TravelTales: One Story At A Time

After deciding to leave our jobs to live on our sailboat, Moonshine, for 2 months then travel the world for the next 18 months, things got a little wild. Logistically, emotionally, and physically. We had been full time living in our van, Frumps, for 5 years. We cleaned him out completely one weekend at our marina. Many hours were spent fixing what needed to be fixed, painted what needed to be painted, and we even replaced the flooring. When we listed the van, we weren’t sure of the response. A couple slow days then BOOM! We were getting calls and emails constantly. People from all over the country wanted to fly in and buy it. We sold it to a Navy mechanic. She was the first to give us an offer and the van chose her as much as she chose the van. It was the right fit. So now what? Nowhere to live for two weeks. A few rad homies, Henry and Holly, graciously open their doors to a couple of strays while Austin and Jess put us on their insurance and let us borrow their Jeep while they were out of town. How do you ever get so lucky as to find such amazing people on this dirty, salty rock? I'll never know but I'll be forever grateful. Well, that week went fast. Too fast. A couple cold plunges and some frisbee on the beach and we were off to the next stop. A hostel in Ocean Beach. That raised eyebrows even from O.B. residents we knew. We stayed a little over a week in a private room. When we showed up, the girl checking us in saw our license and said she spent 6 years in New Orleans at Tulane. She told us the hostel was “somewhere between your friend's couch and a hotel”. Perfect description. They had an art night, a swimming pool, ping pong, cubbies for your food, and surfboard rentals. California Dreams Hostel is an old nunnery that had an 8 x 10 room that was perfect for us for the week. Then the time came. The time to say goodbyes. Was this really happening? A couple rental car trips from San Diego to the marina in Wilmington and we washed our hands clean of #vanlife and left SD in the rear view.

Four days were spent prepping the boat and hailing Instacart for provisions. It was peak stress times surrounded by calm evening sunset walks around the harbor and pirate juice. I’m still not sure how Lauren was able to find a spot for most of our stuff but she made it look easy. On the 31st of March, 2026, I gave the boat one last freshwater rinse before we shoved off from that dock for the last time. We left the dock steps behind on purpose. We didn’t need them where we were going.

We rounded Angel’s Gate Lighthouse and pointed the bow bearing 218 for Two Harbors. With no wind, the 20.1 NM trip took just under 3 hours. We’re here. We made it. Island life on SV Moonshine. I still don’t know if the sails work. Stay tuned, week 1 recap inbound…