Q & A

We get a lot of questions. What? Why? How?

Our post, Someday-Things, attempts to offer a big picture answer, but we’ve put together some of our most-frequently asked questions and answers below, in case you’re curious.

Have questions you don’t see answered? Send us a note or add a comment! We’ll add it to our rolling Q & A.

Q: What are you doing?

A: Attempting to circumnavigate the world as a family of four (plus our standard-sized goldendoodle) on our sailboat.

Q: How long will it take?

A: Our original plan assumes 3.5 years from the time we left our home in Park City, Utah, (May 4, 2019) until we make it full circle back to The Bahamas, but COVID has stalled us in Mexico for a year, so we're likely looking at 4.5 years.

Q: What kind of boat do you have?

A: A 2000 Voyage Mayotte 500 -- a 50' sailing catamaran we named Ruby Vi, after the would-be daughter we never had.

Q: How do you afford it?

A: The simple answer is - we cashed out: sold our house, our cars, 99.9% of everything we owned. We bought low in Park City in 2012 and sold high. We paid cash for the boat, knowing it'd be our best long-term strategy to keep our monthly bills in check.

A slightly longer version is that John still works (part-time) and we have a handful of long-term revenue ideas percolating. We've also started a non-profit that we were in the midst of attempting to launch just as COVID-19 started taking over the world. Stay tuned on that one.

Q: Do you homeschool the boys?

A: Yes. Currently, they're both working through a high school curriculum that uses a combination of online resources, books we purchased before leaving the States, and other elements of schooling John and I deem necessary.

Q: What do you miss the most about "home?"

A: Our people. Not being able to see our friends and family has definitely been the hardest part of this journey. (Though missing Costco and my workouts at RISE Boxing are a close second.)

Q: Why now?

A: The more elaborate answer is in our post, Someday-Things, but the gist is this: If not now, when? 

We really wanted to let our boys be a part of this experience. Wyatt was 15 when we left. We knew we were running out of time before he set out into the world on his own. The timing became now or never if we wanted to include the boys (which we did).

Q: What's your route?

A: In general, we're following what's known in sailing circles as the Coconut Milk Run or the Barefoot Path -- it's basically a westward circumnavigation that follows the equatorial trade winds. We transited the Panama Canal in December of 2020 and took a COVID-detour to Pacific Mexico while we wait for French Polynesia and beyond to open up. 

Q: Is it scary?

A: Sometimes, yes. (Check out Clutch for more on that.) Usually though, we feel confident enough in our planning and routing and weather window choosing to have pretty smooth sailing, so to speak. 

(We do a LOT of double and triple checking. We don't always get it right, but we'd much rather wait longer and be comfortable, than go now and risk rough seas or unstable weather.)

Q: Do you sail overnight? How does that work?

A: We do sail on overnight passages, sometimes several back to back. Someone is always awake and at the helm. Originally, John and took turns taking 2- to 4-hour shift throughout the night. Blessedly, we're finally to the point where all four of us share the burden.

Q: Does anyone get seasick?

A: Wyatt will tell you he does when the water's rough (though he's never actually been sick.) Hudson used to get a little queazy on bigger seas, but he's past that now. Wyatt takes Bonine or Dramamine once or twice when we set out for anything longer than a day sail and then he's almost always fine by Day 2.

Thankfully, neither John nor I suffer any ill effects of rough water.

Q: What about Bear?

A: Bear went through an adjustment period, for sure. But she doesn't get seasick and, in general, she's quite content just having her family around her 24/7.

Q: How does Bear go to the bathroom when you're on passage?

A: She goes on the foredeck -- usually on one of the hatches. We throw a bucket of saltwater at it when she's finished and call it good.

(Would she prefer a patch of grass or a sandy beach? Certainly. But she's doing just fine.)

Q: What do you do for exercise when you can't get off the boat?

A: We follow basic principles of functional fitness, incorporating a lot of online workouts from our friends at RISE Boxing in Park City. We try for about 40 minutes of cardio/strength/core work in the morning before the day (or happy hour) gets away from us.

We also do a lot of swimming (imagine that). Our afternoon workouts typically involve swimming laps around Ruby Vi with "breaks" for pull ups on the swim platform in between each lap.

It's taken us a long time to get to this routine, but we're finally there.

Q: What do the kids think of Boat Life?

A: Well, they're teenagers so sometimes they love it and sometimes they hate it. Both miss their friends and the conveniences of land-life, but they love to travel and see new worlds so I think they'd agree (most of the time) that the good is outweighing the bad.

Q: How do you have any idea how to do any of this?

A: Perseverance. We wanted to make this happen, so we started researching and connecting with people who knew more than we did. We watched YouTube videos and read blogs. We bought books and hired captains. We surrounded ourselves with people who knew the answers to our never-ending questions. 

We became so immersed in the tides of sailing and full-time travel that eventually, we learned to ride them. 

There's no substitute for actually doing -- for getting off the bench and allowing yourself to play the game. The learning curve to do what we're doing was (and still is) steep. We operate under the simple fact that you can't score a touchdown if you never touch the ball. 

So, we took the ball and are running like hell for the end zone.

Q: How do you grocery shop to be self-sufficient for months at a time?

A: In short, we try not to! Yes, we always have to have a beefy supply of necessities on board just in case, but in general, we like to provision once a week, if we can. 

