SA

Sailing Anarchy = Always making sure to zoom in on the most important of news! 

Readers reflections

Oh la la, thanks for the nice compliment, K! This women is comparing us with Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkin in the Blue Lagoon and flatters us with even more of her beautiful compliments. Check this out here.

We love your emails and comments and links you send to us, dear readers. Your interaction is one of the main reasons why we, or more specifically I (as I am the writer and producer of this blog) love working with this diary of ours. Every week we receive new wonderful links and trackbacks sent to us with our readers own thoughts about our tour and it is very interesting to see this whole thing from someone else's perspective. 

I have by the way tried to get Alex into the writings of this blog for many months now but he is totally not into it and as he is extremely busy constantly building and fixing with the boat, he also says that he doesn't have the peace of mind or the space in life to gather his thoughts into notes for the moment. We both have our areas in life where we feel most comfortable and writing simply doesn't appeal to him as much as it does to me. Just like boat projects, mounting of gear or mechanical installations might not be priority one in my world.

May be that the blogs content and writings often are angled from my personal perspective, but that is simply how it will have to be, I can't transmit much more than that in a realistic way so you all have too keep up with my ramblings. This blog is as much an interactive tool to stay connected with our families, friends and followers along the tour, as it is my personal diary with images, notes and reflections from these interesting and beautiful years on the sea.

Thanks for reading and make sure we all stay in touch! /Taru

In the news

From negativities back to the ego corner. Katadyn have recently sent out press information about our world tour in their latest newsletter. Check it out here. If you can't read German, here's a translation:

"Taru and Alex who got to know each other in Barcelona, left in the end of October on a sailing adventure around the world. Aboard their Hallberg Rassy 352, they have also installed a Katadyn Power Survivor 80E, to be able to have fresh drinking water on the long Atlantic crossing. When planning a cruise, the daily supplies of fresh water is absolutely essential for survival and the ability to produce drinking water itself has a huge impact on the comfort on board. With their Internet blog Taru and Alex have already achieved celebrity status within the sailing community. They cleverly combine the harsh life at sea with lifestyle elements such as good food (and fresh drinking water), expensive wine, and fashion clothes. The duo have just left Morocco and is now heading west. Make sure to follow the journey and love story of this extraordinary couple."

Nice!

We have by the way just started to use our watermaker and we've realized that it is even easier to use than it seemed from the beginning and the unit uses less amps than expected. Good! We'll post some information of the machine later on, if you guys are interested in knowing how it is possible to transform salt water into fresh (drinking) water.

Everyone loves The World Tour!

__________________________

Have a look at what the French sailing portal NewsWinch have to say about our blog and our tour around the world. Here translated to English.

Photo and link from Newswinch.com

In the Russian news

We do not only have plenty of American, Australian, German, Swedish and loads of other European fans and friends over the world, but also a couple of new from Russia. Thanks to the luxurious online yacht magazine itBoat - our little tour have receive greater publicity in the eastern state. We love the stylish website and the article about us is great. Check it out here. If you can't read the beautiful Cyrillic alphabet, try to translate it here to English.

Sailing celebrities and German news

The Germans seem to be fast on the hot news. Again have the famous Segel Reporter published an article about our little world tour and summed up some information about us and the controversy we've created - and they're even taking it as far as calling us sailing celebrities - an interesting new epithet in our lives for sure.

Read more here, in German. Or translate it to (almost perfectly understandable) English here. 

And don't miss the slideshow with the very amusing subtitles for gods sake!

/T

Differences/balance

Text from Cruising Compass:

_____________________

    _____________________

We get a lot of links back to our website. A lot from every corner of the world. In the beginning we were a bit pretentious and thought it would've been nice to link back to all our links, but that's not possible any longer as of the enormous amount of links and notes from blogs, communities, portals that we're receiving every week. Some of them we'd still like to share with you all though, as they are an interesting base for discussion or because they simply are something special. This is one of the latest ones, coming from a website called Cruising Compass. 

It is a nice little notification of our World Tour but if you read carefully you'll also find a very common perception of sailors and cruising in general, in the text. It assumes, like many people assume, that the norm of cruising sailors should not enjoy life and the beautiful, maybe exclusive, things with it, in order to be real sailors. And in one way this, very frequently encountered perception, is somehow claiming that most sailors are one type who mainly live for the sea and the boat and are happy with only the simple things in life. 

