An introduction to me, myself and the crew.

I guess I start by saying a little about myself and how I came to be creating SeacutterCat blog.
A couple of years ago, when our contract came up for renewal on our rented house, Rob (my fiancé at the time) put a spanner in the works by suggesting that we should move onto a boat “until something better comes up”. At this time, the recession was looming and house prices were far beyond what we could afford, and so (reluctantly) I agreed.
We had considered living on a boat a good two years before. We had even had a look around the boat but decided we were too young, it eventually sold to a lovely couple who had a baby on the way. This was all but forgotten.
Rob, our dog Jack and myself moved out of our house in October and into Rob’s parents leisure boat, Wander Forth, selling most of our furniture and putting the rest into storage. We started looking at possible liveaboards as soon as possible, arranging as many viewings as we could fit around work. Some boats held amazing potential, but were too much work for us to take on. One boat we were interested in had a suspicious cluster of fenders hanging over a particular spot, which we noticed on our walk along the pontoon for our viewing appointment. The boat, although smallish, was well fitted out and would have been a likely contender for a home. Until I needed the toilet. Ignoring the pinched look on the saleswomen’s face, I stepped into the toilet and firstly noticed that it was much colder than the rest of the boat. Then I noticed the hole. Neatly covered up by fenders from the outside, there was a hole you could fit a washing up bowl through. Suffice to say, we did not buy that one.
As the winter drew closer, it began to get so cold on the little boat we were staying on that we took to wearing hats, scarves and gloves to bed as well as jumpers and full clothing. Picking the ice off the inside of the windows in the mornings really made me question whether the ‘life aboard’ was appropriate for me. But our ‘neighbours’ who lived on a Dutch barge persuaded me to keep looking.
During our time living on Wander Forth, we procured another dog. Completely by accident. Walking in the country one crisp afternoon, we decided to have a look at some kennels (Jack is a very awkward dog so I am always trying to find somewhere suitable to leave him for when we go on holiday). We then found out that they had puppies, so we had a look. What harm could it do? As it turned out, none of the puppies were appropriate anyway, and as we were about to leave, a six year old border collie escaped out of the kennels. While being roughly handled by the kennel assistant, we were told she was a bit of a Houdini. She was wincing with pain. We were told that she had had six litters of puppies, the last ones being born nine weeks previous. The little nameless dog with bright eyes and a thirst for adventure had served her purpose as she was not allowed to have any more puppies, and there was a suggestion that she would be put to sleep. “We’ll take her home” Came out of my mouth before I’d even registered the idea. We didn’t even have a home!! After introducing her to Jack, she was in our Land rover. We drove, in silence, to some woods and got both dogs out of the car. She didn’t have a name, so we shouted girl’s names at her until she turned around. Sally. Explaining to the rest of the family how and why we had got another dog when we barely had any space for ourselves was difficult. Even more difficult as she was completely untrained, she knew no commands and apparently had never been house trained. It took us eighteen months to house train her.

Just by chance one Sunday afternoon, I was trawling the boats for sale websites to see of anything new had been added, when we started talking about the boat that we had looked around when we were seventeen. I typed the name into google. What happened next can only be described as meant to be. ‘For Sale ; Seacutter 2, A 55ft pilot cutter....’. We couldn’t believe our eyes, scanning the pictures; we couldn’t believe we were looking at the same boat.
At 9am on Monday morning Rob rang to ask if it was still for sale and arranged a viewing for the following Saturday. It was fiercely cold in Wander Forth that week, but we were so excited, that we hardly noticed. At 5am on the Saturday we were both awake and eagerly waiting for an appropriate time to leave for the appointment. Rob, Jack, Sally and myself bundled into the Land rover and set off for our destination.
We found our home. It was perfect. The sunlight lit up the boat beautifully. They told us how reluctant they were to sell, but they had fallen pregnant again just three months after the first was born and that it was proving impossible to manoeuvre a double buggy along the mooring. I was on cloud 9. We drove home in a bubble of excited chatter and called them to make an offer as soon as we got back.
Getting a mortgage/ loan for a boat to live on was much harder than we anticipated, being refused thirteen times before we finally secured a loan. We begged and borrowed off family members to make up our deposit and are eternally grateful for their input.
On the 5th December 2007 we drove to Heybridge Basin and signed the contract to make her ours. We worked on her there for a couple of weeks while we waited for a window in the weather to bring her to her new mooring. When the window finally came, everything had to be dropped to bring her round. R and his dad skippered and my dad and I crewed. It was a fantastic experience. We officially moved on board on the 23rd December 2007, just in time to spend Christmas together in our new home.
Rob and I got married in September last year and we are now preparing for our first wedding anniversary! Our crew has also grown, to include a cat called Crab and this summer I even started off a vegetable patch.
At times, living on a boat has been frustrating, when something breaks, refuses to work or just life aboard in general (especially the flaw of having to put the central heating on to get hot water!) can make me think ‘ Why?’. But these are far outweighed by the good experiences aboard Seacutter. Since we moved on board, our lives have changed dramatically. We have learnt to value the simplest of things and we have made some truly amazing friends.

So here I am, starting a blog about living in a small tidal cut of water aboard Seacutter with my dogs Jack and Sally, Crab the cat, my veggie patch and of course, my husband Rob, who without a strange ambitious idea, none of this would have happened.