Where not When!
A little while ago, I was chatting to a new friend about our liveaboard lifestyle. When he commented how lucky we are, I almost bit his head off!
As the popular saying goes, there’s a strong link between working hard and becoming lucky! Our lifestyle didn’t happen by accident – it took years of hard work, planning and saving, and most critically, taking the huge risk to jump off the corporate treadmill. We know we are very fortunate to have created this lifestyle, not lucky.
One of the great joys of this lifestyle is of being able to share it with friends and family. The way we’ve chosen to spend big parts of our time has become a big part of who we are and the memories we create, and we love being able to share those experiences.
Recently I heard other cruisers talk about inviting guests on board and they joked that they can tell guests where and when they can meet them; but never at the same time! We live a pretty spontaneous existence on board – we generally know where the season starts and ends, and it’s great to be able to remain flexible for the in between bits.
There’s been two occasions this past season where we’ve hunkered down for five or six days to let a patch of ratty weather pass. I’ve read many yachting accident reports where a skipper’s “need to be somewhere” has overridden common sense and become one of the influencing factors in a subsequent incident. For us, neither of our weather-pauses were dangerous – but it was nice not having a schedule to keep to, allowing an easier onward journey after the weather had passed.
We had one of our scariest near misses from a similar situation, many years back when we were based in Dubai. We’d headed up to Musandam in Oman – about five hours sailing from our base in the UAE. We’d had a great weekend with the kids on board, kayaking and snorkelling during the day, eating together and playing board games in the evenings – simple pleasures that weren’t always so easy to do in our normal busy lives. The scenery up there is barren but stunning. Or maybe it’s stunning because of it’s bareness – I’ll dig out some photos from that trip so you can judge yourself!
On the morning we were due to head back to the start of a work week, the weather picked up, making for a bumpy, wet, and overall miserable passage home. But that wasn’t the scary bit – we had to cross a sand bar to get back into our mooring area. With a sizeable swell, I didn’t realise at the time how lucky we were to safely get over the shallow bar – if the keel had touched, it could have ended in a messy roll. It’s one of those memories that I chose not to dwell on, but often catch myself thinking about when we ponder marginal decisions. We had so many options – leave the boat in Oman and taxi home; call the office and take an extra day off; anchor in the better-protected harbour… but I unwisely chose to ignore them all just to “stick to the plan”.
Having friends on board helps remind us what an agreeable lifestyle we’ve carved out for ourselves. This season has seen a good combination of exploring areas we’ve visited the previous two seasons, plus a sizeable chunk of southern Thailand that we haven’t visited before. I’ve found it equally enjoyable showing friends some of our old favourite areas, as well as exploring new areas together.
On the flip side, I know that living in a small space with limited resources, and always subject to the forces of the elements, is not for everyone. I get it.
We’ve got used to tiny living, and living on Aroha feels perfectly adequate to us now. A friend joined us for an afternoon sail a few years ago and the first thing she said was “It’s so small!” Despite being something that one should never say to a man, it caught me off guard. Space-wise, Aroha’s very well-designed and uses her small space very well. And we’ve become quite used to her efficient layout and even prefer it over some of the huge villas we lived in in our Dubai days. Sometimes it’s easier to just reply “Well, Aroha’s bigger than Cyril our campervan that we lived in for a year!” You don’t know Cyril!? Get to know him here! Introducing Cyril! – Ripening Nicely
Having guests on board also made me realise that we do many things in quite a specific way – safety and comfort are the usual reasons. But I know that even flushing the loo or boiling the kettle can seem quite complicated if you’re used to simply pressing a button at home.
Much of our sailing now is short hops from one island to another – the sort of easy cruising we’ve dreamt of for ages. A couple of weeks ago, we were bobbing around an anchorage – an idilic island group called the Butang Archipelago, and I realised that we could see our last four or five anchorages from that one spot. Yeah, we travel at a pretty sedate pace these days!
If it’s just Helen and me on board we’ve become a little lazy with short hops – if it’s just an hour or so, or if the wind isn’t in quite the right direction, we’ll more than likely just motor it rather than get the sails out. When we have friends on board, we tend to sail more than we normally would. The funny thing is, some of the best sailing we’ve had in the past seasons has been on day sails on light wind days, when we only raise the sails to show guests what it’s like to glide along using just the quiet power of the breeze.
We’d owned and sailed Aroha for a few years before we did our first big ocean passage. We thought we knew her and her sailing characteristics well, but it wasn’t until we were in the middle of our first big passage across the Indian ocean that we realised that 1) she sails quite well in light airs, and 2) she sails well when heavily reefed (with reduced sail area, to de-power the sails). Until then, we’d been leisurely sailing around our home base for afternoons or weekends – if the wind wasn’t strong enough, we’d simply motor, or if there was too much wind, we had the option of just having lunch in the sailing club instead!
I’m proud that since we’ve had Aroha, we’ve been generous inviting friends on board. I’ve also been really happy to share what’s essentially a pretty unique experience, particularly the ocean crossings. I’ve had five friends on board for passages of 1,400 nautical miles or longer, which is about two weeks at sea. That’s pretty good bragging rights. More recently, one of our friends joined us in Thailand for a few days of island hopping before crossing south to Malaysia. It wasn’t a huge passage – but I still find an excitement in crossing from one country to another in our own yacht. It’s been about two years since we sailed from India to Sri Lanka to Thailand, so even the chore of completing the clearance paperwork was enjoyable! Thankfully it was a lot easier (and cheaper!) than our previous experience, at the tail of the Covid silliness.
We’ve had a good range of visitors these past seasons in Thailand. Some have stayed on shore and joined us for day sails, a couple just visited us in the marina for a cup of coffee (we hope they’ll join us on board next season!) and some were bold enough to experience life on Aroha fully.
Helen flew out the day our final guest arrived – my seventeen-year-old nephew flew in for a week. Even if the conditions weren’t great for the free diving practice we were looking forward to, we had a nice time exploring a few nearby islands as well as enjoying Aroha’s new marina base (and beautiful resort right next door). He was training for a charity run the day he got back home, so we had a novel daily goal of finding a beach, long enough for low-tide run training!
Malaysia is the eighth country we’ve sailed Aroha to. I’d like to think that my dad, who died before he could realise his dream of “going sailing”, would be proud of us for not just living his dream, but sharing it too.
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