Finally, after planning, preparing and studying for four months, Eileen and I are on our way to St. Lucia to undergo two weeks of quarantine and then close on our 2015 Leopard 44 catamaran which we are buying from Moorings Sunsail brokerage and are naming “Blown Away”!
Come along with us as we lay out a bird’s eye view of what the next crucial two months looks like and stay tuned for future videos where we drill down deeper into each stage and progression of journey with all of the juicy details that will both entertain and inform.
Our journey will begin as we take a one-way flight from Miami to St. Lucia and stay at the Bay Island Inn for quarantine and then after two weeks we close on our boat where Regis Marine Electric will install a Spectra Newport 400 water maker, radar, new Raymarine Axiom 12 chart plotter and Relion 900 amps lithium batteries that is just a start to the upgrades which will be completed a few weeks later in Sint Maarten.
Next, we will set sail for two weeks with Captain Ben who will teach us the ropes of sailing and then sign off with our insurance company that we are competent to sail our boat on our own.
After that, we sail to Sint Maarten which is a special Caribbean oasis which charges no import duty making it the ideal place to pick up our items shipped from Miami and to have the additional upgrades of Victron components, solar panels and clothes washing machine added by Tradewinds Marine Electric will install a custom stainless solar arch, downwind sail rigging. Once all of this is added Blown Away will be entirely off grid relying on renewable energy alone.
If you would like to check out some of our favorite China Quarantine videos to compare them with our upcoming two-week quarantine, click on the following links. They’re really funny.
NEW TO OUR CHANNEL? We are Eileen and Brown Councill. Welcome to our channel and a glimpse into our life adventure! 2020 was a year of uncertainty and change (for all of us, right?), but we overcame the challenges and decided it was time to chase our dream, to sail around the world! Did I mention that we had very NO sailing experience? Before leaving Qingdao, China, our home of 4 years, we sold almost all of our earthly possessions and started our international search to find the right sailboat that we would call "home." After 5 months of unanticipated twists and turns, we found what we were looking for, a used Leopard 44' Catamaran located in St. Lucia.
So, here begins our journey, filled with unmatched excitement and honestly, a bit of trepidation as well. We have much to learn as we travel the world on our floating home and we intend to document that journey and share it with you. We are so glad you have decided to join us, and we hope that you will find our story so compelling that it will inspire you to chase your dreams too!
As a viewer, we consider you to be part of our family and look forward to getting to know you. Don't hesitate to comment on our videos and ask questions. We will do our best to answer every correspondence! All we ask is that you have patience with us as we work really hard to improve our camera/video techniques and ability to tell a story. Hopefully, you will be as BLOWN AWAY from watching, as we are in experiencing and producing our adventures!
HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT US? If you wish to support our video efforts, all we ask is that you SUBSCRIBE, give a THUMBS UP, SHARE our videos with your friends, AND COMMENT! WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET TO KNOW US MORE DEEPLY? It would be an honor and pleasure to deepen our relationship with you as a Patron. Please click on the following link to see how: https://www.patreon.com/sailingblownaway
Hello. Thanks for joining us. We've got some exciting things we want to tell you about. Babe,
you want to start? Yeah, so we want to update you on where we are and what's to come because some
exciting things are happening. What we're giving you here is just a bird's eye view of everything
that we're going to do within the next two months and then future videos are going to come out
breaking each one of them down. Yeah, we'll go through the expenses, we'll go through all of
our budgeting and what we've spent to upgrade the boat and all those pieces will be in future.
We have had a couple of really busy months since we last came to you when we were studying. We
sure have. Yeah, we have been ordering like crazy on Amazon, getting prepared for getting on our
boat. By the way, did we ever tell them it was the 44? No, I don't know. So just to make sure,
it's a 2015 Leopard 44 is what we're buying. We're buying it from SunSail which is like a
rental boat company. Moorings and SunSail, they rent boats. Normally the cycle of the boats is
four to five years and then they want to sell these and get new boats, the latest and greatest.
So what they're doing right now in St. Lucia is upfitting the boat. That's repairing it,
doing all the maintenance. Phasing it out. Yeah, phasing it out so that it's in a shape
where a private owner would want to buy it and they're really good about that. We're going to do
another video on that entire process. It's really interesting. I think you'll like it.
So in the interim, we have been ordering, we have been scheduling upgrades to the boat
and we have been studying and finishing the reading of our sailing book. So we are ready to
go. So we have a big week next week. On Tuesday, we bring all of our belongings to the shipyard
and our things are getting on a boat and heading to St. Martin. But if you remember,
our boat is not in St. Martin, so why are we sending our belongings to St. Martin? That's
a great question sweetie. So the reason being is it's the only place, it's very unique, it's the
Dutch side, not the French side, that is duty-free. So things that you're bringing in from
the States have no tax on them. If you bring them into St. Lucia, everything's taxed 6%. Electronics
are 40%. Ouch! And that is just a huge hit. So St. Martin has become like this oasis in the middle of
the Caribbean. People from Europe that sail across the Atlantic that want a vacation during the
wintertime in the tropics, that's the best time when we don't have hurricanes. They are saving
all the work on their boat to be done in places like St. Martin because the labor rate is cheaper
and also the duties are cheaper. So this place is really special and we found some great
contractors there. We're going to go over each one of these in separate videos with you
and we're going to have a state-of-the-art electronic system and solar system so that
we are totally off-grid and using only renewable energy. Yeah, so on Tuesday our belongings will
get dropped off at the shipyard and then on Thursday we will get on a plane for St. Lucia
and in St. Lucia we... That's a one-way flight. One-way ticket. Upon arrival, we will have to
start a two-week quarantine. We haven't done one of those before. But you know, I don't think it's
going to be as tough as the one in China, do you? No. As a matter of fact, when we were talking to
our surveyor, he said to us, oh you're staying at the, I forget what the name of the hotel,
the Bay Harbor Inn. He said, oh they don't have as many island tours at that hotel.