It has slowly dawned on me that this, our type of sailing dream, might be pretty much a new thing. A cruising couple in our age, maybe with our looks (as many has discussed), who's is interested in BOTH sailing the world with our bare four hands - through rough weathers, extreme conditions and storms and loving the physical and mental challenge it will give us - and ALSO enjoying the good life: expensive wine, stylish clothes, gourmet food, sophisticated and perfectly sufficient equipment for us and the boat, ironed shirts and many other beautiful things life has on offer. 

We can totally understand the controversy this blog and this plan brings, as we're obviously not like the norm of cruising sailors, and we do understand the interest it/this blog has evoked. 

I do not in any way intend to defend us or our lifestyle, as this is who we are and we prefer to live with our feet in different worlds at the very same time and indulge in EVERYTHING what the beautiful life has to give us, but I can tell you some things so that you maybe can get a bit clearer view of us as a sailing couple:

If we wouldn't have had each other; this blog and this dream would probably never exist. We see this all, what is given us, as an ultimate gift from the universe. It is for us a wonderful thing that one extremely experienced and well educated sailor meets an artistic, adventurous soul who're dying to transmit this journey and our lives afloat in an appealing way to family, friends and our other readers.

None of this would have been possible without the other. I would probably never sail around the world, if I didn't met Alex in who I trust with all of my heart to take us perfectly safe around the world. And Alex would probably neither read blogs, or even less would he create a blog himself, if he wouldn't have met me. Both because he doesn't have the Internet and blogs as a passionate interest like I do and also he's so far from being an exhibitionistic attention whore like I am. If (this is very unlikely though) he would have had a blog, his would probably be one with technical content and only the mechanical aspects of the boat would have been shown. It would probably never contain photos of colorful food, my somewhat spiritual thoughts or not even the sexy shots of people like us. And like that he/we would never have gotten to know most of you guys. Our dear readers and followers who there's now almost 100.000 of, each month. So I guess we're a good team for The World Tour. Each of us fulfill our own purpose on this journey.

Many times when sailing, there occurs great clashes between us. Especially when I, the more artistic, sometimes messy and maybe a bit lazy person (lazy when it comes to things that doesn't interest me such as renovations and boat mechanics, that is), am pulling my f*cking hair off from all the boat projects that has to get done when I would rather call someone to do it for us and I could instead spend my time on shooting a series of pictures, working on different online projects, concoct a beautiful meal for us both, or write in my memoirs. I can scream of frustration as the captain orders me to drop the anchor in a specific way which I've already created my own technique for and equally there's times when Alex would swear and shout when he realizes that I once again tied an incorrect knot to the dinghy and it almost got lost behind us underway. Or when I'm running down below to get the camera in the most stressful of moments in stormy weathers when he desperately needs my help to exchange the genoa to a storm jib and I rather shoot some photos of the beautiful white caps approaching us..

There's definitely some work to do on the communication area in this relationship when it comes to the sailing part, as there is in many new live-aboard-families I suppose, but we're getting there. We're getting there as we have the same goal and we both love and live for the plan that is made. We love the unusual life that we've created and we're learning day by day to adapt to each others differences. As much as I'm learning how to sail the boat and all the complexities around it, as much is Alex learning what are the benefits and pleasures of having a popular and successful blog and also he's learning how to adapt to my way of being comfortable in life and what is needed so that I can use my creativity to the max. Cause in the end of the day, the main importance is that we do share the same vision of how to live, how to to enjoy life and to what dreams to fulfill in the future. The way to those visioned dreams might look slightly different depending on who of us you ask, but there's a beauty in that as well, as we prefer to see it. We have found a balance which suits us for now and we see us as the best dream team in the world to fulfill a task like the one we've undertaken. 

So back to where I started: Yes, we do understand that people can have some doubts when they see us and our lifestyle which might be a far cry from other cruising sailors - as most people are made to be doubting when they encounter things or constellations they haven't seen before. It doesn't bother us much though, instead we're rather amused by the fact that this story/our vision/our dream/the journey has evoked such an interest in so many different medias, forums and among so many people from all over the world - and we can't wait to give you more insights of our exciting life afloat, as the trip proceeds. It is an interesting discussion though. We're glad to be able to bring in fresh new air into the world of cruising/sailing, and even more happier are we when we understand that we might inspire other people to also follow their dreams to do something like us. Because, as most of us already know, there's never a right or wrong when it comes to following your dreams. We are all of us the ones limiting our own possibilities, as much as we are the ones who are in charge of our own destinies and futures. If we can do this, I'm sure many other out there can do the same. Maybe not in the exact same way as us, but in your way. With your own way you can make anything possible, as long as you're not scared of doing the things the wrong way.

