Very few sailing channels showcase small live aboard sailboats, just happen to come across yours, really good content and great editing, 7 months ago we purchased a fairly new Dana 24, spent about 5 months getting her ready for our trip to the Bahamas, I was really amazed on how well this little boat performed, we left Key West 5 weeks ago under some what rough conditions, but the winds were from the west, that was our open window, the Dana 24 handled the chop better then our Tartan 37 and its little 18 Yanmar engine is so easy on fuel, we are presently in Spanish Wells, going to spend some time around the Eleuthera Islands, lots of great dive sites available, we are probably going back to Florida in July, just ahead of Hurricane season.
We love it when we can connect with our viewers and are excited to hear about your sailing adventure! We wish you all the best with your travels and hope you have the time of your lives out there! We would love to follow your story and hear how it all turns out. Fair Winds!
It is so cool watching how your dream turned into a reality. Many sailing channels start out with folks already on a boat, and others start with folks basically jumping right into the dream... as if no prep was ever necessary. A bit unrealistic, eh? We enjoy watching your adventures unfold. Sooner or later, we'll see you out there as well!
Thank you so much for your kind words and for taking the time to watch our videos! We have loved being able to share our story with everyone and are so happy to have you along for the adventure! We often get asked how we fund our lifestyle or how did we get started living aboard a sailboat and to be honest it wasn't easy. We appreciate that you recognize the hard work and effort that we put into making our sailing dream become a reality. It really does take being able to work hard, set goals, have patience, and to have a drive to never give up on your dreams no matter what they are. We can't thank you enough for being such a huge part of our sailing adventure! Good luck on your sailing adventure and fair winds!
Great video, it looked like a great sail to Abaco, you did not have any problem with the 5 foot keel, since you just had a birthday a little while back Happy Birthday Glad you made it there without any issues. Safe Sailing. you are both living my dream when I retire.
Thank you! My birthday is coming up again in just a couple of days! I can't believe how fast time has flown by! We really couldn't have asked for a better crossing and we were so happy that we didn't have any problems. Thanks for leaving us an awesome comment!
It is very convenient while under sail. Trying to cook meals on the stovetop while heeled over like that is simply impossible. Besides that I wasn't about to risk getting seasick again, being down below. Hahaha Thanks for watching our videos and for leaving us a comment! We love connecting with our viewers!
Not me! I took a nap! I feel great! Lol 🤣😂 I can re-watch every single episode. Me and my wife stay up late looking at sailboats on-line, craigslist, yatch traders, hope to see that beautiful bahama blue water this year. We live in south Texas, and wonder, should we buy local and drive to Florida the way you guys did, or buy in Florida and prepare from Florida. But like you guys, we are trying to budget the boat and a few months of travel under 20k. Fingers crossed
Make an insulated coozie to help it to reconstitute quicker. You can do it with reflectixs and duct tape. Look at UA-cam ultra lite hiking channels for a detailed build. There are so many ultra cheap and ultra tasty suggestions for your provisioning...Good luck Randall.
Watching your video on a cold Michigan morning, thank you! You have listed a lot of the gear you are using but not the knife on your harness. I am looking for a knife for an upcoming sailing trip. Do you recall the make and model?
Gary, the knife on my lifejacket is a Spyderco Enuff Salt. This is an incredible knife made with a revolutionary H1 stainless steel that absolutely will NOT RUST! I highly recommend it. Here is a link: Spyderco Enuff Salt Knife: amzn.to/2UarnbU Thanks for watching our videos and for leaving us a comment! We really appreciate it, and hope that you have a good winter in Michigan! And good luck with your upcoming sailing trip! Fair winds!
Suggestion ; Cost of sailing per month/break down if possible..gas,food,marina etc,. where the dry foods are stored How do you finance BBQ? Boat tour. (Did I miss it?) Beautiful videos.Excellent edditing. Informative. Thank you for sharing your experiences. Fair winds. 💕
Here is a link to our boat tour/boat upgrades video: ua-cam.com/video/OhLan1B1Vd0/v-deo.html We have answered a couple of these questions before, but would love to answer them for you as well. We spent 5 years working multiple full time jobs, saving money and working on our boat with the goal of someday taking it somewhere warm on an epic sailing adventure. We bought the boat and trailer in Utah, on the Great Salt Lake, for 10k and lived aboard it for the next 5 years while living in Oregon. We made upgrades along the way, as we could afford to and made a great effort to live debt free while preparing for our adventure. All together with the purchase of the boat and trailer, living expenses, upgrades and refit cost, traveling across the country, sailing The Bahamas, etc. We spent around 40k. Monthly cost of sailing per month....Honestly once everything is paid for and the sails are up, you can easily go a month without spending a dollar, but then again you probably spent 40k to get to this point, so it's a bit tricky to assign a dollar amount. If you counted our average monthly expenditure we averaged between $200-$400 a month, but if you count the cost of preparation, purchasing the boat, outfitting, traveling across the country, provisioning food etc. you could say we spent 5k a month! In our boat tour video we briefly show where we keep some of our food items. Our main locations for food are the storage locker under the bed, where we kept all of our heavy canned food items, the port settee, where we stored a majority of the dry-food items, the cabinet under the stove and the ice-box in the galley, which is where we kept all of our smaller food items like snacks and things that we needed easy access to on a daily basis. We also had one tiny compartment in the V-berth that Randall made which we used for storing extra bottles of seasoning, spices, smaller canned items and boxed foods. We do not have a BBQ aboard Turtle. The space in the cockpit is small and having an external bbq would have taken up too much space. We did all of our cooking on the stove inside the boat and sometimes in our JetBoil camping stove. Thank you so much for watching our videos and for leaving us a comment with some questions. Hope this short answer could be helpful. We appreciate you watching our videos!
