How we are adjusting to life onboard
WE ARE TAKING YOUR QUESTIONS!!! Ask us anything you've ever wondered about deciding to quit our jobs to go on a sailing adventure with no prior experience of boats or sailing... Every other week, I'll make a video to answer one question at a time.
I've already received some questions about seasickness, sleep, and even beauty routines.... This will be a lot of fun :)
When we started this project 3 years ago, we knew nothing about boats or sailing and had TONS of questions. How different is life on a sailboat from life ashore? How do you eat? How do you go to the toilets on a boat…?
Ask us whatever it is that you wonder about boat life, and we will answer in a serie of videos dedicated to your questions!
Send your smartest or dumbest questions (anonymously or not) at ryanandsophieonaboat@gmail.com or through:
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This week, we are adjusting to living onboard our sailboat, which is the exact reason why that episode was delayed.
I want to dedicate this episode to my friend Frida, who when I told about our sailing plans for the first time, thought I was a fool, and asked how on earth I was planning to live on a sailboat, a confined space, with another human being, for a period of over 24 hours.
Well Frida, here is your answer.
Already when we moved in on the boat, I largely overestimated Polar Seal’s storage space.
I packed in several bags my entire wardrobe, happily thinking that I would make it work. I did not make it work, and took half of my wardrobe back to the locker where we keep the stuff that we cannot take with us on the boat.
Ryan was sewing behind me, as I was trying to record this episode, and I ended up kicking him out of the boat so that I could work. Right? I needed SPACE. That one thing that we don’t really have anymore…
Or do we? Polar Seal is a Beneteau Oceanis 40, which stands for 40 foot long (12 meters). That’s not even that small of a sailboat, as a lot of cruisers who do the same thing we do live on much smaller boats, down to 32 or 28 foot and sometimes without shower, refrigeration or flushing toilet.
I admire people able to live that simply, I don’t think I could do it myself.
I give a little tour of our boat, and a “before/after” of our living condition. Our living room has shrunk, but looks nice. Our kitchen has been replaced by a “galley”, which is VERY SMALL. I have to crawl on the floor to get anything out of the fridge, the oven or the kitchen cabinets.
My enormous former walk-in closet and the bedroom are probably the two spaces that have shrunken the most. Gosh I miss that walk in closet… Our bedroom is now a cabin, whose ceiling is very low, but the bed is comfy.
I bought an extra madrass that I did not measure correctly, and that sticks out quite a bit.
Finally, our bathroom operates a lot differently. It is quite nice for a boat bathroom, but but boy is it challenging to go to the toilets in shaky seas!
The space itself isn’t bad at all, onboard our Oceanis 40 from 2007. The real challenge is: proximity.
Private space is a rare commodity onboard, and added to the fact that we are still adjusting, makes for some explosive moments between Ryan and I.
As we set sails from Rønne in Bornholm to Kiel in German, our departure is delayed by an argument that we work out before leaving.
We cheer up, and leave Denmark under a beautiful sun.
The next morning, we are in sailing in German waters. Ryan’s biggest concern is that we are flying our German courtesy flag upside down (We were not…) meanwhile, TONS of German flagged boats were passing us, their flags well in sight. Time to go off watch captain?