Wow. I’m impressed that you stayed jab free in the Aussie state. That is real standing in the breach. And yeah. Here in the US the Marxists just take kickbacks from the drug cartels and the illegals just walk in. Then the taxpayers put them up in hotels, give ‘em free healthcare etc. I don’t blame them at all. They are just making rational decisions.
Wow. I’m impressed that you stayed jab free in the Aussie state. That is real standing in the breach. And yeah. Here in the US the Marxists just take kickbacks from the drug cartels and the illegals just walk in. Then the taxpayers put them up in hotels, give ‘em free healthcare etc. I don’t blame them at all. They are just making rational decisions.
To be honest, MoodyP, when the Ruby Princess cruise ship debacle was released on Sydney, I fled as far away from the city and suburbs as I could get. Fortune smiled on me in that 1) I had just reached the pension eligibility age in March 2020 so did not experience financial hardship and 2) had friends with a spare cabin on their rural acreage. Lots of others have not been so fortunate. Only being able to travel within your 'designated area' to get food and essentials (every type of business had a rating - how did they have all this organised so quickly?) and the cops being able to flag you down and 'check your area papers' seemed just fine with almost everyone I knew along with the hundred other 'rules' monitoring of our lives. I stayed put and built a garden. Most productive 2 years of my life, honestly. No distractions. No temptations. No pressure.
Pray for everyone who is suffering - may they be healed and awakened to their inner radiance and sovereignty.
Fascinating. Thanks for sharing. We have been living on our 35ft sailboat since 2011. US East Coast, Gulf Coast, entire island chain from Bahamas to Grenada. But Covid made foreign travel virtually impossible. And even through the fall of 2020 many US marinas would not allow transients. We almost never stayed in marinas. But cruising got much harder because marinas would give you a slip, but not allow you off the boat. Tough to reprovision if you can’t get off. So the fun-to-suck ratio went from 80/20 to 20/80. We had aging parents back in Michigan so we made a tough decision and returned to our home port on Lake Huron. So now we live on the boat 7 months and rent somewhere for 5. It’s a pain really and expensive and with all the crazy stuff happening we feel pretty vulnerable. We can’t stock up for the long haul. We can’t keep a wad of cash. We keep some gold and silver but have to store most of it in a vault. I’d like to just take off again and keep cruising until we physically can’t do it. But my wife’s parents are both still living at age 96 and she won’t leave while they are alive. Which I understand. We’ve tried a couple times to buy a small cabin in the woods and do what you are doing. But we refuse to overpay so that is now on the back burner. We will be on the boat until end of October, then a rental for 5 months, then back on the boat early April. And see what happens between now and then.
We aren’t wealthy. But we are blessed to have a couple sources of income which pays the bills. And we managed to save a decent amount by living cheap on the boat.
For you, the timing on the pension could not have been more perfect. God was smiling on you!
And as with you, we are way better off than many. And I fear it’s going to get much worse.
Wow - fascinating right back at you. That's a lot of complexity you have to juggle. You and your wife obviously have the capacity to make it all work. Being anti-fragile is the only way to live these days - the more chaotic it gets, the more resourceful we become! Happy trails to you and yours, mate. Cheers.
Thanks. And yes, anti-fragile, resourceful, self sufficient are the three keys. We somewhat lost the last one when we abandoned full time liveaboard status. And I do need to say this. My wife is a saint. Most women would not do it. My friend who was also a married liveaboard and I did a bunch of research to try and figure out how many people live aboard full time in the US. Then we developed a formula that included single, married, married but wife is part timer, married and family…all based on our anecdotal experience over a decade. Then based on population stats etc we determined that full time female liveaboard are 1 out of 2.4 million. It took a lot of beer to figure that out. LOL
My wife grew up on a boat. She taught me to sail. For our now 45 years together it’s been the focus of our lives. And we raised two boys mostly on the boat, getting off only for winter when we moved into the small house we owned. That was sweet because my wife was a teacher so we homeschooled the kids until high school. So we got to do a lot of 3-4 month cruises in the summers.
