Who does most of the cooking on Catalpa Sara and Bella cook most meals and.snacks. When the boys cook its usually on the bbq.

I make sourdough bread most days we eat a lot of fish and rice and love to create yummy meals for the crew. Living on a boat travelling means you have to get creative sometimes as trips to the shops can be weeks even months apart when sailing in remote areas.

When we provision we stock the boat with food for 3-4 months and fresh food for 2-3 weeks. We store all fresh vegetables in the fridge. We have a big chest fridge with plenty of room which I love and freeze most of our fruit. On Catalpa 2 we have plenty of fridge and freezer space and for me that’s a big priority especially sailing in remote places.

Everywhere you go is different when provisioning so you have to adapt and be prepared to use what is available when travelling to new countries. I miss being able to get some of our favourite things from Australia but mostly we find everything we need. This life is all about compromise and maybe something to consider if choosing a life on the sea.

When you see something you like in a store stock up buy the lot 🤣 its funny but true you might not find it again so don’t be shy a few weeks later you will thank yourself.

Staples aboard Catalpa are home made baked muesli, sourdough bread, rice, pasta, eggs, homemade sushi, smoothies, fish lots of fish, potatoes and coleslaw.

We make most things from scratch like mayonnaise, sauces and snacks. Packet snacks run out pretty quick so stocking up on flour, cooking oils, eggs, butter, herbs/spices and honey is important.

We have tinned food for when fresh and frozen fruit and veg run out but we try and not let that happen too often.

Good fruits to freeze if you have the room are bananas, papaya, berries, pineapple, fresh coconut, avocado and dragon fruit. When we are in the tropics this is what fruit mostly we have in our freezer.

Other things to freeze if you have the space is butter, cheese these are the things that we usually run out of first after fresh.

We substitute coconut milk for actual milk when in Southeast Asia. Our fridge is packed with butter and cheese as they are only found in big supermarkets.

The way I provision is to fill the boat with as much as possible. It’s never enough but the longer you can last between shops, the longer you have in remote islands exploring and that’s our favourite places to be.

Living on a boat as a family sounds dreamy….but raising your kids in 44 feet home might sound like a nightmare🤣

Well there’s no secret sauce. But there are things you can do to make life on board a little less chaotic.

For us we love being out surfing, diving or exploring and making the most of these things together I feel helps with the cabin fever, plus spending quality time together is probably one of the reasons you chose this lifestyle so have fun together and plenty of it.

Respect each others space and give everyone the opportunity for down time .

Remember this life is full of ups and downs so be kind and respectful with each other there will be some big emotions and most likely yelling, just like living on the land but reminder it’s normal. Just because you decide to live on a boat doesn’t mean life will be drams free or picture perfect.

These memories you will create together will out way any craziness that comes up.

But also this life is not for everyone and if you don’t like being around your kids maybe stick to the land😜

We are pretty lucky with this but occasionally some of us feel a little off.

So what do we do?

Eat some ginger, make a fresh ginger tea.

Go to sleep if you’re not on watch

Sit on the deck get some fresh air

Pour a bucket of seawater over yourself

Breath work

Brush your teeth . Something about a minty toothpaste and fresh moth helps

Eat dry bread 😜

These probably won’t help if you’re throwing up or severely seasick but if you are not feeling great or a bit Quweezy these work for us.