A day onboard is never boring.

Daytime aboard is definitely not boring. If anything, it’s quite relaxing and for filling. During the day, we don’t have a specific watch schedule and instead opt for a free flowing process where one person, and usually more, is always on deck. Sailing-wise, if the wind is up it’s usually coming from a predictable direction so we set Our Dreamtime’s sails, trim accordingly and let the autopilot do the driving for us.

While sailing (or motoring when there’s no wind), typical activities include navigation, route planning, filming, photography, fishing, reading, researching, editing, listening to music, watching dolphins play on the bow, and taking in beautiful sunrises and sunsets. 

Reading is a great pastime

Rob trims the sails

There are always boat chores to be done, some of these can be achieved underway. Lots of things need to be done in the galley and these range from, baking bread and making yogurt everything we have onboard is normally made from scratch so if we want a biscuit with our morning tea cuppa, yep you got it, it needs to be made first. However in saying that we have found some Indonesian treats that are very yummy.

Editing the next YouTube episode 

Baking bread

While on night watch, Karen and I love reveling in amazing star shows and watching glowing phosphorescence glide by in Our Dreamtime’s wake, but we also pass the time by listening to podcasts and music. Besides trimming sails and keeping the boat moving in the right direction, the key duty of the on-watch crew is keeping a lookout for lights nearby or on the horizon, paying attention to the AIS system and watching the radar for unidentifiable objects that we can’t see in the dark. 

A night watch can quickly go from serene to intense when the wind and seas kick up unexpectedly or when spotting and tracking fishing vessels of various sizes or commercial shipping traffic. Along with those obstacles, we might also encounter other sailboats and if we are near shore, lighted buoys and lights on land need to be properly identified. Our Dreamtime is equipped with AIS (Automatic Identification System) and radar, so we are able to track, avoid and be in contact with some of the vessels that we may encounter, but not all of them. 

Along the coasts of Indonesia, we frequently come across small open fishing boats that have no electronics except for a single light. These are the most concerning because they can be hard to spot and track, they are normally made of timber which doesn’t show on radar and their course isn’t as consistent as commercial vessels. 

Ham, egg and cheese toasted tortilla cups

But it’s not all about sailing. Over the years and many miles, Karen has become incredibly proficient at getting the boat provisioned and we are never lacking in food for meals and snacks. Mealtimes are regular, even when the seas are bumpy Karen always has something for us to eat. We’ve dialed in several meals that we like for passages including tacos, breakfast burritos, chicken pesto pasta and toasted sandwiches. We also make sure to consume LOTS of water to keep us hydrated, especially in the tropics, and we don’t drink alcohol on passage — that’s what celebrating landfall at anchor or ashore is for!

If you would like too see what Karen cooks up in the galley, click on over to Our Galley where she invites you into the galley to try out her recipes. If you like the recipes you can find many of them on this page or in one of the many recipe books she has published.

If you would like to see a typical day sailing you can catch one of our YouTube Episodes 

Cheers R&K 

Thank you to all who support us through watching our videos, reading our blogs or who step up and support us though Patreon and Ko-Fi. You inspire us everyday to be creative 🙌

You can help us out and support our creative work for FREE. 

By watching, 👍, 🔔, Subscribing, Commenting and best of all Sharing this video or blog with your friends 

If you would like to make a donation towards our creative work, you can by heading over to Ko-Fi they take no fees so the support goes directly into helping us buy and upgrade equipment 

Do you want more? 

Patreon gives you that … you get behind the scenes updates, 

Patreon only photos and posts, you can watch our 

episodes ad free and before they go public … you get it first!

Another way of support is through buying from our store.

Checkout the range of books we have available 

https://payhip.com/Dreamtimesail

Could you live with your partner 24/7/365?

 Cruising seems to be the Ultimate Relationship Challenge. 

How difficult do you find it to keep your relationship on an even keel, whilst living onboard 24/7/365?

“Wherever your relationship is headed, cruising will get it there faster”. These words, seem to always be uttered by the old salts when a couple announce that they are planning to move onto a boat. I use to listen to these words being spoken and think. “You don’t know these people, how can you judge their relationship”.

The phrase becomes more compelling the more I consider it and the more time we live together onboard. As we have accumulated 12 years and 24,273 nautical miles onboard I feel that we might have an idea of what it is really like to live onboard.

Some days the little things can break you

The number one question people ask us is, “How do you live on a sailboat and not kill each other?”

