News from two sailors on a winter break
The other day, I was googling our names to find an article that had been published a while back, and in the “People also asked” section of Google, I found the following query:
“Did Ryan and Sophie break up?”
That was the moment I realized that we have been so caught up in recent projects, that I let quite a while without giving any news. So, hi! hello! We are here! Alive and well (and still together obviously, if that needed clarification, hahaha :D)
I normally only publish real-time blog updates to our Patreon’s page, but it’s been a minute since I’ve given any news, so let me tell you what happened in recent weeks (ahem… months).
After bringing Barnacle onboard Polar Seal on the heels of the Annapolis Boat Show, we spent a few weeks getting her trained to life onboard, while preparing ourselves and the boat for a three months winter break.
It was getting really cold around the Chesapeake when were taking potty breaks every hour or so and moving most of our stuff off the boat. For a couple of weeks, we were decluttering everything we amassed in the four years we lived onboard, cleaning, and dealing with the logistics of winterizing while making sure that Barnacle would not kill herself by licking or chewing on anything dangerous.
Oh, and also, we were managing TONS of work-related projects, including finishing up our “Sailing the World” course, launching Ryan’s T-shirt collection, along with this brand new website that you are currently on.
Yep, it literally just launched and you are one of its first visitors!
What we’ve been up to
If you have ever brought a puppy into your lives, you are probably familiar with the shear amount of work and disruption that the tiny little ball of fur comes with. But as boat people, we understand that some of the things that take the most work (not looking at you AT ALL Polar Seal…) also bring you the most joy, and Barnacle is the best thing that has happened to us since we got into sailing.
She’s an unafraid, adventurous and snuggly little dog that loves everything and everybody. We love her so much and we can’t wait to bring her along on our coming adventures.
But aside from taking care of our new furry family member, we’ve also had the chance to reconnect with our US family, after 4 years of absence. As we left Polar Seal in November, I didn’t realize how incredibly tired this year’s craziness left me. When we flew home to Ryan’s parents, I think I crashed in the bed and never really got back up until now.
Nah, just joking, we absolutely didn’t have that luxury as we still had work to do ;) But everything took a lot longer, and social media took a back-seat (which I think is healthy now and then).
So where is Polar Seal?
Polar Seal was hauled out at Herrington Harbor North during the second week of November, and left to the good care of the yard’s staff. Thank you to all our Chesapeake friends who have been keeping an eye on her while we were traveling.
She is scheduled to be shrink-wrapped any day now, and will spend the winter on the hard, for the first time since 2020. We will return to Herrington and the Chesapeake early March of 2023, and will start a small refit, including:
A revamp of our battery bank, with the installation of 4 x 280amp/h Dakota Lithium Plus batteries, as well as 3 x Dakota Lithium Plus 135 amp / h starter batteries. This new setup will take our current battery bank from 680 amp/h to a very comfortable 1120 amp/h capacity, and will make our engine starter battery and bow thruster started battery go from AGM to Lithium. Ryan is very excited :p
The installation of a 110V AC system. Our boat being European, the current electric system runs on 220V. Because we are about to spend the next few years in “Americanized” waters, having a 110V system on top of it will make our lives easier.
A new coat of Hempel Silic One on the hull
Replacing the sprayhood and bimini. Because after 25000 nautical miles and at 7 years of age… they have broken beyond repair and need replacement.
A new electric toilet (that Ryan doesn’t know about yet, but sometimes a girl’s gotta make her own decision. Hi honey!) to replace our old and disgusting manual one that I have been sick of in years.
Teak maintenance (oh I am not looking forward to this one)
And probably a bunch of other things that we’re not yet aware of because… Because everything is broken on your boat, you just don’t know it yet :p
We are very excited to carry out this small refit of Polar Seal at some of the best yards on the East Coast, all surrounded by our little Chesapeake community of friends. We chose Annapolis as our “base” because of its geographic location, proximity to international airports, and its sailing culture, but we have been blown away by the welcome we received.
