Happy New Sailing Year!!!

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had a fantastic time over the holiday season, and that 2019 is starting nicely for you.I write this from Des Moines, Iowa, comfortably sitting in a reclining chair by the chimney, down in a nicely quiet basement. We spent another fantastic Christmas with our Iowan family and celebrated new year's Eve with close friends and a game of Cards Against Humanity.In other words: we are having a really good time here in the US. (By the way, if you are near Des Moines on January the 19th, come meet us!!!)Although we love spending time with our family and friends, we are itching for more adventures at sea, and cannot wait to kick off our second season of sailing onboard Polar Seal! Ryan and I are already working hard at preparing the coming season, and here is a preview of what this new year has in store for us :) August 2018 - Our first landfall in Spain, after we crossed Biscay. 

Our 2019 sailing plans

Our sailing season in 2018 started late, and we knew that the part between Stockholm and Northern Spain wouldn't be the most fun, as we would be adjusting to our new lifestyle while sailing tidal, shallow and trafficked waters. 2019 is very different already, and we are so excited about the place we plan to visit.We expect to start sailing already by the end of March, and the programme we have concocted for ourselves feels VERY appealing (to me at least ;)) Remember that sailing plans are written in the sand at low tide, so this will definitely be adjusted as we sail into our second season!In 2019, we are looking forward to sailing through the Balearics and make a passage to Sardinia and Corsica. It is unclear yet if we will cross over to the Tuscan archipelago and sail down the Western coast of Italy from there, but I know for sure that I want to sail to Naples, Capri and the Amalfi coast.I don't know how much of the Italian boot we will visit, but we reserve the entire island of Sicily for our sail back to Gibraltar and the doors of the Mediterranean in 2020 (but we are getting ahead of ourselves here ;)) Our very approximative sailing plan for 2019. I want to go to Bari, on the East coast of Italy, and cross over to Montenegro. Will we make it? I don't know quite yet, but it would be amazing!To my biggest disappointment, we decided to not sail to Croatia. The prohibitive price tag that comes with sailing in Croatia discouraged us, and we will skip this part of the Adriatic sea to favor the more affordable waters of the Greek Islands.High up on my bucket list: the Corinth canal and its amazing 6,4km of cliffs between the Gulf of Corinth and the Aegean Sea.My wish is that we finish our 2019 season in Turkey, but it is unclear if Polar Seal will be able to meet the grey water requirements imposed by the country on boats sailing through its waters.If you know of any location that we shouldn't miss under any circumstances along the track of this very approximative plan, do not hesitate to contact us!  A favorite this year: the cave of Benagil in Algarve, Portugal.

In 2019, we upgrade!!!

Polar Seal is waiting for us in Almerimar, where a few people are taking care of her, running her engine now and then (thank you Mothership Adrift!) and giving her a few upgrades. When we get back to our beloved sailboat, girl will get some major upgrades, including: 

• A stainless steel back arch supporting 600W of solar panels and davits for our dinghy.

Ryan had been wanting to install one ever since we left, but until we reached Spain, we found no place that could build us one within the limits of our small budget. Upon arrival in Almerimar, we met with Stew, an Englishman relocated in Spain and former movie set builder (you are reading this right), who gave us a quote that satisfied both Ryan's ambitions and our wallet.Added to the 400 Watts of solar panels we already have installed on the deck, Polar Seal will be a real powerhouse! We have even thought through a couple of cool functions for our arch that we'll talk about in a video dedicated to the project. Stay tuned :) 

• New cockpit cushions

This one wasn't planned, but we had heard many good things about Almerimar's local canvas worker and needed some repairs done to our sail bag and bimini. Out of curiosity and soreness in our tushies, we asked her how much it would cost to get our 12 years old cockpit cushions redone. We were so satisfied with the quote that we didn't hesitate long before ordering a set of brand new cockpit cushions.Choosing the color proved to be a lot more difficult though, and I am anxious to see how our cockpit will turn out! 

