Will We Ever Settle? Or Are We Just Addicted to the Horizon?
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Grab a coffee, go for a walk, or sit back in the cockpit, relax and press play.
In Europe, the summer is gasping its last breath. Kids are being shoved back into classrooms, parents are drowning in their to-do lists, and the grey sludge of “everyday life” is reclaiming its territory. As soon as August slips away, there’s this collective, frantic obsession with the next milestone: Christmas. It’s madness. One minute you’re in the height of summer, the next you’re plummeting toward winter. Where does autumn even go?
I used to love the seasons; the predictable, rhythmic pulse of nature. But after years of liveaboard sailing in the Caribbean, the clock ticks differently. The islands are counting down to the high season, which starts around October/November, when the sailors start drifting in and the restaurants start buzzing. And hopefully, this season we’ll find a job that pays well enough to finally haul Mutiny out of the water…
Living this way isn’t free, of course. We’ve written more about what it actually costs to live aboard here: → How Much Money Do You Need to Live on a Sailboat?
The maintenance of our Freedom
But there’s always a price for this life. We’ve got a project on our hands: getting Mutiny back to standard. We’ve learned that the maintenance is the less glamorous side of freedom.
There is always something that needs fixing: ALWAYS. Hopefully, this season allows us to stack enough cash to finally haul Mutiny out of the water for the maintenance we’ve been dodging. That includes the seacock we ‘temporarily’ fixed. You know the one. The one that spat bucketloads of seawater at us while the thread got damaged. We are still crossing our fingers and praying it will hold till we can fix it.
We’ve met plenty of people who moved to the tropics. Some called themselves expats, some folded and crawled back home, some stayed, and others just drifted to the next island, the next country, the next life. But when you corner them and ask what they actually miss, the answer is almost always the same: the seasons. They miss the harshness of winter, the bruised colors of autumn, the optimism of spring. They miss that permission to stand still, to process the year before starting over.
The Question That’s Haunted Us for Sixteen Years
Personally? I don’t miss it. I don’t need a winter where the world turns monochrome and the air feels like needles digging into your skin. I like the tropics. Just the wet and the dry. That’s it. Constant growth. Constant motion. It suits the chaos inside me. Which brings me to the question I get asked so often, it’s started to feel like an echo in my own head: Will you ever settle? Where is your home? What is your final destination?
The honest answer is that we don’t know. Ramon and I have stripped this question down to the bone a thousand times. Sixteen years ago, when we first met, the very first thing we asked each other was: “Do you want to travel?” We both nodded, in violent, unanimous agreement. That question eventually took us from backpacks to sailboats.
Looking back, that question was our real wedding vow. Sure, Ramon eventually asked the other one, too, on top of a temple in Tikal, Guatemala, where I literally had nowhere to run. It was perfect! But today, the question remains. We look at each other now just like we did back then.
We’re still addicts. Addicted to the unknown, to the friction of harsh conditions, to the discovery of new life experiences. We tried living on land in Malta. That lasted a year and a half, and even then, we moved twice. That tells you everything, doesn’t it?
Addicted to the Horizon
When we talk to landlubbers, with their comforting, ironclad routines – knowing exactly which aisle the milk is in, walking the same street every day- I confess, a part of me feels a flash of envy. There is a safety in knowing where you belong. But for us, that “safety” feels an awful lot like stagnation. It’s not that we hate convenience; we love a good grocery run as much as anyone.
“Do you want to travel?” Looking back, that question turned out to be more important than “Will you marry me?”
But the moment the unknown vanishes, the moment I can predict the next twenty-four hours with absolute certainty, a strange, suffocating panic sets in. It’s the “itch.” We start scanning the horizon, not because we’re unhappy, but because the comfort starts to feel like a cage. Maybe that’s a flaw, or maybe it’s simply who we are: people who stop breathing if we stand still for too long.
The Floating Classroom
Would kids change that? Maybe. We don’t have them, and I’m acutely aware of the freedom that gives us. But on the flip side, we’ve met plenty of cruising families. Their classroom isn’t built of drywall and fluorescent lights. Their math happens in navigation, their biology happens in the tide pools, and their social studies happen in every new harbor.
It’s a messy, chaotic, and exhausting way to learn, sure. But it teaches you something standard school never can: that the world isn’t a map on a wall, it’s a massive, living, breathing thing that you have to engage with to survive. That kind of education doesn’t just prepare you for a desk; it prepares you for life.
The Reality Behind the 360-Degree View
Then there’s the boat. If we lived in a house, I think I’d die of boredom. I’d miss the 360-degree view. I’d miss waking up in a different world every morning. I’d miss the dolphins at the bow and the fish on our dinner plate that was swimming twenty minutes ago. There is something intoxicating about having your house move underneath your feet. It’s shelter, but it’s also a vehicle.
People spend millions on a waterfront villa just to get a ‘sea view’, a view they stare at through a static glass window, day in, day out. We wake up to that same view, often better, but ours isn’t behind glass. Ours changes every single morning. We have the scenery of a billionaire, just without the price tag (and with a hell of a lot more engine grease and diesel fumes).
There’s a certain irony in realizing that the most expensive luxury in the world – a front-row seat to the ocean – can’t actually be bought. It’s earned through salt-stained labor and relentless care, and solidified by the courage to simply untie the lines.
But don’t romanticize it too much. It isn’t easy. Things break. Constantly. And always at the worst possible moment. Parts are expensive, sometimes impossible to find, or simply no longer made because of their age. The maintenance never stops and the weather can turn evil in a heartbeat.
Just recently, we were both standing ankle-deep in seawater, desperately trying to fix a leaking seacock before the water inside the boat became a very serious problem. It was one of those moments where you stop and wonder: why the hell do we do this?
→ Read the full story: The Morning Our Boat Tried to Sink Itself.
Those moments are real, and bloody brutal. But then, the wind settles. The sea goes glass-calm. The sky bruises into a sunset. You make a coffee, step outside, and realize your front garden is the entire Caribbean Sea. And suddenly? The broken things don’t seem to matter anymore.
Maybe Someday
So, will we ever settle? Maybe. One day we might wake up and feel it – the deep, anchored need to put down roots. Maybe it’s an island, maybe a little house, maybe a camper van. But for now, we aren’t looking for our final destination. We’re still looking for the next one.
When we asked each other Sixteen years ago, “Do you want to travel?” we never put an expiry date on it. Ask us again in Sixteen years. We might have an answer. Or… we might just be somewhere else.
How about you? Do you feel the need to plant roots, or are you also always looking for what’s around the next corner? Let me know in the comments.
If you’ve enjoyed the stories, the sailing, the sunsets, the questionable decisions and the occasional “oh shit, that’s not supposed to be leaking” moment, you can buy us a beer. No subscription. No membership. No fancy Patreon tier. Just a beer. It helps keep the stories coming, the camera rolling and Mutiny afloat while we figure out what the hell we’re doing next. And if you do buy us one, thank you. Seriously. We’ll raise it somewhere suitably tropical and think of you when we do.
Thank You!
We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who has believed in us since we started living and sailing on Mutiny. You know who you are. And then there are those who told us it was impossible, irresponsible, unrealistic or just plain stupid. Thank you too. Because every time someone told us we couldn’t do it, we somehow found another reason to go a little further.
