Our cozy sailboat home.

Welcome to our humble abode! :)))

This is home. Sailing vessel LAHO. Pronounced la-hoe, like ta-hoe. She’s a 1982 37-foot Endeavour B Plan sailboat. And we couldn’t love her more!!!!!!!! Our boat really has just about everything we could want or need (minus a watermaker…and washing machine if I’m really dreaming big). And we are loving life traveling on our floating home from island to island in the Caribbean.

Sooooooo…^^this^^ is where we live. Is it what you expected?  I’m so curious what people envision when they picture how we live on our boat.

You can pretty much see the entire interior of our boat in this one photo, lol. But I couldn’t possibly post just one measly photo. ;)) And speaking of photos, these were all taken on my little >>Canon G12 digital camera<< because the camera/lens is more accomodating to shooting in such tight quarters.

Back to our home…

Don’t get me wrong…there are definitely things we don’t always love SO much or wish we had aboard our sailing vessel, but she’s perfectly cozy and just right for us. At least for now. You can read all about her technical specs >>here<< but this post is really out the inside of our home!  You know, the fun stuff! ;))

Early on in planning this crazy dream of ours, I told Jereme that a major deal breaker for me would be to live on a boat that wasn’t comfortable or didn’t feel like a home. Call me crazy, but I definitely do not want to live anywhere for a year or two that doesn’t feel good. It might be my crazy creative side, but I need our home to feel like a home…to be clean, cozy, organized, and somewhat pretty. And creative. And colorful. My list is sorta long I guess. Lol. And Jereme, being the super smart guy he is, had no problem with me decorating the boat exactly how I wanted…as long as I kept things functional (such the engineer…function over form, always.) ;))

After leaving our rather comfortable three-bedroom, two-bath home in Naples, Florida and moving aboard our 37-foot sailboat back in March, we didn’t waste any time getting acquainted with “life aboard” and simply cut the docklines and took off for our adventure through the Caribbean. We literally finished up our >>massive project list<< and moved aboard in all of 2 days.

Once we left Naples, we stopped first in the Keys, and then headed straight over to the Bahamas, where we sailed from Bimini, to the Berry Islands, and through the Exumas. We’re headed to the Turks + Caicos, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico next, and then down through the eastern Caribbean!!!

We’ve been living on our sailboat for about two months now and have really adjusted quite well. Although, I will say it took us a few weeks to get situated and to really truly find a place for everything on the boat. When we first left the dock in Naples, we had water jugs lining the floor in the main cabin, a huge cardboard box full of liqour bottles, a quarter berth packed to the brim with cases of beer. You get the picture.

But now, it’s home!!!

Here’s the best floor plan drawing I could find online of the Endeavour 37 to give you a lay of the land…

In the main cabin (think living room) there is a pullout settee (couch) on the starboard side and a regular settee on the port side. There’s storage behind and under both settees that we are currently using for tools, canned goods, and dry pantry-type goods.

There is also a full-size foldout table that folds down and expands outward. Our 100-gallon water tank sits under the floorboards right where the throw rugs are in the main living area.

We’ve never actually used either the microwave or television in the photo above. They came with the boat, and we haven’t ditched em just yet…but maybe one day we will decide to use them or give them away, who knows?

I really wanted our boat to feel like home and us, so I decorated it like I would our house on land. Unfortunately, I did not get a say in the cushion fabric since it’s what came already on the boat (and we weren’t about to fork up the moola to change it up). I made sure to bring my favorite Organic Bloom frames with photos of our adorable nieces and nephews, along with my favorite wood carved mirror, a cute patina anchor decoration my sister gave us, and some fun pillows I picked up before we left town.

…And I might actually have a minor pillow problem, seeing as I just counted and we actually have 17 pillows on our tiny boat. Not all decorative or anything, but still 17. Is that too many??? ;))

On to the kitchen!

Our u-shaped galley (kitchen) has a gimbaled (meaning it swings with the rocking of the boat so it stays balanced) propane oven and 3-burner stove. We use this bad boy at least two to three times a day! And it works awesome! The oven is much smaller than a typical household oven, so I primarily use a non-stick 8×8″ brownie pan and a tiny baking sheet that surprisingly fits perfectly in the oven (I randomly found it at Walgreens for $5 the day before we left — and thank god I did because no where else I looked sold teeny tiny baking sheets!).

We have a novacool fridge that is much like a typical dorm fridge. We replaced our old norcold fridge just before we left Naples. The freezer isn’t the biggest, but it’s definitely cold enough to freeze a tray or two of ice cubes (hallelujah!) along with a decent stock of frozen chicken/beef/fish. We also have a large ice chest (with access from the top of the counter) that we use as dry storage (think tons of pastas, rice, etc.).

The v-berth, or master bedroom if you will, is pretty tiny. The bed is literally shaped like a “v” since it fits right into the shape of the boat. We sleep with our heads at the wider part of the bed, feet in the narrower part of the “v.” There are two lockers in the v-berth that Jer and I share as our clothes closets (turns out that’s where he was hiding the engagement ring this whole time!). There’s also a good amount of storage under the bed, but that’s also where our holding tank resides so we keep things like cases of engine oil and rags down there.

We also have one head (bathroom) forward to port (front left of the boat), with access from the v-berth and the main cabin.

Here’s a little confession…although we can, we’ve never actually showered in the head before. Surprised? We pretty much only use our >>solar showers<< and take outdoor showers, with the exception of the few nights we were at a marina and were able to use their facilities.

There’s also a quarter berth (basically a tiny little second bedroom) that serves double duty as our nav station.

If we aren’t below deck, you can usually find us lounging in the cockpit. The oversized cockpit on the Endeavour 37 is one of the features I simply LOVE on this boat. It’s huge! All the other fun specs on our boat can be found on >>our boat page.<<

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

xo.

>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Bahamas + Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.