Anyway, this has been great. Thanks for all your kind words and inspirational thoughts. It is so nice to have Substack where positivity can be found.
Fair winds. Following seas. Sun on your face. And Blessings.
Wow. I’m impressed that you stayed jab free in the Aussie state. That is real standing in the breach. And yeah. Here in the US the Marxists just take kickbacks from the drug cartels and the illegals just walk in. Then the taxpayers put them up in hotels, give ‘em free healthcare etc. I don’t blame them at all. They are just making rational decisions.
To be honest, MoodyP, when the Ruby Princess cruise ship debacle was released on Sydney, I fled as far away from the city and suburbs as I could get. Fortune smiled on me in that 1) I had just reached the pension eligibility age in March 2020 so did not experience financial hardship and 2) had friends with a spare cabin on their rural acreage. Lots of others have not been so fortunate. Only being able to travel within your 'designated area' to get food and essentials (every type of business had a rating - how did they have all this organised so quickly?) and the cops being able to flag you down and 'check your area papers' seemed just fine with almost everyone I knew along with the hundred other 'rules' monitoring of our lives. I stayed put and built a garden. Most productive 2 years of my life, honestly. No distractions. No temptations. No pressure.
Pray for everyone who is suffering - may they be healed and awakened to their inner radiance and sovereignty.
Fascinating. Thanks for sharing. We have been living on our 35ft sailboat since 2011. US East Coast, Gulf Coast, entire island chain from Bahamas to Grenada. But Covid made foreign travel virtually impossible. And even through the fall of 2020 many US marinas would not allow transients. We almost never stayed in marinas. But cruising got much harder because marinas would give you a slip, but not allow you off the boat. Tough to reprovision if you can’t get off. So the fun-to-suck ratio went from 80/20 to 20/80. We had aging parents back in Michigan so we made a tough decision and returned to our home port on Lake Huron. So now we live on the boat 7 months and rent somewhere for 5. It’s a pain really and expensive and with all the crazy stuff happening we feel pretty vulnerable. We can’t stock up for the long haul. We can’t keep a wad of cash. We keep some gold and silver but have to store most of it in a vault. I’d like to just take off again and keep cruising until we physically can’t do it. But my wife’s parents are both still living at age 96 and she won’t leave while they are alive. Which I understand. We’ve tried a couple times to buy a small cabin in the woods and do what you are doing. But we refuse to overpay so that is now on the back burner. We will be on the boat until end of October, then a rental for 5 months, then back on the boat early April. And see what happens between now and then.
We aren’t wealthy. But we are blessed to have a couple sources of income which pays the bills. And we managed to save a decent amount by living cheap on the boat.
For you, the timing on the pension could not have been more perfect. God was smiling on you!
And as with you, we are way better off than many. And I fear it’s going to get much worse.
Wow - fascinating right back at you. That's a lot of complexity you have to juggle. You and your wife obviously have the capacity to make it all work. Being anti-fragile is the only way to live these days - the more chaotic it gets, the more resourceful we become! Happy trails to you and yours, mate. Cheers.
Thanks. And yes, anti-fragile, resourceful, self sufficient are the three keys. We somewhat lost the last one when we abandoned full time liveaboard status. And I do need to say this. My wife is a saint. Most women would not do it. My friend who was also a married liveaboard and I did a bunch of research to try and figure out how many people live aboard full time in the US. Then we developed a formula that included single, married, married but wife is part timer, married and family…all based on our anecdotal experience over a decade. Then based on population stats etc we determined that full time female liveaboard are 1 out of 2.4 million. It took a lot of beer to figure that out. LOL
My wife grew up on a boat. She taught me to sail. For our now 45 years together it’s been the focus of our lives. And we raised two boys mostly on the boat, getting off only for winter when we moved into the small house we owned. That was sweet because my wife was a teacher so we homeschooled the kids until high school. So we got to do a lot of 3-4 month cruises in the summers.
Anyway, this has been great. Thanks for all your kind words and inspirational thoughts. It is so nice to have Substack where positivity can be found.
Fair winds. Following seas. Sun on your face. And Blessings.