M&R Episode 015: Design your life to sail around the world on Ruby Rose.

In Episode 015 I speak with expats Nick and Terysa a couple who have been sailing around the world for the last 15 months on their boat Ruby Rose. They were both very open in our conversation about life on board the boat, how they are financing their trip and actionable steps someone could take to live the same type of lifestyle. Enjoy!

Show notes: Yacht Ruby Rose, Women Who Sail, Crew Seekers. SurfPro Techniques, Support Misfits and Rejects on Patreon, Get a Misfits and Rejects T-shirt or Tank

Welcome to Misfits and Rejects, a podcast about the lifestyle design of expatriates,

travelers, entrepreneurs, and adventurers. I'm your host, Chapin Kreuter. Enjoy.

I didn't fit in America. With cocaine, there's just always too many guns and too many bad

attitudes. I quit the limiting stories. I really try to overcome that fear.

And right there, for any of your listeners, a lot of what I was to do in the rest of my life

was formulated by the fact I just went and did it. Welcome to another episode of Misfits and

Rejects. Today, we have a really cool couple who's sailing around the world. I got, or I didn't get

in touch with, they got in touch with me first via my other project, Pet Passion Project on YouTube,

my Surf Pro Techniques. Nick contacted me and I looked him up on his Facebook page and it seemed

like they were doing a really cool adventure. I thought I'd bring them on the podcast and

we get to hear a little bit about how they're doing it and what motivated it.

With that said, I'd like to welcome Nick and Teresa to the show. Welcome to the show, guys.

Hey, hello.

Hello.

Well, I'm so stoked you guys were able to come on and tell us a little bit about this world travel

you've been doing. I've done a little bit of research on your blog and it seems like you've

been out on the high seas for what, about 15 months now?

Yeah. We've been sailing about 15 months. We left England about 20, 20 months ago. Yep.

And are you both English?

No, I'm English and Teresa is Australian. You can't pick up on the accent.

Okay. I'm sorry. I'm not that good with accents. Do you mind if I ask, are you married?

No, we're not married. We've been together for seven years. We met traveling in India,

actually. So we kind of met knowing that travel and a bit of a sense of adventure was important

to both of us. And we were together for a few weeks on a tour around Northern India and Nepal.

And then we obviously went our separate ways because I was living in Australia at the time

and Nick was heading back to London. And then I moved over to London about nine or 10 months later

and I lived in London ever since. So that was back in 2010. And then as Nick said, we left

London in 2015 to go sailing.

Well, how was that transition for you moving to England? And was it easy for you to make that

transition and stay? I know visas sometimes are issues.

Oh, the visa. Yeah, the visa thing was a massive issue, but that was an issue of kind of bureaucracy

and logistics. It could easily be overcome. You had to go through the process, which was frustrating,

but a lot of people have to go through the same thing. But emotionally, the real challenge was

the emotional side of things and being away from my family and my friends, kind of leaving my job

and having to get a new job. That was tough as well. So these are things that most people who

made that kind of change in their life had to overcome. But I loved London. It was a completely

different lifestyle to the one that I've had in Adelaide in Australia, which is a great town,

but not nearly as fast paced as London. London's in a whole other kind of league of its own.

And it was really exciting to be living there. Nick had been there his whole life, but I lived

there for five years. And no, it was a great, great lifestyle, very fast paced, quite exhausting,

but really fun at the same time. Nice. And how about you, Nick? You were born and raised in London?

Yeah, born there, raised there, worked there. So yeah, that's my thing. I traveled when I could

and spent most of my holidays traveling. So yeah, I'm a Londoner through and through.

All right. Were you guys interested in sailing prior to this adventure? Had you grown up sailing?

What was that about? No. Well, what happened was about, I don't know, must've been about 10 years

ago, I kind of, I used to go to, oh, I still do. I go on holiday in Greece. My parents have a little

place on one of the Greek islands. So I used to sit on the dock and watch all the sailing boats

go in. And I thought, well, you know what, I'd like to sail. And I actually talked with my dad

for years about buying a sailboat and we never really got around to it. So about 10 years ago,

I thought, right, I'm going to buy a boat. And so I went and did all my research and I

figured out I was going to spend 6,000 pounds, which I think at this day and age is about

eight or $9,000 on a boat. Because I thought if I sink it or set fire to it, or I don't like it,

I'm not bankrupting myself. So I went and found a boat, a 1980 25-foot sailboat that was a real

heap. And I bought it. And I found this boat in a marina in Kent, which is to the East of London.

And I said to the marina owner, I'm happy to buy the boat, but I have to keep the boat here,

because I've never been on a boat before, apart from a ferry. So yeah, literally, I went down

there. People helped me out to try and get the boat off the mooring. And I did a lot of reading.

And I took a couple of weekend courses in just how not to drown and how to the basics of sailing

a boat or dinghy really. And I took a navigational course. And then every weekend, I just went out

and just sailed and learned the ropes, which I think is where the expression comes from.

Right. And it was a passion from the start or did you have to learn to love it?

No, to tell you the truth, it was actually the lifestyle that really sort of drew me in.

I think, you know, the job in London was fairly, it was all consuming. And I got to the point in

London where a lot of my friends were in their 30s. And we were all, you know, without, it sounds

kind of like if we're bragging, but we were all doing financially well with our careers.

And so conversations invariably tend to, you know, which car you were going to buy next or

which golf handicap you had. I've never played golf, although I did have the cars.

And going down to this kind of sleepy little village in Kent, I just found just a complete

antithesis to this. People didn't really have much money, but they were so helpful and kind.

And it just sucked me in just, you know, no one ever talked about what I did, you know,

about how my job was going. They just wanted to sail.

And how about for you, Teresa, was that how you kind of found sailing too,

was through Nick, or did you have any experience in any way with sailing in the ocean?

Well, I didn't have any experience sailing at all before I'd met Nick. I'd always been a

bit of an ocean baby because my dad's a surfer. So I'd spent all my childhood basically, you know,

on the beach and in the water. So being in and around and on the water was something that came

very naturally to me, but I'd never been on a sailboat. However, when I met Nick in India,

we're talking about obviously ourselves and what our hobbies were and what our lives were like back

at home, back in the normal world. And he said to me that he was a very keen sailor and that

basically took up all of his free time. And that if I were to come over and want to be with him,

then basically I had to take that up as a hobby as well, because otherwise we'd never see each

other because, you know, he spent his entire weekend down in Kent sailing. And, you know,

if I didn't like it, then we weren't really going to be able to spend much time together.

So I knew from the very beginning that I really had to like it, otherwise I was never going to

see my boyfriend. So, you know, by this point, by the time that I moved to London, Nick had upgraded

to a 32 foot boat, which was obviously a little bit more comfortable for the two of us to be

staying on. And, you know, we went down every weekend and usually we'd do one or two sails

maybe throughout the weekend. They were usually quite short sails. And I did enjoy it, but I

didn't fall in love with it. You know, it was something that I did because Nick liked it.

The weather played a huge part in my attitude towards sailing because it was always cold,

you know, we were always rugged up with lots of layers on and with wet weather gear on. It was

always grey, it was always windy. You know, on the rare occasion that we got a really lovely,

sunny, warm day, it was very, very pleasant being on the water. But for the most part,

it was just a bit of a kind of, it was just a bit of an endurance thing. And, you know,

I liked some aspects of it. I liked the social aspect, you know, we'd go sailing with Nick's

friends and I did enjoy that. But as I said, you know, it was hard work being in those kinds of

English weather conditions and having to sail this boat around. So I kind of suspected that it

could be better than what we were experiencing. I strongly suspected that it could actually be

really awesome. But what we were experiencing on the weekend was often just a bit of a slog, really.

Yeah. Would that be fair to say like warmer weather might have made the experience a lot

better for you? Absolutely, absolutely. So, you know, we'd go on our summer holidays to,

usually it was to Greece again with Nick's parents. And, you know, the weather was just so

beautiful and you'd see all these boats kind of, you know, gently sailing across the horizon and,

you know, you just thought, my God, that just looks so idyllic and perfect. And yet there we were kind

of beating into the wind almost every single weekend, you know, with all of our wet weather

gear on. So, you know, I just, and also because I love traveling, I really wanted to do some more

traveling, which we weren't really able to do much when we were living in London, because we were so

tied down to our work. And every time we had any kind of proper length of time off, we would tend

to go back to Australia to see my family. So, you know, the idea of taking a boat and traveling with

it somewhere where the weather was really lovely and warm, that appealed to me. So sailing in

England didn't necessarily appeal to me, but I really thought that once we got down to some

better weather, then it could be a lifestyle that I really, really enjoyed. But to that end,

we kind of did a bit of a test summer in France. So we took our boat, which by this time was another

boat again. It was Nick's third boat and our current boat, Ruby Rose, which is a 38 foot

boat. And we took her down to France for about five weeks over the summer. And it was, you know,

a real kind of chance for us to see whether A, we enjoyed living on the boat, and B, we enjoyed the

actual sailing part of the boat when the weather was nice and warm and favorable. And thankfully,

we absolutely loved it. We just completely fell in love with it. We were, I think, both a little

bit worried that living on a 38 foot boat, even though it was only for five or six weeks, was going

to be really tough and we weren't going to enjoy it. But we did. We loved it. We just thought it was

the most amazing thing. We didn't want to go back. And, you know, Nick's already kind of slightly

touched on the community that the sailing world kind of is. And that's not just true in Kent,

it's true probably all across the world, but certainly in every place that we've been to so

far. And definitely in France, you know, there was a sailing community just waiting to be tapped

into, both the French sailors, but also English sailors as well. There were lots of English sailors

there and other European sailors as well. So there was this huge community and everything was so well

set up for yachting and sailing. And we just absolutely, I mean, we like France, even at

the best of times, even not sailing around France. We love going to France, but, you know,

it was just the most amazing experience. And it really kind of solidified in our minds that this

is something that we wanted to do full time. Can I ask what you folks were doing in London,

like what your daily was? What were your jobs? Yeah, I was a cosmetic dentist. And I was a

paramedic. Okay. And so you're kind of in the grind in the nine to five and then getting

some time on the weekends to sail. Well, it wasn't nine to five. I mean, I was doing eight to eight.

So it was an intensive and it was my own business. So apart from the clinical work,

I had to run my own practice, which it did suck it out of me. And also I was doing shift work. So

I was lucky enough by the end of the time that we were in London, I was lucky enough to be able

to kind of control my own shifts to a certain extent, but I was often doing nights or weekends.

So I'd often find myself during the week with Nick at work and then over the weekends I'd be

working. So it was a struggle to get time together to go sailing or do anything else for that matter.