COVID island tours. So we think we're going to have a much better time at this quarantine than
the one in China, for sure. Anything's better than the one in China. By the way, if you want
to check out our 14 days of quarantine in China, which we did about five months ago,
go ahead and look down into those videos. We'll put links down below in the description.
No messing around this time with plastic bags. No, definitely, because the consequences are
too great, right? Exactly. So after we finish quarantine around the 19th or 20th, if all goes
well, we hopefully will do a walkthrough of the boat and then close on the boat by the 20th,
we think. And once we close, the boat is ours. Yeah. Yay! And then... And then we have arranged
in St. Lucia to have a Spectra 400 water maker put in so we can use... It'll run off the batteries.
It'll make about 40 gallons a day, which of fresh water... An hour. An hour, excuse me. Out of 400
gallons or... I don't know. I've never been good at math. And so the really neat thing is the ocean
is an unlimited supply of water and this particular unit's high quality unit and it
will convert everything to fresh water so that we can bathe and shower. Water is something that
is a big concern because it costs money, it's hard to find, and you don't know whether you're
getting clean water or not. It's a lot more convenient. We have a Raymarine system. We're
getting a new Axiom Plus 12-inch screen, really sexy multifunctional navigation screen plotter.
And then we're also getting radar put in, which will allow us to see about 10 kilometers ahead
of us, both boats and weather. And then we have an AIS system, which is an advanced warning system.
So this emits a signal to other boats and picks up a signal from other boats. And what it is
essentially is an anti-collision device. You've done a great job setting up all of those
all those appointments for the upgrades. Thank you, sweetie. And we're getting a dinghy. We're
going to be buying a 30 horsepower two-stroke Nissan marine engine. Got a high field dinghy.
It is a classic 380 and paired together. We'll have a big dinghy for this boat,
not too big though, and lots of power. Really excited about that. Yeah, so lots of great
things happening in St. Lucia. After we close on the boat and we have all the upgrades made,
we then will start our sailing adventure. And how will that work? That's a great question,
sweetie. We tried to arrange for Captain Ron to be our captain. Wait a minute, we don't even know
if this thing is safe or not. Well, best way to find out is get her out on the ocean, kitty.
Anything's gonna happen, it's gonna happen out there. Okay, let's back up just a little bit.
There was only one insurance company in the world that would insure us being new sailors.
And that insurance company would do it under the conditions that a certified captain,
this is somebody who's trained, certified, and who takes all the liability while he's
sailing the boat for the insurance company. They've got lots of experience. He is going to
be with us for two weeks, instructing us how to use the boat and how to sail it. And all the
systems on the boat and navigation. And all the systems. More than just the basic sailing. And we tried
to get Captain Ron, but he was just too busy. If you haven't seen the movie Captain Ron,
it's hilarious. We're thankful not to have Captain Ron. We are. We have Captain Ben instead. So hopefully
we're gonna learn a lot of real life things. It's almost like, you know, when you're in university,
you take all these courses. Sure, you learn a lot of theory and that type of thing, but it's when you
get out into the working world is when you really learn what you need to know. I mean, you have a
good base of knowledge with help, which helps you, of course. So this guy's a salty dog and he's going
to show us the way. A young salty dog. He's from the UK. Really great personality. Comes highly recommended.
You're going to enjoy seeing him on future videos. And then he, hopefully after two weeks, is going
to sign off saying to the insurance company that we're okay to take the boat on our own. And then
we're free to go and wreck the boat on our own. So in those two weeks, we hope that he will help
us sail up to St. Martin and be reunited with all of our belongings, as well as additional upgrades
in St. Martin, which we will tell you all about in future videos. We just wanted to get a video out
there to update you on our situation and how things are progressing. It is time for us to live our
dream and it's just around the corner. So next week is a big week for us. Yes. For videos. But for now,
we just want to keep this one semi-short and sweet. Thanks for watching, everybody. If you enjoy these
types of videos, something that would really help us is if you subscribe that way and hit the bell.
That way you're going to get future notifications of all these upcoming very entertaining and
informative videos. And also share with your friends. Listen, they may not be able to sail
around the world, but they can at least watch us make all the mistakes, laugh at us, and live
vicariously through us. Absolutely. So that's all for now, everybody. Stay tuned to the next one. See ya. Bye.
