Live Aboard Sailors

by Bonnie Moran
(Calabogie, Ontario)

Dulcibella is a 7.6 meter Kelt sailboat built in Ontario in 1984. Her Captain, my late husband Peter Moran bought her new and lived aboard in the home port of Barrie, Ontario on the Trent Severn Waterway System. I meet Peter in 1990 and we were married aboard in 1991. We had a 5 year plan to enable us to cruise until a back. Injury for me and the diagnosis of Post Polio Syndrome for Peter had us rethink our plans.

In Canada we have a short boating season (May-Oct.) and the boats lift out for dry storage. Peter and I had talked about cruising when we retired but life had thrown us a curve. We knew a number of sailors that had cruised for a year and returned to there home port but we wanted to live aboard and cruise for years so “we” thought we needed a bigger boat. I had a theory that we had lived aboard and sailed “Bella” for along time. Peter from the day she was commissioned and I for the last 3 years.

The Kelt is a French design boat built for racing and coastal cruising. We knew “Bella” inside and out and our sailor friend convinced us that we could DO IT so on a chilly Oct day in the boat yard we said “okay lets do it”. Once again I said too many people talk about cruising but never get off the dock, so let’s set a date for departure right now. We did our wedding anniversary July 6th 1994.

The next few months were very exciting as we joined the World Cruising Club in Toronto and meet once a week with our cruising buddies that had done the trip a year before. They had all the charts and generously gave them to us. We bought a 3 ring binder and set it up in sections to focus on, Engine repair and maitance, safety equipment, and storage. Next we prepared to pack up the house and get ready for the adventure of a life time.

We gave away furniture, packed the most valuable keepsakes and passed them on to family for safe keeping. Then the garage sales and finally packing the “stuff” we needed to be safe and comfortable aboard. More discussion about “what we needed” was inevitable. We both had our own ideas about what was necessary, tools and spare parts or cooking equipment, and the T.V. that I insisted on. The T.V. proved to be a useful piece of equipment. We found that weather information on the VHF very helpful but local weather reports giving the long range forecast also made trip planning easier.

We lifted in mid April 1994 and we were the talk of the dock. I started cleaning and loading the important ‘stuff’ and boy did we have stuff (and boy did we have stuff but more on that later).I started loading food (can goods, dry goods) and it must have looked to on lookers that we would never see a grocery store again. The water line was slowly disappearing, some time later to be raised by 2 inches.

As our departure date drew near things started to go wrong, our inverter was not working, we had canvas rip and a few other small equipment failures made it seem like we had not done our homework. We needed this work done before we left and it was smack in the middle of the July 1st/July 4th long weekend when no one wants to work. Lady luck was on our side and we left the dock July 6th as planned. Many members of our Yacht Club sailed out to wish us ‘Calm seas and fair winds’ More on our adventures later.