24 HOURS LIVING ON A SAIL BOAT (with sailing La Vagabonde)

A portion of this video is sponsored by ProNAML. We are currently in the beautiful Abacoas Bahamas, and we have just moved on to Riley and Alana's 48-foot catamaran. We're not sailors. In fact, before this trip, we had never hoisted a sail. That's it, Clara. Or spent the night on a sailboat. But this lifestyle is something that we are genuinely curious about because full-time boat life is something we could see ourselves doing in the future. Lenny. Lenny, come back in here. What are you doing, Lenny? With two kids we sit down. You want to intro the video instead? In our minds, it's kind of like living in a van. Except you sleep parked beside beautiful beaches like this every night. I'm sure boat life isn't always this glamorous, but we are pumped to be spending a week on board La Vagabond to see what life is really like living full-time on a sailboat. Our goal is to learn as much about sailing as possible. That's the wrong rope, guys. Oh, shoot. Because then, Riley and Elena are going to put us to the test. Riley is going to hand over the captain's hat and give us full control of their boat for 24 hours. Nervous aiding. Wrong way, wrong way, wrong way. And we're going to do our best not to wreck it or put their family's life in danger. If you've ever watched a sailing video on YouTube, these guys probably need no introduction. But in case you haven't, let us quickly introduce you to Riley and Elena, better known on the internet as Sailing La Vagabond. They've been sailing around the world full-time for the last seven years. So to say that they're expert sailors would be an understatement. And now they've taken on the challenge of raising their two super cute kids on a sailboat. On a more personal note, they started their YouTube channel back in 2015, a year before we did. And we've always been inspired by them. So to be invited into their home for the last week has been really special for us. All right, it's the night before we take over the boat, and our training is officially complete. If you want to see how our first few days aboard La Vagabond went, head over to Riley and Elena's channel. Even though we didn't exactly thrive during the training phase, they're still going to allow us to take over their boat. And they've put together a checklist of things we must do in order to prove that we're competent sailors. Morning. Morning, mate. I'm gonna see. Thanks, mate. Good morning. Are you going to help me with the boat today? Yeah, your first mate. So we have determined that I'm the captain. Yeah. Y'all gonna bring me more coffee? Oh. Making coffee is about the only thing on that list that I am 100% comfortable with. So we're off to a strong start, but we'll see how the rest of the day goes. Is there anything you think's missing from this list? Yeah, I was gonna say there's definitely a couple of things that I would like to add. Holding a baby in one arm whilst jiving. Cook lunch. Make my bed. Riley's dropping us off at this incredible dive site. We're all just going to jump in. That was incredible. Well done. Before we mark anything else off the list, I'm gonna give you a quick tour of La Vagabond, the boat that we're in charge of for the next 24 hours. Starting back here at the stern. The stern is the back of the boat in case you didn't know. This is where we get in and out of the water because there's a little ladder right here. So when we get back in, we have this freshwater shower. Give a little rinse and you feel super clean. To my right is where the dinghy usually lives. Right now it's floating in the water, so at some point today we're gonna have to figure out how to get it from down there to up here. Should be very interesting. What did we do wrong? It goes like definitely not there. And if you follow me up the stairs... Oh, also I have not touched my shoes since we boarded the boat. Here we have a secondary captain's chair, which I just learned about. You can actually steer the boat with this thing. This controls the rudders. Then you have a little screen with all your numbers right here. And to the front of the boat... Oh gosh. I feel like this is the equivalent of hitting my head in the van, like walking in a rope some cord. Up front is the bow of the boat and it is my favorite area. I love just being out here on these trampolines in the sunshine, especially when we're sailing. But I did learn that these are not trampolines for adults to jump on. Gotten a little bit of trouble by Riley day one. So you just, you can do a little bounce. That's all. Over here, this little window opens up to this giant storage hole. There's actually one on the other side as well. This is our... Head sail. Head sail, which we'll be using later. In