So yeah, it's a fast paced lifestyle in London. Anyone who lives there will be able to tell you

it's always tough. Even just getting to work is tough. It's not easy and it's draining and

it's exhausting. I see. So when you started concocting this plan to maybe transition to

life on the boat, was there like dates set towards the future, future goals set with

timeframes and amounts of money that you were going to try to leave with? How did you start

preparing? Basically, a couple of things happened that really, we'd always talked about it since the

beginning. You know, Theresa and I disagree a little bit about, we've talked about what happened

in the past. I thought I wanted to sail around the world. Theresa believes that I only wanted

to sail around Europe and that she convinced me to sail around the world. I don't actually know

the truth. We're both taking credit for having the same fantastic idea. Fair enough. That was my idea.

It was always planned that we were going to leave. The precise destination is unknown, but it was

going to be, we were going to go to the sun. That's the first thing. So we had no real idea

of timeframe. And then a couple of things happened, which kind of started the ball

rolling a little faster. The first was that because I moved my entire social life to this

sailing community in Kent, sailors, especially in England, tend to be older. So I found my social

group were more in probably their forties to seventies. So if you could imagine the

quintessential English pub on a Friday night, serving what the Americans would hate, which is

warm flat beer, we would all gather around. And I found a very, very amazing group of friends who

would just look after me and continue to look after me because I was new to sailing. But they

became and they still are really good friends. The problem is that because they were older,

through a series of unfortunate events, we had three or four of my really good friends just die

in about six months through varying things. I mean, it got to the point where one of my friends

died while I was at the funeral of another one of my friends. So it kind of made me really have to

accept the fact that all my friends that died had these plans that we had and they'd never put them

into action. And I think that's the first thing. It really ticked me over the edge. It's like,

you know, there is a time to do these things and there's a time to put these things off.

And, you know, this was the time to do these things. I've also one of my best friends

tells me a story that, you know, I won't mention his name, but if you ever listen to your podcast,

he will know who he is. But he's a brilliant, brilliant friend of mine.

And he always tells me this. He told me the story about his father. His father had this

plan that when he retired, he was going to walk around the UK. And his father bought,

do you know what a pup tent is? Yeah. Yeah. So he bought a pup tent. And basically in part of his

preparation for his retirement plans, he bought this pup tent to go, I'm not even sure how long

it was going to take for him to walk around the UK. Anyway, it comes to his retirement date and his

father puts off the plans and works another year and so on and so on. And it actually got to the

point where his father got sick and died and never actually sort of like realized his plans.

Now my friend keeps his father's pup tent and he's locked. And he says, I can't bear to throw it

away because it just encapsulates all my father's dreams. And that story really also pushed me

forward. So having a really good set of friends that in many cases just hadn't realized what they

wanted to, that was the first thing that kind of galvanized me forward. The second thing was

something which is inherent in dentistry or endemic in dentistry is back problems.

So I was running a lot. I was doing a lot of medium distance running and I was laying in bed

one Sunday morning and I sneezed and I thought that doesn't feel good. Something got this

shooting pain down my leg. I thought, hey, you know what, it's back pain. I live with it.

So I woke up on the Monday morning and I couldn't feel my lower legs. So that was my lower right

leg. So I thought, okay, this isn't good if I've got a numb leg. Anyway, a series of MRIs later,

I put a ruptured disc and a consultant, the discussion with a neurosurgeon, you need surgery.

So I said to the neurosurgeon, can I have the surgery on a Friday and come back to work on a

Monday? And he said, yeah, you can come back to work three months on Monday. And I said, okay,

fine. I'm not having the surgery. I've got a business to run. And through a lot of, well,

a lot of hard work, a lot of physio, I got myself to where my back was usable and I can sail and

I can surf and I can wander around perfectly normal and I'm just going to be quite careful.

But it also made me realize that my health doing dentistry, it was just in decline and I didn't

want to end up crippled or unable to do the things that I love.

And for you, Theresa, you're on that path too, as kind of you could see his desire to get out

there and really take that leap and it was time to do it instead of waiting and you were just on

board for that? Yeah, absolutely. When I moved to London, I kind of said to Nick, right, I think

that five years is a good length of time for us to be living in London together and kind of hatched

this plan that five years was going to be our timeframe and that we were going to, after that

five years, have some adventure. And we kind of said that that would be our sailing adventure

because I couldn't see myself living in London kind of long term forever and ever. It was just

too much, you know, for reasons I've already described. So, you know, but our plans and I

think you said before that, you know, you might touch on how we fund this a little bit later in

podcasts, but our plans really depend on Nick being able to save up enough money and to sell

his business, you know, at kind of a good enough or a high enough amount that we'd be able to fund

buying the boat in the first place and then obviously, you know, funding our lifestyle

going forward. So we couldn't really rush it because we had to, we had to save up the money.

So, you know, that five year timeframe was, we thought, adequate to do those things. And the

fact that Nick heard his back really, I think that it didn't speed things up, but it really

gave us a good reason, a good excuse to put the plan into action because, you know, you have all

these plans and you talk about it. And as Nick kind of mentioned before with the anecdote about

his friend's father, it's very easy to continue to put off the plans because you're, you know,

you're living a life where you're earning money and you can just see that kind of slippery slope

where you just continue to try and chase more and more money. And it's never a good time to leave

because there's always reasons why it might not be a good time to leave. So, you know, I was very

much on board. I, you know, we obviously, it was quite a stressful experience trying to

sell Nick's business. It was a prolonged and painful, you know, it was over 18 months and

it was really stressful, much more stressful than kind of buying and selling a house or anything

like that. It was something that, you know, we really found tough. Not least because all our

