Sailing Lessons
What I Learned from a Year of Living Aboard
It’s officially been 1 year of living on my sailboat, as of 15 October 2025, with my husband and our cat. And it’s been a wild year—I constantly questioned wtf I’m doing, if this was a mistake, and who the hell do I think I am. But in the end, no regrets.
Three Major life lessons I learned from sailing are…
#1: Let go.
It’s cliché for a reason, and on a boat, even more so. Don’t make plans. The weather will change, something on the boat will need to be fixed, and on rare occasions, even Orca will pay you a visit and bump your rudder, causing damage you don’t find until months later. The point is, just when you think you’ve sorted everything, everything goes south. Except you.
I haven’t always been a “go with the flow” person, despite my best efforts. The German in me wants to plan, anticipate, have plan B and C and D. And none of that has mattered. I’ve come to accept the volume of things out of my control and plan only for the few things I can—weather reports as I have them, provisions and resources as available, job opportunities as they come—and otherwise making the best of everything and adapting.
As my husband says, “It’s a nightmare if you can’t adapt.” And doesn’t that just apply to all areas of life? We can plan all we want. But think back… when you were a kid, imagining life as an adult, what you wanted to do, who you wanted to be, your career, family choices, did any of it come true? Is life actually as you imagined it?
Our Plans… failed.
We planned to catch the tail end of the sailing season in the English Channel.
We planned to cross the Atlantic.
We planned to move back to California for work (amazing wages plus the low cost of living on a sailboat = early retirement!).
All our plans failed.
We couldn’t get the boat registered for 56 days, so we didn’t leave the Netherlands until early December. Long after sailing season, we began inching along the English Channel, tucking into marinas for days to avoid bad weather. I was miserable in the cold, as the boat recieved a dusting of snow twice between the Netherlands and our stop in Poole, England, which was unusually cold and rarely gets snow. We dared to cross the Bay of Biscay in January (countless people warned against it, but we got lucky and it was pleasantly uneventful—and actually the most amazing sunrises I’d ever seen).
We made it to the Canary Islands, but didn’t cross the Atlantic. It was just too late in the season—no one goes to the Caribbean to rush. We’d have to haul ass to escape before hurricane season.
And then the election happened in the USA, and we were pretty ok with not being there. The jobs we thought we’d go to in California were gone. On the one hand, I wanted even more to go back to do meaningful work where it needs to be done—but on the other hand, Brett and I thought it’s likely we’ll do better work in a place that supports our mental health, aligns with our values, and doesn’t regularly put us in physical danger.
Overall, our plans repeatedly vanished, and we needed to adapt.
#2: Surround Yourself with People Who Support You
I realise this might be obvious, and in all fairness, I knew this long before I lived on my sailboat. But there is nothing more trying on a relationship, whether it’s a friendship or marriage or otherwise, than sailing for 4 days on 4-hour watches with no power in very little wind. That means no autopilot, only checking your chart plotter every 12 hours, hoping you’re hitting waypoints, and a relatively high level of stress.
I will never forget lying down in bed and looking through the window at my husband and thinking, “Damn. I trust him completely right now.” With navigation, and with all the potential decisions he’ll need to make for the next 4 hours. And I’ll never forget realising that every year of our relationship leading up to this moment set us up for success: despite sleep deprivation, no electricity, and a variety of concerns, we both acted as rocks and support for the other. We never blamed the other, we never bickered; though there were moments of frustration, at which point we would each say something along the lines of “I’m sorry, I’m not mad at you, I’m just frustrated and tired,” and just as importantly, the other completely understood and never took anything personally or gave it a second thought. We were in a wild situation. And we made it out just fine. Exhausted and thrilled to be towed into harbour (sure you can sail in, but they don’t like that and some will actually fine you for not motoring). The next day we woke up like, “Damn, our marriage is the shit.”
#3: Face Your Demons
At the end of the first year, I realised I had to face a demon: I named him the Dwelling Demon. Similar to perfectionism, I can get caught up in the should’ve/would’ve/could’ve, if only I’d known more information at the time. My Dwelling Demon is also the force that keeps me focused on the pain and suffering of the world—which, acknowledging it with empathy is important, but dwelling is an easy road to despair and paralysis. By avoiding dwelling, one can still learn from situations while also moving on. I think my younger self, in an attempt not to repeat struggles and learn life lessons, would dwell on upsetting issues. So the deck took an eternity to finish, and I wish we had started months earlier? Ok, fine, I learned I must listen to myself and trust myself more, even when working outside my comfort zone. No need to dwell—just take the lesson and move on.
The same can be said for the state of the world, but it’s a bit harder, isn’t it? The world is constantly presenting us with pain, suffering, and struggle. It’s hard not to “dwell” when we are trying to process a barrage of new tragedies—moving forward in the face of those is how we avoid paralysis, how we avoid dwelling, how we avoid letting the powers that be influence our character. Being the one who spreads light and love every time we enter a room, doesn’t mean you’re numb or repressing feelings; sometimes being the joyful one means being one person in the embrace of a tearful hug of support—it means telling someone they are an inspiration, telling someone what they mean to you; it means doing the work that helps you, and the world, move forward.
Just yesterday, I was upset about a more… personal issue. My first instinct was to go to a coffee shop, get a comforting hot beverage, and work. It was as if work had become my comfort food—and not work like, the clocking in 9-5 job, but work like creating a concept note that a nonprofit and I can use to find donors and apply to grants—and I realised my instinct wasn’t to work to make money or to be “productive,” rather, my instinct was to dive into community. Because that’s how I face the Dwelling Demon. I say, “Yes, that is awful, and this is what I can do about it.” Accept what is, to find the path to positive change.
Overall,
Sailing showed me both my strengths and my limits—when to ask for help, how to accept the way things are, in order to change them; and how to go with the flow while adjusting your sails and using a rudder.
Because that’s all there is out here. No guarantees, no solid ground (no pun intended), no illusion of control. Only solutions. Only community. Only choosing, over and over again, not to dwell on what should have been, but to engage with what is, and ask: “Okay, so what can I do now?”
