STARTING I
f you had told me a little over a year ago that we would be living in San Diego on a sailboat preparing to go long-term cruising in Mexico, I would have laughed out loud. At the time, we were both work-
Dalton and Sydney — new sailors, new boat owners and soon-to-be Mexico cruisers.
ing intense full-time jobs and living in a tiny flat in London with our dog. The quantity of things that would need to drastically change to make that reality? Now that's a long list! However, fast-forward and here we are: two 28-year-olds, living aboard and working remotely from our 1976 33-ft Morgan Out Island in San Diego, while simultaneously tearing her apart piece by piece to give her a total facelift so we can eventually head to Mexico. In September 2019, my fiancé Dalton Urrutia and I were getting antsy to move back to the US to be closer to family — and be ready for another big change (like the one that had led us to Scotland five years earlier). We were visiting my parents in San Diego, after a visit to Oregon that involved some very entry-level house hunting, and a realization that without any US
ALL PHOTOS MIHALY
my dad pointed out an older, rough-looking sailboat — that was floating, mind you — and casually said, "You could buy that for $5,000." The seed had been planted. We returned to London with a little bit of hope and deep-rooted excitement — that fresh, intoxicating inkling you get for the next big thing you want to pursue. To preface the next part, you need to understand that we're the classic, unbearable millennial types. We're on a mission to work as little as possible while enjoying the biggest and best life we can. We want to work smarter, not harder, and books like Tim Ferriss's 4-Hour Work Week always get us fired up. One day Dalton stumbled on a TED Talk that broke down the modern work week and explained that, for each hour of the working week, what you're actually working for. The reality for most of us is: If we're lucky, less than 10 hours of our 45+ hour work week actually go toward saving and the fun things that we think of as truly defining our lives and identities. This realization was the metaphorical nail in the coffin — we needed to change our lifestyle and reduce overall expenses. In turn, this would allow us to reduce our income and spend more time enjoying life on our own terms. So where do two people without any sailing experience start when they decide
My dad pointed out an older sailboat and casually said, "You could buy that for $5,000."
Left: The survey of the Seahawk twin keeler in the UK. Right: The Morgan survey. You can't see it, but they're smiling more in the second photo.
credit-building over the past half-decade — not to mention lack of stable jobs — the odds of getting a home loan were slim. While walking along the boardwalk, Page
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Latitude 38
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they want to purchase and move aboard a boat? Thankfully, I stumbled on another book, Get Real, Get Gone by Rick Page, which then became our manual on how to
find a boat and buy it. Still in the UK, we began pouring over YachtWorld and viewing as many boats as we could. We also took a hilarious sailing intro on a lake in London on a freezing, windless day in January. Our aim was to find a boat that was solid, sturdy and safe — one that we could live aboard, confidently cruise, and maintain, with as little damage to our bank account as possible (*insert pause for all boat owners to laugh*). We ended up finding a 1984 34-ft Westerly Seahawk, but after a sea trial and survey, had to back out due to a horrifically corroded rudder post and keel bolts, and a non-negotiable owner. This brings us up to February 2020, with the notorious COVID-19 on the horizon.