this box, we have an emergency life raft, which hopefully we will not have to use today. And if you're Lenny or Darwin, these windows are an alternative entrance to the saloon. And here is where we're going to be spending a lot of time today. This is where you drive the sailboat. There are tons of ropes, tons of buttons. This is called the helm. And if you're really relaxed, you can do it from here. I believe you can just kind of take your foot and drive like this. Never seen Riley do that. Really? This is totally what I would do. Here we have the main sail. And this is called the cockpit. It's kind of like an outdoor hangout area. We have a net with all of our beautiful produce. Moving on into the saloon slash salon, if you're American. Basically like the living room, dining room, hangout area. This is the saloon. If you follow me to my left, we'll be in the galley, which is the kitchen. Pretty basic sink, oven, stove, refrigerator number one, lots of storage. And over here is the navigation station. I don't understand any of this though, so I'm not going to touch it. Autopilot, so I'm going to take over and then steer the boat, which I didn't actually have to do. You never did it? No. Hopefully not for today. Did you think about it as we were going through the cut? No, you guys did a good job. Yeah, well trained. And here where Riley and Elaine are sitting is like the office slash indoor dining and technically bedroom number one. This is just like van life. You put the table down, you put the cushions on top and it becomes a big bed. Here we have refrigerator number two and downstairs are the cruise quarters. In the hallway we have, what do you call a bathroom? Head. Head number one, never heard that before. Shower that we haven't used yet, sink, toilet, beautiful windows where you can see the crystal blue waters. At the end of the hallway is crew bedroom number one. This is Ellie's room, who is their full-time nanny. And across the hall is our bedroom. This is one similarity to van life. So our door doesn't open all the way because a backpack is behind it. This is our bedroom. There's really no reason to spend any time in here unless you're sleeping or changing because one, it's tiny and it's also pretty warm. We have this little fan that's just like the one in our van. Give me just a second to get in here. We have some storage up here. This is where we've put all of our clothes. This is my little office where my computer's been living. Basic, but all you need. You've called their boat basic so many times. It sounds so negative. And now we're making our way from the port side to the starboard side, which is over here. We've heard a lot of that. She's just been talking in an Australian accent since she got here. Here is where a lot of our food is stored. These little bins that open like drawers. And this is the owner's suite. So here's Riley and Alana's bedroom. They have pretty much the same closet we have on our side. Still a bit tight. They actually have a second closet here and their very own, what was it called? Head. Their very own head. It's quite a bit bigger. It looks very nice and sleek. Yeah, their shower's about the same. Toilet. Lots of storage. And this beautiful view. Can you imagine getting to walk in the bathroom every morning and seeing this? All right. I think that about wraps up our tour of La Vagabonde. Our time on board has been nothing but amazing so far, but I will say that these guys are roughing it a little more than I originally thought. This all looks very luxurious, but in a way it has a lot of similarities to van life in the sense that you have to be very careful about conserving power, conserving water, and whatever the temperature is outside. That's the temperature that you're experiencing on the boat. There is no AC. We're going to be very, very conscious of the weather and change anchorages to keep constantly protected, especially with the kids on board. If the weather's bad in the van, we can just park it and- It is what it is. And the boat? We die. All right, second mate. I'm going to tell you where we were thinking of sailing, if it's okay with you. Okay. We were going to go from here up and around over around this bank and in here. I'm going to let you decide how you would do that. Feeling some blue water sailing today? That's not bad. That is bad. Okay. We've been told that green and blue colors are good, and if I scrub through the day, it seems like it's mostly blue and green. I think that's wind speed. The yellow one is the land? Yes. The yellow is land. Don't sail into the land. Correct. This is Toluque, and I think we're trying to anchor here. So the plan is we're going to motor out into the deeper water. The white is deeper water. The blue is shallow