We Live On A BOAT So No Excuses (FIRST OVERNIGHT SAIL!) | Expedition Evans 50

We are Brett and Jade Evans. We bought a wrecked sailboat at auction, then dedicated the last year to bringing her back to life. Now it's time to transform her into our off-grid floating home. Subscribe and join us as we embark on our greatest expedition yet. We are making our way from Block Island to Bristol, which means we need to cross over, enter the Narragansett Bay, and work our way up towards the top. We're flying, and it doesn't really feel like it. It's very calm. There's not a whole lot of wind right now, and it's just slightly shifting back and forth. We're wing on wing. We'll see how long that lasts. Jade's kind of taking a little bit of a nap, a little bit of rest, and so I'm getting to run it all myself. It's a lot of fun. Everybody's kind of waking up because the sea state is starting to pick up a little bit. We're starting to surf a little bit down these waves. We've been going almost exactly downwind, wing on wing. It's been a blast. We've just been cruising at six knots, effortless for the past three hours. Now it's time to head a little more port, head up the channel, less downwind. We just passed under the Newport Bridge. Now we get to continue up the Narragansett as the sun sets over the water towards Bristol. So romantic. Kind of, actually. I just wanted to record how this sounds. We are so close. I can see the mooring balls from here. We still have both of our sails out because we're only doing four knots. We might get there before it actually gets dark. I'm happy about this. We made it. I grabbed to the mooring. Brett did a phenomenal job. Did I do anything today other than grab the mooring ball? You helped me one time that I had to come up to the front. I stood there. Yeah. I made sure I didn't fall. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Good job single-handing today. Thank you. I'm proud of you. Appreciate it. I just worked all day and hung out and Brett took care of it. But these clouds, that's what I really wanted to talk to you guys about. Take a look. They're ominous and crazy. But we made it here before dark and I'm proud of that fact. We really got here at the wrong time for the mooring ball. The time is here. Do you want to tell us about it? We're just having dinner. You made us this lovely dinner. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Good morning. I'm working. Brett's also working. We jumped right into the day. So we jumped right into here with you guys too. But basically we came to Bristol because as you can tell, we have a lot of projects that we need to knock out in the next few days. The plan today is that we need to go into Bristol to pick up a whole bunch of supplies that we're getting today for all of our upcoming projects. Oh my goodness, my friends, we have had a day. I cannot honestly fathom the amount of errands that we managed to squeeze into one single rotation of the sun. We woke up with the sunrise like 5.30ish and we started and we have not stopped. Today was a success, I'd say. One of the things I'm excited about is my basket with the hand towels, but that excitement is nothing compared to the joy I feel about our new fishing pole. We have no idea how to use it. I think you just stab fish with it. I'm pretty sure. We don't know how to fish. Both of us spearfish and we know how to do that, but I've used a pole maybe three times in my entire life. Brett, do you have... Like a couple lakes fishing like... This is going to be interesting. Give us any advice, anybody who has books or guides or YouTube channels. We have a lot to learn, but I mean, we live on a boat, so no excuses not to. Today was mostly going out and buying things that we need for the boat and things that we want for the boat. We don't need a girl or a fishing rod. The things that we did need were all the safety equipment things. We got a lot of really fun things. Fun, meaning like if the boat's sinking and you're going to die, you won't die because of all the safety equipment we got. One of those things being a life raft, which as it turns out... Go, go, go. Oh, they were in the lead before that happened. It is a huge investment. It's a huge purchase and it's one of those things that we spent a lot of money on today and we hope we never use it. But if we do need to use it, we got a good one and we'll get here in a couple of weeks and then we'll give you a tour of the whole thing. We just ordered it in. It's a huge relief. And the biggest relief of all is how fortunate we are that HelloFresh decided to sponsor this video so that we could afford to buy our life raft and also that they provided us with some salmon to cook on our new raft. HelloFresh makes cooking at home easy and affordable by delivering seasonal recipes and fresh ingredients right to your door, or in our case, the nearest UPS access point. Everything's a mess. The kitchen's a mess and it's such a bummer because I had this place. We had this place spotless before bed last night, but then errands happened, which, you know, whatever. It's life. We have so much left to do because we are going to sail to Nantucket tomorrow. Maybe start the sail to Nantucket tomorrow. There's very, very minimal wind. We're going to have a very long sail to Nantucket. But current state of affairs. Did you finish measuring for the wiring? No. Brett's measuring for wiring for lithium batteries. Spoiler alert. I'm making two meals at the same time. Did it come with those carrots? Yeah, it did. I thought I'm going to try to keep