My two favorite flavors are the biscuits and gravy, and the beef stroganoff with noodles. I have also tried the beef stew, and the lasagna, which were pretty decent. Amazon might have some good deals.
A 32' boat would be a lovely size for The Bahamas. We bought the Ericson 26 not only because we could afford to buy it, but also because we could afford to keep it. It came with the trailer, so we knew we would always be able to keep it for free in the driveway. It was not the ideal cruising boat, but it was ideal for what we could afford. If money was less of a restriction, I would have loved to sail on a 40' boat. My ideal boat would be a 42' catamaran, but we chose to live our dreams right now instead of waiting for an ideal situation, that will never come. If we had waited for a 40' boat, we would have never been able to go. Thanks for watching our videos and for leaving us a question!
Very few sailing channels showcase small live aboard sailboats, just happen to come across yours, really good content and great editing, 7 months ago we purchased a fairly new Dana 24, spent about 5 months getting her ready for our trip to the Bahamas, I was really amazed on how well this little boat performed, we left Key West 5 weeks ago under some what rough conditions, but the winds were from the west, that was our open window, the Dana 24 handled the chop better then our Tartan 37 and its little 18 Yanmar engine is so easy on fuel, we are presently in Spanish Wells, going to spend some time around the Eleuthera Islands, lots of great dive sites available, we are probably going back to Florida in July, just ahead of Hurricane season.
We love it when we can connect with our viewers and are excited to hear about your sailing adventure! We wish you all the best with your travels and hope you have the time of your lives out there! We would love to follow your story and hear how it all turns out. Fair Winds!
It is so cool watching how your dream turned into a reality. Many sailing channels start out with folks already on a boat, and others start with folks basically jumping right into the dream... as if no prep was ever necessary. A bit unrealistic, eh?
We enjoy watching your adventures unfold. Sooner or later, we'll see you out there as well!
Thank you so much for your kind words and for taking the time to watch our videos! We have loved being able to share our story with everyone and are so happy to have you along for the adventure! We often get asked how we fund our lifestyle or how did we get started living aboard a sailboat and to be honest it wasn't easy. We appreciate that you recognize the hard work and effort that we put into making our sailing dream become a reality. It really does take being able to work hard, set goals, have patience, and to have a drive to never give up on your dreams no matter what they are. We can't thank you enough for being such a huge part of our sailing adventure! Good luck on your sailing adventure and fair winds!
Great video, it looked like a great sail to Abaco, you did not have any problem with the 5 foot keel, since you just had a birthday a little while back Happy Birthday Glad you made it there without any issues. Safe Sailing. you are both living my dream when I retire.
Thank you! My birthday is coming up again in just a couple of days! I can't believe how fast time has flown by! We really couldn't have asked for a better crossing and we were so happy that we didn't have any problems. Thanks for leaving us an awesome comment!
Eating meals right out the freeze dry bag...Classic!
It is very convenient while under sail. Trying to cook meals on the stovetop while heeled over like that is simply impossible. Besides that I wasn't about to risk getting seasick again, being down below. Hahaha Thanks for watching our videos and for leaving us a comment! We love connecting with our viewers!
I really enjoy your trip! Hope you make wonderful memories. Please be careful with the plastic leftovers, keep them out of the ocean and keep sailing
We do. Thanks for watching and for leaving us an awesome comment! We appreciate it!
Not me! I took a nap! I feel great! Lol 🤣😂 I can re-watch every single episode. Me and my wife stay up late looking at sailboats on-line, craigslist, yatch traders, hope to see that beautiful bahama blue water this year. We live in south Texas, and wonder, should we buy local and drive to Florida the way you guys did, or buy in Florida and prepare from Florida. But like you guys, we are trying to budget the boat and a few months of travel under 20k. Fingers crossed
You guys rock, keep it up!