Can you imagine the reality show: Two people who love each other dearly, thrown into a tiny, floating, leaky hot cylinder, with temperamental equipment, limited water, charts that are incorrect, limited provisions and must work together through third world countries using only the power of the wind and sun, battling tumultuous weather, currents, seasickness and emotions.

Some days there’s tension 

Most couples get up in the morning have a couple of hours together, head off to work, come home for another couple of hours, spend part of their weekend together. Then repeat this week after week until retirement. If we were generous and said 5 hours per day over a married life of 40 years before retirement that would equate to 72800 hours spent together. A sailing couple will top that number of hours in just over 11 years. With 12 years under our belt I think we can honestly talk about our relationship onboard.

Or maybe we are just crazy to talk about our relationship openly

We live on a 42 foot (12 meter) monohull which amounts to approximately 36 square meters of living space. It is nearly impossible to move around without bumping into each other, stepping on each other’s toes, and knowing if one or other hasn’t put on deodorant. Our bathroom is a small wet room, and even though it is separated by the engine room to the living space, you can still hear and dare I say sometimes smell the ablutions of the other. Personal space is hard to come by.

This is as far apart as we can get bow to stern.

Entire weeks can go by in which we are never apart from each other. This is unique to no other living conditions that a couple can find themselves in. Other tiny living options are normally on dry land where a walk to defuse a small irritation is available. For us the closest thing to that walk to the bow, 12 meters away, “I can still hear you” 😂😂😂😂 “What’s that you say? I can still here you breathing” 😂😂😂😂“You won’t be for long” 😂😂😂😂😂

This togetherness happens by default unless we consciously choose to be apart. The last time I can remember us being separated was over 100 days ago and it was literally for 2 hours. Being with another human 24/7, even one you love, is a tougher challenge than most believe. It takes a strong understanding of each other’s traits and the ability to accommodate these with patients and humility. 

Our day is spent together for every task onboard

Over time those small insignificant traits can add up. Rob is messy especially with power cords, I hate the tangled mess of them when charging the camera gear. I tried to set up a system, but we are back to the tangled mess every few days. He on return must struggle with my insistence of wiping down the bathroom countertop after each use. Or the knives to be placed in a certain way and order on the knife rack. 

Cruisers will tell you the worst time on a boat is coming into anchor or docking the boat. We are in total agreement with this. It is certainly the most nervous time I have onboard, I would rather be out to sea in 40+ knots and seas than dock the boat. There are all matter of things that can potentially go wrong when anchoring or docking and the stress levels rise with this knowledge. The use of radios “marriage savers” is a good start to keeping a level of tension down as you are not yelling at each other, over wind and engine noises. However it just means the rest of the world can’t hear you say “Whatever”.

The demands on each of us intensify when things are going bad, inclement weather, breakdowns, tiredness, illness, stresses on finding a comfortable anchorage for a good nights sleep, or simply just the anchoring process. There are countless things that can trigger the small things that then become big things. It’s not unlike arriving home tired after a stressful 10 hour day at work, struggling with bad traffic in the pouring rain, then running into the house soaking wet to be met by “WTF …… You didn’t remember the milk”. 

Remember the photo a few paragraphs above 👆 things can go bad very quickly

Yes and at times there are heated words, words that are said under the stress of running a boat. It is like no other stress that you can put a couple under, we are after all only human and when the S*#* hits the fan sometimes so does our demeanour frazzle. At other times we go about all of it calmly, this really only depends on the lead up to the situation. 

We have had many guests onboard with us that at times when we do let the stress take over, believe that one day we will kill each other. But we are good at defusing the situation knowing that at times we need to let off steam. To let each other have space to breath and calm down.

 Our life is not the norm, we never close our eyes at night and have a deep sleep ever, there is always one eye and one ear listening and watching for changing conditions. Only the other night did we take turns to sit up throughout the night as the weather changed from its predicted 6 knots to have us swing onto a lee shore in 25+ knots.

We rely on our family and network of friends to keep us connected to the normality of life. We are intentional about staying in contact with as many as we can. Whether it be through Social Media, FaceTime, or enjoying the company of other cruisers. Having this support network is of great importance so we are not, “just the two” of us.

To get through our day we must be the comedian, the empathetic ear, the stimulating conversationalist, the problem solver, the plumbing and electrical specialist, the researcher the navigator and so many other occupations that we never got a degree in. 

But at the end of the day we must step back into the role of a partner, be best friends, team players and lovers, without that, the following day on our great adventure can never happen.

