Inspirations

We had a really quiet day today before school starts back tomorrow for the kids for a few more weeks. We did a trial packing session to see who had how many kg’s in their bags and how much excess luggage we have that needs to be sent separately. We all went through another fine sort of our clothes and sorted out another box that can go to charity.

It was super hot in HB today and Tim and the kids watched a sailing channel on the laptop. When I walked past I thought I have to snap a photo of this, because its quite significant in our journey. There were many moments like this where we binge watched sailing channels when others where binge watching Netflix.

At some stage in the last few years Tim discovered sailing channels on you tube. We got hooked pretty quickly – way better than the stuff you see on TV. Over the years we started following more and more and getting a really good taste of what it would be like to sail around as a full time lifestyle. If it wasn’t for those people sharing their journeys and experiences I very much doubt we would have been brave enough to give this a go ourselves.

After seeing so many others, some with even less experience than us do it and go for it and manage to learn along the way, then why couldn’t we?

Also through watching Sailing SV Delos we found our coaches Jamie and Behan from Sailing Totem, as they did an interview series with them on sailing with children. Jamie and Behan have been instrumental in giving us the final push to say yes to our adventure.

So a huge thank you to all the other brave and courageous souls who shared their journeys with us and were so kind to let us be part of their experience and their learning.

If you also perhaps dream of leading a salty life or just want to switch from mainstream TV to something way more interesting – here are some channels, families, couples, we enjoyed following in the last few years.

Going forward this will unfortunately be a rare luxury for us to watch youtube videos with very limited wifi.

Sailing SV Delos – heads down our favorite – Tim calls them his idols

Expedition Drenched – a group of young people on a sailboat – focused on diving – but real and raw and fun

Sailing Sunday – you guys rock – we love Jackson the German Shepherd and Finn the cat on the boat – gave us a good feel of what it will be like to have our own dog on board.

Finding Avalon – very good educational videos with tips and tricks and this couple did exactly the route we have loosely in the back of our mind – Europe to NZ

RAN Sailing – a couple who just had a baby – very down to earth videos, but we love them.

Free Range Sailing – a couple in Australia sailing on a very small budget – minimalist living at its finest

Sailing Catalpa – an Australian family sailing in South East Asia. and Sailing Nikau another NZ family with the route we are planning roughly too. Sailing Zatara – an american family with 4 children sailing on a Catamaran. These 3 family channels really gave us a taste of what it would feel like to do this as a family and answered so many of our questions. Especially the Nikau crew who took the time to e-mail back to us a few times with questions we had. Thank you.

Sailing Magic Carpet – a beautiful young couple sailing around Europe on a small boat and a small budget.

Sailing La Vagabonde – this was our first channel we watched, but its become a bit too commercial in the last few years and lost its original charm. We loved the first few years of their journey though.

There are still others that are really good as well, but would be too much to list them all here. Just have a browse in youtube if you are interested in more.