Our Story
Meet Lee, Sara, Taj & Bella
We are an Australian family that bought a budget sailing boat in 2014 to see if we liked living on a boat long story short “We Did” So we packed up our lives on the land and set sail full-time in 2016. We have been travelling in our home Catalpa ever since.
Leaving Australian waters in 2017 travelling throughout South East Asia. We have been documenting our travels on Youtube and created a community that love to follow our journey.
We live, travel, study and work altogether on our 44 foot humble home Catalpa. We love the ocean and living on it. We all surf, dive and are passionate about seeing the world by boat.
We choose to share our lives with you all to inspire others to go after your dreams. You don’t need to wait until your boat is “perfect” or until you have “enough” money, or until your kids are finished school. You can go now!! We are proof that anyone can make this lifestyle possible!
Life is too short to keep waiting for the right time!
Meet Catalpa
Catalpa is our humble home that has sailed us over 10,000 nautical miles.
Catalpa is a 44 foot Ferro cement Wilf okell design, built in Australia in 1985. We brought Catalpa in Townsville in 2014 for $15,000. We sailed her down the east coast of Australia and loved it.
2015 We decided to keep Catalpa and get her ready to sail off around the world.
2016 We left the Gold Coast in Australia on an adventure of a lifetime.
2017 We left Darwin Australia and sailed to Kupang Indonesia.
We spent the next 12 months exploring Indonesia
2018 We sailed to Thailand
2019 We sailed to Malaysia
Lee went back to work for a year flying back and forth from Australia to Langkawi to make extra money to buy a bigger boat. Sara and the kids lived on Catalpa in Langkawi.
2020 Covid 19 landed us stuck in Malaysia and Lee out of work but thankfully back with Catalpa and family before the world locked down.
August 2020 we left Malaysia to cross the Indian ocean, but we decided not to do the crossing in catalpa and stay in Indonesia.
Back in Indonesia until March 2022 when we sailed back to Australia on board our friends Catamaran Nalukai.
Catalpa II
Catalpa II is a Pearson 530
53 foot fibreglass monohull with a ketch rig. Boat Tour video
We bought her sight unseen when we where back in Australia June 2022. Bella Vita as she was previously called was at a marina in San Diego California.
We flew over with all our belongings and moved on board. She needed quite a lot of work to get her back Bluewater sailing. and that’s exactly what we are doing fixing her for us to continue sailing the world.
Watch our Boat work series to join us in getting her ready to cross oceans.
A big, roomy cruising boat with all the comforts of home. We have, air conditioning, queen size bed, kids both have their own room, two heads with showers and is an excellent up grade for us.
The 530 was meant to be, and is, a performance cruising yacht.
We are currently 27 days off sailing to Mexico join us for our next adventures.
Subscribe to join our travels on Catalpa II
Our Life on the Sea.
Sailing
We were not sailors that dreamt of sailing the world we are ocean lovers that dreamt of travelling by boat to get to remote islands to surf, dive and explore.
Lifestyle
Living on a boat is a lifestyle for us not a holiday this is the life we want to live and how we want to live it!
Mindset
Life on the sea is definitely not a easy way to live there are plenty of challenges…but those hard times are worth the incredible moments we have shared as a family.