dreams were kind of hinging on this sale going through and it just seemed to kind of, you know,

be almost falling through every few weeks. There was nothing going wrong that meant that it was

being pushed back. So, you know, by the time basically we, you know, had all our ducks in

a row and everything was done and we were able to move forward with our plans, we were very,

very ready to go. Yeah, I mean, that can, yeah, it sounds like that'd be stressful. And so it

sounds like it all worked out and after 18 months you sold the business and progressed forward with

the sailing plans. Yep, that's right. So, you know, we finally had all the, you know, the

paperwork done and everything was signed on the dotted line and all the, you know, the contracts

had been cleared and everything and we were able to finally, you know, at last, and it was quite

a surreal moment really, finally being free. And that was the real, I think, foremost emotion that

we had this sense of freedom at last. And we were able to, as I said, you know, move forward. And

so we put all of our, not all of our things, but a lot of our things into storage. We sold or gave

away the rest. You know, we had two cats that we had to rehome. We, you know, rent out our flat in

London and we moved on to our boat. Awesome. So let's fast forward to now you got the boat prepared

and you're setting sail. Like, let's talk reality. Let's talk reality checking how that felt as you

left England and started taking that first real big breath of like, all right, we're doing this.

What was that like? It was surreal. It was strange. I remember the day, it was the 7th of May

and it was a lovely sunny day. And it, we planned this for so long and the marina we keep the boat

in is tidal. So the water has to come in for us to get off our mooring. And we sat on the boat

watching the water come in. I suppose in some ways it was bittersweet because we knew that we

wouldn't be back for a long while. And yeah, I remember just sailing out of the marina and we

had friends on their boat and he's waving goodbye to us as we kind of motor down this little creek.

And yeah, we set off and the first, we hadn't sailed because just the way that everything worked,

we had, it was the beginning of the sailing season. So we hadn't sailed in about nine months.

We'd literally put the boat to bed and taken the sails off and just got her ready inside and fitted

all the bits, but no real sailing in winter because it's just miserable in England. So we,

you know, we, I remember thinking, yeah, you know, I'm a bit worried about putting both sails up. So

we'll just put the foresail up. And we sailed down to Ramsgate, which is a little seaside town. And

it was just kind of, yeah, we've done it. We've left. And it was, it was just, it was really

liberating. I suppose a lot of the things that we've done, I think when you look back on events in

your life, you remove, you know, you do canonize them a bit because you're not worrying about

things because they've already come to pass. But looking back on it, yeah, it was fantastically

liberating. That's beautiful, man. So let's go into the ups and downs of life on the sailboat

and the places you've been a little bit. What have been some of the highlights for you both?

I think we wrote, Theresa actually wrote a really good article somewhere on our website or

from magazine about our highlights. I think we both have different things that have made

our time. I think what I'll do is I'll talk about my favorites and let Theresa come in with hers.

Perfect. Sailing down the coast of England is beautiful. And, you know, as soon as you

get to the west country down to Devon and Cornwall, everything changes and it's fantastic.

And that was just really enjoyable. We've done that a couple of times before.

And we then crossed to northern Spain. So we did a long passage, which was three days and three

nights to La Coruña in northern Spain. And we had some friends come and help us with that. So there

were four of us sailed across. But then once we kind of they'd left a few days later, we went

around to the Spanish Rias and just anchored there. And at that point, we both thought,

okay, we've done it. We've left. We're in Europe. This is the start of this adventure. And it was

just just living that lifestyle and exploring a part of the world we've never been to was

absolutely amazing. Northern Spain, Galicia. The food is fantastic. We're both really into food.

And it's beautiful. It's cheap. And there's not many tourists. So that was fantastic. So that was

amazing. We really enjoyed that. Morocco. At the time, it was stressful because Morocco is just a

crazy place. And it's really not set up for sailors. So a lot of people that go down

towards the Canary Islands, which is the jump point for the Atlantic crossing,

go to Madeira. But we thought, no, no, we want to see Morocco. So we spent a month cruising the

coast of Morocco. And there were some places in that in Morocco that were just mind blowing.

I mean, Theresa and I have luckily traveled most of the world and we tend to travel

off the beaten pathway. We don't go to resorts or hotels. We tend to travel independently and

find huts on the beach or little places in mountains that people don't use that often.

And the thing about Morocco is, of all the places we've been, from North Vietnam to

Northern India, that was the most backward we've ever found anything. There were plots of Morocco

with like, wow, you know, we could be back in time a thousand years here. It is just crazy.

So that was another highlight for me. And I think the third highlight, which I'm sure Theresa agreed

with is when we got to St. Lucia after crossing the Atlantic, that was just, it was absolutely

amazing. But I'll pass over to Theresa and I'll let her tell you her highlights and then a bit

about St. Lucia. Yeah, I agree with Nick. I think that the time in Spain was special because it

really marked the beginning of our adventure. But between leaving the UK and arriving in the

Caribbean, it was all, you know, we were all working towards crossing the Atlantic. That was,

you know, we're kind of on a bit of a timetable because we had to get to the Canaries by October.

