Doubling Down
By Robin Stout
We overheard a conversation from a mom of twin toddlers discussing life aboard. Our first reaction was, “wow, that must be hard” but she sounded like she was having fun and life was grand. We wanted to learn more and asked some questions… Here is Amy Marie’s story.
Roy and I met 11 years ago. The funny thing is when we met, I actually had my house on the market. My plans were to buy a sailboat, live in the Keys on it while working as an ER nurse. To my recollection I had never even been on a sailboat, Hobie Cat maybe but definitely not a real sailboat. To say I was clueless was an understatement. Roy on the other hand was part of the Sailing Club at Auburn University and then became a member at Dixie Sailing Club. He owned a Catalina 22 which he raced. Although he would never admit it, I think he was actually really good.
Later he purchased a Precision 28 which he would sail on Lake Guntersville, just for fun. While dating we would spend weekends out on the lake sailing. One year we even hauled the Precision 28 out, put it on a trailer and I drove it to Miami to splash so we could sail to the Exumas for a little vacation. We both loved spending time on the water and sailing.
After getting married we knew we wanted children and we knew that we wanted to raise them on the water. What a better way to do it than living on a sailboat? We were always so impressed by children and teens that we met while sailing. So knowledgeable, personable, engaging in conversations with adults and overall just ahead of their counterparts in traditional school.
When we married we were older and figured that two was better than one when living on a sailboat, when it came to the number of kids. At least they would have someone to play with, right? So we just jumped right into IVF thinking that we could knock it out real quick with twins and start and finish our little family in one go.
We never even tried to get pregnant naturally, we were afraid of ending up with a singleton. It turns out getting pregnant was not as easy as we thought. In late 2016 I woke up one morning and said “If we buy the boat and we live on it while you finish working can we go ahead and get her?” So we bought Jambo Jambo, a Shannon 52RDP and renamed her ROAM. We will get more into why we bought her in a bit.
In November of 2019 we had finished her refit and moved aboard. During that time we did multiple rounds of IVF every year all while trying naturally. Nothing worked. So in a sense we gave up and headed out of Mobile Bay to start our adventure. In early 2020 we were in the Bahamas at Flo’s in the Berrys, they were talking about social distancing and this “virus”. While at Chub Cay waiting out a blow, I found out I was pregnant again. So me being me, I booked an appointment for an ultrasound and bloodwork in Nassau.
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