Kids on Board with Anders & Heidi - S8E4

We are really excited to be talking with Anders and Heidi today from Tempest and hearing about their story. Hello and welcome to Covert Castaway. I'm Holly. Je suis Stéphane. Join us as we share what we learned and how we're making the transition to liveaboard cruising. Okay, so as you can probably hear, we're at anchor. Stéphane, do you want to set the scene? Yes, we are in beautiful Bahamas. And the weather is a little overcast today, but the wind at least died down.

So it is still very beautiful. Not the same shades of green and blues we're used to right now, but... Yeah, a little overcast. Yeah. So we are excited to hear your story and how you got interested in sailing and how long you've been doing it. And you guys have kids, your kin boat, which I think a lot of people are really interested in. So why don't you just introduce yourself and tell us where you're from? I'm Heidi. I am 44 years old. I am from Oslo, Norway. Yeah. We've met many years ago.

2006 we met. I'm Anders. I'm 47 years now from Norway. Both count. Nice. I have to count the years. Yeah. Met in 2006 in the mountains of Norway in summer. Okay. So we were skiing in summertime. That's quite unusual being a winter country. Yeah. And everyone tends to go to the sea in summer. But yeah, it was through activities. And soon after we met, got to know each other, we took a sailing course together. I've been windsurfing for many years.

And Heidi's been trying out kiting. But we found that let's do something together, more activities together. Nice. This is all before kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is in 2007, actually. And at the time, it was just, let's do an activity together as opposed to, let's take lessons for sailing to go cruising later. At the time, the dream was not there yet. The dream actually came to life right after we finished that sail course. Because none of us knew how to sail before we attended the sail class.

So that was four weekends in a row in like late September or something.

So it was quite rough weather in the oslo fjord so it wouldn't be like bahama style oh this is wonderful cruising but we were both so happy every time we came home from those there were five hours right after work so we were actually quite good yeah it was actually on weekdays it wasn't on weekends you rushed straight from work to go to the cell course and when you arrived you're like I was like, oh, how am I going to manage five hours because it was from five to.

10 so quite late in the in the evening but we just felt like oh so alive when we came came back from from those so after that course next summer we we charted a boat in doorway so we had two weeks we didn't want any electronics we wanted to do sail for two two and a half weeks we only paper map navigation make everything on our own oh you started out salty yeah.

Yeah just being able to like get into practice what we learned at the course and then when you learn it then you never go back when you go to electronics right and flutters and all those equipment that's on those down we didn't have any idea how to put in a reef no but we sailed in gale with full main up and full genoise so we just hammered that boat and thought this is natural coming from windsurfing you're just yeah tucking in right and going for it that was an old daily yeah

it was 32 footers yeah so yeah after that we just kept on chartering boats in in Mediterranean and also in Thailand we went sailing for three weeks one year and 2010 we bought a boat yeah a monohull together with Heidi's parents so we had like 50 50 what kind had a boat was it it was a bavaria 35 cruiser yeah nice which is not racing but it's a good family boat and very nice like holiday boats so every summer we went out like a month for summer holidays and after a while the kids came yeah

we had the boat for five years before we had kids yeah. Oh wow, so you sailed a lot then, before kids. Yeah. Cool. And we kept on sailing, and the kids joined us. And every time we went back from summer holidays, we were like, boom. Getting back to work, getting back to the house. Everyone wanted to continue, even the kids, when they were young. So... And most of the other sailors that we met, they were looking forward to coming home, because everyone was having a horrible time in the base.

And we were yeah just in our best zen moment ever yeah that's really great to hear camping but with other boats on the sailboat that we love to to sail and it's not camping it's more glamping you have all the yeah yeah you have a bathroom luxury and bathroom and everything so it was just nice yeah and frida she was born in the summer so i went straight from hospital to the boat and we left for all of this oh my goodness so she was on board and you're born she was a week old oh my goodness

so what did you guys do for work before you decided to be on the boat i was a financial advisor okay so i've been working with cfo c ceos in like tier three tier two companies yeah with our banking activities yeah and hiding i've been a police officer for quite a few years so yeah two years before we left for this new chapter i i got a food truck so i ran a food truck oh fun for the last part that's cool yeah i've always been very much into cooking and it's been a passion of mine

so that's awesome made it into a living for the last part of land life we've met a couple police officers this season for sure yeah okay so then your kids came and And then what was the moment where you decided, you know what, we want to like do this all the time? What happened? Yeah, I mean, it's only not only one thing. I guess some of it was COVID. And then just you start thinking more and more what to do with this life. You can't take things for granted.

And you see you get older. So you see people around you suddenly get some disease. And your generation above you, your parents and their friends start like, well, not everyone's healthy. Yeah. So you realize that you're on this one-way journey. There's no way back and how to make use of this life the best possible way. And I mean, we're so blessed. So we can actually, if we just make our minds to something, we can pull it off. Yeah.

Those thoughts and COVID and everything led us to give a trigger, hold a trigger or start dreaming more. I remember after finishing that sail course in 2006, we said that someday we're going to go sail around the world. Yeah, that's true. And that someday doesn't arrive until you start planning for a certain date, or at least that's how it worked for us. So I think COVID was just the turning point because you're rearranging your life anyway.

So it sort of pushed you in the right direction of following your dreams more, for us it did, because you had to change what you're doing anyways. So it was a good timing for doing something completely different. So it was in the beginning of COVID that we said, within the next two years, so the summer of 2022, we are going. Yeah. We set a date. So we had two years from when we started actually planning until we'd moved on board.

Yeah. So describe a little bit the transition. So once you sort of moved onto the boat and I don't know if you still have a home now or you sold it or, you know, whatever, describe that transition. How did that work for you?

Yeah. So after those two years of preparing, which involved selling the house, quitting our jobs, going all in, we didn't want to have one foot back home being out here you burned the boats as they say yeah so yeah so we finally we got we found the boat after lots of research lots of youtubing and and stuff it was not a racing boat i was first aiming for it was some other weights on that scale so and not a monohull it went and got to the catamaran so long story short we

found the boat we sailed or had someone sailing it from florida to spain I joined from the ASORs, so I joined from the ASORs and over.

Just to learn about and how she handled and everything and then we moved down to spain yeah summer of 2022 and those last six months were quite hectic yeah because we couldn't quit our jobs until the very end and we couldn't move out of the house till the very end so so you did it all in one shot yeah yeah we sold our house a year before so we gave ourselves you know like so it sounds like you everything came together kind of at the end yeah yeah i guess mainly because of the

kids uh today was first grade at school and i was in kindergarten and we didn't want to sell too early and take them out of that because it was not many places like to rent or we discussed a few other options like selling the house to know how much you could buy a boat for and then renting an apartment but then where to store all your stuff and we we had decided long.

Time ago that we wanted to sell our house and sell our stuff be unattached so that would be like extra work also yeah getting rid of a lot and then moving into another place for a short time and then yeah yeah so it just made sense for us to yeah to yeah have a hectic yeah so then we borrowed our my parents large suv back as much as we could back in that car drove from norway down to Spain, kids were with my parents and we moved the boats and prepped it for a week or

two before the kids flew down with them. And then, so the kids, so they had been sailing since very young, but when did you tell them, this is what we're doing? And how did they, how did that go? Yeah. They're still quite small. They've been on board now for almost two years. So now they're nine and seven. So our youngest, she doesn't really remember much actually from home. She was almost six when she came on board.

So i think maybe tydil our oldest she's been the most skeptical one but only at times not for more than like she'll make a comment and then she'll give you a hard time for a little while what kind of what kind of comment can i describe a little bit like it's interesting to see like her kids it would be a lot about friends of course yeah because she wouldn't be able to visit her friends whenever she wanted to this is something

that we chose for her she didn't choose this yes yeah so it was more about she was not in charge of her own decisions kind of thing we're not as good as the teachers in the real school and all of that so yeah you are not teachers no, she gives us a hard time sometimes but apart from that she loves life and you really got get to to realize that when she calls back home to family or her friends and listening on how she describes it, because then she's not complaining.

She's bragging what she's doing. So that is reassuring for us that, okay, we're doing something good here. Kids will give you a hard time about something anyway. So we also keep reminding ourselves, it's not like it would be a problem-free.

Yeah and she realizes raising them back home yeah she's not the only one because suddenly like at the sink ridge out of six boats five of them have kids too so then she's like oh i'm just another kid on a boat and that's exactly what you're saying there is the more you travel the more they realize that they're part of a community it's not just them and i think that a feeling of companionship to them just grows stronger and stronger now ever since we arrived in the

caribbean because you have lots more we spent 14 months in the med first which we loved in every aspect except from this one maybe because there were not a whole lot of families there yeah not a whole lot of liveaboards oh i see and the liveaboards that we did meet were lovely people but they were 60 plus you know so we spent lots of wonderful evenings with them and they would have a nice time as well with the kids but not many

kids around yeah i see so you felt like Since you arrived in the Caribbean, there's a different vibe, more kid boats. Completely different. Much so. And we joined the ARC mainly because of the kids. So then we were on the skip pontoon. They got to know a lot of.

The other kids doing the same thing and get to meet them when we get over the atlantic and coming here so many boats like go in the same direction so you meet people again while in mediterranean you need a kid boat and oh you're off to france you're off to greece like you're on different yeah yeah routes yeah and i love how the the family is described like and stocking like you know for the next anchorage you know we're looking at certain criteria

but you guys add another other criteria it's like oh there are key boats here so talking to the other families it seemed like you know part of the where do we go next oh over there yeah so just maybe not so much because our girls are very close in age even if they have the odd fight every now and then they play really well together so it's actually not a big problem to us to stay. Three or four weeks just on our own. That's cool.

So we don't feel obliged to follow all the families for company of the kids most of the time. We find them everywhere. And the ragged as well. Yeah, for sure. In the most remote places. Yeah. So another question for you. So what were the biggest growing pains from choosing to be in this lifestyle? How would you describe those?

And then what were maybe some pleasant surprises prizes that you didn't expect do we have any growing pains i don't know we're used to camping we're used to living in small spaces we're used to being close to nature we haven't we've never had any air conditioning we have air conditioning now we never use it i don't know if it's been like on the comfort it's so crazy here only pain point is the financial aspect of it yeah You make a budget before you go. Yeah, I know, I forget.

Once you try to research and try to get some headroom in the budget, but then you go and you're like, oh. And you probably did a pretty good job on a financial plan, too. Yeah, but not detailing too much, but make headroom, right? Yeah. And you listen to people and you research and then you realize this is just double, triple what you thought. Yeah. And can you describe a little bit about your boat, like when you bought it, how old it was and stuff and what type of boat it is?

It's a Royal Cape Catman built in Durban, South Africa. She's a heavy boat built in 2014, so she's 10 years old now, but she ticked off so many of our boxes in regards to livability. We have all the appliances we need in the galley and we have a generator. We have air compressor for skimboat gear. We have good water maker that runs 200 liters an hour. So it's heavy. It could take a punch.

It's built down in the where it's blowing and the seats are quite rough so we need lots of wind to get her moving but when she does she you can sip clear a cup of coffee and don't trucking around yeah you're trucking really that's i guess the safety aspect of it is as for most families i suppose the we're not out the two of us to have the best sale of our life you know we're out there to have live a daily life to tutor our kids to learn about a different lifestyle so it's not 100 about sailing

it's not yeah so a regatta going over several years that we're doing we're living permanently on the boat as a family which is completely different than going out for a sail yeah one evening in the oslo fjord so to us the safety was the the safety and the livability so that was also a bit about our research you realize that are you going to be 90 95 percent of your time at the anchor and 10 to 5 percent sailing so well that's the reason why we chose that bolt yeah simple and easy

yeah i had to put a lot of my competitive things It's hard, huh? Not good, like performance-oriented, but it was a good choice, very good choice for us as a family. Very good. And to come back to the financial side, what areas you particularly underestimated, like maintenance or marinal cost or flights or whatever? Oh, the financial side. Yeah, maintenance is one thing. Alcatran has lots of systems.

Ours has also four bedrooms, restrooms, and there's so many parts that you have to renew, maintain. And since it's 10 years old, and it has been sitting in Florida quite still for two, three years, so there was a lot of corrosion issues and mold and things that kept breaking, lots that kept breaking the first year.

So well i was at school again preparing stuff you go from being a financial consultant to you're a skipper you're a plumber you're an electrician you're a carpenter you're a teacher everything a lot of time figuring out wires where yeah where is it going what are they leading to we didn't spend that much money on marinas or something in med training because it's so expensive. So we've been on the hook almost all year, except for Greece.

They have some public fox, where it's pretty cheap to work. Through winter season. Yeah. But other than that, we never went into a marina. Nice.

It was just ridiculously priced. And we wouldn't want to either. We can just anchor right outside. It's just a nice thingy, so we can go far.

If we need to stock up and go provisioning, we don't have to be close to the city to do that so yeah so any unexpected wonderful surprises that you would didn't think that you would love or anything that you're particularly drawn to that you didn't kind of think about going in well meeting so many uh good people who are like minded as you yeah that's one of the best sailing community the people that were with best

things Because you see so many beaches and the weather is blue and the sunsets are great all over. You remember the culture, you remember the people and those moments. The guys you're sitting, having a beach fire with and having great conversations, playing guitars, singing. Yeah, it's so true. Like people would tell us that when we were getting into it and then you get into it. And Mehmet, I think there's some of that. I'm feeling more of that here. Being in the Caribbean.

More liveaboards here. Yeah. Yeah, but it's definitely, it's like over the top what I ever expected. Would you say that? Oh, yeah. No, the way you describe it is exactly what we feel. It's like those memories, they start with the people you meet, and then you get to enjoy discovering those places and spend some time learning about each other, telling stories, you know. And that really amplifies the beauty around you because, you know, if you're by yourself, it's fun.

I mean, we like to be in remote places, but like we're totally enjoying like we will typically not be part of like the both kids the kids vote but like it's so much fun because it's like a different vibe and then you see all these kids just playing with different ages playing together boys girls just like being kids and we're like oh man how wonderful otherwise they will be sitting in a classroom and here the classroom is there

boys and girls are playing with each other and age doesn't matter which is so different from back home and the language. I mean, there's little kids like totally speaking perfect English, like, you know, I mean, like totally amazed. Yeah. Yeah. Also a recommendation I would like to add in. So cruisers, they are like-minded, but sailing around Greece, we sail around Greece in wintertime. There was no one else on the water. Charter season is off.

And then you step on land and then the locals find it quite cool having a sailboat coming in. So they approach you and drive you home. That's different than the summer. And driving around. That's so different. So that is also a takeaway from this journey.

Sailing greece and wayfair that's we had to recommendation yeah greek ladies come on board with us for a few days yeah that's interesting we adopted yeah the first day adopted us they took us around the whole island and took us to their home and showed us everything that they've been loving since they grew up there their whole life and then they came aboard with us a month later and we showed them greece from a different side yeah oh what an experience yeah so

you did the med now you're here in the bahamas what are your ultimate plans or your next season plans and then your ultimate like what's your what's your vision for plans are written in a long time no our plans now is going south before the hurricane season starts so we're planning going down to colombia to cardahana it's supposed to be a wonderful place and we have to renew our kids passports and there's only two norwegian embassies in the caribbean.

So we have to fly into bogota and do that so that will put us two three four weeks in, cardena then we go to palma to some loss for some months across the canal hopefully across the canal in october november and that was according to plan our our goal now is to get to some friends we met on this trip who lives in brisbane so our goal for now is to sail over to australia, There are lots of things happening on that way, obviously. You're going to stop

in the French Polynesian Islands. Oh, yes. We are. We're going to make a lot of stops before. Keep on pushing west. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of, we're in the same type of, it's the idea. What happens after Australia and New Zealand, nobody's quite sure. It's like, hmm, do I want to do the Indian Ocean? I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe just, yeah. One ocean at a time. Yeah. You need to think about, yeah, it's already a lot of fighting. It's a lot of water.

Yeah. So we had a dream before we left. That was sail for four to six years. And we said to ourselves, if we reach one year, that's also fine. Or two years. Now we're two years in. And we really want to continue. It's getting better. It keeps getting better and better. So now the goal is at least four years. Oh, that's wonderful.

Yeah, because you don't always hear that. We talk to a lot of people who've maybe been on a year and they're like, oh, I don't know.

Like we'll see maybe in next six months and you know not everybody but it's it's a big transition but it sounds like you guys didn't have any issues at all and partly or mainly or what you call it because both of us wanted this as much yeah it was not my dream it was not heidi's sole dream we none of us have to convince the other yeah to do this we wanted this just as much yeah it's similar with us we both we both were in actually the beginning so we love sailing together we

love activities together we just we discovered like spearfishing together we love to do that being able to provide fish from the from the sea it's awesome activity yeah yeah so much together gives us a little bit of the same, kick that we will get from skiing which we met through skiing so this is like discovering a new sport together yeah it's so much fun with it yeah yeah so we're doing it every every time we have the chance now yeah we'll go like two

or three times a day so they're taking care of. Or taking care of themselves yeah so what advice.

Would you give people kind of thinking about day what you're doing like what's the top piece of part or what do you wish you wouldn't have been told you know when you were starting go sooner don't think about all the stuff that's holding you back think about all the possibilities that are there and the right time will never arrive you will never feel completely ready to leave it's like having a baby yeah exactly so if you've been dreaming about it for some time and you keep dreaming about it

don't extend it just yeah probably make it happen as soon as possible that's probably my advice you won't get yesterday back so you will regret more not doing things than the things that you actually did yeah so if you have a dream follow it yeah then you can sit in your chair when you're hopefully you get to be 80 or 90 or whatever and think about things you've done yeah not regretting that I should have I should have and for your kids all these memories spending time

with their parents and being kids in wonderful places yeah i hope this will give them a real boost of adventure uh yeah and don't expect it to be a holiday our approach was very much like it's not gonna be a holiday we know it's gonna be a lot of hard work keeping the boats up in shape yeah keeping everyone happy on keeping everyone fed.

You're pretty much running everything family life and partner wise and everything, from the same place all the time so we actually haven't that's something that i expected would be harder because we would spend all our time together which hasn't really been hard i mean it's been but i think you're bringing up something that probably isn't talked about enough is i think I think there's expectations that you,

you know, you, you sail away into the sunset on a boat and that's your rest of your holiday. And that's what you're dreaming about. That's not what it is. You know, but just like you live in a house and you have to take care of a house or you have to have jobs or you have to work hard or late or, you know, do things on weekends or take care of your kids or people get sick or you have issues or dynamics you're dealing with.

It's all the same stuff. It's just on a boat. And so in one way, it's really important to kind of keep that in mind. I'm really glad you brought that up because it's life. And the little challenges that are online will probably get amplified on the boat because it's harder to get access to stuff. Or, you know, if your kids are feeling sick, you're like wondering, you know, I have access to a doctor close by. So, yeah, there's some things like this that's important to keep in mind.

But time, I mean, the time of day, you're not commuting, you're not giving away your time for some reason. On a boat, you can wake up, you wake up early, you can... Or late. I do some work in the morning before the rest of the family wakes up.

Then we have school the kids go out play we can go spearfishing do whatever and we still can hang out on the beach and have a nice dinner together with fellow cruisers all in one day because you're not moving around yeah you're in charge of your own time yeah in a different way the only thing that really pushes you in one direction or the other is the weather the weather yeah yeah and And that's a wonderful feeling of freedom,

I must say, that we haven't discovered yet and that you're getting more and more attached to, which is also a driving force for us to continue, I think, because you just feel so free.

You're in charge of your own time. Yeah, exactly. So on the note of going and eating and hanging out with other cruisers, I think we have a potluck to go to. We do. But I so much appreciate your time. And I love hearing your story. And you guys have been just fabulous to get to know. And one of the things we love about this is making lifelong friends on the boat or off the boat in the cruiser community. So thank you so much. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Looking forward to

getting to know you better. Yeah. Cool. Fair winds, Fernando. Music.