Splashdown

It’s just past 07:00, and although the sun has technically risen, the sky has not fully woken up. I stare up through the hatch at the sodden grey clouds and will myself out from under the warm covers because today is the day. “The day” being our last moments as moorage clients at our marina in Maple Bay. It’s our first day as liveaboard cruisers in the Pacific Northwest. The sprawling coastline is our home, and the possibilities feel endless. Hidden between layers of excitement is a trepidation that sends butterflies aloft in my stomach and I feel the need to blink slowly and take a breath that slowly fills me from head to toe. With that breath, the reality of what we’ve accomplished and the adventure we’re about to embark upon starts to set in.

THE ITCH

It has been six years of dreaming and scheming to get here. Together with my husband Brad, we have opted to leave behind the conventional life in pursuit of something a bit less ordinary. In 2019, Brad and I were formally introduced to sailing when we joined five friends for the most amazing week chartering a 40-foot Beneteau on the Sunshine Coast. It took about two hours of sailing before we were hooked. In 2021 we spent another 10 days on the Salish Sea, this time exploring Desolation Sound. Things really escalated after that. In 2023 we travelled to the British Virgin Islands, taking our sailing international. Brad and I knew this was something we weren’t going to grow tired of. In September of 2023, we decided to pursue our skipper licenses so we could charter in the Mediterranean and beyond. Much of the fall was spent studying for our coastal navigation exams before we headed to Vancouver for a week of hands-on learning with Challenge Sailing School. It was a ton of material but we both successfully obtained all of our certificates (don’t let these credentials fool you, I still make up the phonetic alphabet as I go). With a nice little resume under our belts, we booked our own charter and spent a week in Turkey, sailing just the two of us and continuing to learn along the way.

THE PLUNGE

We returned home at the end of a month of travelling feeling more certain than ever that we wanted to try the liveaboard lifestyle. In an effort to stick to our initial five year plan, we thought we’d charter in Canada for a few weeks in the summer of 2025, but as summer turned to fall we really started to ask ourselves what we were waiting for. Life is short and it can change in an instant. Why were we waiting to do something we couldn’t go a day without thinking about?

With nothing but dreams in our sails, we allowed ourselves to start browsing the market. Our search didn’t take us very far. Just down the dock from our friends’ boat was a 1991 Hunter Passage 42 called Lady Kintyre. Brad and I had both seen it in person at the dock and were particularly drawn to two features: the centre cockpit layout and the spacious aft cabin. After doing some research we learned that there are two types of people—those who scoff at Hunters for being floating apartments, and those who own Hunters and find them to be great boats for adventuring. We totally fell in love and after an entire month of getting numerous surveys done on the systems, she was ours!

 

We opted to rename her and after a lot of debate, we settled on Splash. Short and sweet, because as I mentioned before, I barely know my phonetic alphabet and I didn’t want to be tested on it every time I had to make a call on the VHF. Summer of 2025 was spent on board, exploring as far south as Tod Inlet and as far north as Desolation Sound. Moments of quiet were spent fitting, re-fitting, and rere-fitting the systems. It is hard to believe that I am here now, less than a year later (and about three years sooner than we initially planned), about to slip the lines for an adventure of a lifetime.

THE ADVENTURE BEGINS

After almost four straight weeks of never-ending projects, we hoisted our sails and charted our route from Maple Bay to Princess Cove on Wallace Island. We wanted to test the systems on board and make sure we hadn’t missed or forgotten anything before setting our sights on destinations afar. Also, it felt beautifully fitting to start our next chapter here, as Wallace Island was also our very first anchorage aboard Splash in December of 2024. The forecast was pretty wishy-washy with a “gale warning” thrown in the mix. It was a less than soft reintroduction to sailing, and we didn’t feel the warm welcome from 25 knots of breeze on the nose for the first few miles of our journey. With reefed sails we navigated north past Salt Spring and after beating into it long enough to feel like real sailors, we opted to motor the final few miles. Under the threat of ominous weather, a few other boats had chosen to hole up in Princess Cove, but there was lots of room for us to tuck in, sheltered from the worst of the winds. We braved the breeze and went for a walk on shore and to the end of the point where we got to experience the strength of the gale outside of our protected anchorage. As expected, it was a mostly sleepless night on anchor. Winds gusted as high as 30 knots and the boat was moving around a lot, turning on the anchor and bouncing in the fetch. When things eventually diminished around 02:00, I enjoyed a much more restful sleep, feeling assured our anchor had endured the worst of it already.