It is incredible that we can feel “at home” in a place where we’ve only been for one month total, and that's thanks to the friends we made there. The list of people would be too long to mention here, but a big thank you to all of you who took the time to come say hi, and got us out to fun events or dinners together. We look forward to seeing you again in the Spring!
Where are we?
I am going to tell you my number one advice to make a sailing adventure last, and it is that now and then, you need to get off the boat and take a break on land.
It was getting REAL COLD onboard when in early November, we packed our bags and flew back to our other home in Iowa. If you have followed our stories for a while, you already know that we are very close to Ryan’s family in Des Moines, and we enjoy spending our winters there.
Yes, the weather absolutely s#cks, but as much as in the Chesapeake, we love our Midwestern community. In the aftermath of my visa struggles, we had also been unable to spend the holidays with Ryan’s family since 2018, and really longed for time together.
We arrived in Des Moines about a month ago (I cannot believe it. ONE MONTH?!) and it’s taken me that much time to realize that the whirlwind of this past year (work, sailing logistics, dealing with green card delays not to even mention the green card itself, more boat logistics and work, puppy…) left me, well. Burned out.
I arrived in Des Moines functioning at only 20% of my normal capacity, while having tons of work projects to close before the end of the year, some of them more chaotic than others.
We have enjoyed being here and slowing the pace down SO MUCH, reconnecting with our friends and family, with the gym (guys. we were so out of shape it’s not even funny :p), rock climbing, escape rooms… and snow.
Yes, I had not seen snow in four years. Barnacle loves it :)
We are really glad that we are getting this break, because starting in January 2023, the madness starts again, and we have SO MUCH fun stuff planned already :)
Coming up for the Polar Seal crew!
First of all, hi.
Welcome to our new online home, we are SO excited to have you here :)
Our friend Jess, who is the wife of our editor (Nathan) worked on this website to make it the pretty place that it is. Jess also worked with Iz and Johnny Harris and I was so glad when she accepted to work on our website too. Girl has the talent, and I would recommend working with her in a heartbeat.
For the sake of this year’s project, including Ryan’s T-shirts, the course, and all the projects to come, we wanted to transition from Wordpress to Squarespace. (Squarespace if you read this, we’d love for you to sponsor a couple of videos of ours, cause you ain’t cheap). Our old website was a slow and buggy dinosaur, and it feels so good to work with a platform that’s fast, user-friendly, and looks good.
Because of timing issues, we weren’t able to launch all the features, but we have a really cool sailing gear guide coming up for you and we are excited to share it!
In the meantime, we could FINALLY launch Ryan’s sailing T-shirt, right on time for Christmas. If you are reading this and would like to offer a toilet pump, a f#ckening or a “Sail it like a charter” T-shirt to the sailor in your life for Christmas, hurry up cause delivery times are closing on us!
The next big project that is JUST about to launch, is the first volume of our “Sailing the World” course that we have been working on with Bright Trip. since December of 2021. That’s right. It’s been in the works for over a year.
I don’t think words can express how big of a project this has been, so I’ll drop a few numbers:
12 months of production total, and that’s only for the release of part 1 :)
2 writers (myself and Michelle Segrest) + 1 editor
6 months of writing
over 400 pages of script
2 weeks of shooting in Antigua and Bermuda
6 editors plus one animator
5 months of post-production
… all for a course of 3 parts, 8 chapters, and 37 video lessons on how to get started Sailing the World.
It has been a HUGE effort, but it is also the one thing I have created in my life that I am the proudest of. The Bright Trip team has absolutely pulled all the stops in terms of production to make this the best course it could be, and you guys… it looks INCREDIBLE.
(Someone whispers in my ears that if you join our Patreon page, you get a sneak peek of the course in the form of our lesson on the “Anatomy of a sailboat”)
This course is everything we wanted for ourselves 7 years ago when we first got the idea to start Sailing the World, and we hope it will help a lot more people to join us on anchor :)
