The days are starting to become simple. Sunrise and sunset. Wind and calm. But I still have a list to check off. Then hopefully soon… I’ll be headed out.
Starting the biggest adventure of my life.
…
I left Alaska on September 15th and have been unemployed and traveling since then.
The whole trip has been in pursuit of a dream that I’ve had a hard time wrapping my mind around. Find a sailboat, buy it, live on it, take it to the Caribbean. The dream was easy to have, probably something lots of people want to do, but I didn’t know how I could make it happen. What I’m finding is, if you take it one day at a time, overcome fear, and actively work towards something, then anything is possible. I feel like the hardest part is over now, but we’ll see about that! I’m now living at anchor on a perfect little sailboat, her name is Simplicity, and I’m in Daytona Beach, Florida.
From here I have many options. My goals are to live closer to nature, catch fish, and generally live as minimalistic as possible. I’m on a tight budget, and people always say that sailing is very expensive… I aim to prove that wrong! A lot of that comes with luck however, and how resourceful you are with repairs… But either way I will need a job soon, and now, at the very least I have a nice place to live. My aunt and uncle own a restaurant in the Virgin Islands, and they have been greatly in need of help since the hurricanes hit. So I want to go there and work for them. The journey is to get there on this little 28 foot boat, (the make is a Lancer, built in California). That should give me a good adventure to start writing about! But I have a backup plan too.
This trip so far has taken me on a convoluted path around the continent and spent most of my savings. I drove south through the Canadian Rockies first, and stored my truck in the desert in California. From there I wandered aimlessly in the Caribbean coast of Mexico and Belize, looking for the boat. I learned at some point, the place where all this boat trade happens is in Florida. I had a friend who planned to do this with me, but he backed out. I thought this was something I couldn’t do alone, but I realized to get through this step, the only way for me is alone.
My grandmother lives in Florida and she put me up in her cottage near Gainesville for a while. I may be alone here, but my family has been extremely supportive and that has made this possible. It was two weeks with my grandma before I found the boat in my price range that I thought could be the one. This is much faster than usual, but I was nearly ready to go back to California to work and save more. I think that for better or for worse, this is my fate. Everything I’ve done this last year has led me here, and now I’m committed. I’m also feeling inspired.
Simplicity is an old boat, so time will tell me what problems she has because of that. She has a great backstory, she sailed here from Canada and has crossed over to the Bahamas multiple times. Clearly she was owned by a very adventurous guy at one time, who most likely maintained her well. He left her setup for cruising. The solar panel charges the gps navigation system, and I do have an autopilot but we’ll see how much that drains the battery. Nothing else draws power except the lights, radio and flashlight chargers, and the inverter to plug my phone into. So the solar panel seems to keep up. She has an outboard engine which is gas powered. The sails and running rigging are all in beautiful condition.
One reason I went for the boat was the seller himself. William is about my age, from Georgia, and he said he wanted her to go to a good person. I didn’t totally understand why, but now I get it. Sailboat purchases really should be the forging of a friendship. He came way down from his asking price for me, included his dingy and dingy motor, and actually offered to come with me on the journey. He told me he was planning a trip as well, on his brother’s sailboat in January to go to the Bahamas. I would be welcome to come and he said he would ride on Simplicity with me. Simplicity is set up for single hand sailing, but that’s something I’ve never done before. I’ve been unsure. We’ll see one day at a time where this month brings us… But something tells me that while I feel alone out here today, perhaps I’m never really alone.
Today is the most peaceful day in a while. Nothing needs to happen today. The sun is shining warm, the breeze is blowing lightly through the boat. The sea is calm and sparkling, and I’m listening to music.
This adventure started the day after Christmas when I moved aboard.
I spent Christmas with my Grandma and Aunt Fran, as well as some of their friends; a couple who happened to have sailed small boats around the Bahamas their whole lives. Chuck and Joni appeared out of the woodwork like angels to help me out. In the morning they drove me to Daytona, and Chuck made a good survey of the boat for me. They returned within the week and Chuck helped me. We took the chainplates off, added a strong backing plate, and re-bedded them. We grinded out a crack in the deck that was leaking and re-fiberglassed it. We fixed the leak! Who knows how much wood rot is in the decks but I figure with these massive new chainplates it will take a hell of a lot of force to rip them out! Mostly this was an invaluable learning experience for how to do the maintenance I will need to do in the future. And it was good preventative maintenance that winded up costing me nothing. More than I ever could have asked for.
