Four Years in a Nutshell

Procrastination and perfectionism. These two words are the reason for this post. So many times over the past few years I have considered writing a blog post, but it always feels like such a large task, which gets larger as the months pass by. And so procrastination takes hold. Suddenly, chores like year-end accounts and endless unwritten emails take priority, and before you know it the "Write blog post" task is resigned to the bottom of the to-do list, where it lies unseen for months and then years, having disappeared out of sight due to the length of said mountainous to-do list. Another year passes and resolutions for the new one get made. The "Write blog post" task gets elevated momentarily, sitting so close to the top of the list that one can almost hear the cogs working inside my brain as I formulate the outline of the post but, then, perfectionism sets in. 

More than a year has passed since the previous post. So much has happened; so many tales untold, so many posts unwritten. How should I proceed? A sensible approach would be to write a blog post detailing the most recent noteworthy events, especially given that my memory is not the best. But... I cannot bring myself to do this, somehow. I cannot bear the thought of there being vast holes in this journaling timeline, without them being properly accounted for. So, I begin writing a post summing up the past year, which I must complete before writing about the most recent events. It isn't easy, my heart isn't in it, and I'm right back to the start - procrastination. Damn.

Fast forward to today, and I realise that over four whole years have passed me by! Is it my age, or the fact that we now have two young children which has caused this time to rush past at a speed I've never known before? Perhaps a combination of the two. I find myself here again, wondering now whether to write about recent events, or to try to fill in the gaps from then until now. Only now, I have the most mammoth-sized gap to fill, I know that it is an impossible task. Yet perfectionism will simply not allow me to continue without that gap being filled. So, here goes; four years in a nutshell.

2019

Zach, just moments after popping out in this converted barn in Somerset

Our son, Zach, was born in a barn in Somerset in September 2018, whilst Hope was on the hard in Poole. Unwilling to launch her and set sail until the spring, we escaped to Thailand for three months at the start of 2019, where we thoroughly enjoyed living as locals near Krabi on an eco-farm. Zach started weaning in Thailand, and has maintained a love of spicy foods ever since. Whilst away from Hope, we spent as much time as possible in and on the water, and made memories to last a lifetime*. We finished the trip by charting a sailing yacht with friends, which we sailed from Phuket around Phang Nga Bay, and this made us excited about our return to Hope.

*Mainly possible due to outsourcing my memories to Google Photos.

One of our favourite activities in Thailand - a trip to the market on the samlor motorbike!

We returned to the UK in April and launched Hope in May, whereby we sailed her at a leisurely pace down to Portugal via the Channel Islands, France and Spain. It was certainly a challenge, with both children being so young, but we had an amazing time and were blessed with far better weather than when we sailed Firebird down the same coast too late in the season of 2013. We discovered many things about Hope that we wanted/needed to change as we went along, and compiled a rather large "To do in Portugal" list containing details of these planned tasks. We arrived in Portugal towards the end of September, whereupon we put her into the boatyard in Portimão on the Algarve.

Alex doing the laundry aboard Hope, whilst anchored up in France

We started working through the list of boat tasks, whilst also spending plenty of time with my family (who live in Portugal). At this point, we knew that we would not be ready for any longer passages (such as an Atlantic crossing) in time for the coming winter, so we took our time and planned another trip away for early 2020. Having had such a fantastic time in Thailand, we decided to spend another three months abroad, but this time decided upon a properly cold destination so that the children could experience a decent amount of snow. I found us a three month house-sit in Ohio, and we prepared ourselves for this trip, kitting ourselves out with decent cold weather clothing ready for the coming months.

Rowing ashore in Portugal, in our tender, Glory. Hope can be seen in the background.

2020

We had fun building snowmen in the yard, at our house-sit in Ohio

January 2nd saw us flying from France (where we had seen in the New Year with friends) to Cleveland, Ohio, and we soon settled into a fantastic house-sit there, looking after two lovely Labradors on the shores of Lake Erie. Sadly, it was a mild winter by Ohio standards, but we still had a fantastic time and managed to enjoy some winter sports with the children. Unfortunately, towards the end of this trip, Covid-19 made an appearance on the world's media stage, and we had to return to the UK earlier than planned, for fear of getting stranded in the USA. We found ourselves in the UK amid a lockdown, essentially homeless and unable to travel, but thankfully some forward planning meant that we were able to book an Airbnb in Shropshire for a month (before Airbnb stopped taking bookings) and a hire car to take us there.

