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For many live aboard cruisers, that first period on the boat is a complete departure from the life led before. The learning curve is steep, but can also be quite incredible.

We left the west coast of America and flew across the world to move aboard our new-to-us Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 45 in September 2019. A few months later, the world went into pandemic lockdowns and borders closed. This new live aboard lifestyle coincided with our travels in foreign countries far from where our routine lives were centered for decades. Our experience was one of drastic change to our norm. 

We dove in and chose to “get used to it” as quickly as we could. The reality is that every place we move to is new to us, so we are still learning about the aspects of “where we live”. 

Here are some key things we learned.

1. We didn’t have to have everything figured out all at once

Our best lessons have come from experience. Our plans have been “written in sand at low tide” during this entire trip, between buying our boat overseas and working toward returning with her to the United States. We started on our journey as if we were on an extended holiday, and we just kept adding on days, weeks, and months at a time until it all became our new normal.

Looking back on over 14,000 nautical miles of experience with SV Amorgos Blue, it was quite bold of us to start out as we did. Our experience up to that point had primarily been on a 26-foot sailboat in the protected Salish Sea in Washington State, USA, plus about a week getting a good feel for how our new upgrade handled in the Saronic Gulf of Greece. This first real trip was during a crossing in the Aegean Sea from Aegina, Greece, to Kusudasi, Turkiye.

It was unusual timing, according to the locals whom we wished farewell at the end of December that year. Everyone insisted that we couldn’t leave under the forecasted conditions of gusts around 35 knots of wind and seas greater than 3 meters. Our timing was driven by my Schengen visa nearing its expiration.

We are lucky that we didn’t know what we didn’t know, and there are a few things we would have done differently to make things less stressful. We didn’t have apps then that we now use frequently, and our resources were still very limited. I don’t even know how we found the anchorages we did or determined protection scores for the various bays we chose. We had no sailing community to discuss options or ask questions. Looking back, it is concerning to think how rough that passage was; however, with a capable captain and cool heads prevailing, we may have become “better swimmers” by jumping into the deep end of the proverbial pool.

Fellow cruisers have proven to be most valuable as they share real world experiences about the locations we’re headed to soon. Insert shameless plug for noforeignland here, as my life has been made considerably easier from details shared in your contributions. I, in turn, show my appreciation to you all by attempting to offer my own details of what’s available where I go and helping you better understand what to expect when you arrive to a new anchorage or marina. 

2. We still “work”

Even though we disconnected from our jobs to be here, we traded mowing and weeding, long commutes, and utility bills for repairs and upgrades, mapping out the closest chandleries and markets, and extreme management of power and water resources. Our days can be as structured or leisurely as we like, but we do find that we have a loose routine that keeps us going. 

Somehow, our list of projects grows longer with each item we complete, because we enjoy making our home incrementally better. When there are times I’m not needed to assist, I can pull out my own “projects”, which tend toward creative and artistic hobbies that I now have more time to indulge in. 

3. We continually develop our roles in our team

I have not had formal training on sailing yet, since we’ve been on the move quite a bit, but my contributions have been just as important. We both do what we can to support each other, and when one of us is stressed out over something, the other steps in the best we can. I try to observe my captain as he goes through his motions, ask the right questions to learn more about why some decisions are made, and understand what our normal conditions are so that I can detect when something is not proper. He isn’t afraid to also shop for groceries, cook, and wash dishes. 

Our confidence has grown as we have slowly (and oftentimes painfully) learned the most efficient and effective nuances that would keep us safe, prevent damage, preserve resources, and make life more comfortable and functional on board in general. 

4. Finding balance between time together and time apart is critical in a 500-square-foot space

We didn’t get to see each other much when we lived and worked on land. Now she’s always standing in the way when he needs to go by, and he’s always speaking his thoughts out loud right when she’s trying to concentrate on something. Making a point to learn what is important for each other helps keep tensions at bay. For example, we share mealtimes because that’s important to him. Communication is important to her, so we like to end most days with a brief, informal recap of the day (accomplishments from today and expectations for tomorrow), even if we end up starting fresh in the morning with the new expectations resulting from updated forecasts or priorities that changed overnight. 

