Well, to be honest I didn’t know much at all before I arrived in Langkawi, Malaysia, to meet up with the Delos crew who at that point was Brian and Karin. Me and my girlfriend Frida were probably as blank as a page can be when it comes to boats and sailing. Sure I’ve been on a sailing boat before, but here I was, being a part of a four man crew who were going to haul out a massive boat, sand the bottom with grinders and then paint it all within 5 days.
The most experience I ever had with boats before this experience was the stuff my friend had told me about his. I know he puts it in a Lake Geneva Winter Boat Storage unit when he’s off the water, has a long checklist of maintenance he does before taking it onto the water, and that a boating license is surprisingly easy to obtain. And this basic knowledge wasn’t exactly going to help when we’re sailing the other side of the world!
In a way that was probably a really good way to know your way around the boat, and to get a good understanding how the hull is shaped and what goes on below the waterline. It’s also good to get a hint of how much work a boat takes.
Thankfully, I have always been able to pick up new information very well and it wasn’t long before I was getting the hang of things. I was getting used to everything from navigation to charting to finding the best epirb for emergency situations to learning tricks that made sailing easier.
READING THE COMPLETE SAILOR IS ALSO A GREAT WAY OF LEARNING THE BASICS OF SAILING
However, here I am in Andaman Islands soon 3 months later, and I thought I was going to write a few things about living on a sail boat with 6 other people (after the haul out Brady, Josje and Babs joined us in Rebak Marina – movie coming soon).
Living on a boat (not including super yachts of course) you need to preserve EVERYTHING. Fresh water, electricity, food, paper towels, the use of your sailing clothes, you name it. Everything is limited and if you run out you run out.
For example one day Karin had noticed that the toilet paper was running low, and if we kept on using this amount we would be using our hands or only doing aqua deuces in Chagos. It might have had to do with that we just had arrived in India a few days earlier, but still, we were using way too much. It may have been wiser for us to check out some toilet paper for sale and stock up before we left, in hindsight that may have been a good idea!
At that point I was pretty satisfied with how good I was doing, saving water and everything I could think of. However toilet paper was something I totally had forgotten about. Don’t ask me why, but I guess it’s one of those things I’ve never reflected about. Anyways, from that day I’ve counted every sheet and done a mental note every day of how I am doing. It kind of turned into a game, and later on that week I told the rest of the crew about this. Funny enough most of them were actually doing the exact same thing without knowing about the others. Brady said he hadn’t used one single sheet all week….interesting.
This is certainly something you would never even think about in a western society, and it’s pretty funny to actually see how much we waste on just living our day to day life at home.
Sailing is a simple life, with extremely hard work that never runs out. However the perks and rewards are truly great. Here’s some of my favourites:
- The food. The first toasted cheese sandwich in a month tastes better then any hotel breakfast I’ve had. You learn how to appreciate things when you have them and to enjoy them to the fullest.
- Being alone on nightwatch when sailing a long passage. Surrounded by nothing but darkness and a million stars that reach all the way down to the horizon. Add a coffee and some music in your headphones. Pretty wicked feeling if you tell me.
- Unlimited diving, swimming, fishing and discovering places. Travelling by boat just makes so many things possible that you otherwise never could do.
- More than anything you have time. You don’t know what date or time it is, but you have alot of it. I spend my days chilling, swimming, going on adventures with the crew, making music, working on stuff for my website, talking, making sailing videos, cooking and enjoying life.
BEFORE YOU KNOW IT, YOU TURN IN TO A SALTY SEA DOG AND STOP WEARING PANTS/SHORTS.
To sum it up it’s a pretty sweet life on Delos, and I feel exited about being a part of this adventure crossing the Indian Ocean. Let me know if you have any questions for a first timer and I will try to answer them in my next scribble in this blog!