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June 3, 2020 by Carly Filed Under: Australia, Maine, New Zealand

It’s been a while since I’ve written on my blog, in my kids’ words, things have been a bit cray cray (crazy).

Abeona has sold and she’s left a hole in our hearts but it was time to move on. We sold our house in Morrill, Maine and built a new house in Northport (Maine) a whole whopping 20 minutes away. Shortly after the completion of our 1000 sq ft house Carl got a job out of the country on a large luxury sailboat. It was really sucky living away from each other and 6 months in I just couldn’t do it any longer. Carl was scheduled to be in New Zealand for 6 months for a yard period with his job so the kids and packed up and joined him.

our house in Maine

Auckland was amazing, we lived with all the crew and had a professional chef cooking 3 meals a day for us. What a dream!!!

[Read more…]

Happy Salty New Year

January 2, 2016 by Carly Filed Under: Alaska, Arctic, Australia, bahamas, Beaver Road Trip, Caribbean, New England, Newfoundland, Northwest Passage, Nova Scotia

Of course it’s the 11th hour and I’m writing a post for the New Year. I’m late for everything, never on time, always in a flustered rush. But hey, if I was on time that wouldn’t be me.

New year resolution…. better time management.

Ha! Let me put that on the list of eat better and exercise, those New Year’s resolutions seem to roll over year after year.

happy new year

We all know very well on the improvements we need to make on ourselves but what of those achievements we’ve reached previously in the year? Lets check those puppies out people! What did you pull off in 2015? [Read more…]

at a cross road

December 13, 2015 by Carly Filed Under: Alaska, Arctic, Australia, Beaver Road Trip

We’ve been living on board Salty for past 2.5 years, we’ve had highs and lows living our adventure. In this short time we have sailed roughly 18,000 nautical miles, now I’m not a seasoned sailor but hooly dooly that’s a lot of miles. We’ve sailed the Bahamas, New England, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Caribbean, Greenland, the Northwest Passage and Alaska – in that order.

I’m not ashamed to say that we’re tired. Tired of the constant moving. Tired of not seeing friends. Tired of planning meals around the weather conditions. And tired of not having a toddler friendly backyard. Don’t get me wrong, the beach and sea are great for young kids but you always have to be on your toes when it comes to kids under 5 and the water. Crew is not yet 2 years old and into EVERYTHING, we find that one of us has to be within 2 feet of him at all times. It’s exhausting.

say it isn't soSo it’s come to this. We are dreaming of some land. Land in which we can open our back door and let the kids discover without constant adult supervision. I know there are still dangers outside for them but nothing like living on a boat, one ear always open for that dreaded scream and splash of one of our mini me’s falling overboard. The kids want bikes, pets and friends. Hell I want a bike too!

Are we buying a house and becoming landlubbers? Not yet, but we are at a turning point in our travels. Like many cruisers we have exhausted our funds, our cruising kitty is sick.

We have some big decisions to make that not only affect us but our kids and extended family. We are living a life in limbo.

We’ve been exploring Maine and checking out properties to see if it would be something that would fit our family, our whole family…. including Salty. In this plan I would head up to Maine with the kids and the Beaver, Carl would fly back to Alaska and prep the boat to take her back through the Northwest Passage. Salty would be flipped from a family friendly boat to an adventurous high latitudes charter boat.

In the coming weeks we will need to make a firm decision of land or sea. We could always head back to Alaska and hope that Carl could land a job for the summer then head south at the start of winter, but finding temporary employment doesn’t bring in big bucks for future sailing plans. How do people sail and support a family of 5? Can it be done?

Another idea is to head back to Alaska straight away and cruise south aiming for a Pacific crossing come April 2016 but this would have us sailing in rough winter seas landing us in Australia dead broke, if we even make it that far.

Ahh the sleepless nights of tossing and turning thinking about the future. I’m sure there are other cruisers out there that struggle with the same emotions as we are. We love sailing and traveling but we keep coming back to: is this the right time for us? Maybe if we give it another couple of years, wait for Crew to be 4 and give the live aboard thing another go. But we have the boat NOW, will we be shooting ourselves in the foot in a years time?

we have met the enemy and he is us – Walt Kelly

If anyone has some slick ideas about how we can keep cruising and afford to buy a sensible amount of chocolate along the way please let us known. As for now we’re looking outside of the the box but not yet giving up the dream.

our (almost) white tie event

June 1, 2015 by Carly Filed Under: Australia

lob1

Our white tie event (we would have worn them if we had some) was pretty monumental, you have a lot of first’s on a boat and I’m sure everyone had this one within the first month, but not for us. It has taken us over 18 months to have lobster on board. [Read more…]

Australia and back in 10 days

May 16, 2015 by Carly Filed Under: Australia

Did I forget to mention with a baby! I hadn’t been home in 7 years and thought it was time for a visit, a rather quick one. Carl thought dealing with 3 kids was too much and Nana begged me to bring Crew home, how stupid was I. 6 hours from Boston to LA then 14 hours to Sydney and finally 1.5 hours to the Sunshine Coast. In all it was over 24 hours to get to Nanas house. Crew barely slept and I didn’t sleep a wink. Then we dealt with baby jet-lag. Yuck, I will never travel that far (by plane) with a baby again. I’m soo sorry to the people who had to sit next to us. By the time we got to LA I was extremely tempted to jump straight back on the plane we arrived on and head back to the boat. Come the middle of the 14 hour flight I almost found myself running up and down the isles

let me off, let me off, LET ME OFF!!

But we made it and 10 days was not long enough to get over the horrific flights to get there, I could have just cried.

Once in Australia we had a great time. We ate and ate and ate. Well I ate and ate and ate. I swear I would be a fat lady if I lived there full time. Oh the sausage rolls, tim tams, caramel slice, Milo, prawns, hot donuts, ice chocolates, custard apples… the list goes on.

Here are a few pics from our trip downunder.

boat sunset burraI missed out on seeing kangaroos but did catch up with some Kookaburra’s. [Read more…]

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Hi, I'm Carly. I'm a mum, an Australian, a wife, chocolate lover and often a seasick sailor. I like keeping a blog for us to look back on all our adventures. If you think this lifestyle would fit your family please contact me and I can tell you the good, the bad and the ugly. Read More…

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