Enjoying the view from the top of Caer Caradoc in Shropshire

After much negotiation with the Portuguese Consulate and Embassy, we finally got approval to fly back to Portugal in order to return to Hope, being that she is our home. We did this, completed the two week quarantine and then continued where we had left off at the end of 2019; working our way through the boat jobs. As is always the case, jobs took much longer than we anticipated, but we didn't really mind at all since the whole world was closed for international travel and sailing was pretty much impossible, due to ports around the world being closed. This situation continued to be the case, and so we made the most of the opportunity by steadily working our way through more and more of our maintenance/improvement tasks aboard Hope. 

Beth and Zach, getting involved in the boat maintenance tasks in the yard

As winter approached, we realised that we did not want to spend it in the boatyard with the children, so we began to look for alternative accommodation. In late October, we moved to an apartment on an organic farm called Quinta da Figueirinha near Silves, about 20 minutes drive from both my parents' house and the boatyard. We moved there just in time, as lockdowns were soon brought back in due to the winter illness period taking hold and Covid-19 case numbers increasing. Being locked down on a 36 hectare farm was certainly a lot easier than being locked down on Hope in the boatyard would have been, and we felt very fortunate to have found ourselves in this situation. We were unable to escape the Portuguese winter, but a log burner kept us toasty, we enjoyed walks to gather fresh oranges and we were part of a community of other, like-minded families during this uncertain period. Work continued on Hope as and when possible, and we were able to host Alex's family for Christmas at the quinta due to them making it out of the UK just hours before travel restrictions were imposed there!

A post-Christmas get-together with Mitchells and Shepherds, in our quinta apartment

2021

Enjoying a spot of the good life at the quinta, with the community garden

With money running short and no end to the sailing embargoes in sight, I decided to return to work. I started a remote contract for a fashion company called Lyst, and shared a co-working space at the quinta with another person who was working there remotely at that time. I worked standard office hours Monday to Friday, then would take over the childcare whilst Alex cycled to the boatyard and worked on Hope over the weekend. During this period, he rebuilt our dinghy, so the flimsy foldable Seahopper formerly known as Glory became the sturdy nesting dinghy, now known as Edwina. A lot of Alex's blood sweat and tears went into her construction (along with a few marathon fibreglassing session all-nighters) but, once complete, we took her sailing up the Arade river multiple times and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves doing so. It felt good to be sailing again, even if only in a dinghy! We continued to enjoy life on the quinta, getting involved in a community garden and weekly poker evenings, which was great fun. With some of the extra money I was earning, we decided to pay for the yard to build a wheelhouse extension for Hope and order some new standing rigging, a cockpit cover and some new sails. However, the rigger had some bad news for us; our main mast had some damage and was irreparable, meaning we would have to fork out for a replacement. Not what we wanted to hear, as this would mean delaying our relaunch of Hope whilst waiting for this to be ordered and installed. 

Our first outing on the new and improved tender, Edwina

At the end of June, we flew back to the UK in preparation for Alex's sister Lucy's wedding. This was to be held in August, but we didn't want to risk getting stuck in Portugal due to any travel restrictions, so returned early and made the most of the summer freedom in the UK with various camping trips, a nice house sit in Shropshire and long overdue visits to family and friends. It was on the way back from one of these visits that an important conversation took place between Alex and myself; one which set in motion a plan that had the potential to change our current lifestyle in a fairly drastic way. To cut a long story short (as this is the whole point of "in a nutshell"), Alex shared with me his regret at never joining the air force after university, as he felt he would have preferred military life to a career in IT. On hearing this, I suggested that he should apply to join the forces immediately before it was too late. I feel very lucky to not have any regrets in life (or, rather, I may regret some things I have done, but I don't have anything that I wished I had done and never did) and I didn't like the thought of Alex having this huge regret that he would soon never be able to rectify. Much research, thought and discussion later, he decided to apply to join the Royal Navy as an Officer, and this started the curve ball rolling for us all!

