The Boat Life I Never Planned

Episode 1 — The Boat I Never Asked For

Nine years ago,
I never imagined our family would be living on the water.

I didn’t grow up dreaming about boats.

I wasn’t obsessed with the ocean.

And honestly, this whole life
wasn’t even my idea.

It was my husband’s.

One day, while I was in Japan with our two young kids,
he quietly started building a boat.

Not buying one.

Building one.

From scratch.

A 50-foot catamaran.

There were no blueprints.

No shipyard.

Just a dusty workshop with a dirt floor
and a man who refused to stop.

At the time, I honestly thought it was impossible.

We barely had money.

Some weeks our bank card wouldn’t even work at the supermarket.

Five dollars for a playgroup felt like a luxury.

I skipped birthday parties
because I couldn’t afford a present.

And somehow, in the middle of all that,
my husband was building a boat.

If you had asked me back then
what our future looked like,

living on the water
would have been the last answer I gave.

But life doesn’t always follow the plans you make.

Sometimes it follows the plans
someone else makes.

Nine years later,
our family is still living on the water.

A homemade 50-foot power catamaran
anchored in the shallow waters of the Gold Coast.

Our car is a small tender boat.

Our dog chases dolphins.

Our kids learned to drive a boat
before they learned to drive a car.

And every day,
the tide changes the ground beneath our home
here in the Broadwater.

This isn’t a sailing adventure story.

It’s simply the life
that happened to us.

And it all started
with a boat I never asked for.

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