We are a couple that share the dream of exploring the world. We’ve been sailing together for a year and half now (well kind of, we had a bad accident).
I started my journey on a 42-foot Crowther Catamaran named Long Reef in 2010. For 6 years I worked to get Long Reef up to scratch while working to pay it off and get together a sailing kitty. It is difficult to calculate but I reckon I put somewhere between 7000 and 10000 man hours into its continual upgrade. I literally put my heart and soul into it. Was it tough? It was more like a labour of love. Afterall, it was to be my home so it was going to be worth it.
In 2017 I met Margarida, a young Portuguese girl, that came to work on Long Reef as a video editor.
At that time, I was already doing vlogs about my sailing life along the Australian east coast, the people I met, my wonderful crew and the dramas we all went through and the places we visited. I didn’t make life too easy on the boat for myself or the crew.
But Margarida was not easily scared and came to stay. My first Mate!
Being together for only 3 months, we decided to go sailing to the most remote place in Australia, the Kimberley and had what is every sailor worst nightmare we hit a reef, tried to save the boat but eventually we lost Long Reef.
This was a disastrous setback in following my dream of sailing around the world and to a large extent emotionally crippling. But with Margarida by my side we overcame this and decided to buy an old boat, Freedom. With our new home we will continue our adventure and keep the dream alive.
We sail wherever the wind takes us. We live off the land where we can and try to keep our footprint as small as possible. We tend to go to ‘out of the way’ places and because of this we have seen some pretty amazing things.
PLUKKY also known as Peter
Australian guy. Boat owner. Not much of a captain, afterall I did lose a perfectly good boat which certainly wouldn’t look very promising on a Captain’s CV. Therefore, just a boat owner. Not much of a sailor although I could sail. I would term me as a destinational sailor. If I was in a race I certainly wouldn’t come first, maybe not come last but I would probably be towards the bottom end.
I tried to fit into society. I got educated and 2 degrees later with my own business I was even more disillusioned. So I decided to buy a boat and explore the world, the real world, not the artificial world that we have created that teaches us to consume more, more and MORE!
I think we all must ask ourselves a very simple question. How much do we really need? And then, here’s the trick, we must be really honest in answering that question. Unfortunately most people are not honest here or allow themselves to be sucked in to what others perceive that they must have.
When I bought my first boat Long Reef, the boat with which I started this big adventure, it had a lot of stuff in it that I just did not need. I gave away the 2 air conditioners, the generator, the fridge, the freezer, the hot water system, the gas stove, the oven and the microwave. I didn’t need them. I needed a safe home, a place to sleep, a place to prepare food and eat and that’s about it. With Freedom, our boat now, the principle is still the same but now it’s in a tighter space. KISS. KEEP IT SIMPLE SAILOR.
About food. When it comes to eating there are 2 ways of looking at it. You can eat to live or live to eat. I am in the former camp. It’s minimal and simple. I try to buy as little as possible when shopping and when I am hungry I catch it, usually by spearing it. If I can gather food as well on the way then even better.
First Mate – MARGARIDA
Born and raised in Algarve, in the southern part of Portugal where the sun always shines.
She knew something was missing and dreamt of bigger adventures so in 2017 she decided to go on a long-term holiday career break to Australia, where she met Plukky.
She joined the crew as a video editor (without having before edited a single video in her life) and for some strange reason fell under my spell.
Margarida is not a stranger to the ocean, she’s a human with gills so her transition to living on the boat went smoothly and as expected sailing came naturally. Her dark humor, her girliness and stubbornness makes us the perfect match.