We had a wonderful day at Lucy and Charlie's wedding, at the end of August

I turned 40 in September and, rather than the huge party which I had always envisaged, we drove up to Scotland for a couple of weeks on a technology-free holiday. It was a very special holiday indeed, and we thoroughly enjoyed navigating the old-fashioned way using a 2018 road atlas that we borrowed from Alex's mum, and the Southern Upland Way guidebook. The first thing we did was get stuck in a traffic jam on the M25 because, of course, the atlas had no traffic information. Still, it was good for the children to experience traffic jams in the way we had to prior to the invention of Google Maps! Following this holiday, we drove back to Portugal via Spain, and had lots of fun on the road trip down, camping with the children and visiting Alex's cousin Edwina (after whom our dinghy was named) and her family in Lisbon. After a sailing trip on a charter yacht along the Algarve with some friends, we once again renewed our efforts to complete the in-flight boat tasks on Hope before having to leave the Schengen area at the end of December, due to our post-Brexit 90 day limit being up. The mast and the sails were on order, but neither showed any sign of arriving any time soon.

Picnic overlooking Ullswater, on our drive up to Scotland for my 40th

2022

A nice spot for a wild swim and picnic, in the Costa Rican rainforest

Back in London in January 2022, we were cold and decided to escape the UK winter once again, so the search began for a suitably cheap non-Schengen holiday location. I found great value flights to Costa Rica, and we jetted off to spend two months there, across three different Airbnbs. We had an absolutely super time; the weather was warm, very little English was spoken so we learned a lot of Spanish, the people were friendly and welcoming, and the wildlife was spectacular. We saw toucans, sloths, iguanas, poison dart frogs, huge spiders, macaws, crocodiles, snakes, vultures, monkeys - and all in their natural habitat, which made it all the more special! The rainforest was incredible, and we had fun exploring it, especially in the mountains where we found secluded spots for wild swims in gorgeous clear water. We visited two active volcanoes whilst there, and enjoyed ourselves in the hot springs nearby one of them. We visited a cocoa and coffee plantation, as well as a "trapiche" where we learned about the processing of cane sugar. Our final stay was a month on a dairy farm, where the children awoke at 5am every morning to help milk the cows. It was a truly educational trip, in so many ways, for us all.

Enjoying the hot springs, near Volcan Arenal

At the end of March, we flew back to Portugal where we finished up the remaining boat tasks, then finally saw our new mast being stepped, and launched Hope at the end of April. In truth, she was really not quite ready to be launched, but we couldn't bear to be in the boatyard any longer, so we moved her straight to a beautiful anchorage in Ferragudo on the Algarve, and spent another month and a half there doing more maintenance work both aboard Hope and on the beach (in the case of improvements to Edwina). We also, rather randomly, decided to buy a small plot of agricultural land near Silves, about 20 minutes from my parents. My mum had found it online and thought it a good investment, so sent me the details. It is mainly full of fruit trees (orange, lemon, persimmon) but also has a small agricultural pumphouse with a water well alongside, and an old cisterna, which used to be used for water storage. It has both water and electricity connections, and we saw that there could perhaps be the potential to build some sort of tiny home there, for times when we want to be in Portugal but have not travelled there aboard Hope. Very random but, hey, that's us! 

About to row back to Hope from the beach at Ferragudo

The Schengen clock was once again ticking, and we found ourselves having to leave Portugal towards the end of July, without our new sails (due to delays from the manufacturer). This was a real blow, since we changed the rig such that our old sails would no longer fit. We had shorted the mizzen boom so the old mizzen sail did not fit (and, in fact, this sail had gone missing in the boatyard so we didn't have this available anyway) and we got rid of our furling foresail, meaning our old genoa could no longer be hoisted. We had been given some old hanks (essentially clips which allow us to attach and hoist the old sail) so I spent many hours sewing these onto the old genoa. It worked surprisingly well, but meant that we only had sails suitable for either light or very heavy winds - nothing in between. Nevertheless, we managed to sail down the coast of Portugal and Spain, then into Gibraltar by the end of July, using a combination of our cobbled together sails and the engine. 

