Retired Grandparents Ditch Mortgage for Life at Sea
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Margo and Tony live aboard their 1987 Catalina sailboat named Denelli Gray and also have a 1982 Volkswagen van that they travel on land with. They've been married 50 years and raised three children and now in their retirement they just travel. They had come out to California after Hurricane Andrew in Florida where they were living. It became impossible to stay there and moved out to California where their children had taken up residence, and they worked for ten years or so before retiring in 2010. They had enough money in the bank to take care of themselves if they got sick in their older age, and the rest of the time they live on Social Security.
Denelli Gray is a 36 foot Catalina 1988. She has two sails: the main and the jib. Right now the jib is stored because they’re not using it too often. They sailed the boat down to Ensenada, Mexico, which became their home base since the cost of living is so low, while still being a super nice place to live. Being retired, they can take the boat anywhere they want to go, which is one of the great things about living this lifestyle. If they get tired of Ensenada they can just untie the lines and off they go. The unfortunate part of their life is that sometimes they like to travel on land. That’s where their 1982 Westfalia Volkswagen Vanagon comes in. They take it every place they can in North America, and eventually they'll take it to South America, but right now she's been all through Mexico, all across the US, and Canada. The longest they've spent in the van is six months, and they traveled the entire length of time up to Canada to visit Banff, Lake Louise, and Victoria before eventually returning to Ensenada.
On board the boat they have all the comforts at home, minus a dishwasher. She's got a 25 horsepower diesel engine to help them in and out of port, but other than that it costs almost nothing to travel in her when they are under sail. There’s plenty of handholds throughout the deck so there's little risk of falling overboard and of course they are tethered and they have their life jackets on for cases of emergency. According to Tony, Catalina 36's are great sailing boats, and he wouldn't hesitate to take the boat anywhere. She's got all the navigation equipment that they could possibly need or use. They have their dinghy stored on davits off the back. They have a West Marine kayak inflatable right on the forward deck and an ocean kayak on the bow. They generally will cruise about six knots. Under really great conditions they can get up to eight.
One of the great things about living on board is that it’s small and easy to take care of. They have a refrigerator and a two burner stove as well as an oven in the galley. Margo can cook a meal for six to eight people with absolutely no problem. They have a dry storage locker that's very deep and they keep all of their dry goods in there. Then they have cabinets where they keep everything that they need to entertain.
One of Margo’s greatest hobbies is cooking and entertaining their friends. One of the biggest questions she had when they moved onto the boat was how will she do that with such little room? Margo originally had a very large farmhouse where she could entertain up to 20 to 25 people and she thought if anything will make her unhappy onboard it will not be able to entertain, so she decided to bring her bone china anyway and her silver and crystal. Instead of serving 25 people, She can still feed eight people in the proper fashion that she’s used to. The bone china has been fantastic for this as it's very very durable in the boat. The salon is able to seat six, with six to eight more out on deck.
Since they don’t have a dishwasher, it is important for them to have a large double sink on board. Their engine is under the stairs that go down into the living area. It’s a twenty five horsepower engine, which Margo has had to learn how to work while living aboard. On the starboard side they have a Nav table. When they’re sailing they use it to use their maps and their navigation. When they’re not sailing this is Margo’s art studio and my computer desk. She does all the little art pieces there in her spare time. She used to do much bigger ones, but she had to cut everything down to what fits to do on a boat to live there comfortably and be happy. Behind the nav table is an aft cabin that is primarily used for storage, but it has a king sized bed for when their grandkids come to visit.
The big table in the salon goes down and they have cushions that fit in there and they can sleep two to three people there, while the smaller table goes down to fit another person, so they can have company. Tony installed their TV so it's out of the way on the wall. So they have their ability to entertain.
In their bathroom this is their toilet. The sink faucet becomes their shower in the morning, and the water goes down into this drain and pumps out into their holding tank. The v-berth is king-size. They have plenty of room, and they even have an additional TV in there too along with all of their books. They used to have a massive library of books, whic has since been downsized to just their favourites so that it’ll fit on board. Tony has his guitar which he plays and they’re very very very comfortable.
Their expenses to stay in this marina are $400 a month. They get $2,800 a month Social Security, so after they pay their slip, they have $2,400 a month left and they budget $500 a week. The extra four hundred pays for their boat insurance and anything extra they would like to do. With the price of the peso five hundred dollars a week only costs them about two hundred and eighty dollars, so they easily stay within their budget. They eat nicely, they treat themselves to an occasional nice restaurant. They had mortgages and car payments and insurance rates just like everybody else, but now, they've got none of that. They have more spendable cash now than they ever had when they were working. You don't necessarily have to live on a boat, but if you're willing to sell your house and buy a smaller house then you don't have the burden. You can travel too. It took them almost three years to get everything under control. They had to pay off the mortgage on the boat, sold their cars and they retired with the boat and no car and they didn't have a car for six months, which was the first time in their life that they didn't have a car. They took public transportation and had a fabulous time figuring that out. They can't say enough how they wish that everybody could follow their dreams to just make it possible. You have to make it possible yourself, and you can do it.
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