Thank you all who're reading, leaving comments, writing us emails, writing about us on your own websites, supporting us on our fan page and taking your precious time to follow this dream of ours - it wouldn't at all be the same without y'all.

/Taru

What made it up for me

If you wanna know what made me move aboard this boat, read my story on Sailing Anarchy today. And don't ask me why they haven't thought of making an easy solution with trackbacks to each of the SA articles, it's a pain-in-the-a to find what you need, but scroll down a bit and you'll find it a couple of posts down. /T

Pic has nothing to do with the story, it's just a sweet memory of my first summer on board. And some of my beautiful friends on a visit.

Hallbergrassy.com

What a nice surprise to find myself and our beloved Caos on the front page of the Hallberg Rassy website! /T

Zu sexy zum Cruisen?

We have received a lot of great publicity the last couple of months from several sailing/non sailing forums, all kinds of blogs and from different websites from all over the world. Our (exhibitionistic) blog and photos seem to concern and attract many out there and though we at times don't understand a word of what is said (especially not German), it is lovely to be recognized as a new, interesting sailing blog in the big ocean of the www.

Read the full story, here on the German sailing portal, Segelreporter.com

In the spotlight

Check out what Sailing Anarchy, one of the worlds largest sailing forums, have to say about my sexy woman and our blog. Thanks SA, great article./Alex

(scroll down on SA's front page to find the article)

More coming

The debate goes on with a very interesting discussion... here. Click yourself through all 11 pages if you like.

And here on Sailing Anarchy ... You'll find it on page 2, after the chat about the religious guys..

Don't we just love the Internet.

/T

The conservative world of cruising?

A very lively debate has erupted after we published a link to our website on a few of the big sailing forums out there. One in particular created such an intense discussion that more that 40 people engaged into contemplating on if our blog was good enough as a cruising blog or not. Most of the members writing on that thread was of course positive, glad to see something new and inspiring but there were some among them who called our blog "too slick, fake and self-centered", also "too sexy". Some accused us for being too commercial and even too professional to suit in the "natural" world of cruising. Ha! Some of the members even accused us for charging money through paypal on our site, where they got that idea from is still a mystery. Have you guys ever sen a Pay Pal sign here on this blog? That specific thread on CF has now been removed from the forum and we're waiting for an explanation from it's administrators of why and for what reason it's deleted as we are sure of that we haven't violated on any of their rules.

In the meanwhile, here's a picture for you all out there: Is this also maybe too sexy and fake to suit in the fine world of cruising? (Our apologize for showing the boat in that terrible condition though. This is taken just in between the sanding of the primer and applying of some more..)

It is just fantastic what emails we've received in the last 24 hours. People from every part of the world have contacted us to tell us how much they love what we do and how we do it, and also some few emails were sent by conservative members of those forums urged us to stop writing in forums such as CF as we are "destroying" the "natural" world of cruising. Very amusing indeed.

To all of you other, positive, open minded people who're reading this blog, thanks for reading, we are delighted by the fact that we might inspire some of you out there to follow your dreams. And a very warm welcome to all of our new readers! /A&T

Links

Read a note about our circumnavigation on Linn's beautiful website called Sunshine Stories. (Swedish)

Our lovely readers

We love our readers, we love when you comment here on the blog and when you take the time to write about our planned voyage in your own sites, your notes make our day! Here's one of our new readers that we found through the statistics. Thanks Molly!

In the end of the day, we wouldn't have started this blog if we wouldn't wanted to share this experience with you all. What is also wonderful is that our readers seem to be of all categories. From the experienced sailors, to the family-guys and globetrotters to the business owners, the fashion girls, cultural ladies, nature lovers and whoever!

If we can give a small dose of inspiration to our readers, then we have achieved what we wanted. Thanks all for reading and thanks all of you who spread the word about this voyage. We look forward to have you all with us when we leave Spain in 138 days (or earlier)!

Featured on Sperry Top Sider

Sperry Top Sider has featured a note about our circumnavigation on their blog, this week. Check it out!