Once the appropriate togetherness has taken place, and we have our plans for the day, it’s easier to put our headphones in and play that audiobook, podcast, or music to provide a nice buffer between us. Of course, it also helps a lot that we genuinely like each other’s company. 

5. When we are forced to stretch beyond our comfort zone, we greatly benefit

It has taken many new kinds of situations to adjust over time. Schengen visa time limits pushed us to visit countries we didn’t think to consider in our original travel plans. We expected to almost always be at anchor, but moving into marinas for lockdowns and other border crossing issues first gave us access to community we otherwise wouldn’t have, which is also where we learned about cruising information and other traveling resources. We were immersed in cultures that were unfamiliar, with language barriers making most interactions awkward, so we have tried to learn at least some basics to interact with locals through online resources and language lesson apps and videos. 

I don’t think I had ever cooked a full-out meal while underway until we crossed the Atlantic Ocean from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean last month. I needed that forced adaptation. Now we have strengthened our skills and abilities onboard to do so much more at almost any time.

6. We plan so we can be spontaneous

We plot our course both on and off shore, and then adjust as we go, because it’s usually all about opportunity when you’re at the mercy of weather and location.

We do hand laundry when it’s not too windy or rainy, run the watermaker when the sun is shining, and compare telecommunications options for each new location (SIM card stores are another type of NFL “added place” that has been super helpful when details are entered into the app).

We combine errands ashore, because the logistics of provisioning has its own challenges (sourcing the best markets and hoping to find ingredients we want in places that don’t always have what we are used to).

We strive to have plenty of spare parts on board, but try and have only the ones we’ll need (that’s obviously tongue in cheek, because we’re not fortune tellers). My husband does almost all repairs himself, so we don’t have to source and arrange services as often.

7. It’s a small, small world

Or if that cliche is overplayed, I’ll say a favorite quote I heard recently: “It’s a long road, but it’s a narrow one”.

Meeting others is so much easier, because for the most part, we’re in the same boat (pun not intended). Sundowners and conversations about each others’ experiences make our lives richer. However, the most mind-blowing part is how we have either met people we have continued to see repeatedly throughout our travels, or we have played a nautical version to the game of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”, where in this vast globe, we know people who know people that we know. 

There are still cruddy conditions that make us miserable. We miss family terribly and obviously see them so much less, but that’s a location issue that could happen even if we had a land home far away from them. 

I’m still anxious about each new place when we arrive, since I have to learn each local area all over again with every move we make.

Above all, we don’t take our lifestyle for granted. There are many people who would love to do what we do, and we worked hard and made sacrifices to be here. 

After nearly 5 years, I still pinch myself and say, “Do we really live here?!” wherever we are (in a good way, of course). 

 

By Heather Geertsen

Heather and her husband Robert have lived aboard their Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 45 Amorgos Blue since late 2019. Their first four years consisted of traveling along the width of the upper Mediterranean (Cyprus to Spain) before dropping down to The Canary Islands, Cape Verde, and crossing the Atlantic to the Caribbean on their journey back to USA.

    7 Comments

    • Richard Freeborn says:

      Lovely article, thank you

    • MAGIA says:

      Wonderful article,
      through this we also see our own story that began in 2020 in Greece.
      Stelios and Katia from Germany with the boat “MAGIA”

    • Liam Clarke says:

      Well done! Have to get this out there for people thinking about it!

    • Thanks for this. Many things you mentioned are happening to me in my first year living aboard a sailboat. My husband and I traveled far in search of a boat we could feel at home on, and once we found her the learning curve has indeed been steep. All the boat work we have done far outweighs the saiing experience gained so far, but there’s alot to be said in favor of getting to know your vessel from the inside out! And the people who have graced our lives in passing, I bet we have a few acquaintances in common.

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