Our Story

 The Crew

For those that don't know us, we are the Lathom's and we live in Annapolis, MD. We feel so blessed to live close to the Chesapeake Bay and we love to spend as much time as possible on the water. We started this blog to share our love of boating and to chronicle our adventure of buying a boat in Florida and bringing it back to Maryland. We hope you enjoy sharing our journey.

Jim, Hannah, Caleb and Michelle Lathom

Boat dog "Shiloh"

"You're gonna need a bigger boat!" (Jaws 1975)

After living aboard our 33' Bayliner flybridge in June 2018 we decided we wanted to spend even more time on the water and eventually live on a boat (fingers crossed). To do that we determined we needed a bigger boat. After much research we decided on a Silverton 34c with diesel engines. The problem was that very few Silverton 34c's were made with diesel engines.

The Hunt

We figured that it would take a couple of years to find the right boat, but in October 2018 a 2006 34C named Pure Lunasea popped up for sale near Clearwater, FL. We had considered purchasing a boat out of our area, but not as far away as Florida and especially not on the west coast of Florida, that is pure lunacy! (had to do it). Pure Lunasea had some issues, but was priced right so we made an offer sight unseen. A couple of weeks later I (Jim) flew down to Florida for the survey and sea trial. It turns out she was in worse shape than we thought. There was no bimini, the flybridge upholstery was trashed, one A/C and half of the electrical system was not working. Add to that there were years of deferred engine maintenance issues. She was a great boat, but the owners had clearly let her go. We considered walking away, but we decided to make a lower offer. When it was accepted we were elated and scared shitless at the same time. What did we just do?!

Sea trial photo

The Rehab

We closed on Pure Lunasea the next month and began work. The plan was to make repairs over the winter and bring her up to Maryland in the spring of 2019. We hired a mechanic to work on the engines and generator and we started flying down for long weekends to do work ourselves. Michelle's parents live fairly close to the boat and her father, Jimmy, came and helped us. It was a lot more work and more money than expected (that's boating). We ended up replacing nearly half the items on the boat (both A/C's, windlass, anchor, bimini, isinglass, electronics, etc) and spent countless hours crawling around the bilge replacing hoses, clamps and other items. There was much cursing and we second guessed our decision to buy the boat many times.

Pure Lunasea with new bimini and isinglass

Ready to Go?

Although not 100% complete, by late February she was ready for her voyage north. We are working parents so we do not have a lot of time off. Thankfully my mother volunteered to watch our son and my wife's employer made an exception to their vacation policy and let her off for four weeks (I'm self employed so I can make my own schedule).

The plan is to spend six days from March 24th-29th transiting from Clearwater to Vero Beach via the Okeechobee waterway. Our son, Caleb, and Michelle's father, Jimmy, will crew with us. In Vero we"ll leave the boat and fly home. We'll return April 20th and have three weeks to bring her up the intracoastal waterway to Annapolis. Jimmy will be joining us for that leg as well.

This is a totally new adventure for us. We have never ventured out of the Chesapeake Bay. This will be a 1400 mile journey that will test our boating skills. We'll be going through locks in the Okeechobee and possibly going offshore in the Atlantic- firsts for us. We are very excited and a bit scared. We hope you will  enjoy following our journey. Wish us luck.

Our next post will be March 23rd as we arrive in Florida and prep for departure for Vero.