Blog — Odd Life Crafting

For the past few weeks we have been receiving many messages either congratulating the finishing of Odd's refit (we loved all the messages) and also asking what is next: If we are going back to the shipping container or if we will buy something else to refit and so on. So, I though it would be a good idea to sit down and write a little bit about our "future” plans.

So, let's start from the beginning. Even though it seems like Odd's refit is done, the reality is that we still have a lot to do. But different from when we were in the boat yard, we don't want to put our attention 100% towards finishing this tasks, we want to enjoy life, sail, sail, sail and finish the refit all at the same time. Then you might be wondering: "what should I expect from the videos then?”.

Well, that is a good question, and to try to answer let's first talk about what you probably won't see on the videos this season: The shipping container house.

Back when my hair was short!! Time Flies!! 😅

Technically we don't even own the house anymore. Whaaaat??? Yep, that's true. For a long time we discussed in between us what would be the future of the house and after thinking and talking for months we realized that didn't make sense for us to “own” the house.

Let me explain. Our intention with the house since day one was to have a land base for us in the future to stay while visiting family (probably once a year). In theory this is a great idea, but in reality not really. The problem is that the house is located at my (Duca) dad's land and he has his office there, his garden, his dogs, his chicken and so on. And that's why we wouldn't be able to rent the house through AirBNB while traveling. In this way, we either would need to pay someone to take care and maintain the house while we are away or when we are finally in town we would need to use our family and friends time to "put the house in order” (AKA painting rust, dealing with ants nests, varnishing the wooden deck the is constantly exposed to the sun, and so on).

But what to do with the house then? We though about a few options, and the two that we liked the most was either to raffle the house to one of our subscribers or to give her to my father as it is on his land.

Coincidentally, because of covid my dad decided to move far away from town, to the south tip of our home island where he has a house and to rent his apartment. That means when ever he comes to his office in town he would need to drive close to one hour, and if he need to stay for two days in town he would have to stay in a hotel. The funny thing is that before I had the chance to offer him the house he came to me and asked if he could finish the house and use her as his town base.

My answer was: “no, you can’t borrow the house, instead I want to gift you the house”.

But, nothing is that simple, of course I had my terms, hehehehehe.

I offered him the house (he would own her) with the condition that after he finishes her, he is the responsible for maintaining her in good shape all year around but whenever we are in town in the future we can borrow the house for a few days. In this way we still have our "home base” and when we arrive it is in perfect condition to be used. And that I think is a win win. He liked the plan and we “closed the deal”.

So did he finish the house already? Nope, for now he is using as a storage area as he is in the transition of moving to the beach house.

So now that the house is explained, let's talk about Odd and our plans.

As you guys probably know we have been in our hometown (the island of Florianópolis in the south of Brazil) for 5 weeks already, and to be honest we didn't have much time during this time to finish some jobs that we didn't finish in the boat yard, and the reason for that is the weather.

The weather in the south of Brazil is pretty much based on cold fronts, so that means we have a few days of warm northerly winds and then comes a cold front with southerly winds, then it shifts again to northerly and so on.

The problem is that we don't have anchorages that are really protected from both quadrants and also sometimes we have westerly winds that most of the anchorages in the island are exposed to.

That makes our hometown a great place to sail, but not really a great place to live aboard. And that means that we are constantly moving anchorage.

And that is why we are so late in boat work. But at the same time it has been a great opportunity to get to know Odd for real. To get to sail with many different conditions, to anchor with a lot of wind and some times even waves, to help “neighbors" to rescue a boat that was dragged towards the rocks, like yesterday...

If I needed to name what we have been doing I would call it “A intensive live aboard and get to know your boat course” hehehehehe.

Anyone that once moved aboard to live off grid on the anchor for the first time for sure knows what I'm talking about.

Everything is new and everyday you learn something new. From simple tasks like going to shore to take the trash out to moving the boat to a new anchorage because it is going to blow 30 knots from the "wrong” direction.

But the question is: Are we enjoying?

So so so so much. Even though it is a tough way of life, at the same time we are so connected to nature, we are learning so much, we are meeting great friends that also live on their boats, we (Roberta and I) are even closer to each other, we see the sunset and sunrise every day, we are getting to know the limits of our boat, we don't have a car anymore, we already left for sell at my cousins shop and now we have Frederico (our dinghy) as our “car", we already eat a meal that came straight out of the rocks in front of the anchorage. Well, if I keep writing I won't finish the post today, but to make it short, life is so much better floating.

So what's next?

Well, I think we will keep doing that for another month, keep jumping from anchorage to anchorage around our hometown and hopefully in this time we can menage to at least finish installing all the electronics on the boat (or at least the chart plotter and autopilot). After that the idea is to start moving north. We want to explore the cost in between here and Rio de Janeiro. There are so so so many places in between here and there that we can easily have fun for 6 months.

After that, who knows. We might sail back here to spend Christmas with our family or we can keep going north. For us right now is more important to get used to the boat and to gain confidence than to necessarily go far. Once the boat becomes part of us, part of our “body”. We can go anywhere, we will feel even more free. And that is the main long term goal. To feel free and to follow the wind.

And of course to take you guys with us.

So what's next for us?