We are open minded people who love to travel and live unusual lives and are fine with owning very little, so living on a sailboat seems like the way to go!
When it comes to sailing, I’m new to it. Robin and I have both taken a week-long sailing course in Vancouver last year but, prior to that, I’ve never sailed or been on a sail boat, and Robin has (a bit, while he was traveling in New Zealand). He’s also read many sailboat books over the years. Since we’ve lived together, he’s suggested a handful of unusual plans; one being to build a dome home, another being to move to New Zealand, but the sailing idea is the one that actually took off. Sure, building our own dome home would be awesome, and living in New Zealand would be amazing, but this feels like something we need to do, it seems to suit us so well. We can renovate our little home as we please, we can sail to New Zealand if we want, and we can do so much more.
While trying to steer away from consumerism and trying to better ourselves, we’ve totally changed our diets around to a healthy wholesome one, very weak in heavily processed, sweetened, modified foods. If you want to read up on it more, I have many tips and recipes on my other blog UnReFiNeD http://nocrapdiet.wordpress.com/. We may be considered party poopers by some because we don’t smoke, drink alcohol or coffee or do drugs, but we’ve found many other ways to entertain ourselves that won’t stress our health and wallets.
As for hobbies and sports, our interests are rather wide-spanning. We play tennis daily when we can, and we (especially I) love inline skating and martial arts. We’re both SCA participants and enjoy medieval fairs. We’re both big fans of Japanese animation (especially me!). Robin’s interested in blacksmithing, kiting, scuba-diving, and playing music. I love listening to music, hiking and scrambling, cooking, making jewelry, and all things nature. And one thing that we’re both trying to spend less time on is computers, as we’ve both spent days at a time doing research, making websites, and playing games in the past.
While living on our sailboat, Robin and I don’t plan on working normal jobs. There is a huge variety of work to be done around the marinas and for other sailors. Robin’s a jack-of-all-trades and I make crafts and jewelry. I have over 300 pieces of one-of-a-kind jewelry for sale. You can see my jewelry at http://www.thebluebead.bravehost.com. Sailing and repairs cost a lot of money and I have too many beads and gemstones and sadly I need to get rid of some of them before we depart, so help support us! It’d be greatly appreciated! =)
**April 2010 UPDATE**
After spending 2 months backpacking in Mexico, Robin and I put our sailboat plans on hold and came back to Saskatchewan. I just came back from a 1 1/2 month solo trip through Alberta, and now that I’m back, we’re getting ready for a big cross-Canada road trip that will start before the end of May. We don’t know what we will do with the sailboat yet, but we will start our trip Eastward, towards our sailboat, so that we can pick up a few of our things.
Oh man! We have got to talk! We did the same thing in a 30 foot Pearson! Gutted it, redid it and sailed off into the sunset. NOT! What happened was, we ended up in Rhode Island and have spent the last 5 years living in winter wonderland! Summers are nice, winters suck on a boat that small! We’re still here though, all shrink wrapped and toasty!
Get back to me! I have a blog too. Most of it’s baking and cooking on a boat, and I do have a link there as well for Living Aboard A Sailboat.
Fair Winds!
Donna
By: spatulascorkscrews on February 28, 2009
at 12:38 pm
Hello! I got the details from your daughter, and I think it’s awesome that you haven’t given up on the sailboat and are still living on it. But I can see how it must suck during the winter… Yes we do need to talk! You and I seem to have lots in common. I heard from your daughter that you were vegan for quite a while and have 2 self published books on cooking which I think is awesome. I love to cook healthy food and take pictures of what I’ve created… but I don’t make things like the ones I’ve seen on your blog… The Nutella-topped brownie makes me drool just looking at it!
I hear that 30 foot Pearsons are similar to 30 foot Albergs. I’m not familiar with the 30 footer, but I fell in love with the 27 footer’s layout when I saw pictures of it. Good for shallow water but not the best sailboat for what we want though… I’m very hopeful about our plans! I hope we can chat more in the future =)
By: Kate on March 1, 2009
at 4:16 pm
i’m really interested in what you are doing. i met a couple who did exactly the same thing, and ended up sailing around the world for 30 years. funnily enough they, and most of the sailing community they knew ended up living in new zealand!
good luck. and do you have a website for your jewelry?
