If you haven't read my previous stories be sure to check out: How I went from creating QuickPay for Quicken to selling almost everything to go live on a sailboat in the Caribbean and Sint Maarten to Virgin Gorda and almost crashing on the rocks
Living our new life in the Caribbean
(Our solar panels and looking at Honeymoon beach off St John)
I can't believe we did it! Here I was at the top of my career creating software and we up and move from our comfortable life in a 3,000 sq ft home and moved to a 44' sailboat in the Caribbean with the living space of a big camper. But we did it! So exciting and crazy at the same time.
How were we going to adjust to our new life? It is going to be so different from what we have been accustomed to. I'm certainly not the outdoors type. I've spent most of my life writing computer software at home and my wife was a hairdresser and city girl. So this new life is certainly going to be different.
Our Boat Setup
One thing about living on a sailboat is that you can easily live off the grid. We had solar panels to keep our batteries charged for the little electricity we did use. Some boats used wind generators which could be a little noisy and some just ran the engine a few hours a day. The extra benefit of running the engine meant you had extra hot showers for a few days which we would do at least once a week.
But most of the time we just showered off the back of our boat in the sunshine after taking a nice swim.
(This is the beach we stayed off of called Honeymoon beach)
Getting Supplies
We called our dingy our sports car and with the 15HP motor we just flew across the water. By anchoring off Honeymoney beach we were only a few minutes away from Cruz Bay where we would bring our laundry, pick up our groceries and dine out.
About once a week we would go over to the American Yacht Harbor in St. Thomas to fill up with fresh water and refuel if we needed. From there it was a short taxi ride to Kmart which made us feel like we were back in the States.
Life on the Boat
Talk about unwinding from life and getting away. After a couple of months we were acclimated to our new environment and we didn't miss any of the previous comforts of home. In fact I remember just relaxing on deck and saying how content I was and that I could do this for the next 30 years.
I would snorkel almost everyday and I would get to see the same fish.
(This huge brain coral was near our boat)
(It's like being in the most awesome salt water fish tank)
Every week we would sail off to another island and come back. One of our favorites islands was Tortola BVI.
One of the most embarrassing things that happened was when we were anchored at Cane Garden Bay and we were coming into shore with our dingy and the waves were really bad. I tried to time it just right but I couldn't lift the engine up and it hit the bottom and flipped us right out with the dingy flying over our heads.
Something like a combination of this:
And this:
Luckily no one was hurt and there was no damage done to the dingy or motor.
Working with Caribbean World Outreach Ministries
One day we get the urge to visit a local travel agent and walked in. She asked where we wanted to go and we didn't have an idea. She was a little confused and so we told her our story how we felt led to come down here. She makes a phone call to her pastor and says "Pastor, they're here!". They've been praying for people with our talents to help with a charity organization. It was a perfect fit. Our gifting is helps and administration and that's what they needed.
So we setup a small office in St. John and helped with the organization. We had a great time helping out and getting to know so many wonderful locals on St. Thomas where the church was. Going to an all black church certainly wasn't dull. Talk about powerful preaching with the congregation praising God.
I also put together a newsletter for the local boaters and community called the "International Islander Almost Daily"
Then Disaster Strikes
Hurricane season is from June to October and this year just so happens to be one of the worse seasons they've seen in a long time. We went through a few storms already and hurricane Luis was certainly the worse one so far.
To prepare for Luis everyone boarded up their windows and we put 4 anchors out in 4 different directions then wrapped the lines with duct tape at the hull to prevent chaffing. Then we took our sails down and went and stayed at our office. The storm turned and left very little damage. People took down all their boards and we put back up our sails.
Then 2 weeks later comes hurricane Marilyn and it didn't seem like it was going to be too bad so most people didn't do much to prepare. Doing my paper I saw that this one might be bad and so we prepared again to stay the night at the office.
We took our marine radio and we heard boaters that stayed on their boats calling out mayday and that they are drifting, hitting rocks and taking on water. The coast guard would tell them to put on their life jackets and that they couldn't do anything. Wow! I those poor people!
Our office was made of cement and did fine but when we walked out there was so much destruction.
(This is actual footage of the damage in St. Thomas from Hurricane Marilyn. Even a big coast guard boat was lifted on shore. Most of our time was spent over there and we saw all this in person.)
After looking at what happened to the boats in the harbor I thought for sure our boat would not be there. I know what faith. As I made my way up the mountain over the downed trees and being careful of the wires I looked down and saw our boat all by itself just floating there right where we left it. The only damage was the wind vane blew off. Wow!
For the next month we did what we could to help people get supplies through the ministry and to comfort our friends that were trying to put their lives back together.
Lessons Learned
- You can be happier with less stuff
- Live your life to the fullest
- Don't be afraid of drastic change
- People are more important than stuff
- Everything can be gone in an instant
Thank you for following our adventure and next time I will share about our time living on a farm in the middle of Puerto Rico.
Sources: Pictures by me and gifs by giphy.com video on Youtube by AP.