We like hosting, in fact many of our friends will attest that as they stayed with us in our house either in Harrogate, Yorkshire or Poole, Dorset.
We want to do the same with our boat and so we hope that you are reading this and planning to join us.
Where we are and when we move is dependent upon a few things but mostly wind, weather and tide. Part of living the dream, is the freedom it gives us to move when we want to and we tend to stay in places we like for a while and leave places we’re not so keen on sooner. So arranging to be at a certain place at a certain time either puts pressure on us to take risks with the weather or means we’re rushing life in the lead up to meeting you.
Therefore, meeting up with us gives two choices, you can name the place and there may need to be some flexibility on when we get there, i.e. the timing is variable, or you can name the date and meet us where we are, i.e. the location is variable. So you can name the place or the time but you can’t name both. We hope you understand.
So how best to go about this. Imagine you flew on holiday, you would then transfer to your destination. In most cases we think that visitors lives will be restricted by their other commitments and so they are aiming at a date to meet, therefore the transfer might need to be different from where you fly in to – or you may need to be open to hiring a car and coming to find us.
Flexibility is the key here – either in time or location! You can see where we are currently here.
If you are staying onboard, don’t bring a large or hard suitcase, bring a soft bag that we can stow away easily. Don’t forget swim gear and sun-lotion, but only the cream and not the spray, it gets everywhere on the boat and makes the deck slippy. We don’t dress up to the nines anymore and so casual is the order of the day, and hairdryers wont work onboard, they use too much energy, so we encourage you to embrace your inner “boat hair, don’t care”. We may go for the occasional meal out but our lifestyle is more about cooking onboard and enjoying the outdoor life, so if we can get to a beach for BBQ we will.
If you can bring towels and even bed sheets, then that will help us enormously as doing the washing is a lot easier back at your house than us taking it to a laundry in the dinghy!
If you sail with us, bring a sun hat, it can get hot and if you have waterproofs and lifejackets, then bring them too although we have two adult and two child lifejackets spare. We have some spare kit you can borrow, but it requires you being similar sizes to us. Oh and if you bring trainers, please make sure they don’t mark. We’re quite precious of our shiny deck.
Particularly if you are staying onboard, going Dutch will help us enormously. We’ve taken the decision to live as we do at a financial reduction in income, so we now cannot compete with you corporate types who have more cash. We swapped cash for time.
We shall pay for fuel and mooring fees, but we will ask you to contribute half of a marina fee if we would normally have anchored. (Marinas cost more than anchorages to stay in.)
Everything else, such as food, booze, etc we propose to use a kitty.
If not staying aboard can we ask that we don’t go to 5* restaurants etc as we may have used to? A simple beach bar is now much more our style and a lot more fun! We will still love to host you on the boat which we think is a much more memorable dining experience!
Many of you will know this, however, for the none sailors coming to join us here are a few of the considerations you need to be aware of if you choose to stay onboard. Don’t worry, if you prefer to get a hotel or room somewhere nearby that’s also fine and we won’t take it personally – we know boat life is not for everyone!
Water is stored onboard and we have 364 litre tanks. We can make our own water, but only at 25 litres per hour, and so we need to use it sparingly.
This means getting used to the following habits:
In a marina we tend to use the marina showers so there’s no worries about water – and the grey water (soap etc) goes into the mains drain not the marina itself and protects the marine environment.
We make our own through the solar panels and the engine will provide some through the alternator, however we don’t like to use the engine solely to make power as it is not good for it, as there is not enough load on it. Our battery holds 9.6kWh of power and we need that for cooking. In fact in a typical cooking session we can use up to 10% of the battery.
On a sunny day we should have plenty, but in a cloudy day we might need to be cautious. Our system runs in 12 volts, but we invert the power up to 240 volts for cooking and the kettle and for some charging like laptops or the dinghy outboard battery. The maximum power we can draw is 3kW, so we need to be careful what we switch on at the same time.
Points to remember are:
Note though, that the above only applies to when we are not connected by cable to the shore; if we are in the marina we can generally connect to shore / mains power and if that is the case you can use it as you would at home.
There are USB sockets and cable dotted all over the place including on the sides of the bedside lamps. Feel free to use them. We use Apple devices and have cables for the majority of connections, but if you use a different device please remember to bring your charging cables too.
We have a WiFi system onboard and we will share the password with you so that you can share your photos, however if we go more than 12 miles offshore we shall be paying , so we will quite a lot extra so we shall restrict use for navigation and important communication (unless you really need it in which case we will work it out!).
Our toilets use salt water to flush and are manual, so you will need to pump water in and out. We will show you how to use them, however the process, once you have completed your business is:
Toilet paper goes in a small white bin, in fact nothing goes through the toilet other than human waste please! Otherwise you are helping us unblock after!
At certain points in time we may have one of our two heads diverted in to a holding tank, for example if in a beautiful bay, so if you are just wanting a number one, we will use the heads diverted to the sea and for number twos, they shall be collected in the tank. We have an 80 litre tank and will need to head offshore to empty it at some point. If we are in a marina we use the shore toilets for anything more than number 1, so it’s not a problem – other than an early morning walk occasionally!
Be prepared to get stuck in, we will take it in turns to cook and wash up.
We will give you a safety briefing before we sail so you know where all of the important safety elements of the boat are, these will include:
When sailing you can do as much or as little as you feel comfortable. However, if we ask you to do something then please follow skipper’s instruction, even if not completely clear why! Everyone will share general duties – making drinks and keeping hydrated being the most important.
We hope that all makes sense and encourages you to come and say hello! For non-sailors we wanted to share the different lifestyle and what it entails – but know we have focused on some of the harder parts, and not droned on about being in a beautiful peaceful anchorage watching the sun set on the horizon….!
The final thing is goodies … if you do come and visit we may ask you to leave room in your suitcase for some British goodies too – like a couple of tins of beans & sausage (don’t care about brand – Lidl is fine!) or even a tub of Bisto!!
We can’t wait to see you!!
Exploring the world via sailboat
Welcome to our website where you can follow us on our travels around the world