them in separate piles since they're all pre-portioned, which is actually one of the things HelloFresh wanted us to talk about, which is that all of the ingredients come pre-portioned, which on one hand saves time because these are each supposed to only take 30 minutes to make. It also means less wasted food because it's all measured. Do you think they give you a proportional sized lemon for what you need? They better have. If they didn't like measure it to the gram, I feel like, look at this lemon. It's perfectly round. It's like the roundest lemon I've ever seen. Each HelloFresh recipe is packed with fresh produce sourced directly from farmers, which means you actually get your produce faster than the grocery store does. We opted for their pescatarian selection, but they also offer low-cal, carb-smart, and vegetarian options. They send the ingredients and recipes, which makes eating healthy a whole lot easier and more exciting. Go to HelloFresh.com and use our code EXPEDITION14 to get 14 free meals and free shipping. First impressions of the grill setup? This is nice stuff. This is like very robust hardware. I think this is a Kumo. We looked at the Magmas and we looked at the Kumos and I liked the Kumo better. I'm sure there's probably some like fandom that's probably going to be like, oh no, Kumos are terrible. You should have got the Magma. I guess we're in this fandom now. Yep. If we're a fan. Yep. We are a part of the Subaru fan club now. No, it's not Subaru. Oh, sorry. Baja? It's a little more wobbly than I'd like, but you've only hand-tightened it. It's only hand-tightable. As of right now, there's no way to connect a fuel bottle to the barbecue. There's a very likely chance that I threw it away today when we took this out of the box at the car and threw it in the dumpster. I'm going to run back to shore, go dumpster diving and see if I can find that part. And while I'm away, we're going to try out our new walkie-talkies. Hello. Yes, they work. Well, that's kind of cool. Okay. Good luck at the trash can. I'm going to cut vegetables. Success. We're going to eat it now, even though it was supposed to be tomorrow's meal, because the other one's not done yet. We still have to grill the salmon. It was a little bit delayed from the whole propane debacle. That makes it sound way more dramatic than it was. It's like a bootable deliciousness. That's exactly what it is. Well, the fish is done. Hot. Okay. Turn you off. Holy moly, that's hot. But it looks really good. Okay. Will you give me a bite? Oh, that smells good. I think it looks actually really good. It smells so good. Oh man. I love barbecue. And that barbecue works really well. Just finished up mine. Finished off our dinner. That was actually really good. Plan of attack for this one is that we are going to wrap it up in tinfoil tomorrow when it's time to eat it. So we'll probably just toss the whole thing either on the barbecue or in the oven. Go to HelloFresh.com. Use our code EXPEDITION14. They'll give you 14 free meals and free shipping. But meanwhile, Jade is up front. I have a better method, but I'm trying to cut this because boat beds are shaped peculiarly. You're tearing it? Well, I don't use... You do you. I'm not judging you. I was just surprised. I started it, but it didn't go great. Anyway, it's bedtime. We are almost there for being able to take off on our very first overnight sail. A little update on the dinghy. The dinghy has been doing great. It has been treating us very well. It only broke once and now it works again because Brett fixed it because he's awesome. Got it all reassembled. It's in gear. And now when I turn it, I can actually hear the piston driving up and down and the valves opening. We're making compression, which means we're connected up here as well. So that's good. I think we're in business. We're very close. Two more weeks before our new high field comes in the mail. I think that we're going to make it. I think we're going to... Yeah, everything is delayed because of COVID, but I think that Mercedes is going to treat us well for a little while longer and we have a lot of things for future projects that are going to be happening in the next couple of weeks. We will tell you about that, but first we really need to get out on the water and get out of this anchorage before it gets dark. Our water tanks are almost completely empty. We are very much out of water and we've been planning this whole time to go to that little dock right there. There's free water and free pump out, just self-serve. So we're going to fill up our tanks before we headed out on this big trip. But that gigantic, super mega fancy luxury motor yacht is there right now because it's also the transient slip. It just so happens that they're like twice the size of transient slips. So they're also locking the hose section, which means that our boat wasn't going to fit on there. So we got these. It's seven gallons, 14 gallons total. I think that that should hold us over long enough to find somewhere else to get water. Load up guys, load up. Come on. Good boy, let's go. Good girl. Sunset. That was a dumb thing to do. Throw your rope before you got in. We got some Pad Thai takeout and we're going to eat it really quick. We decided to sit at this park. They have live music and everybody's out playing. And I think after a whole year of COVID and not being around people, it's kind of nice to just be here in this public space. And I mean, the whole place is vibing with the guitar and the sailboats and the flags and the grass. And it's a good