By: seirian on March 25, 2009
at 10:07 am
Wow that’s neat. Do you have their e-mail address? I know Robin would love to chat with them, with that kind of experience and the whole “living in New Zealand” thing. Have you gone sailing yourself? And yes I have a website for my jewelry, it’s http://thebluebead.bravehost.com/ (I’ll be posting lots of new jewelry soon) and I’m also working on a new one http://gemstonejar.com/
By: Kate on March 26, 2009
at 9:45 pm
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”—Mark Twain
…so I bought a Watkins 27 and am walkig the walk.
Good lucj to you.
By: Donn on May 14, 2009
at 8:41 pm
Good luck to you as well! We look forward to see how your adventures progress.
By: Kate on May 17, 2009
at 6:48 am
Hi! I saw your post on Goneraw, which led me to your blog. Your sailing adventure is so very exciting, it is the exact same thing my husband and I are working towards. We have taken a few sailing courses, sail on the lake 2 or 3 times a month and have a week long trip planned on the Gulf Coast this Sept. We are high raw vegans and hope to stick as close to this diet as we can once we buy our boat and start cruising. I would really like to know how your solar dehydrator works out. Would love to correspond with someone who is interested in both eating healthy and sailing.
By: Duwan Dunn on July 8, 2009
at 10:41 pm
Hi! It’s awesome to hear of someone else planning the same thing as us who’s also interested in eating healthy! Id’ love to correspond with you =)
What kind of sailboat are you planning on buying? When do you plan on making the big purchase? And what kind of sailboat and size are you sailing on the lake at the moment? By the sounds of it, you have much more experience than us; We’ve still got so much to learn! By the time you’re on the Gulf Coast, we’ll be somewhere by the Eastern provinces… I think.
What’s your username on GoneRaw? I’ll let you know how the solar dehydrator works out once I completely figure it out. I’m sure it’s possible to continue your diet while living on your boat, it definitely would make it easier while living in the tropical areas that’s for sure!
By: Kate on July 10, 2009
at 9:27 am
Hello all!
I would like to weigh in on this whole food topic. Jim & I sailed (but as anyone will tell you, one does not sail this route, one motors) to the Abacos two years ago. SInce refrigeration was costly, demanded energy we were not interested enough in supplying and finicky, we chose to see how we did sans fridge. Worked great! We found it was compulsory to go lacto-ovo vegetarian for the sake of food safety. Kept my veggies in a Rubbermaid tote with holes cut for ventilation. Duwan, the only problem we encountered was that good, fresh veggies were not always available where you’d think. While in the US, stock up for at least two weeks at any time! Better to buy too much and have a few rotten veggies where you can find good ones than to go without for long periods. Florida and the Bahamas are not, I repeat NOT gourmet states! Find cheap nuts (especially pecans) in N.Carolina and stock the heck up on whatever you find before you go off shore. Once in the Bahamas, you can find standard produce selection in one of two towns: Marsh harbour in the Abacos (North Bahamas), and Nassau. The other small cays have stores, but they are teeny, tiny wee things that have bulk onions, potatoes, lemons, limes, maybe an apple or two, perhaps some or those giant avacadoes. I once found carrots and celery. That’s it. No kidding. ANd kate, there might be some bananas, you might even find a local sitting outside the big stores selling the wee bananas she grew herself for $5 for a small lunch-bag. I tell you, it’s no wonder there sre so many overweight people there. I think most of the locals take a water taxi to the nearer city to do a month of grocery shopping.
It seems that the lastest of two hurricanes to hit the Abacos 5 years ago took most of the topsoil, and a plantaion of citrus with it. Sadly, it takes more than these gentle folks have got to bring in more soil to grow anything to eat.
To get coconuts, pick them up off the ground. A taxi driver once spotted us picking one up and then told us where we could also find Chinese Plums. They were delicious! But that was the extent of our free-food finds. Even the fish were hard to get.
I hope Duwan gets this bit of info before she gets too far south!
By: Michelle on October 4, 2009
at 1:01 pm
Thanks for the very informative post Michelle! =)
And yeah it`s not like we can blame everyone on themselves for being overweight; Most people build families and nestle themselves into a house and work, making it really hard to move even if the quantity, quality and variety of produce is very poor. They can only make the best of what they have around them.
I`m still surprised to hear of the poor variety of produce in the Bahamas…
Duwan, let us know how your trip is going so far!
By: Kate on October 4, 2009
at 7:37 pm