10 months to get to this stage

After living in houses all of our lives and finding ourselves in rented accommodation in Germany, with the new government comes change, and just like that my post is to be cut. So what to do? we looked into renting, mortgages etc and being 52 and 40 years old we decided that a mortgage was not an option as neither of us want to work until we are 70!

I don't really know how we came to the decision to live full time on a boat or  become "live a boards" as i now know the term is. I think as we have enjoyed the out door life for many years and own a rebuilt 79 VW camper, it was a natural progression. "Its just a longer version of the van isn't it?"  Well thats where her name has come from anyway "DamperVan" If it really is an extension of the van remains to be seen.

We have both served in the Army and i think that holds us in good stead for what is to come, we are good at adapting and compromise. We have done ALLOT of research into this and from what i have read it is about adapting. I suppose the proof will be when we actually get our boat in September.

So how did we start trying to find a boat? well we knew that as we had been out of the country for over 5 years our credit rating was poor, so getting a loan would difficult. So we had a bit of savings and worked out that we could afford around 40k giving us 18 months before my contract ended to get the cash together.

We then started to look on the internet, and found a number of interesting web pages apollo duck being the main one, from there we found our boat from Crest narrow boats. She is an ex hire boat (or will be) we went to see her in August 2011, with a view to buying her at the end of next season August 2012, which was perfect as that was when my contract was due to expire. We agreed a price of 46,250 a little more than we had planned but for a 2006 62 foot semi traditional it was a very good price, this also included a residential mooring in the marina in Chirk, which is what we wanted. Since we agreed on a price we have looked at a number of boats and have not seen one in this condition for this price so we are very happy.

I think ill leave it there for today as i don't want to miss anything out, i want this blog to help anyone who is thinking of living aboard full time, i am also going to record our move onto DamperVan which will be in December! The worst time allot of people have said to us, but we will have to get used to it, so the way i look at it things can only get better!

Till next time!!!