We had to cross the Atlantic in November. So it always felt like we're being kind of pushed forward

and we're looking forward to getting that Atlantic crossing under our belt because it

was something that we're both quite apprehensive about. It's obviously a huge undertaking and we've

never done anything like that before. So we're both always looking forward. And so the actual

crossing itself, the three weeks at sea was, I think it has to be not only one of the highlights

about our kind of time sailing, but one of the highlights of my life because it was something

that was just, it was challenging and, you know, it shouldn't be, I don't want to be too kind of

self-congratulatory, but, you know, we, I think did deserve a bit of a pat on the back by the end

of it because we managed to get both of ourselves and our two crew and our boat to the other side

of the Atlantic Ocean in three weeks without any damage to anyone or anything. And it had all been,

you know, fairly uneventful, which is obviously what you want. And it sounds relatively

straightforward. You kind of, you put your sails up, you point your bow in the direction you want

to go, and then you just kind of sit back and wait to arrive at the other side. And in a sense,

that's pretty much all it entails. However, we did the Atlantic crossing with a rally. So there was

the ARP rally, which is, I think, the biggest rally in the world. And there was upwards of

200 boats in this rally. And there were some absolutely catastrophic events that happened on

this rally. I mean, one boat sunk, one person was medically evacuated. You know, there were

lots of quite serious injuries, lots of really quite serious either malfunctions or damage to

boats taking place. And it was, I mean, perhaps part of the reason for that was people were,

you know, pushing their boats to go really fast across the Atlantic, or obviously some of it was

bad luck. But we thought that we really achieved something quite special in getting the boat to

the other side unmarked and all of us in one piece, because it became obvious when we got to

St. Lucia that that was not norm, actually, that a lot of people had problems crossing the Atlantic.

So I think that that was a huge achievement, which we're really, really proud of. And it gave us a

huge boost of confidence for, you know, our sailing going forward. We thought if we could achieve that,

then, you know, we can basically we can continue with our dream. If it had been an unmitigated

disaster, then perhaps we would have rethought our plans. But it was just a huge sense of relief that

was behind us. And obviously now we're in the Caribbean and we're able to sail around kind of,

you know, this tropical paradise for the next six months. So yeah, it was kind of a moment in our

lives where we really felt that we were proper sailors now. We weren't just waiting to do it or

actually doing it. That's rad. Yeah, good accomplishment. Congratulations. How about some

lowlights? What have been the hardest things to really just wrap your head around like this is

the reality of my life now? I've had a sailboat, so I kind of know that sailboats are always taking

maintenance and a lot of hard work. And what kind of things can you say are just like super frustrating

you wish you never had to deal with? I don't think anything super frustrating. I think I've

been around boats and people around boats, you know that, you know, it's not like having a car.

I think as Theresa put in an article, it's our boat is like a needy child. She always needs

something. You know, we can never leave her alone. There's always something to fix or to clean or to

mend. So the maintenance, yeah, it's can be it's slightly, it's, you know, it's part of boat

ownership. I think that there are certain frustrations that occur more so in the Caribbean

in that fixing things is really expensive. You know, getting parts, you know, in Europe,

you can get a part delivered and put back in a worst-case scenario week. They'll ship you out,

you know, a new autopilot or an engine in a week in the Caribbean, it can take months.

And we know of a boat that, you know, got across the Atlantic in December last year with us and

the engine packed up and they're still on the same pontoon six months later because they can't get

the engine fixed. So that's a problem. I think the other thing about the big difference between

living on a boat full time and just living on a boat for a week at a time is that once you start

living on a boat full time, you have to start doing all the chores that you would normally,

you know, take home with you after a week sailing, you know, as you go along, you know,

so you go on holiday for a week, you know, at the end of the week, you take all your dirty laundry

and you take it home and you stick it in your washing machine. Or if you want to do your

groceries, you go to the, you know, you take the car to the store, it takes an hour. For most of

what we want to do, doing our laundry will take three or four hours. Going to buy food can sometimes

take a day, you know, because if we're, if we're a way away, we were off the island of Martinique

anchored. And we wanted because it was, we knew that Martinique had good food.

And we'll come back to this later. Sometimes in the Caribbean, we actually find it very difficult

to find food. So, you know, we anchored up, then we get the dinghy to shore, which is what, 20

minutes, 30 minutes at a time, you've tied up, then you've got to walk to find a bus,

that's another half an hour. And then it's an hour on the bus, then two hours in the supermarket,

or an hour and a half in the supermarket. Then we had to wait 40 minutes for the cab,

then it was an hour back in the cab, then half an hour back to the dip. So, you know, a shopping

trip, which normally would take an hour if you were living in a house, this took us a day,

you know, and we're both exhausted by the end of it. So there was chores just take longer. That's

it. Yeah, and I'll just pick up on something else. And I think it's very typical that the man talks

about the practicalities. And what I'm going to talk about is something a little bit different,

but I think I'm definitely not alone in that. I think that one of the most challenging aspects

of living on board is actually interpersonal relationship with each other. Your kind of

that lack of proximity to your good friends and your family, you know, you are literally

stuck on a boat with one other person for, you know, a long, long time. And that can be

the biggest challenge, I think. And as I said, I'm not alone in thinking that a lot of the,

you know, it's quite amusing, really, because often when we catch up with other couples who

are sailing, or we meet another couple for the first time, let's just say we're at a bar or

something and we're approached by a couple who, you know, have seen us zipping around in a dinghy,

they know we're also in anchorage and we sit down and have a beer together. You know, you're having

a chat all together and the men and it's, you know, it's very kind of, I don't know, gender

typical that the men start talking about, I don't know, the engine that needs fixing, or the sail

that has a rip in it that they need to repair, or they just start talking about boat maintenance.