Sailing downwind, using our old genoa with hanks sewn on along the luff

We could only book a berth in Gibraltar for a month, since they are now very busy with a multitude of British sailors wishing to stay there in order to avoid overstaying in the Schengen area. There are only a few marinas on the rock, and there are no options for anchoring. Other than Gibraltar, Brits could go to Morocco (as we did afterwards) or Croatia, but the latter has disappeared as an option since the start of 2023, when Croatia also joined the Schengen zone. We ended up being allowed to stay in our berth in Gibraltar for about six weeks, and we had the most wonderful time there. We found Gibraltar to be small, safe and friendly, with great fish and chips and wonderful weather. Alex's mum came to stay for a week, during which time we enjoyed some touristy activities, such as getting the cable car up to the National Park and exploring some of the sights and exhibitions up there.

We found it very enjoyable to watch all the shipping in the bay of Gibraltar

Following Gibraltar, we sailed to Morocco and spent a further six weeks berthed in Tangier, which was very pleasant. We celebrated Alex's birthday with a trip on the bullet train via Casablanca to Marrakech. We explored the Atlas mountains, had a camel ride and visited a traditional Berber settlement where we enjoyed the most delicious home-cooked meal and learned about the Berber culture. We then hosted Alex's dad, who came to stay for a week, and had great fun exploring more of the local area in Tangier on foot and on the tourist open-top bus. One of our favourite things about Tangier was the local food market, where we could buy fruit and vegetables very cheaply and we never felt we were being ripped off or given a different price due to being tourists. We also enjoyed hearing the daily calls to prayer ring out across the city, and we spent some time learning about Islam as part of our homeschooling with the children. 

Wearing traditional Berber dress, ready for our camel ride

Whilst in Tangier, Alex found out that he had been accepted to train as a Warfare Officer with the Royal Navy, starting in January 2023, and so we realised that we quickly needed to prepare for this by getting Hope back to Portugal and into a semi-permanent berth there in Lagos. When we initially talked about plans for whilst Alex was in the Navy, I had envisaged continuing to sail Hope with just myself and the children, but the summer of sailing made me realise that this was not a good idea. Whilst we had a super time, it was very hard work, and that was with both myself and Alex being there to look after the yacht and the children! I realised that an attempt to do so on my own, especially whilst the children are still relatively young, would be rather stressful and I didn't think it would be fair on any of us. So, with this in mind, I decided to berth her in a nice marina on the Algarve, where the kids and I can come and go (within the Schengen limits, of course) as we please.

Watching the sunset before our night watch, on passage from Morocco to Portugal

We sailed back to Portugal, enjoying a lovely night passage with a glorious sunset and full moon. The children took their first night watch with me, staying up until 11pm (at which point I sent them to bed whilst I continued until 1am). Once Hope was settled in her berth, we set to work making plans for the plot of land. We hoped that, if we could convert the pumphouse into a tiny home prior to leaving the Schengen again at the end of December, then that would be another accommodation option for me and the children in 2023. We spent a month or so camping on the land, until it got too cold to be comfortable, but did not manage to achieve this goal. We spent a huge amount of time clearing the land which was thick with brambles and weeds, and there is still more of that work to be done. We did, however, find time to build a shower and composting toilet room, and put a storage shed on the land, in which to store our tent and cooking/camping supplies. So, whilst there is a lot still to do, the children and I can go back there next summer and have fun progressing the work there.

Plenty of work to be done, clearing the land

Plans for 2023

Phew, well, this has turned into rather a large nutshell... a coconut shell perhaps?! Luckily, this last section will be short as, quite frankly, we don't have a clue what we will be doing in 2023! Alex will be training down in Dartmouth and, for at least the first six months, we won't be able to see him at all other than the odd weekend when he is allowed out of the college. Initially, the children and I are going to Turkey for a month but then we will return to the UK to see Alex, and must remain in the UK whilst Zach and I apply for new passports. Beyond that, we will just see what happens... we plan on spending time in Portugal, both on Hope and on the land, and will have to see where we end up in between those periods, when our 90 day Schengen limit runs out. I plan on blogging a little during this new adventure, as a good way of sharing my experiences with family and friends, so let's see how it goes and where we will be by the end of 2023! Exciting times ahead, with lots of opportunities and plenty of unknowns. Pretty much life as normal, then, in this Great Adventure!