. Our first step, besides buying the boat, was deciding that we want to do offshore passages.  We joined the Caribbean 1500 in 2010.  We had a great trip.  Once we got down to Tortola, we had to put the boat on the hard and fly home to work.  During the winter months Paul and I both decided that we wanted to move aboard and start cruising.  So, we flew down at the end of April to bring Moonshadow back to Maryland in the Atlantic Cup 2011.  At this time my left shoulder kept dislocating, so therefore we decided I should take care of this before we move aboard.  I had the surgery in June of 2011.  Our summer was pretty shot.

During the summer we put our house up for sale and started down sizing everything.  We had a large building with a 3 bedroom house in the front and two 1 bedroom apartments in the back.  We bought a shed and we were lucky enough to be able to put at Paul's brother, Tony, house.  You never quite realize how much stuff you end up with over time.  We gave lots of things away to friends and family.  The rest we packed up in the shed.  Now it was time to fix the building up.  By November we had an offer and by March we finally sold the building.

In the meantime we also decided to do a major refit to Moonshadow with MRP Refit.  We had to take everything out of Moonshadow.  I mean everything!  Which we ended up putting into a trailor because we were in the process of saling the house.  Next we proceeded to remove all plumbing, wires, starboard fuel tank, generator, engine, and replacing it with all new.  You can see this in our photo ablum Moonshadow Refit 2012.

It was an entense year, but by June 2012 Moonshadow splashed in the water and we began to fill her back up with everything.  During the summer and fall we stayed on the Cheasepeake Bay getting ready for the Caribbean 1500.  We had a few bugs to work out, however we had a great trip down and have been enjoying the BVI'S since.  It was totally worth the last year and half of hard work to get here!

Friends and family, please follow us on trip from Hampton, Va to Tortola, British Virgin Islands. We left on November 3, 2012, and our trip is going to take 8 to 14 days.

Once again we are going to have crew.  This time we have two of our good friends, Drew Brown & Jim Keiling, will be joining us. They have both been sailing for multiple years and have done offshore passages.  Now that Moonshadow has had an extensive refit, it should be a great time!

Moonshadow is a Tayana, Vancouver 42 foot sailboat. She is a semi-custom yacht with a haul number of 145. She draws 6 foot and weighs about 36,000 pounds. She has a shower, refrigeration, freezer, 3 burner stove, water maker, generator, auto pilot, solar panels, wind generator, plus much more to have a comfortable and safe passage.

You will be able to track our location on via 'Track Us' in the top menu.  As of right now there are 20 boats signed up for this cruising rally. The boats on this trip range from 33 feet to 78 feet long.

Thanks for following us!