Why we stopped sailing _ A trip down memory lane

Welcome to Free Range Living, I'm Pascale. I'm Troy. And we wanted to put this video together today to share with you why we decided to stop sailing and start living the life that we live now. Hmm, that's, yeah, it's probably about time. There's been plenty of people asking us, why did you stop sailing? So we thought we might address it. So, well, we started as a sailing channel, how long ago, Pascale? You're a good listener. I think it was about six years ago that we put our first videos up. Not happening! We're not making YouTube videos. So yeah, if you've just joined us, you can find about 200 or so episodes. When we first met, we went for a three month first date in remote Australia, in a place called the Kimberleys. And we came out of it so impressed that we wanted to go back, but we thought that we might want to video it so people would believe us, what we saw there. So how do you feel about your first barramundi there? Well, my first barramundi. Ah! Oh, Jesus Christ! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. It subsequently became pretty popular, didn't it? Like, people were writing in, and following along in our adventures. Actually, people started to ask how they could fund it. We weren't funding it at that stage by any means, and people actually asked, and so we started Patreon and a few other ways. And people have sent in money, and they seem to like it, so we're still here. So all across the top of Australia, lots and lots of fishing, lots of remote area exploring. Then we got down to Tasmania, and COVID sort of hit. And we decided that the best thing that we could do is just squirrel ourselves away in a nice little community and refit our boat. We had a 30-foot boat called Mirrool. She was in pretty poor repair by the time we got down to Tasmania. Yeah, she was pretty battered and bruised. We'd just done the bare minimum so we could keep sailing safely in Northern Australia, but she definitely needed a makeover. When COVID sort of hit, it caught a lot of people by unawares, by surprise. So we found a really, really nice little farmstay where we got it for a song. We had a little house on quite a few acres. And while I was at work doing the boat, Pascale would often be doing the videos so everyone could watch our progress if she wasn't down there sanding fiberglass with me. But in our off hours, we really got a taste for homegrown country produce. You got to speak to a lot of producers when you went to the markets, didn't you? Yeah, I went to the farmer's markets with our friend most weekends and just got a taste for, as well, some really delicious grass-fed produce, pasture-raised meats, and organic dairy. Things that we didn't really have access to often on the boat, but that we had pretty much all the time while we were in Tasmania. We really focused on having a really wholesome diet like that. Yeah, I don't want to come across as a little bit spoiled, because we're, oh, we didn't have this produced food on the boat. We did have lots of fresh fish. Yeah, we had incredible fresh wild seafood, which was the bulk of our diet, but we didn't get the opportunity to have red meat or fresh eggs or fresh dairy and fresh fruit and vegetables. I'll just have a little bit of a detour. Our channel has always sort of been a little bit about self-reliance and, well, to put it bluntly, feeding yourself. Yes, food is important. Food is really important, and nothing's changed in that respect. We're still very, very focused on self-reliance, living simply, but living as well as you possibly can with the smallest amount of input and the smallest amount of financial outlay, which is, I think that's what people have sort of, they've enjoyed our channel for that reason. Hopefully we've been able to pass on some tips that have made a few things possible to people, like on small boats or adventures, or now that we're doing what we're doing now is on the land, hopefully some people will get something out of that as well. Yeah, I agree. But back to the main topic. So we were in Tasmania, COVID hit, things got totally crazy, and we started to get the idea that we might want to take a little bit of a break from sailing. So this is sort of getting down to the crux of this video. I've been sailing for, I've been on the water for 25 years, and Pascale, we've been doing that together for about six on and off. Yeah, at that stage it was five on and off. So that's a fair amount of time sailing. I think I only ever saw my family again one time in nearly a decade, and Pascale, you only had a couple of flights back over those six years. Yep, yep, I had three trips back home, I think, and you had one. So we're fairly family orientated, so that took a toll. And I bring this up because people that are maybe contemplating going sailing, these are some things that you possibly could think about. Yeah. So we had that family aspect. We had the continually moving aspect. We make videos for a living now. So you want to keep moving, you want to see new places, that's for yourself, but you also want to make some nice videos for people. In a small boat as well. So it was a little bit tiring on us being in a small space for that long. That's right, it wasn't. A lot of people don't do it in a 30 footer. Yeah. There are options, you know. Well, a lot of people now do it in 40, 45 foot catamarans, which are basically apartment buildings. So a small boat definitely played into that. But also, we'd been doing some reading and we got that land time, like I said, and we started coming up with a few ideas that we wanted to try, and that was self-reliance on land. Now, reading people like Joel Salatin and Alan Savory, they were talking about regenerating land, you know, using animals to take degraded land and improve it. It really sounded very, very interesting to us. And we sort of wondered how we could, you know, get into that. Yeah. We did look around Tassie a bit, but prices are like ridiculously crazy here in Australia. And when we got back to WA and we finally saw our family again and we had a bit of a celebration. If you were with us, you'll remember we went up, we went back up north to the Abrolhos and a little bit beyond. But we met some people that have been following us and we came to a bit of a solution to both of our problems. Yeah. So they have nine acres that's here in the