We are real people leading an unusual lifestyle, we try to show exactly what it is like to live aboard full time if you would like to know more, have a question for us or are just interested in where we travel, leave a comment below or tune into DreamtimeSail YouTube 

Cheers R&K 🥂🍾❣️

Thank you to all who support us through watching our videos, reading our blogs or who step up and support us though Patreon and Ko-Fi. You inspire us everyday to be creative 🙌

You can help us out and support our creative work for FREE. 

By watching, 👍, 🔔, Subscribing, Commenting and best of all Sharing this video or blog with your friends 

If you would like to make a donation towards our creative work, you can by heading over to Ko-Fi they take no fees so the support goes directly into helping us buy and upgrade equipment 

Do you want more? 

Patreon gives you that … you get behind the scenes updates, 

Patreon only photos and posts, you can watch our 

episodes ad free and before they go public … you get it first!

Another way of support is through buying from our store.

Checkout the range of books we have available 

https://payhip.com/Dreamtimesail

We are never alone at sea

 Standing on deck and glancing over the sea you will miss most things. You have to focus on sections of the sea at a time. Using the techniques taught for watch observation you get the hang of watching and seeing unusual activity below the water surface. Place your eyes on the horizon and then gradually bring your vision closer to you, together with a very slow sweeping motion. Using the clock hands as your guide. (Bow being 12 o’clock) sweep the ocean between 10 and 12 o’clock and then repeat 8 to 10 o’clock, repeating until you have completed the clock face. Look for unusual splashes, the glint of fast moving creature in the side of a wave.

It is not unusual to sea a flock of birds diving into the sea chasing a shoal of fish. Very often you will find dolphins, mackerel and tuna in there hunting the shoal of fish at the same time. 

It is very difficult to focus your eyes on objects in the sky. Whilst you are on a rollercoaster. The trick here is to do the same technique as searching the sea for dangers, but instead of going in one smooth motion from looking close to far away go a little distance away and look up, nothing there, look down and move your focus a little further away, look up, so on and so forth.

The easiest to spot are the flying fish. Once you reach the tropical waters these beautiful winged luminescent fish can literally fly from all directions. We find ourselves taking bets on how far they fly, or coaxing them to fly further. Their unfortunate demise is at night where their night vision must be as limited as ours as many end up on the deck perished by morning.

Before sunset you normally find seabirds like the blue footed or brown Booby birds come circling the boat. They come to find a roost for the night. Sleeping anywhere they can find out of the wind and at dawn they return to their day of feasting from the sea. We have had the same boobies, return night after night, hitchhiking along the journey.

When it’s dark and you have little or no vision you can often hear cetaceans as they blow air out of their blow holes. Believe me it can make you jump when a hump back whale blows right beside you as you are sailing along peacefully under sail at night. On hearing it you might be able to see it either with the naked or helped by a search light. If you can’t see and you can’t hear it, you may smell cetaceans. They eat fish and their breath is very smelly and if you happen to be down wind of a school of dolphins in the dark it is possible you will smell them. 

But the most magical time on a night watch is when a pod of Dolphins arrive they must know you are alone as they tend to surf in the waves beside the boat instead of their usual place on the bow. Dolphins literally ‘glow' in the dark as they glide through bioluminescent waves. This is something that we would love to film for you all to see but unfortunately it doesn’t show up in the lens. It’s one of those special moments I guess you need to experience for yourself.

We hope we bring to you some of the amazing sights that we see on our amazing adventures sailing the sea. If you want to see it all in moving pictures check out our YouTube channel. There are a heap of episodes that have, dolphins, whales, turtles, seabirds and more.

Cheers R&K 

#dreamtimesail #sailing #sailinglife #offgrid #sailingcouple #sailinglifestyle #seacreatures #dolphins #boobiebird #nomad #freedom #livinglife

Thank you to all who support us through watching our videos, reading our blogs or who step up and support us though Patreon and Ko-Fi. You inspire us everyday to be creative 🙌

You can help us out and support our creative work for FREE. 

By watching, 👍, 🔔, Subscribing, Commenting and best of all Sharing this video or blog with your friends 

If you would like to make a donation towards our creative work, you can by heading over to Ko-Fi they take no fees so the support goes directly into helping us buy and upgrade equipment 

Do you want more? 

Patreon gives you that … you get behind the scenes updates, 

Patreon only photos and posts, you can watch our 

episodes ad free and before they go public … you get it first!

Another way of support is through buying from our store.

Checkout the range of books we have available 

https://payhip.com/Dreamtimesail

When sailing off-the-beaten-track, you can expect a few surprises!