And the two women usually turn to each other and start moaning about the fact that they, you know,

they're always arguing with their husband or, you know, that, you know, their relationship is

suffering or that they're finding it really difficult being away from their family, their

children, their parents, whatever. So it seems to me that the women find it difficult in a

completely different way than the men. And, you know, I like to think of myself as quite progressive

and I don't want to be too kind of gender specific, but it's true, that just seems to be the way that,

you know, we kind of naturally deal with these kind of lifestyle. And it's something that,

you know, it shouldn't be kind of understated because, you know, you're living on a boat with

your significant other and it's a completely different lifestyle to living in a house where

you barely see each other because you're at work all day. And then when you do see each other on

the weekend, you're usually surrounded by all these other people. You rarely get quality time

together. And now suddenly you've got nothing but quality time together, but you suddenly need

that other outlet. You need to have your friends. You need to have your family. You need to be able

to get away from each other. And I mean, we can't go to work because we don't have a job to go to,

but, you know, you need to continue to live separate lives somehow to retain your sanity.

But that's really hard when you're both stuck on a small boat together. So figuring out how to

manage that dynamic, which is a completely new experience, I think that was one of the

main challenges that we had to overcome. So I think that's also an aspect of sailing,

of cruising, of living aboard that isn't really discussed very much because mainly, well,

I personally think because, you know, all the sailing magazines and the forums and everything,

they've got a lot of male contributors and, you know, it's the women who want to talk about the

more interpersonal issues. And, you know, I think it's something that isn't talked about nearly

as much as it should be. Yeah. Can you share some tips maybe? I mean, since you've been at it now

for quite a while, that have really helped you both get through those moments. Yeah, well,

absolutely. And I'm on a Facebook group called Women Who Sail. And by the way, if any women

who are interested in sailing or who actually sail are listening to this podcast, then look them

up on Facebook. It's called Women Who Sail and it's only a group only for women. And it's an

amazing, amazing network and really, really supportive and has an amazing wealth of

information on everything to do with yachting and sailing. And this is an issue that gets raised on

this Facebook page quite often and only last week. And a woman that I've never met before posted

to the group and she said that she's living on board with her husband. They're living in a

marina and they're both getting up and going to work every day. And she's finding it really,

really tough to be living with him on a boat all of a sudden. They've been married for a long time

and, you know, she's just really finding it difficult. Their relationship has started to

deteriorate because of the close proximity that they find themselves in. And basically said,

you know, what are your tips? And obviously, you know, there were a huge number of comments

because, as I said, everyone, every woman on a boat with a man has a wealth of kind of advice

that they would like to and everyone was very sympathetic, as you can imagine. So my main,

well, it sounds a little bit pessimistic, but I really think that it's true that any problems

that exist in your relationship already will only be compounded by living on a boat.

So if you're in a relationship that, you know, might have a few issues or whatever, then,

you know, and you're planning to move on to a boat together, then you really have to be honest

with yourself and with each other as to whether that's going to do your relationship any good.

Because I promise you, living on a boat is only going to kind of magnify any, even minute problems

that you may already have. So the first piece of advice is if you're going to live on a boat with

someone, make sure you get along with them really, really well. And I think second to that, obviously,

once you're living on a boat with your partner, is to make sure that you have time to yourself

and carve out a portion of your day, where you have alone time and you do whatever it is that

you want to do with that time. So it doesn't necessarily have to be getting off the boat

and getting physically away from one another, although I do suggest that as well, because I

think that is really important. But for me and Nick, for example, you know, I do exercise on the

boat, I do workouts, and I literally tell Nick to sit in the cockpit and wait, you know, whatever,

half an hour, 45 minutes, however long it is that I'm going to take and wait there until I'm done.

And, you know, if he steps into the saloon while I'm kind of doing my squats or my push ups or

whatever, you know, he'll get a look from me to say, you know, get out of my way, because this is

my alone time. This is the time that I have to myself. And, you know, it's me kind of sweating

and puffing and doing whatever it is that I'm doing. And, you know, it's really therapeutic for

me to be able to have that time to myself every day. And for Nick, he plays musical instruments,

so he often gets his guitar out, or his banjo, and he'll sit and he'll play some music for a

while. And so that is, I think, his alone time and his little creative outlet. So it's important

to have these hobbies that only you do. I write, I write the blog, and that's something else I do

just for myself. Although, you know, obviously, the blog is there for anyone else from joy as well,

but it's something that I find really therapeutic myself and I enjoy. So it's important to have these

hobbies that are just for you alone, that you're not doing together, that are just for yourself.

And also, as I touched on, it's really important to have friends. And this is, again, something

that I can't really overstate the importance of. You must have people that you can go and talk to

around you. And trust me, when I say that everyone else around you needs the same thing. So

don't be shy to go and introduce yourself to, you know, your neighbors or whoever, because

yachties are a very, very social bunch and they don't really need much encouragement to

kind of bring the beers out and to sit down and have a good old chat with you. So, you know,

it's something that we need to work on because it's a little bit daunting to go and introduce

yourself to total strangers. But you have to, even if you're sitting right next to each other,

you know, having that time talking to someone else, it doesn't have to be, you know, you going

off by yourself and having a coffee with a girlfriend. It can be as a group, but just that,

you know, just being able to chat to someone who isn't your partner is, I think, really,

really important as well. So yeah, they're my three tips.

Wow. Thank you for sharing that. That's very enlightening. And I will link all those resources

up and your blog, obviously, at the end of my show notes so people can find you and those

resources. That's super awesome. Thank you for sharing that. So as I understand now, you've been

in Europe and the Caribbean and that's kind of span the last 15 months. Is that correct, more or

less? Yeah, with our sailing. Yeah, that was with your sail. Yeah. So yeah, that's, yeah.

