Common Questions About Living on a Sailboat
You’ve asked. We’re answering.
When we tell people we’re going to live on a boat, we get A LOT of questions. Totally understandable— maybe you’ve never heard of or met someone living on a boat… or had no idea it was even a thing.
Some of the following ‘answers’ will (most likely) change as we grow, learn, and change.
Please keep in mind our answers do not apply to every liveaboard (person living on a boat).
So… How does living on a boat work?
How will you make money?
Perhaps the number one question. Brian will continue to be a software developer at Knock and Rachel will continue to run her photography business. We will both still work from home (boat).
We will also have rental income from our duplex, and we may do some trading on the stock market too.
Ok, but… What about the internet?
While at our marina, we have cable internet connecting directly to our boat. (We lucked out, and this isn’t always available) While we’re away from the dock or while at anchor, we have a mobile hot spot (Mifi).
We’re most excited about Starlink!!! (satellite internet)
Elon Musk and SpaceX have been working hard to get affordable, reliable internet across the world, including some of the most remote places around the globe…. including in the middle of the ocean.
What about going to the bathroom? Is it like those tiny bathrooms on airplanes??
Yes, they are small. We have two bathrooms (on a boat it’s called a head). Both have a toilet, sink, and shower.
What about your dog, Maui? Are you going to give her up? Can she even go with you? Does she get seasick?
Overall, she’s doing just fine so far.
She has plenty of cuddle-up places to nap, has an artificial piece of grass on the poop deck, and she has plenty of treats, belly rubs, and exploring, just like now.
Some countries have restrictions on pets (requiring a 14-day/ 30-day quarantine for example or explicitly stating no pets allowed.) So when we start traveling, we’ll need to always look up those regulations before we go anywhere outside of the US with her.
Regarding seasickness… we have no idea, we have to wait and see.
Aren’t you going to miss your family and friends?
Of course!!!! There are so many people that we’re going to miss.
We have a guest cabin (bedroom) onboard, so friends and family can come to visit anytime! :-) We’ll also make time to come back and visit too (Both the Portland, OR area, and Wisconsin).
Where do you plan to sail to?
Ironically, we haven’t put too much energy into planning this yet. We literally want to go anywhere and everywhere.
Some places we’ve talked about going to first are: Alaska, Canada, down the west coast of the US, Hawaii, and Japan.
In our wildest dreams, we’re circumnavigating the globe several times— each time taking several years, stopping in plenty of places and seeing as much as we can. It’ll be quite the journey!!
Wait, so you want to do this for the rest of your lives?
We. have. no. idea. hahaha! Maybe? Who knows! :-D …we do know there’s one way to find out. ;-)
When are you going to ‘set-sail?’
Our next steps before we’d leave the South Sound:
Finish letting go of all of our possessions
Renting out our home
Doing a few boat projects to make it liveaboard-ready
Actually moving onto the boat
Getting ultra-comfortable sailing the boat
and becoming comfortable and happy with the liveaboard lifestyle.
All of that will take (most likely) a couple of years, and we plan to do all of that in Washington. We’ll keep you posted on all of it!
Will you have running water/ hot water?
Running water? Yes, here are a few ways boats get clean water.
1. Large holding tank/s that you have to fill/refill. For reference, our boat has 3 tanks that hold a combined total of 125 gallons.
2. Having a ‘water maker’ onboard which turns seawater into drinking water. We’d LOVE a water maker someday.
Hot water? We have a water heater that holds 6 precious gallons of VERY hot water. The residual heat from our engine heats up the water, and when we’re at dock, we can heat the water with shore power, otherwise, when we’re anchored, we keep it turned off, because of it’s power consumption.
Are you going to have your own Youtube Sailing Channel?
We are becoming more and more open to this. If we create a YouTube channel, we want to do it right. We want it to be entertaining and educational, so… we’ll see.
There’s so much to learn about EVERYTHING. At the very least we’ll be photographing the journey.
What made you want to live on a sailboat?
We love this question! It wasn’t necessarily one thing, but a combination of several.
It started when a friend mentioned that there are YouTube channels of people living on sailboats.
They sail around the world and document their stories.
Soooo… literally just someone telling us that it’s a thing is what started our desire.
Here’s the channel we have to thank for the inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/c/svdelosWhen we realized it’s a sustainable way to travel.
Both of us want to travel a lot and we both care a lot about the environment… so let’s travel with the power of the wind!
Sailboats do come with an engine/s and someday we’d love to have our boat engine be a hybrid or electric…
As close to 100% off the grid as possible excites us so much!When we took our ASA (American Sailing Association) 103/104 class.
That class involved living on a boat for a week in the San Juan Islands. We loved it! Rachel remembers waking up the first morning, looking out the small portlight (window), and thinking… I want this! She had (what felt like) the best night's sleep in her entire life and said to herself ‘I want to wake up and look out my window and have this for years. I want this.’
Last, isn’t directly related to living on a boat but deals with living life to the fullest (no matter what that looks like.)
When we moved to Washington from Wisconsin, our eyes were opened and our minds were blown. We want more of that.
We cannot help but think about what ELSE is out there that we’re missing??? So we feel like we have to go. We have to see it. Moving changed us. And we’re ready to let it change us again, and again. And again. And again.