We’ve been trying to decide exactly what it is that we love most about sailing in remote parts of the world. Is it the rugged natural beauty? Is it the unknown? Is it the challenge to discover new horizons? Is it the authentic people that we meet? Is it the challenge of dealing with boat problems in the middle of nowhere? How about all of the above!

We’ve been in Indonesia now for a few weeks now. (YouTube land time) 

The Island chain known as Maluku Group

Well before we arrived in this beautiful country, we had already decided to forge our own route. This off-the-beaten-track part of Indonesia is both epic and Isolated. With very few large settlements and even fewer tourists, and we cannot wait to dive head first into the most wild part of this ancient country. 

This weeks episode we are met by machete wielding men and youth when we anchor at Pulau Kur. 

But our visit was anything but scary. All machetes were put down and we realised they all had been at work harvesting nutmeg using the machetes to cut down this precious commodity that many of the Maluku islands here are famous for.

Russell taking in the scent of the Nutmeg

Nutmeg roasting on the ground sheets

Maluku is one of the oldest provinces in Indonesia’s history. Maluku name itself is taken from the word al-Mulk, which means Land of the Kings. Maluku Islands, known for its abundant natural wealth, especially spices, which was then targeted by many countries such as the Dutch and Portuguese colonizers. Back in the days, the famed ‘Moluccas’ was a place where a great wealth grew on the trees – quite literally.  Mace, nutmeg and cloves were found nowhere else in the world, which reinforced the Dutch colonial power. 

Today the islanders live a subsistence lifestyle, growing what they can to eat themselves and exporting their spices through Ambon, the spice capital of the world.

We were given a grand tour of the village led by a jangle of laughing children eager to communicate with us. Very little english was spoken, so we started a game. We would point to the “chicken” and say “in Australia Chicken”, they caught on pretty quick and they would say “in Indonesia Ayam”. So this is how our tour of the village proceeded.

They showed us everything so very proud to have visitors to their island. We had noticed that the soccer ball that the boys were playing with on the field was in a terrible state. We in very broken Indonesian asked for a few of the boys to stay on the beach, we quickly dashed back to the boat to grab a soccer ball we had onboard to present to the village. It was thumbs up and many “thank you” shouted as we returned to Our Dreamtime.

We hauled anchor in the morning to do another short hop to a different island in the archipelago. 

Things didn’t go so well as planned.

Our intended anchorages A,B,C&D didn’t go to plan as we hit some unexpected bad weather, so we set sail overnight to anchorage E. But that’s all part of what we seek in sailing off-the-beaten-track. 

After finding safe harbour following a long and hard sail trying to locate protection from the heavy weather that wasn’t predicted, our first thoughts were “what now!” when we received a message that the captain was to report to the police station.

Our very calm anchorage at Inglas

We been conditioned to expect the worst when we are summonsed by authorities. We have also heard horror stories of how some local officials can treat you in Indonesia which is not unlike what is said about our own countries authorities. 

The police we met were true ambassadors of their country and showed us how respect and courtesy to others go a long way in building human relationships. They were very interested in Our Dreamtime so Rob invited them back to the boat to have a tour. Sharing juice and some snacks, much laughter was had by all by using Google translate. The Quarantine Officer even called his son who is studying at university to help with the translation. We said our goodbyes but not before a time was set for the following day for them to take us on tour of the village of Inglas and nearby town of Bula. 

The next day was full of surprises our own police escort took us to see some amazing local places and a lunch at a local Wurung.

Our visit to both villages from the outside could of looked ominous. However our whole experience was in total reverse. “Karma works both ways” is an excellent motto to remember as we continue to have very positive experiences on our travels.

We hope you enjoy this weeks episode Cheers R&K  

http://tinyurl.com/DreamtimeSailEp86

Thank you to all who support us through watching our videos, reading our blogs or who step up and support us though Patreon and Ko-Fi. You inspire us everyday to be creative 🙌

You can help us out and support our creative work for FREE. 

By watching, 👍, 🔔, Subscribing, Commenting and best of all Sharing this video or blog with your friends 

If you would like to make a donation towards our creative work, you can by heading over to Ko-Fi they take no fees so the support goes directly into helping us buy and upgrade equipment 

Do you want more? 

Patreon gives you that … you get behind the scenes updates, 

Patreon only photos and posts, you can watch our 

episodes ad free and before they go public … you get it first!

Another way of support is through buying from our store.

Checkout the range of books we have available 

https://payhip.com/Dreamtimesail