Vivo O Sonho

What is GO Time? According to the Urban Dictionary, “go time is a phrase to say when it is time to undergo a task and get serious about doing something.” It’s time for Aaron and Heidi Stagg to get serious about leaving the safety and security of being tied to land and venture out on Sonho to Live Our Dream on the open ocean and in foreign coves of warm, turquoise water.

For us, “GO” is also short for “GET OUT” as in “Get Out the Golden Gate!” We bought Sonho for the sole purpose of living aboard and crossing oceans and are determined to see that vision become reality.

In January, it’s cold and feels like a very long time until my favorite season of fall. It’s a little over 7 months and precisely 232 days from today (January 29, 2022) to September 18th. We’ve lived aboard for almost 13 years now, so you’d think we could just throw off the docklines and head to sea. It’s not that simple.

Life at the marina includes readily available water, electricity and garbage service. We simply plug in for energy needs and pull the hose out to fill our water tanks. We take our trash and recycling to shared refuse cans and someone else hauls it away. A pump-out boat comes to our slip, sucks out and disposes our toilet/head waste. And if we forget an ingredient or get a hankering for a particular food, we drive to any number of stores with a myriad of choices. We can easily call specialists with help for our systems or visit a chandlery for specific maritime needs. What we can’t find locally, we can order online and have delivered to our postal box in a matter of days.

Life at sea or anchor, or even in a foreign port, is very different. Here’s a quick look at how we’ll deal with the challenges I just mentioned.

• Energy: Being away from a dock means no ability to simply plug in for power. We will have to generate our own. Having an electrician for a Captain is a definite plus! Read this prior post for an in-depth look at energy consumption on a boat:

• Water: Being away from a dock also means no ability to grab a hose and fill the water tanks. Again, we will have to make our own. Read this post for details on our upcoming installation of a watermaker, which will convert seawater to fresh.

• Garbage: I’m working on a detailed post that deals with the four types of refuse:  grey water (from the shower and sinks), organics (food scraps), general garbage (plastics, glass, cardboard, etc.), and pollutants (oil, fuel). The disposal of each varies depending on whether we are at the marina, at anchorage or a mooring near land, or at sea. Suffice to say, it’s not as simple as tossing a plastic bag filled with garbage into a collection bin. Stay tuned for specifics on the legal disposal of garbage.

• Human waste: There are no pipes that go from a sail or power boat to a sewer system in marinas and most definitely none at anchor in secluded coves or in the middle of the ocean. (Houseboats are a different story.) Toilet waste must be either captured for disposal at a later time or be pumped overboard. Yes, overboard. But there are rules and regulations for “dumping” offshore. I’ll go into greater depth on this in a future post.

• Groceries: No, Door Dash doesn’t work in the middle of the ocean. And a good portion of foreign ports are small villages that don’t have supermarkets. So advanced planning and provisioning is a must. Storage and refrigeration/freezer space are at a minimum and depending on conditions, cooking can be a real problem. This will also be covered in a future post.

• Professional assistance: When away from American ports, we’ll have to rely on locals to provide skills and labor that we can’t perform ourselves. Sometimes, no one has the knowledge or part to fix a problem. And sometimes a fellow boater will lend a hand or even barter for a return service or product. Improvising is common and sometimes the only solution.

• Boat parts: A very important part of planning a cruise off-shore or in a foreign country is stocking up on spare parts. You can’t run down to the local chandlery for a part specific to the maritime industry just anywhere. Improvisation and bartering are common here, too, and keeping an accurate inventory is essential.

• Mail: All of our mail will go to a family member while we are out of the country. We will have very few monthly/recurring bills and they will be handled electronically. No Amazon Prime for us, but no junk mail, either!

This is just a sampling of a few issues that have to be thought out before we embark on our journey. Other considerations include communication, electronics specific to traveling via boat, food refrigeration and stowage, safety gear, health and boat insurance in a foreign country, and so much more.

It’s a daunting task to think that we have to figure all this out in less than a year. But we’re committed to going and what we don’t finish by September 18th will get done as we cruise along the California Coast before departing for Mexico.

It’s GO Time!