Australian Couple Living on a Sailboat & Traveling the World

Most things about living on a sailboat, I love being on anchor and completely alone out here, well apart from Riley. I love the nature side of things, I love what's under the water, free diving, spearfishing, sunsets and sunrises and just, it feels like I'm camping but on the water and I love camping. The Vagabond, the sailing vessel that we are on at the moment is a 43 foot Beneteau Cyclades. Neither of us had a clue of how to sail before we were living on board. I sort of learnt how to sail in high school, we learnt on little 10 foot boats so I had a bit of an idea. I had hoisted a mainsail I think probably twice, so I had zero experience basically. So we spent a year together last season then we went back to Australia, we had to try and make some more money and then we came back over and we've been on the boat again for about two months. The Atlantic crossing for me was a bit of a big deal, I was very nervous beforehand but the closer we got to Cape Verde the more sailors started talking about it as if they did it every weekend so it made me feel more confident and how we prepared, we googled a lot of stuff. For example I was in charge of provisioning, I googled what to take. We went down to Cape Verde and then we pretty much just set sail and headed west and arrived in the Caribbean. We nearly ran out of water, we knocked over the gennaker twice and found a sail in the water. Yeah that was a mission. It's nothing that you can't sort out. What are your favourite memories from the Mediterranean? The Mediterranean, the wine, the traditional food, the crystal clear waters and usually calm conditions. Basically the traditional sort of places that we went, you really felt the culture. The Caribbean, I love how laid back everyone is, it's very easy to check in and out of customs, they pretty much just stand for passport, it's great. We pretty much always anchor, marinas cost money, mooring balls cost money but sometimes there's places where there's mooring balls everywhere and it's easier and you can fit more people in an anchorage so sometimes we'll take mooring balls. If you've got heaps of work to do you're probably best off going into a marina but that's only happened to us once or twice, anchoring is definitely the way to go. We've got two flexible solar panels that are 112 watts each and an air breeze wind generator and between them and the 700 odd amp hours worth of batteries that we've got we're very well covered now. It used to be that we'd have to go into a marina to fill up our tanks with water but now that we've got a water maker we can generate water out at sea which is fantastic, we're very happy about that. As for groceries it's different, every place we go to it's just word of mouth, asking the other yachties where they're going, where's the cheapest place. Usually there's markets with fresh produce which is awesome. Some of the challenges of living on board and making the transition from land to sea are when we run aground, we've done that once or twice or losing tenders or ripping sails, shredding sails. Those sort of things make you a little bit anxious, the unknown I guess. I'm hesitant to claim that my life is extreme or dangerous but I suppose there are times when it is. What did we have, 40 knots of wind in that last sail which is pretty hectic. And it devolves astray. Yeah well that was nuts. Times like that you question yourself. Yeah, 99% of the time you're sitting on anchor just enjoying sun and stuff like that but there's the odd time when it's you versus Mother Nature I suppose and you've just got to rely on your own instruments, confidence. Sometimes you've just got to get a job done with a bit of ingenuity that you just have to do something and you've only got yourself to rely on. Fishing, when we're in areas that have got fish, is definitely a third source. It's like we eat a stack of fish, it's brilliant. There is nothing better than going and spearing a fish, bringing it back and Elayna cooks them. Elayna spears them and then cooks them. An average day for us depends on if we're at land or sea. So if we're out at sea there's not much we can do in front of land. We read books, we play chess, we drink coffee and annoy each other. When we're on land we do some exploring, take the cameras and see what there is to see. There are a lot of really difficult times but equally so the good times are unbelievable. We have seen just some amazing things. We're in a position now where we'll be able to keep going if we like, which I think we want to do. Yeah. I'm happy. Me too. I'm happy burning around. That's good. Yeah.