Thanks!
Make an insulated coozie to help it to reconstitute quicker. You can do it with reflectixs and duct tape. Look at UA-cam ultra lite hiking channels for a detailed build. There are so many ultra cheap and ultra tasty suggestions for your provisioning...Good luck Randall.
Thanks for sharing this information with everyone; I'll have to take a look. Something like that might come in very handy. Thanks for watching!
Watching your video on a cold Michigan morning, thank you! You have listed a lot of the gear you are using but not the knife on your harness. I am looking for a knife for an upcoming sailing trip. Do you recall the make and model?
Gary, the knife on my lifejacket is a Spyderco Enuff Salt. This is an incredible knife made with a revolutionary H1 stainless steel that absolutely will NOT RUST! I highly recommend it. Here is a link: Spyderco Enuff Salt Knife: amzn.to/2UarnbU
Thanks for watching our videos and for leaving us a comment! We really appreciate it, and hope that you have a good winter in Michigan! And good luck with your upcoming sailing trip! Fair winds!
Suggestion ;
Cost of sailing per month/break down if possible..gas,food,marina etc,.
where the dry foods are stored
How do you finance
BBQ?
Boat tour. (Did I miss it?)
Beautiful videos.Excellent edditing. Informative.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. Fair winds. 💕
Here is a link to our boat tour/boat upgrades video: ua-cam.com/video/OhLan1B1Vd0/v-deo.html
We have answered a couple of these questions before, but would love to answer them for you as well. We spent 5 years working multiple full time jobs, saving money and working on our boat with the goal of someday taking it somewhere warm on an epic sailing adventure. We bought the boat and trailer in Utah, on the Great Salt Lake, for 10k and lived aboard it for the next 5 years while living in Oregon. We made upgrades along the way, as we could afford to and made a great effort to live debt free while preparing for our adventure. All together with the purchase of the boat and trailer, living expenses, upgrades and refit cost, traveling across the country, sailing The Bahamas, etc. We spent around 40k.
Monthly cost of sailing per month....Honestly once everything is paid for and the sails are up, you can easily go a month without spending a dollar, but then again you probably spent 40k to get to this point, so it's a bit tricky to assign a dollar amount. If you counted our average monthly expenditure we averaged between $200-$400 a month, but if you count the cost of preparation, purchasing the boat, outfitting, traveling across the country, provisioning food etc. you could say we spent 5k a month!
In our boat tour video we briefly show where we keep some of our food items. Our main locations for food are the storage locker under the bed, where we kept all of our heavy canned food items, the port settee, where we stored a majority of the dry-food items, the cabinet under the stove and the ice-box in the galley, which is where we kept all of our smaller food items like snacks and things that we needed easy access to on a daily basis. We also had one tiny compartment in the V-berth that Randall made which we used for storing extra bottles of seasoning, spices, smaller canned items and boxed foods.
We do not have a BBQ aboard Turtle. The space in the cockpit is small and having an external bbq would have taken up too much space. We did all of our cooking on the stove inside the boat and sometimes in our JetBoil camping stove.
Thank you so much for watching our videos and for leaving us a comment with some questions. Hope this short answer could be helpful. We appreciate you watching our videos!
Those mountain house meals are perty good. I take them moto camping and hiking
Kenzie is a little picky, but I love them! Thanks for watching our videos and for leaving us a comment! We appreciate it!
My local Walmart has them but only Turkey and beef & noodles. Plus a breakfast. Wish they had few more options
My two favorite flavors are the biscuits and gravy, and the beef stroganoff with noodles. I have also tried the beef stew, and the lasagna, which were pretty decent. Amazon might have some good deals.
If you had to do it over again would you get a larger boat say 32' ? Safe Travels.....
A 32' boat would be a lovely size for The Bahamas. We bought the Ericson 26 not only because we could afford to buy it, but also because we could afford to keep it. It came with the trailer, so we knew we would always be able to keep it for free in the driveway. It was not the ideal cruising boat, but it was ideal for what we could afford. If money was less of a restriction, I would have loved to sail on a 40' boat. My ideal boat would be a 42' catamaran, but we chose to live our dreams right now instead of waiting for an ideal situation, that will never come. If we had waited for a 40' boat, we would have never been able to go. Thanks for watching our videos and for leaving us a question!
Part of the cool factor is watching you do it on a 26 foot boat!
I had a 40 foot boat and now I have an Ericson 26 I sail alone and I prefer the 26. It might be slow but whats the rush.
Thanks! It was a nice size for just the two of us. Very doable.
Exactly! Once you're out there, there really is no rush. It's like living in a completely different world.
I'd rather eat the bag.
Kenzie doesn't like them either. LOL Thanks for watching!
Rip