• A new radar

If you've followed us, you know that our radar pooping on us caused us much stress along the western coast of Spain and Portugal. We tried to have it fixed down in Lagos, only to realize that it was broken beyond reasonable repair cost.'Because of age and compatibility issues, we couldn't just buy a new radar and install it with our existing chart-plotter system. We looked at buying a second-hand radar similar to ours, but no one was willing to ship it to us in Portugal or Spain.After considering our alternatives, we were looking at getting a brand new GPS/chart plotter AND radar and as we all know, those do not come cheap. That was before we were contacted by Anders, a Youtube subscriber based in Copenhagen.Anders was replacing his radar on his boat and generously offered to send us his old one, which was compatible with our system. Thanks to Anders, we did not have to replace our chart plotter/radar and could invest in the back-arch instead.Do we have the most amazing subscribers in the World? Yes, we most definitely do :) 

• A new fridge in lieu and place of the cooling box that I used to raise dough.

When the former owners of Polar Seal had her built, they cheaped out on an option package that would transform the cooling box in our galley into a fridge.Result? The "cooling box" was getting warm and moist in the heat of Southern Europe, all the vegetables that I stored in there would rotten in less than a day, and I eventually used that space to raise dough.This year, we're saying goodbye to the top-loading dough-raising cabinet, and welcome a few extra cubic meters of fridge space :) 

• A DIY watermaker...?

Oh friends.... Have I mentioned that we have the best subscribers in the World?At the end of the season, we mentioned that we would LOVE to install a watermaker on Polar Seal during a Youtube live session, but didn't have the budget this year for that. A watermaker would allow us to produce our own fresh water from seawater and therefore increase our self-sufficiency at sea.But at a price tag of around 8000$ to 10000$ plus installation, there was no way we could afford one this year.Right after that same live session, one of our Youtube subscribers, named Tommy, sent us an email inspiring ways to create our own watermaker and links to source the parts needed. Ryan has been working on it for a few weeks now, and although we haven't set exactly where we will source all the parts from, we are getting closer and closer to DIY our watermaker.Again, stay tuned :)  

A new season of Youtube videos!

First off, let me tell you how much I miss making videos. The withdrawal is REAL! As mentioned in our off-season update, I have a few videos in store for January and February including:

• A full review of the seasickness glasses (AKA the boarding rings) - finally.
• Ryan's nerdy guide to lithium batteries - FINALLY!
• A "how much does it cost" video, with our own twist to it - an answer to the question that we get asked the most
• Some marina life adventures in Almerimar
• A sequel to my pursuit of the World's most beautiful beach at 22°03'08.4"N 159°30'27.8"W ;)

Maybe not in that exact order, but still coming! They're all filmed, I need to spend a "few" hours editing, but I now have the right equipment to do so (see below).in 2019, I am not only continuing to make videos, but I will also be stepping up the production. Our first 2019 episodes will come out in March, and I am already working on some exciting projects. So if you haven't done it already, make sure to subscribe!In 2018, we received a lot of feedback and comments on the videos that we make. We really enjoy involving you guys in the process of making those videos, so if you have any questions you would like us to answer in a video, if there is anything that you would like to see more of (or less of!), send us an e-mail!  

New year, new gear

Laptopless

If you are wondering why I haven't updated our blog, our Youtube channel or even our Instagram in a while, the reason is that my laptop was broken after it fell a few times on the boat.The Apple store in Des Moines was awesome though and repaired my MacBook Pro down to details I wasn't even too bothered about, but my laptop was harder to use when it was broken, and it had to spend a week in the Apple shop (oooh the withdrawal symptoms of having no laptop for 7 days straight!)  A big thank you to the Apple employees of Jordan's creek, they were all amazing from the beginning to the end!

Cameraless

Now I am also waiting for my camera to also get repaired. If you've followed our videos, you may remember that it fell both on the day we left Stockholm and when we crossed Biscay.Those falls probably caused the external microphone jack port to break, and my camera wouldn't pick the sound from my fancy microphone and instead record with the inbuilt mic. I only realized what was actually going on with my sound back in November when I got really frustrated with my mic. DAH.  Although Apple was fantastic at taking care of my laptop (free service, awesome communication and record time), Canon has had my camera in their shop in almost 4 weeks, and I most likely won't get it back until February. So... my little freelance business of mine got me a Christmas present in the form of a smaller, lighter back up camera, that will be following us on our 2019 adventure and forward, and hopefully, avoid us to run into any equipment malfunction until then :)Meet: my new Canon M50! 

Now that I have a back-up camera to document everything, 2019 will definitely be an unforgettable one ;) 

We all wish you a fantastic 2019, and hope that this year, you all follow your dreams!

 Sophie (and Ryan)