The slip at the marina was paid up through the end of the month. (I was actually never supposed to live there though). But I did. I was up all night on New Years Eve, taking all my new possessions out of the boat and sprawling them on the docks. I organized everything, and was amazed at all the fantastic survival related gear I have here. Fireworks were all around me. I overstayed at the marina a couple more days. Then 5 days ago I left. That’s when the adventure really began!
Leaving the docks was a fiasco, it seems my engine has problems with the reverse gear. That is the last major thing on my list now, I need to service the engine. Fortunately I reacted very quickly, as I was incredibly tense and scared too. I didn’t hit any other boats or the dock at all. Simplicity is so light I was able to grab a dock piling and make a 6 point turn with my arms to get her out. Before I knew it I was in the channel and sailing! On my own. I got both the sails up and tried everything out. The boat is setup great. I realized if I could travel like this proficiently, the amount of freedom I’ll have is unreal.
I made a few amateur mistakes but nothing I couldn’t solve. I had some troubles anchoring, and the faulty reverse gear made it that much harder. This tiny little boat has a massive anchor. Makes it hard to tell if its set in there or not, because this boat probably isn’t heavy enough to pull the anchor either way! Oh simple little Simplicity…
That drove me crazy through the night with wild dreams of dragging the anchor. It did drag somewhat but the winds that came down the next day set it so deep into the Florida sludge that I assume it will never come out now! I’m waiting for a part for the engine to arrive, so I’m just finishing up preparations at this point… Then William is still planning to come as well, we will sail southbound first to the Miami area.
A storm came over the area and I waited it out here at the anchor. It lasted two days but there was a 5 minute squall that hit me at one point with whiteout pouring rain and winds gusting at 40mph. It threw up crazy waves in just the few minutes it was over me. I built myself a rain catcher out of a tarp and a funnel, it worked! If I needed to, I probably could have filled up all my water during that storm.
Then yesterday the weather was calm and I made my trip to shore. This feels like the most far removed from society I’ve ever been. I’m pretending I’m way out in the middle of the ocean here… even though I’m just offshore in the saltwater Halifax River. But it is a big effort to come and go from the boat. I have to load my bicycle into the dingy in pieces to be assembled for transport at shore. I also have to load the motor into the dingy without dropping it into the ocean. Then I have to possibly fill gas and water tanks, and make sure I load up on some food before I come back. All this has to be carried in my backpack. When I’m out here on the water… it feels like I live next to the city, but not in it. I feel pretty self sufficient living this way!
The first night I was out here, I was visited by dolphins. They came right up to the boat, perhaps to warm me that the anchor was dragging. At some point after dark I actually started the motor and reset it. It wasn’t bad working in the dark here. The city lights are so bright that I could see everything just fine. The water was like a mirror, reflecting the colorful bridges with the cars lights driving over, and the high rise hotels on the distant beachfront. But you have to feel bad for the dolphins, swimming in that coca-cola water. The river is despicably polluted. One early morning, the week before at the marina, trash was everywhere, and I watched a sea turtle surface in it. The blue heron that lives there fishes among it everyday.
Living at anchor on a sailboat is a living in nature, close to the sea and the earth. It is a minimalistic life, and while not for everyone, if I can put one message into this writing its that we need to reduce our impact on the planet. Daytona Beach is a lost cause, it is a land of concrete, slowly being abandoned for more profitable places it seems. I wonder how long the animals here can survive on our trash before they die or have to leave.
Because it seems the pollution problem is still getting worse. I blame these mega-yacht power boats that crush through the water and shake me all around from time to time, and the mansions on shore whose view I am freely stealing. And the high rise hotels where they made their excess money in the first place. One is being built in the distance there right now. I’m not trying to argue or change anyone’s opinions, but I want to urge you all to go outside and get to know nature. Anyone who knows nature will respect and love it.
Living in this river that has been so ruined lets me see firsthand the damage done here. The people who live here don’t really notice or care it seems, nor do the animals, because they are used to it. I look forward to sailing away, because at least for now, those pristine places are still out there. Whoever wants to follow the journey, or come out and sail with me, is welcome to come along! Thanks all for reading and I’ll keep ya updated.
