CADOHA
CADOHA
Our Life Afloat
Our alternative life on the water has been a voyage of discovery for us all. With the way the world has felt over the past few years, what with pandemics, Brexit, financial crisis and bank collapses unfolding all over the world, interest rates sky rocketing, house prices that make your eyes water, all of it, everything just felt as if it was going a bit crazy.
All of a sudden a life of 'less' became incredibly compelling. Is it possible to strip away much of the stresses that keep us awake at night? Do we need two cars, a big mortgage, gym memberships we don't use that often, do we need more clothes, more appliances, more.. things?
So now we find ourselves living on a 40 year old sailing boat, a Trident Warrior 38. Learning how to look after, maintain and sail her has been quite the learning curve for a couple of land-lubbers who had precisely zero sailing experience when we embarked on this alternative way of life, but it's also been immensely rewarding too.
In the several years since we started this journey life has truly unfolded in some very unexpected ways, we had a couple of very serious illnesses in the family which meant not wanting to be too far from our loved ones, we had Covid-19 which turned everyones lives upside-down for a while, we also had Brexit, which completely derailed the ability to sail to and around the Med with our dog, Hank and so we did what any good sailors would do, we adjusted to the new situation we had in front of us and started to really explore our own home, and boy did that turn out to be one the most amazing experiences of our lives!
We had no idea that we happened to live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, with stunning anchorages to be found seemingly everywhere we went. From the far northern regions of Scotland right down to the southern shores of England, a truly magical Kingdom awaited, which continues to blow our minds.
Winter = Work!
Our year is very much split into two halves, the warmer months where we set sail and explore as many new destinations as we can, trying to live frugally, sustainably and as 'off-grid' as we're capable of doing. From hunting and foraging for our own food, to powering our systems with solar panels, to moving our boat with the wind. Each year we develop Cadoha and our own skills to enable us to become better at being self sustaining.
However, sadly the good times don't last forever and the reality is that to keep a 40yr old sailing boat in good, sea-worthy condition takes time, money and work, a lot of work!
Despite what some people seem to think, Carly and I are not rich, we reliably run out of money each winter and so head back to land in an effort to find gainful employment and start re-building the sailing fund. It's at this time that we also make the necessary repairs to Cadoha, and then if we have any money or time left, we'll ad on a few upgrades to try and tackle where we may have fallen short the year before in terms of being able to live 'off-grid' (this mostly just consists of finding ever more elaborate places to install more solar panels).
So if you see our AIS paused for six months of the year, well now you know why, we're working hard in regular jobs, trying to save enough pennies for the next chapter of the adventures, that's all.
Our Goals Going Forward
I feel that it's important to have something to focus on, to build something of use to others, which is what we hope we're doing here. We've been so incredibly blessed to have stumbled on this alternative life, which I agree isn't for everyone, but we find ourselves in this incredibly privileged position in life where we're both fit and well, we may not have much but we have each other, we have Hank, plus we have this boat and we are enjoying 'discovering' all of the amazing gems of locations, around these fine isles. So many of these places have wowed and surprised us and we're sure we can't be alone in not realising just how amazing Great Britain is to explore by boat?
So our mission currently is to continue to share these places with you all, to tell the stories of these places and the people who live in them, to support the coastal charities such as the legends who make up the life boat crews and most of all we want to build something here that will eventually, hopefully, grow into a useful tool to help others who want to plan some epic adventures of their own in these stunning cruising grounds!
Some Of Our Work....
This site is entirely free to use but if you'd like to support our work and help build it out to a higher standard then please do consider becoming one of our amazing Patrons here:
