Author: Mark Dixon

As we downsized and the piles in the garage were getting smaller and smaller, we got down to the stuff I didn’t want to get rid of like: the Harley, our 2 person kayak, the car top storage box with our camping gear (AKA The Coffin) and our tandem bike.  I thought about shipping these things to New Hampshire for about 5 minutes, then I had a brilliant plan.  We were not going to ship a perfectly useable motorcycle, we were going to ride it.  The other stuff was coming with us.

I had been eyeing a trailer made by Yakima that is like a roof rack on wheels.  You can purchase accessories that allow you to carry bikes, boats, skis and all kinds of stuff.  So, instead of downsizing, we bought the trailer and started planning a cross country motorcycle trip.  I had no idea if the motorcycle could pull the loaded trailer, but I never let such details stop me.  When I saw

 

We bought the sailboat 5 years ago with hopes that it would take us to see the world.  Well…….. Due to work sucking up my time, we only used it on weekends to sail out of the bay to the Ocean, then turn around and come back to our mooring in downtown San Diego.  The boat was actually getting in worse shape due to lack of maintenance.  That needed to change quick because we needed a place to stay in San Diego once the condo was sold and I retired.

There is really 2 things going on:  Replacing the Diesel engine with an electric motor and everything else to make the boat livable.

The sailboat has no fresh water storage, electricity, refrigerator or way to cook.  We removed the water storage tank a few years back because it was old and corroded, but never replaced it.  The oven / stove just doesn’t work.  We got a small solar panel to charge our house batteries, so we can charge our phones and rechargeable lights.  We use bottled water for drinking.

The electric motor conversion started in earnest this January.  I removed the diesel fuel tank, Perkins 4-108 engine and associated stuff.  Since we are on a mooring a few hundred yards from shire, everything must be disassembled to fit in the the dinghy, rowed ashore and then disposed.  Likewise, the new equipment was brought out to the boat a piece at a time in the dinghy including the big solar panels, the arch, 8 AGM batteries, the electric motor and the stuff that goes with it.

When we moved aboard on April first, we brought from the condo what we thought we needed.  Of course, the boat was so packed we could barely move inside.  Slowly we cleaned out storage areas and started to get organized.  We quickly determine that living aboard and trying to get our boat ready to travel the world was going to be a challenge on a mooring.

 

We live in a really cool neighborhood called Liberty Station.  It was converted from an old shuttered Naval Base (NTC – Naval Training Center) in the early 2000’s.  Over the 7 years we lived there, it grew into a little “World” that had everything: Brewery, restaurants, grocery stores, bicycle store, a park, access to the water and much more.  Once you got there from the hellish Southern California traffic, you could park the car and walk or bike everywhere.  Combine that with the most perfect weather in the country and we had everything we wanted.  Life was good!

With retirement coming and the desire to live more carefree life  with more time on our sailboat and with family and friends back on the east coast, we decided to sell our condo.  For the immediate future we will still have our sailboat in San Diego Harbor, so visits will be easy.

We spent a good portion of our free time over the last year prepping for the sale.  We replaced the carpets with hardwood floors, added tiling, changed the kitchen counter tops and painted or stained everything that didn’t move.  We contacted the our good friend Laura, the Realtor that helped us originally purchase the condo, and started the process.  We listed it for sale on a Thursday, had an open house over the weekend and had 10 offers on Monday morning.  Done!  I think Forrest Gump said it best, “One less thing to worry about”, or something like that.

We closed in mid February and rented back from the new owners until the March 31 which happens to be my retirement date.  On to the next problem.

When we moved from Watertown, MA to San Deigo in 2011, we downsized from a 2,000 sqft house to a 1,000 sqft condo.  Our two boys were both in college in the Northeast and was time to get rid of the family homestead and move on to new adventures.  A job transfer for me and a new teaching assignment for Sue.

This move was always meant to be temporary until we retired for good.  Downsizing in our MA house took about 6 months of sorting, selling and giving stuff away.  We sold that house  in one weekend (lucky!) and soon bought the condo in San Diego.  Fast forward to 2018 and it is time to downsize again.  We started in January and wanted to be out of our place by my retirement date of March 31.

Our NH condo was already furnished, so we would not be taking any furniture or big items.  We sold a few items on Craigslist, but this was slow and buyers were unreliable.  Then, Sue discovered this Facebook group called “Buy Nothing Point Loma”.  This is a group that facilitates removing things that people no longer want and putting them into the hands of people that want them.  Nothing can be charged for the item.  It’s like recycling for stuff!  Sue posted pictures of several items a day on Facebook and a caravan of mini vans came to our door to collect things.  Our stuff started flying off the shelves.  We started in January and didn’t stop till we walked out the door at the end of March.

We offered all our furniture to the buyers of our condo and at first they refused.  Two days later, they called back and said they would take it.  They were converting there existing home into a rental and used this as an opportunity to rent their place out furnished.  Now they could walk into our place and just unpack the suitcases.  In the end, we had about half of our garage filled with stuff we wanted to take with us.  Mostly, sports equipment, tools, clothes and well, stuff!  We debated on weather to U-Haul it or ship it to NH.  We really didn’t want to drive a U-Haul cross country because we had other more fun cross country trips planned.  In the end,  it was cheaper to ship it, so that’s what we did.

We are starting this blog to keep our family and friends up to date on our whereabouts.

Sue is already retired and I am retiring at the end of March 2018.  We plan on selling our condo in San Diego and moving our headquarters to New Hampshire were we own a vacation condo in the White Mountains.  We have spent most of our lives in the Northeast, so no assimilation will be required.  We will also be spending a lot of time on our Tayana 37 sailboat in San Diego Harbor and traveling via commercial airlines, Jeep or our Harley.

So, we need to get going  on a few things in the next few months.

1. Downsize all our stuff (again).
2. Sell our San Diego condo.
3. Make our sailboat liveable.
4. Get ready for our cross country motorcycle trip.
5. Retire!