WE OPTED TO RENAME HER AND AFTER A LOT OF DEBATE, WE SETTLED ON SPLASH. SHORT AND SWEET

We enjoyed two quiet nights at Princess Cove, spending both afternoons on long walks across the island and tucking in for the evenings with a movie. Brad even got our water maker up and running, putting us one step closer to being entirely self-sufficient.

After a morning walk we left for Montague Harbour on Galiano Island. The sea state was sub-par but I rose to the challenge and made waffles underway, confirming my lack of susceptibility to seasickness. I must admit, I often wish I had longer legs or thicker hair, but my rock solid inner ears can’t be beat! After snagging a mooring ball, I was pleased to learn that Montague Harbour was every bit as great as I remembered. It is home to an awesome dinghy dock, tons of walking trails, the most stunning midden beach and mooring buoys that are entirely empty in the shoulder season. We explored throughout the afternoon and played games into the evening. The next morning, we set sail and finally got the shakedown cruise we were after! We had a broad-reach sail in 20 knots of wind for the first half of our journey and then managed to snag an hour of sporty sailing close-hauled into a breeze that seemed to bend just the right way for us to sail almost directly toward our destination. It was incredible!

UPS AND DOWNS

I’ve been grappling a lot lately with the fear I have around our new lifestyle. I don’t want to say I’m an anxious person, but as I get older, I do seem to be getting more fearful. When we chartered boats (and I was a blissfully ignorant, self-proclaimed “passenger princess”) there was nothing more fun than a sporty sail going seven knots on a 20 degree heel. Now? On my own boat? With me at the helm? Nope. No thanks. I was recently chatting with a friend who, like me, wants to learn but is generally still a rookie. We spoke about “leaning into the fear” and it really resonated with me. Realizing that even though I can get scared or worried at times doesn’t mean I can’t deal with it. And I can’t just get off the boat so I better learn how to manage the tough moments. With this in mind, as well as the reminder that Splash is a tough cookie, on our last sail I leaned into the fear, and I had a blast. I won’t lie, I felt pretty proud of myself for sticking out the tough moments when normally I’d pass control over to Brad. It was really great to feel the same joy that I first had sailing when I was free of all responsibility, but this time with lots of knowledge and maybe even a little bit of capability. I’m looking forward to taking this new perspective into our next few months on the water.

WHAT’S NEXT?

I read a quote a while ago that starts like this, “Everyone calls it delusion until it works.” Brad and I have been scheming for a while now. What started as a mission to shift our work life balance to favour the living bits over the working bits eventually evolved into buying a sailboat and spending the foreseeable future cruising. Our five year plan was shortened to three years and now, to call it three years would be generous rounding. Along the way, we’ve crunched the numbers hundreds of times and always end up asking ourselves, “Who gave us permission to do this?” Like, who do we think we are to pull this off? But the numbers add up and here we are, shaking our heads in disbelief that our delusional dreams are coming to life. We are currently heading south toward Victoria to pick up a friend and with her we’ll explore the southern Gulf Islands and Victoria area before Brad and I cross the Strait of Georgia toward Vancouver for our rigging replacement. After that, we will head north for six weeks until our haul-out in Lund. There will be ample opportunities to learn, push our boundaries and build confidence in both ourselves and Splash, and we can’t wait!