And then where to next? Were you shipping off to next for the sailing portion of this adventure?

Well, as I said, we intend to sail from Antigua to New York. That's next season. I think,

just touching on the last point about, you know, problems with sailing, not problems,

issues that we've had. Last year, we put, as you know, sailing is seasonal. So you kind of

do a season and you have an off season when it's winter and then you kind of, you know, go back to

it. Because we were going from Europe to the Caribbean, we did two seasons back to back.

So by the time we got to Antigua, we were exhausted. We both kind of got to the point

where we didn't want to sail anymore. We just put too many more. So next season, we're going to

take more time to do less distance. So we've got about 2000 miles to do and we've got about six

months to do it. So yeah, next season Antigua through the Bahamas and then up to Florida and

the States. And that's it. There are apparently some awesome surf breaks in the BVI's and I hear

this surf in Florida. So I intend to spend some time just surfing those breaks and taking time

away from the boat. And that's it really. How's your back holding up for the surf breaks?

To tell you the truth, since I stopped work and, you know, it's fine. You know, you've got to be

careful. You know, Theresa says I should stretch more. Yeah, but I'm a bloke so I don't stretch as

much as I should do. But no, surfing is fine. There were certain things, you know, I played squash in

Antigua with a friend and I shouldn't have done that really stuff back up. But, you know, surfing

and sailing doesn't cause me problems. Work did. I see. So it sounds like you're just going to

continue on seasonally and take it, take it at your own pace. There's no rush. It sounds like,

I mean, you're kind of in this for, it sounds like at least a few more years. Is that correct?

Yeah, we have some friends. Like Theresa said, we did a rally across the Atlantic with the

World Cruising Club and the World Cruising Club are famous for doing what's called the ARC,

which is the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers. But they also do other rallies and there's

what's called the World ARC, which is, you know, that you circumnavigate, you do the entire world

in 15 months. And we had some really, really good friends that, you know, we spent Christmas day

with them last year. We crossed the Atlantic almost within the sight of each other last year. So they

are close friends and they continued on to go around the world. And, you know, they went from

St. Lucia through Panama, Australia, the Philippines, and then now in South Africa to come back.

And we're in contact with them. And one thing that they've said is that they rushed, they had

to rush certain portions and some people have to rush because they have to go back to work on

sabbatical. For us, as soon as you start rushing things, it makes things difficult.

I think the other thing is being able to take downtime and go back to family makes a big

difference to family as well as to us. Some people will say that we're not doing it properly, that

we're being lazy by not living on the boat 12 months a year. But it's really subjective and all

sailors are different. And for us, it works. We've taken a long time away from the boat this year,

only because we were in a hurricane zone in the Caribbean just before hurricane season started. So

we had to take six months off sailing before we could go back. We're not going to do that again,

because we've realized that we've taken, well, we both feel we've taken too much time away from

the boat. We really miss it. So yeah, we're going to do seasons, eight to nine months,

a year until we finish. Whether that finished in circumnavigating, or we just get tired,

or we never get tired. We don't know. I think one thing that I say to Theresa

all the time now is I'm going to try, I'm trying hard. And I'm not there yet, but I'm better than

I was. I'd stop thinking about the future. Stop thinking about what's going to happen in a month

or in six months. Just try and enjoy the now. Yeah. Yeah, beautiful. You feel the same,

Theresa? Just capture the moment and seize the day and stay in the now and just continue on until

you guys get sick of it? Yeah, I do agree with that. I agree with that in theory. I think that

I am an obsessive planner and I love to have everything kind of mapped out in front of me.

So I find that kind of difficult. Nick, I try and discuss our plans with Nick and he says,

well, let's just enjoy what we're doing at the moment. And I'll say, yeah, I am enjoying it,

but I also really enjoy planning the next stage as well. So Nick is quite philosophical about our

plans. I like to think that I've got a relatively firm idea of what our plans are, but I also

enjoy the spontaneity of changing your plans last minute and doing something else. That's part of

what having an adventurous lifestyle means is to say, well, we were going to do this, but actually

let's go and do something completely different. Let's go and do this or that instead. So that's

an attitude that I like to adhere to as well. Just taking advantage of whatever opportunities

come up and going with them, even if it seems a bit crazy at the time. I like the idea of

being spontaneous. But certainly, as Nick says, our plans are to circumnavigate,

whether those plans come to fruition or not, I don't know, but it's certainly a goal of ours.

I think that that's what we like to talk in terms of goals rather than plans. We've got goals in

mind and we want to achieve them. The main one, the big one, is to complete the circumnavigation

of the world. How long that will take, I have no idea. What route exactly we'll take, I also

don't know. But certainly, we're in the Caribbean at the moment and at least the next 12 months,

we'll continue to be either in the States or the Caribbean. Then we'd love to go through

Panama Canal across the Pacific and sail around the South Pacific for, I don't know, however long

it is that we feel like doing that for. But after that, things get a bit blurry. I'm not quite sure

what will happen after that. All right. Well said. If you could each take a moment and just think

about if someone were back in London or in a city with a nine to five or whatever job they have,

who's thinking about doing this type of adventure, what kind of advice would you give them? In a

brief little summary or paragraph, what would you say to somebody who says,

I want to do it, but I don't know how to start? I think it's probably fairly glib to just say,

just do it. I think what I would say is that not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to get

the stars aligned to allow them to leave. I think that looking back on it, and I say this genuinely,

I'm not just trying to convince myself, it is the best thing we ever did. It is in some ways

challenging. In other ways, we live a dream lifestyle. While we had to look to change the

way we look at our finances, the way our money comes in, how we spend money, our life is so much

richer for it. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's exactly, as Nick says, you kind of want to just

say to whoever might want this advice, just get off your bum and just go and do it. Just stop

thinking about it and just do it. To a certain extent, that's true, but as Nick touched on,

that's not realistic to some people. What I would say is that if this is really something that you

want, then there are creative ways of going about getting it. Perhaps you might not want to or be

able to buy a boat, which are expensive things, and you might not be able to live a nomadic

lifestyle if you've got a certain job that you really need to get up and go to every day.