southwest of Western Australia. And it had been more or less abandoned. They'd entrusted its care to some people, but it didn't work out for them. Things had really like gone downhill and they asked us if we'd like to step in. So it seemed very, very fortuitous. And we agreed that we'd like to do that. Hello, cat. And so we took it on. Everything just came together all at once. We had a buyer for our boat. We had a property that wouldn't cost us anything to come and caretake and try some of these experiments. One of my friends gave me a dog. That was another thing we missed. We wanted to have pets, so yeah. We hate animals. We actually wanted a boat cat. I remember in New South Wales, we were looking at boat cats. It's true. Yeah, and it didn't happen. Yeah, I've always had animals my entire upbringing. I was really missing them. So it just seemed fortuitous. We got that offer. And I will say, while we're talking about that, and I just want to give a shout out to there's some generous supporters of ours that when we were talking about ending the channel, they were actually saying that they had unused boats in various parts around the world. It's really true, yeah. And they offered, they said, if you guys want to keep sailing in a different part of the world, you don't have to outlay. You can come and borrow one of our boats. And we were struck by that generosity. And it was very, very tempting. Nearly, we were really torn. At that time, one of the things that was weighing against that was the uncertainty around various governments' approaches to COVID around the world. It just seemed like everything was constantly in flux, constantly changing. There wasn't any set sort of information we could go on. Passports were at risk, people were. It was more, it was also our government, like we might not have been able to come home. Australia was quite strict about it. Yeah, they were just going completely crazy. All of that seems such a distant memory now. But in any case, we were enjoying being with our families, and we did have this offer, and we thought now or never, so we did that. Also, we were really in the back of our minds. We were really thinking about having a family of our own, and having a family of our own overseas would have been difficult and not something we really wanted to do. That's, yeah, no, that's a good point. And we come into that. We think alike, we think exactly the same. Yeah, and it also would have been very, very cruel, I think, to our families here who would have been devastated not to spend time with our new little baby. Yeah. So we definitely wanted, we definitely wanted to start a family. We didn't want to start on a 30-footer, and we didn't want to steal those valuable years away from our, well, at the moment, our child, possibly children's grandparents, because you'd really have to see them interact, and you'd just know. They're just absolutely crazy about kids. Even Troy's big sister, she's just. Well, she's babysitting our baby now, so we can talk to you, and she's totally happy. We can take as long as we want, apparently, so that's all fine. Yeah. So these are all really important things. All of those things weighed on us, and we made that decision. So what I'd like to think is our channel has taken a change in direction. We're no longer a sailing channel, but we are still a self-reliance channel. Very much so. And I think there's, when we first started out, more than being a sailing channel, we more or less wanted to just explore different alternative ways to sort of go about your life. We wanted to, as we learned those lessons, document it, and also some of the things that we already had experience with. Like I said, I've been at sea for more than two decades, so we were able to share that with an audience, and hopefully we can keep going with that. We're probably making more mistakes now, because I don't have a farming background at all, but Pascale's still got her culinary background, so in the kitchen, things are still working out. So I'd like to think that we're still sharing those lessons and providing an alternative way of looking at things. Exactly, yeah. Just on land, not on the sea anymore. So one of the other reasons why we wanted to settle down for a little bit is that being on a boat, it's quite transient, and we made some really amazing friends, connected with some beautiful people on the water, but we never got to spend more than a few months at a time with those people. And we wanted to put down roots and get to know our neighbors, make some solid friends for a few years, and just have that support group around us, and help other people out, and things like that. And that's happened here. In 18 months, we've really got a really nice group of friends here. It's been really special. I'll just give a shout out to our great neighbors. So we really got that in spades. I was sort of, when we were on the boat, I was sort of envisaging being able to just have a beer, or a cup of tea, or a chat with my neighbor, and that happens now, that the neighbor will pop around two, three, four times a week. Yeah. We'll have a cup of tea, shoot the breeze. If I need a hand butchering a pig, he's there, sometimes he has tasks, and I'll go around and help. We collect firewood together. All of that stuff, it's a real bromance. We do some food trades every week. Asparagus, eggs, all different things. Bacon. We've joined the local community garden as well, and I can highly recommend that. So we're able to go there and swap knowledge with some knowledgeable people there, swap food. All of these things, it's really come through what we were hoping was gonna happen. And hopefully we can capture some of that on camera. Obviously, some people don't wanna be on camera, so it can't be everything, but I think it's panning out well. One thing we're very grateful for, so this is a flesh and blood community we came to find here in the little country town that we've settled in, but ever since we started Free Range Sailing, we've always had a digital community. So you can't actually reach out and touch those people, but we share a different look at life that they might not be able to, can't necessarily visit Australia, or some of them are a bit old to go traipsing around in remote areas. So in exchange for us showing that side of life, we've had some really great stories of birthdays. We've had