water. We'll start sailing north, avoiding the blue stuff. I think I'm a bit lost. And then eventually we'll end up here where we'll anchor for the night. Sounds pretty simple. Scale of one to 10, how confident are you right now? This is the part I'm most nervous about. The sailing part. But also planning the route. Although I'm pretty confident Riley's not going to let me wreck his boat. I like a good video, man. Before we do any sailing, we got to lift the dinghy up. I'm stress eating right now. Me too. Helena's also stress eating. We have not done this a single time, and we haven't even watched it being done. Somehow every night it just magically goes up all on its own. Here, I'm going to try to kick it to you. You just pull on the rope and then push it. You just push it? Can you push it to Nate? Oh, it almost made it. He can't even get a hold of the dinghy. Sorry, I just got it. These guys have just lost their tender. I got to go and grab it for them. Okay. When you're done, could you just go ahead and put it up there? Rescue Riley. While Riley's taking care of that, we are going to take care of stowing away everything on the boat to get it ready to sail. Which means taking all of our wet things off the side so we can look cool when we're sailing past people. I think the bigger concern is actually something blowing off the boat and getting stuck in the motors. I think it has a lot less to do with the cool factor. What happened? An old couple left their tender on the beach and it went floating past. So I went and got it for them. That's what we do here in the cruising community. We look after each other. All right, back to the dinghy. Oh, I got it. Get backflips like that. Then I think we just get back on board, put the rope on the winch and up it goes. What did we do wrong? I'm really glad I checked the hook placement. It goes like definitely not there. We haven't shown you how to do this. Yeah, but you shouldn't be paying attention. We should have. We knew we were going to have to do this. This goes here. Ah, that makes more sense. Okay, I see the boat now. That's the first one. The second one is back here. Got it. Take two. This doesn't get the full check mark. That's anti-clockwise. Put it clockwise. I was just resting it there while you were. I've learned that I don't have to think about clockwise and counterclockwise very much during my everyday life, but on a boat, it's very important. And you have a little bit of a hard time with it. If I had done this correctly and I pushed this button with my toe, dinghy should lift out of the water. That was less smooth than expected. I've never seen Riley roll a rope like this either. Dinghy check. Hatches need to be shut and locked. We put all of our bathroom products into a bucket and put that down. If you were going offshore, anything that you think might fall over will. We're just throwing all of our stuff on our bed like we do when we're in the van. Hopefully that's a safe place on boats too. So like the buttons in the galley here, click in those buttons so the covers can't fly open. Is this button broken? Yeah. We stowed away everything. So we're here. We're going to motor out to the white part. Which is that way. Yeah, which I'm pretty sure is this way. Honestly, it's so hard just to even understand this navigational system because it's based on north and south and not actually the direction that you're pointing. We're about to start the boat. I don't remember which one it is. We're having trouble starting the boat. I feel like this is it. Oh, like what are we starting when we do that? All right. The anchor's coming up everybody. Hold on tight. Keep going, keep going. Keep going. Hey, stop. Turn us that way a bit. All right, start coming up on it. Give it a little tap forward. Keep coming up on the anchor while you're doing it. Your commands are confusing. Slow down, slow down. Close, close. Please don't let it go bang. I'm sorry. All right, I think that looks pretty good to me. Now I have to say these guys are taking boat life a little bit too seriously, which I guess I'm grateful for, but it's time. These two need a shower. It's been three days now and they've taken the rationing with water a little bit too seriously. So we're going to add take shower to this list. Stinky van wipers. All right, now Nate is using the motors to turn us around. We are currently surrounded by other boats and surrounded by a very shallow reef. So this is going to be a little tricky. Hang on mate. Sorry. We made it a grand total of 60 seconds. I'm being super cautious. I just don't want our rudder to get anywhere close to that. And I want to take this around here as well. I can't imagine why you're not relaxed right now. These are all the boats we have to