But there are creative ways of achieving your goals and reaching your dreams. You can always

crew for other people, especially if you've never really done any sailing before. That's a good way

of getting experience and exposure. You can try out for a short period of time. Don't sell

everything you've got to do this. I would say give it a little trial one first. As we did a few years

ago, as I said, I think at the beginning of the podcast, we just went to France just over a month

to see if we'd like it, and we did. That is something that I would advise anyone else to do

because a lot of people really love this lifestyle. We've been fortunate enough to be part of a

community for 18 months now where we're surrounded by other people doing exactly the same thing as

we are. Most people love it, but it doesn't suit everyone. There are plenty of couples who

I've got one in mind, in particular, who are actually very good friends of ours,

who sailed across the Atlantic, who sailed around the Caribbean, and then they said to each other,

what we plan to continue sailing, we plan to, I don't know, sail long term, but it's not working

for us. We don't love it as much as we thought we would, and so we're going to sail the boat,

and we're going to go home. They obviously felt that they had achieved what they wanted to achieve

and that they didn't feel the need to continue on. My point is that it's a lifestyle that doesn't

suit everyone. It would be a good idea to just dip your toe in first rather than jump in without

any way of going back. What kind of crewing websites do you guys recommend for people to

look into if they just want to jump on a boat for a short little stint and sail and help people out?

I don't actually know. We've never used any of the websites before, though we probably will

in the future because we've always had people that we know putting their hand up. I think there's

one called Cruise Seekers. I'm not sure. A Google search would probably do some good, and also,

as I said, any women who are interested in sailing. If you join the Women Who Sail Facebook page,

there's a huge amount of support there. I'm sure that's the group that I'm the fondest advocate

of because I think that they're such an amazing group of women, but there's plenty of online

support and welcome information on the internet, blogs and YouTube. There's so much information

out there that you can access. There's a huge amount of research that can be done on the internet

or even setting foot on a boat. As far as crew placements are concerned, I can't tell you because

I don't have any personal experience. That's all right. Where could people find you if they

just had individual questions that want to fire at you guys? Sure. Well, our blog is yachtrubyrose.com,

and there's a contact page there. They can email us. We're also on Instagram. We're on Facebook.

We're on Twitter, and we are just starting a YouTube channel as well. You can find all those

links through our website, and probably our website is the best starting point for contacting us.

That's yachtrubyrose.com. Did you have something else to add, Nick?

No, no, no. I was just going back to the point about how to start this lifestyle. Two points I

want to raise which touched on things that Theresa have said. It seems to be that in many cases,

when it comes to a couple that sail, there is one reluctant partner. It's not always the woman,

but it tends to more often be the lady in the relationship that can't deal with it or just

doesn't get on with it. I think that a lot of the time causes a lot of friction.

I would say, in defense of the lady in question, that often it's not the living on the boat itself.

It's the man. Yes, exactly. It's the interpersonal issues on board that are the problem.

I think it's the inflexibility of a lot of the men who are just like, well, this is what we're

doing. We've met a lot of relationships that really suffered because of the inflexibility

of the male in the partner. I think that we've got friends that are trying to change their

relationship for the better by listening more. It does make you listen more. It fails. It puts

your relationship in the firing line, I think. Regarding getting into sailing, we've met a lot

of people. One thing I do want to say is that firstly, we've met a lot of people who are doing

this at a relatively young age, in their 30s and 40s, not as retirees. They found ways to do this,

either through doing crazy stuff like putting their entire life savings, which for some of

our best friends is about 30,000, into buying a boat and just going and finding the money on the

way. Another couple we met who were an Australian and a Norwegian, really lovely people, who

just went to their bosses and said, we want six months off work. Then they went to the Caribbean,

bought an ex-charter yacht, sailed it like crazy around the Caribbean for six months,

and then sold it back to the charter company. There are ways of doing this on relatively little

money. Yeah, that's good advice. Really good advice. Thank you. We touched upon some really

cool topics. We've gotten into some relationships, how it works, and I think some very actionable

steps can be taken for anybody who listens to this and wants to go out and try their hands at

this type of adventure. Thank you guys for being so candid and sharing everything.

I'll link everybody up to find you. I just want to thank you again. You guys have been

awesome guests in the show and good luck sailing on your next adventure. Thank you very much.

Thank you for listening to Miss Listen Rejects. I hope this inspired you to think about your

life situation, where you're at, and possibly make a big decision to choose something different

for yourself if you're unhappy with where you're at in life. I hope these people that I interview

inspire you to go out, spread your wings, and try something new, to live a different lifestyle

that maybe your whole life people were telling you was the wrong one, but when in fact it's

the perfect one for you. And I'll see you next time.