As I type, we are in the midst of self-imposed isolation due to the coronavirus pandemic. We made a last-minute run to the grocery store to prepare the boat for up to eights weeks without extra supplies or food.

Basically, in a long-term provision run, we do this:

1) Make sure we have ample stores of the staples like flour, sugar, beans, oats, dry cereal, rice, pasta, tortillas (if we can find them), shelf-stable milk, and as many eggs as we have space for. 

2) Stock up on canned meats (tuna, chicken) and canned vegetables (corn, green beans, peas, beets, tomato sauce/paste). We add in some easy pre-made canned items like soups and chilis for those can't-be-bothered-to-cook nights. 

3) We look for fresh fruits and veggies that keep longer: carrots, potatoes, turnips, radishes, cabbage, apples, zucchini, cucumber, onions, to name a handful. 

4) We search for any fresh or frozen meat that seems edible and buy as much as we can.

5) Last, but not least, we buy wine, beer, booze, and some treats like random local-brand cookies no one's ever tried and chocolates (and then squirrel it away and pray we don't eat or drink it all before we can get back to a store!). 

Before we load our provisions back onto the boat, we get rid of any and all cardboard (bugs, mold, general no-go on a boat). Then we spend about 2 hours putting everything away and prepping/washing all the veggies. We marinate and freeze any meat we've come home with so it's ready to go when we need it.

Finally, we update an inventory of everything we have along with an Meal Idea List of sorts so we remember what our choices are. This way we know what to eat and how to ration it all.

Easy peasy, right?

Q: What have you gotten wrong?

A: Damn near everything. At least once. Seriously. We do most things wrong the first time. Such is often the penalty for diving in head first. But, if you'd really like a laundry list of failures, here goes:

1. We spent too much money in the beginning -- we grossly underestimated how much money we'd pour into a boat we thought was "good to go." No boat is good to go as-is. You'll always have upgrades and fixes and surprises.

2. We gave away or sold items I wish we would've kept and then had to re-purchase later (blender, throws, pillows, sheets, sweatshirts, to name a few).

3. We should've bought more at Costco before we left the States. We bought what felt like an impossibly ridiculous amount of food and booze and still wish we had more.

4. Though we're dialed in to a great routine now, our introduction to homeschooling was one epic failure after another. 

The process of unschooling the boys -- such that they had the motivation and stamina to be curious and independent learners -- was rough, to say the least. They wanted a pile of photocopies they could zip through and hand in for a letter grade while I had grand ideas of letting them help write their own curriculum based on their own interests and talents. 

Ha. As If. 

We are closing in on one year since moving aboard and finally I can say we have it (mostly) figured out.

5. Fishing -- we've certainly caught fish, but not nearly as much as we'd expected. Maybe the wrong gear, maybe the wrong effort, maybe the wrong timing... We're getting there, under John's dedicated efforts, but we still eat an awful lot of beans and rice for our liking.

6. There are so many more things we've done (and are still actively doing) wrong, but continuing to list them out is making my soul stabby, so I'm gonna pause here and come back for more later...

Q: So far in your journey, what has surprised you most?

A: Honestly, just the fact that we're actually doing it. John and I talked in circles about this dream for decades. Literally. So to actually be living a reality of The Boat Dream is pretty wild in and of itself.

OTHER SURPRISES:

-The Bahamas are SO much more magnificent than any of us expected them to be. We'd planned to zip right through en route to the Leeward and Windward Islands, but ended up staying four months. Even at the end of four months, it was hard to leave. You could spend a lifetime cruising those islands.

-We never expected to leave The Bahamas and head west, but that's the route we eventually decided was in the best interest of our long-term goal of circumnavigating.

-We didn't expect to make lifelong friendships with other cruises so quickly, but so far, we already have a hearty list of people we expect to be friends with as long as they'll have us.

-We didn't expect to fall in love with places so quickly. Every stop we make is hard to say goodbye to. The longer we stay, the more we love it. 

We feel a constant pull between wanting to stay longer and longing to move on. 

-Never for a minute did we expect we'd be "stranded" in paradise while a global pandemic shuttered the world. (At the moment, COVID-19 is taking over the world, country by country. We are at anchor in Bloody Bay (Negril), Jamaica -- safe and comfortable, but thousands of miles away from our friends and family and with no idea what (or where) happens next for us and our Boat Dream.

Q: How is COVID-19 affecting you all?

A: Well, aside from stopping us in our tracks in March of 2020, we've been no where near as gravely affected as others (see Of Pandemics and Pancake Balls [#25] for more on that).

In March 2020, our plan was to spend a couple of weeks in Jamaica to explore, re-provision, and rest before crossing the Caribbean Sea to Providencia and San Andres, en route to Panama (see Hide and Seek [#24] for more). However, those plans changed on a dime when we learned of imminent pandemic-related border closures. Not willing to risk being stranded in Providencia (a small island off the coast of Nicaragua that belongs to Colombia), we decided to stay in Jamaica (see Dear Diary [#26] for more). We departed Montego Bay for Negril instead of Providencia and stayed until Panama opened its borders in May 2020 (see In Praise of Boredom (and Fig Newtons) [#27] for more).

UPDATE: April 2021
With French Poly borders still closed to cruisers, we've decided to spend the bulk of 2021 exploring Pacific Mexico and the Sea of Cortez.