2018 Travels

Date: 27/5/18

Location: Pancake Creek

24 02'.03 S

151 44'.44 E

Weather: Cloudy, windy and very unpleasant

Author: Kylie

 

 

Our journal on our blog is written for us, to document our adventures, to remember the good things and sometimes the bad too. But this post is especially for all our non sailing friends.

 

Sell my house, I LOVE living on our boat!!

 

Ok, so maybe in another 4 months I might be ready to come back home but seriously I love this lifestyle. When we finished our last adventure we knew that we would do it all again. And even before we started this trip I said to Pete we need to have another plan for our next trip and it can't be 8 years away!

 

When we started telling people our travel plans I got the strangest responses. Sometimes it was jealousy for being able to leave our regular life for 6 months. Sometimes it was excitement for us, although a few admitted that whilst they were excited for us they would have absolutely no interest in doing something similar. Most of the time it was shock- and they gave me a look that said, why the hell would you want to spend 6 months on a boat?

 

Their responses surprised me! Why wouldn't you want to have a 6 month break from work? This was my dream. This was what we had been working so hard to achieve. Its why we don't go out and splurge money on lovely dinners each week or even takeaways for that matter.

 

Why did they give me that "your crazy" look? Well I realised it was because most people had no idea what living on a boat is all about. All they could imagine was 6 months travelling the ocean, sea sickness and such close confines to their husband and children. Well now I could see their point. That really doesn't sound too enticing does it?

 

I learnt the best way to describe living on a boat is to compare it with a caravan because everyone has a much better understanding of that. When you travel in a caravan you move from one camp ground or caravan park to the next, see the local sights, and relax. Well the boat is our caravan and it is our form of transport. We don't spend all day sitting in the boat and we are not sailing everyday. We sail from one anchorage to the next, we go ashore, we explore, bush-walks & beach walks, we swim, snorkel and we come back to the boat when everyone is tired out & hungry.

 

With caravan/camper trailer travellers, you have your travellers who go caravan park to caravan park, who need to be plugged into power to run the air-conditioner or ice making fridge and the travellers who prefer the wilderness of national parks and campgrounds. The same goes for boaties. Some are marina hoppers and some prefer secluded anchorages surrounded by natural beauty. We are the wilderness campers, the ones who prefer to have an entire anchorage to themselves. I don't foresee that we will spend a night in a marina the entire trip!

 

We do however have quite a lot of luxuries aboard our boat that your wilderness campers do not. A few of those things are more necessities in my opinion but everyones opinion is different and there are boats out there that don't have all of my necessities. We have a fridge and one of those Waco fridge/freezers too so we can have frozen meat, cheese and fresh fruit & vegetables aboard, enough for a few weeks away from civilisation.

 

We have solar panels, a wind generator and a battery bank that allows for us to power most of our modern day appliances, even a small television and DVD player.

 

One of the more extravagant appliances we have aboard that is a much appreciated luxury is our washing machine! Yep a little caravan washing machine that just managed to fit through the front bathroom door. Washing by hand isn't too bad but not being able to spin out is a real pain so we are very grateful for our little machine. Especially with 4 of us now aboard. If anyone can work out how to fit a dishwasher on too I would forever be in your debt.

 

There are certain things that we miss about our home life. Friends and family of course, this was the main concern the kids had when preparing for the trip. What I miss most is a decent shower. I'm not a 20 minute shower person or anything but a proper wash of my hair and a regular rinse off would be devine. Not all boats are the same and I know other boats have a much better shower system set up but whats common amoungst all boats is the limited water. Sounds funny when are floating on it but we have to carry all our fresh water. For drinking, dish washing, showers and clothes washing.

 

We have 2 fresh water tanks aboard that are each 180 litres. That's not much water for 4 people. Have a look at your water account ad see how many litres a day your family uses. And to fill it back up we need to fill 20 litre jerry cans and motor back and forth in the rubber duck between the local boat ramp and the boat. Yep it is painful. If we pull into a marina to get fuel we can also get water but we don't use much fuel on Jura so that's not very common for us.

 

We have a 2 burner gas stove with oven plus a bbq and with all the spare time we have, we probably eat better on the boat than we do at home!

 

Shopping is another part of the cruising life that can be hard work. Before we left I spent many hours buying up in bulk a lot of long life food. I figured it was easier to get that on board whilst we had access to a car than to walk it back from the shopping centre to a boat ramp, load it into the rubber duck and motor out to the yacht.

 

We have 2 very large under seat storage bins that are filled with lots of yummy treats plus canned foods, drinks, flours & rices. I have a beautiful big vegetable garden at home so buying some of these long life foods played with my head! However, I can tell you that is only so much fresh fruit and vegetables you can fit into the boat and eat before they go off, so its just part of our cruising life. We last shopped (actually it was the last time we saw any kind of store) 8 days ago and we expect we wont see a store for another 10 days. We still have some grapes, apples, bananas, corn, potatoes, onions, carrots and capsicum left I think! And all the bread is gone now too, so its on to flat bread wraps and maybe we will make some!

 

Boats have quite a bit of innovative storage. We make the most of every space. Recently we visited the house of Mia's school friend Evie. We walked down to their new pool area and the last step of the stairs was removable, a storage place for pool toys. Of course I called it a 'boat step' and as it turned out they are boaties, having lived aboard yachts for a decade in the Caribbean.

 

Under every floor/seat or bed space on the yacht is storage for something...water, fuel & food, we also have an inflatable kayak, snorkelling gear, diving gear, crafts like sewing and drawing and more tools than most men have in their garage these days. We have to be self sufficient to a certain extent.

Off to the beach now. To be continued...