place to eat some dinner. One of the things we did today was install this bad boy. Is that working? Yeah, it totally works. There we go. Like that. Tighten this up. It's like we know what we're doing. We fake it all right sometimes. I think we will get out of here before it gets dark. First up, we need to relocate those water jugs and load up the dinghy. Have we ever talked about this ball? I don't think so. It's actually a horse toy. We got it for her because she liked my mom's tetherball pole, but she kept popping them. So I got one that you can't pop. Okay. What? You can push it. No, you're doing great. Do the line. Dingo, no, no. Let's raise the anchor and get going. Okay. Ready. Dingo's ready. Dingo, do you want to go? Let's go sailing. Anchor is up. We are underway motoring along. We're just leaving the anchorage and we're going to start raising sails here in just a second. First overnight sail. You ready for this? Nope. Let's do it. Are you nervous? A little bit. What are you worried about? Uh, what am I not worried about? I mean, where we're going is a pretty easy sail. It's pretty open. Like I'm not too worried about that. It's mostly just the unknown. We've never done it. We've planned it, but also we're winging it. We have made it a few feet out of the anchorage. Very, very, very light winds today. It is going to be a slow sail through the night. We're about to tack one more time and then we should be able to swing downwind and that downwind course will probably take us the entire way out of the Narragansett Bay and into the ocean, which would be nice. Last time we went down the bay, we had to tack so many times, which was fun, but a nice easy downwind sail is going to be good. It is almost eerily calm and quiet. You can just hear everything. You hear the bells and the water and that's pretty much it. It's awesome. I'll give you this one. Thank you. It is time for our first watches. I'm sleeping first for a couple of hours. Brett's going to sail and I'm going to sleep here because he needs me. Sweet dreams. This is really beautiful. Looking up at these sails and then the stars in the background. This is a cool life. I figured I'd take this quick opportunity to vlog because I have light. That right there is the Newport Bridge. The wind is super light. Yeah, doing good. Well, we've come to a predicament. The forecast called for light winds tonight. They didn't forecast zero wind tonight. We are currently doing 1.8 knots and there's basically zero wind. I mean, there's got to be some. We're doing 1.8, but there's the Newport Bridge. It's probably been 30 minutes since we went under it and we are not very far. That alarm is our GPS for the boat. The instruments on this boat are pretty much all dead. Chart plotter is hit or miss. The GPS keeps going out on us, which is why we're using a tablet and phones. The radar seems to be not working. Time for new instruments, but that's another story. We're trying to decide if we just turn on the engine and keep going. Turn on the engine and go back. There's that really good anchorage just on the other side of the bridge. Or do we just keep chugging along at 1.8 knots? We'll get there eventually. The forecast says that there will be wind in eight hours. Well, I asked for input and we took a vote and we're going to keep going. That sounded a lot funnier in my head. I'm the only one awake. So when I asked around, no one said anything otherwise. And when we all voted, I vote one. So here we go. We're going to keep going. The wind picked up. We are doing a roaring 3.2 knots? 2.4? 1.7? 2.4? We're moving. We're getting there. Look how small that bridge is behind me. Yeah, we're doing great. Why not? We're going to keep going. And we'll have a good time. All right. Now that the motor tanker Cindy something or other is all past me, I am safe. I don't think we're going to get rocked by waves, actually. And those are impressively quiet. I don't know why I'm talking about this. There's no one else to talk to. That's why I'm talking to you guys. We're just kind of cruising along. Sails are full. And we are almost out of the bay. Ooh, there are going to be some waves. I can hear them. Buckle up. It's my turn on watch. Admittedly, I was so terrified when I first started. Absolutely nothing has happened. Nothing is happening. And probably nothing will happen. Basically no waves. Basically no wind. Basically no boats. Just us and the sound of the generator right now because our autopilot was draining our batteries too much. We weren't able to maintain a high enough voltage. So the generator is on so that we can keep running the autopilot and navigation. Just going to hang out. Enjoy the rumble and the waves. A little bit of an update. The generator is off because our batteries, I think, have enough charge for a little while. It's a lot more peaceful now. And super bright. The clouds parted and some of the fog cleared out. Maybe my eyes just got adjusted. But it seems like it's a very, very bright night. We were going for a while going directly downwind. But then the wind shifted a bit so we are no longer directly downwind. We're going about, let's see, 1.9 knots. Which there for a little while we weren't going anywhere at all. So this is an improvement. Now we're kind of moving. Yeah, it's better. Much better with the generator off. Actually fairly nice out here. Thank you all so much for watching. Make sure you subscribe. It's free. And join us next week when we push ourselves and our boat, not to the breaking point, but definitely outside the comfort zone.