some tragedies people have shared with us, the passing of loved ones, things like that. So we have been part of people's lives. We haven't been able to reach out and touch them, but we have been able to pick up the phone, talk to people online, back and forth exchange of messages, and it's been incredibly rewarding. So we're a bit selfish, aren't we? We want a little bit of everything, but we do seem to have created a good community online, and we've found a very nice community where we are here in real life as well. We got a hold of this property and it was in pretty poor condition, but thanks to our pigs and goats and an ensemble of creatures, that's really turning around, and we're having fun documenting that. Those videos can be found, if you're just finding the channel now, and there'll be plenty more of them. Another thing I'd like to think about now that we've got to the future is I was just wondering about making a little boat, Pascale, what do you think? Yep, what sort of boat was it that you were planning on building? Well, I've got the go ahead. So I got sick of big boat life on a 30 footer, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to maybe build a little five and a half meter sailing boat to do a little bit of small boat adventure sailing. So I was thinking of a New Zealand designer called John Wellsford. He's come up with a design that you might be able to find lots of pictures on the internet called a Pathfinder, John Wellsford Pathfinder. I'm thinking very strongly about getting the plans for that and building one in the shed, because when we first got here, I was absolutely swamped, overwhelmed, Pascale as well, we were both absolutely swamped getting this place to a livable condition and fire safe. Well, actually, I wouldn't mind making a video about the subject of fire here in rural Australia. But yeah, now things have loosened up a bit, I feel like building one of those boats, so. And you have a new baby. Yeah, I have a new baby, so. New project. Whatever, you know, I've got plenty of time left over. So yeah, I think I might build a boat and then in the future we can go and have keep free range sailing sort of alive with some small boat adventures. I just need to build the boat first. If you would like to, if you'd like me to document that build process, just give us a, drop a line in the comments, you know, if that's something that might interest you and I'll just put a camera there and we'll go through that. I know that when we did the refit, it was pretty well subscribed. Yeah, so that's gonna be, that boat is gonna be a fiberglassing project. Is it timber frame? It will be plywood, stitching glue and fiberglass painted and stuff like that. We'll still keep doing, if people want me to video that, that'll be part of free range sailing, but we'll still keep doing the free range homesteading stuff. I'm not just gonna do a complete change of direction again. So a little extra work, but. It might be the free range boat build playlist. Yeah, maybe. We'll see, we'll see how it pans out if people would like that recorded. So that pretty much, that pretty much. And future, future. Future, future. Oh, well, yeah, people have ever, they often write, do you miss the boat? Yeah. Will you ever go sailing again? Yeah. And at the moment, sometimes we miss the adventure and things like that. The boat, I don't really miss the boat because what we did is on the refit, we got her back to a fairly high standard. We got her to a standard again where it's worth it for people to keep maintaining her into the future, and hopefully she can get another 50 years. She was 50 years old when we passed her on. So we don't miss the boat because we're hoping that she's having adventures with new owners. But we haven't ruled out that in the future, when however many children we end up with, once they're a little bit bigger, and our parents have had a bit of time just to see them get to at least past preschool age, I think I'd like to show our kids Australia in the best way that we know how is by sea. How far it goes beyond that, I don't know. So anyone that's out there asking, will you sail again? Undoubtedly. So in the nearer future, probably just a small boat, four A's to go out and about. I'm starting to miss the ocean a little bit already, I have to admit. I'm missing the ocean too. Not the boat and the sailing, but the ocean. So yeah, so to those sort of questions, I would say a qualified yes, that's probably gonna happen. But it is still a few years down the track. We've got, we have made a commitment to the owners of this place. We've made a commitment to some animals. So that's how it stands for now. Is there anything else you'd like to add there, Pascy? No, I think we've covered everything. I feel like it's just, we're still the same people, we're just not living on the boat anymore. Just another kind of adventure, just something that we don't usually do. Just another adventure on land, yeah, yeah. All right, well how about we wrap it up just by thanking everyone that has stayed with us. We've, some of the people that originally asked us to form Patreon, which is a way of crowdsourcing videos, if you like, if you've never heard of it. People offer to like, they pledge like, say two or 10 or whatever, however much they want for a video that you do each week. There's quite a few of those people that are still with us, so thank you, thank you very much for that. I noticed that people are sending in some super thanks. Yeah, there's actually a link to our Patreon page in the description of the video, if people want to check out what it's all about. Yeah, if you don't know what I'm talking about. What I don't know what I'm talking about is super thanks, I just say that we get them, but I don't know what it is. People have pledged a little bit of money in the comments, so thank you for people that are doing that. It's all just really terrific, so if you'd like to support us, you can just click like, you can click subscribe, that's great. If you want to do it financially, one-off or recurring, then you can look in the description of the video, like Pascy said, and there is some links. All right, well, I think I've covered everything that I really wanted to say. I've got a pretty rambling style. I like your style. Thanks, baby. All right, well, with that, let's just wrap it up right there while I'm ahead.