navigate around. Nervous eating. Wrong way, wrong way, wrong way. Okay, now I'm going to attempt to turn the boat into the wind. We'll put the sails up and then we'll be on our way. Sounds simple enough. Steering wheel helps too, Nate. If you want to turn in a hurry. Yeah, see, look at that. Turning nicely. Wait, what is clockwise? Yeah, okay. We're getting close to being turned into the wind. So I'm going to get this rope ready. Okay, let's do it. Yeah, start pulling. That's the wrong rope guys. Oh shoot. Oh, wrong rope. It's the dark blue one. They're all the same color to me. Wrong blue, wrong blue rope. If you think we're just doing this to be dramatic for the video. They're really not. They're not. That's anti-clockwise again. This is not going as smoothly as we'd hoped. Square's back up to the land. Help. Can I get him on auto, autopilot? Yeah, and just in the gear because it's going to take a while. I felt it take over the steering wheel. The autopilot's holding his face in the wind. Are you ready? Yeah. One, two, three, go. Keep doing it. Oh, it's getting... Karen pulled, let's let it down just a hair. Now, now you have to go push it. Okay, see that hard piece? It's on this side of the rope. It needs to be on the far side of the rope. Maybe go on the other side and pull it. Just pull it hard through the rope. Pull it towards you really hard. Pull, pull. Yeah. Okay. All right, and start pulling. One, two, three. That's it, Clara. Good work, good work. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Woo. Now we're using the electric winch to get it the rest of the way up. Okay, mine's out. All right, now we're letting out the headsail. So I'm going to be down here. Nate's going to go up there and pull on the green rope, which is slowly going to unravel that sail. That's it, give him some, that's it. It's going. Stop on both. Okay. Stop. And then off and off. Yeah. Beautiful. Oh my God, we did it. We're doing it. The engines are off and we are officially sailing. We're sailing. We're going in a good direction right now. Everything is working the way it should. And I feel like I finally have a minute to just sit here and take a deep breath and enjoy sailing. I was really stressed until just now, but I'm feeling good. Oh, but now there's a boat. You see this little boat? All right, little boat. What's he doing? All right, so these guys have done pretty well so far. There's islands around, there's reef, there's other boats. Nate was actually so worried about a boat that was like 0.5 of a nautical mile away. We're like, don't worry Nate, you'll be fine. To be good at this, you literally have to be thinking about 10 things at once. You have to be thinking about which way the boat's pointing, which way the wind's blowing. You have to be thinking about the motors, which ropes to pull on to get the right sails to go up. You have to know which sails to put up. Anytime we try something for the first time, I always have so much more appreciation for the people who are really good at it. And the owners of this boat are very good at it. And they do it all while raising two kids on board. Pretty incredible. Ellie's massaging some kale for lunch. We're going to have wraps, something easy because it's been such a big day. Riley's massaging Dylan's belly. And these guys have done really well so far. They've navigated through the tiny channel. They've gybed the boat, which means the wind going from one side of the boat to the other from behind, so the sails will flip to the other side. Beautiful. Yeah? Yep, very nice. They did a good job there. And now I guess we're coming up to our anchorage where they're going to drop the sails and anchor. We haven't finished yet. Now attempting to sail upwind. I'm keeping us at a good speed while they're tightening the sails. Now mate, you can pull on that, which will bring that in. I want you to bring it to about here. Just wrap it around in a knot and tie lots of knots. If you don't know how to tie a knot, tie a lot. One, two, three. That's good. Now do half hitches on this rope here. I want to see the grimace. Tighter, more of them. All right, tack time. Tacking. Hold on, everyone. Tack success. So we just tacked there, which basically means the wind was blowing the sails in this direction, and we had to change which direction the wind was blowing into the sails. So we're pretty much doing zigzags to get to the point where we're going to anchor now. Okay, so we're about to drop the sails, and then we'll motor the rest of the way into the anchorage. Keeps that in mind. Okay, here we go. Sails dropping. Pull, Cara, pull, Cara. Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull. Keep going, keep going, keep going. I'm falling. Here we go. It's coming down. All right, taking down the headsail. Turn around and face us downwind. Okay. Okay, remember how to do this. All right, we're facing downwind. Keep us pointed in that direction, and then you're going to loosen off on this, and Cara's going to pull in at the front. Pull that black rope, Cara. Yeah. Hurry. This one? Yeah, pull it, Cara. Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull. Keep going, keep going, keep going. Beautiful. Sails away from the most part. That was hard. Good work. Just in time, you two. Sailing is stressful enough, and then add filming to the mix, and it's more than any one person can handle. There are so many things to be considered. When you're sailing, just when we thought our work was over, now it's like, okay, where do we anchor? Are there going to be mosquitoes? Where is the wind? Where are the sandy patches? How deep is it? It's just so much, and they make it look so easy. It's insane how much they have going on in their heads, and they don't even show it. No, don't say everything that's going on in mine. We have a new captain. He's getting a little impatient with us. He came over to speed things up. When are we going to anchor? When is lunchtime? We're anchored. Now we get to reward ourselves with food. Are you excited about lunch, Darwin? Get some noodles. I need this food. We've eaten so well here on La Vagabonde. Probably the healthiest we've eaten in weeks. All thanks to Ellie, full-time nanny slash chef. For lunch today, we're having veggie wraps, which include massaged kale with some tofu and some beans, sun-dried tomatoes. It's fabulous. According to the list, the next things we need to do are pack away the sails, turn off the electronics, and dive on the anchor to check that it's dug. I'll do it. You're going to dive on the anchor? Yeah. Do you know what it means for it to be dug? No. I just want to get in this water. Stingray. Sharks are beautiful to swim with. Are you serious? Yeah, there's one over here. Oh my gosh. What kind is it? It's a little baby one. It doesn't look like a baby. Right before I jump in to check the anchor, there's a shark. It looks huge. Looks pretty dug to me. We were blinded by the beautiful blue water. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one that's exhausted after our day of sailing. There is just so much to think about. My brain feels completely fried because even though it might not have looked like it, we were trying our best to be in full control of the boat. So I was thinking about a million different things plus filming, and a nap does sound really good right now. We should have a boat-wide nap time. I would... Are you going to sing it? Sing it. He likes it. I can't. Good morning. We didn't quite get through the list yesterday. We still have to catch a fish, cook dinner, learn to tie a bow line, drive the dinghy, and we still haven't taken that shower that they added to the list. Let me quickly sum up the rest of our day. First, Riley gave me a free diving lesson, and I learned to hold my breath for three minutes, which was pretty incredible. Then we checked out a wrecked barge with tons of fish, but it was inside a national park, so we weren't allowed to shoot any of them. So we drove out into the open ocean in about 20 feet of water, and for the next couple of hours, Riley was very patient with me while I tried my best to catch us dinner. I did not shoot this fish. And since I could not provide food for the crew, we decided to take everybody out for a nice dinner. This is probably better anyways. Definitely a bigger portion size. Captain Cara is driving us home. You want me to back us out of here, Riley? I want you to not fall in first. So what I want you to do is, if you're pulling with your right hand... Ready? Yep. Oh, that's hard! Yes! Oh my god. And what you're trying to do is not get the prop in that rope. Great. All right. Okay, now forwards. See the green and the red flashes? Go in between them. Should we get in some speed or nah? Nah. Okay. Um, can we talk about the storage right now? No. We may not make it back to the boat. I think we're good now. Woo! Nicely done, captain. Okay, earlier today, Elena taught us how to tie a bow line. The short end is the bunny rabbit. The long end is going to be the bunny rabbit hole. Bunny rabbit goes down the hole, around the tree, which is the long part, and back up the hole. Simple enough. If I remember how to do this correctly, the dinghy won't float away tonight. Okay, there's the rabbit hole. Rabbit goes through the hole, around the tree, back up through the hole. There we go. Our list is finally complete. On our last night on board La Vagabond, we took our first shower. It must have been pretty stinky for Riley and Elena to write this. Are we real sailors now?