SV Delos

Kazza and I are just so excited for you all to meet our Lil' Nugget- Sierra Ebba Trautman, and share in our adventure as we try to figure out the sailing life with a baby on board!!! After 6 months in Sweden we're back on Delos and just so excited for you to meet Sierra :) She was born in Sweden and when she was 4 months old we decided it was time to head back to our floating home. So far It's been an emotional roller coaster with many highs, a few lows, and more than our share of poop stories....

Come on over to our sailboat we have SUPER fast Internet, even in the middle the ocean!!!" Is something I never thought I would say. But here we are in a brave new world with satellites zooming overhead beaming internet down from space. And now we're literally catching these space beams with a very fancy, very shiny computer controlled gimbaled bit of hardware and using it to stay connected and work remotely. Both at sea and in the far corners of the globe! In this video we'll show how we installed and configured the components and system to work on SV Delos :) So how did this all come about? Well like most good ideas it involved a few beers.... At the Southampton boat show I met a very cool guy named Bill. It turns out Bill is a sailor and watches our videos. It also turns out that Bill leads a team at Viasat Maritime. After quite a few scheming sessions we figured out a system that could deliver high speed broadband internet to a sailboat the size of Delos. In fact Bills major concern was how would having this type of internet all the time affect life on board? Knowing we cherish our offline time at sea. My answer- well it does have an off switch right?!? ????So we began a pilot project with Viasat to prove the concept, which will lead to affordable systems for sailors and those wanting to untether themselves work as true digital nomads wherever you find yourself. Right now these systems are still in their trial phase, however If you'd like to learn more about the technology and what's available you can visit maritime.viasat.com or contact them directly at sales@maritime.viasat.com . After installing the new internet super dome Brady and Alex begin their adventures off Delos in the snowy mountains of California for a season of Snowboarding!

Imagine that you live on a sailboat, work on a sailboat, and travel on a sailboat. Then you have a baby.... We were extremely nervous setting out on our first sail with The Nugget. How would she react? Would she like it or would it be a total disaster? Do we need to rethink our lifestyle and future plans? Well there's only one way to find out! With clear skies and what they call "reinforced trades" blowing 25-30 knots we set out straight into it tacking and beating into the swells. It was one hell of a bumpy ride.....

n this episode we discover the ups and downs of living on Delos with just the three of us. There are some things that are much harder, and other things that are easier...... After a heartfelt talk from Kazza about the videos and a special omelette breakfast surprise we decide to tackle a project of installing some more solar panels. In a previous episode we removed a solar panel to install our new Viasat Internet, so to replace the lost capacity we decided to work with https://sunpoweredyachts.com to install 780W of flexible solar panels on Delos.

After three weeks all we have left in our fridge is two apples and a pack of beets. We decide it's time to leave our hideout and sail around the corner of the island so we can provision the boat properly. Our time at anchor getting used to life onboard with Sierra has been fantastic, but it's time to get a move on and start our sailing for the season! After heading into the beach one last time and fixing the broken dinghy engine we set sail and provision Delos with enough food and supplies to last us another month. It's time to start sailing west!

Our first overnight sail with The Little Nugget! We've sailed a lot of miles on Delos in all sorts of conditions ranging from flat calm to storm force winds. But now with only two people and a baby onboard we need to learn to sail differently. We need to find a way to keep watch, get some rest, prepare food, and of course take care of Sierra all at the same time! After a middle of the night departure we find some wind, unfurl the sails, and set out West for a few hundred miles of downwind sailing.

Sometimes sailing just 30 miles out of the way can lead to a completely new, unexpected experience. After receiving a message from one of our Delos tribe members we decide to sail a bit off the beaten path, to the island of St Croix. We’d only met a handful of boats that had made the trip. But those that had spoke of great diving, organic farms, and quant little towns. And strait away this little island surprised us with friendly locals, excellent scuba diving, delicious food, and great sailing!

Conditions change fast out here and it's not always blue skies and bikini weather. How can an idyllic anchorage turn into a hell hole of swell and waves in the blink of an eye? Hope you enjoy this video of a not-so-ideal night of our lives. Much Love, Kazza, Brian and little Sierra After a few hours ashore we come back to find our dingy anchor has broken loose and Maggie is washed up on the rocks. After an hour of bailing and tugging during a nasty rain squall we manage to get her afloat and back to Delos. The swell gets worse and Delos is getting hammered by waves. We can hear the roar of the break on the reef off our starboard side. It's so loud it wakes us up and we regret putting ourselves and our house in this precarious position. But it's the middle of the night, and we reason it's actually safer to wait until sunrise before moving to a better spot. Then suddenly we are woken up by a loud BANG!! Our stern anchor line has snapped, putting us broadside to the swell...

Have you ever wondered what the steps are for getting a catamaran off a reef? In this episode Brian helps our neighbors @tgt_sailing after they run aground negotiating a tricky harbor entrance. We also dig into some boat projects and fire up the new solar panels, and I cook up some super delicious banana pancakes :D

How do you shop for 3 months of OFF THE GRID living on a sailboat? In this episode we find ourselves in the port of San Juan, Puerto Rico preparing to set sail to some very remote islands. Knowing it will be months before we can get supplies again we decide to do a huge provisioning run and fill Delos with enough food for 2 adults + 1 baby for 90 days which is 540 servings plus snacks, drinks, and other necessities like toilet paper! The food in itself is a crazy mission, and if you add in other necessities to keep Delos ship shape like fuel, oil, filters, and other boat projects we have in progress it can get out of control in a hurry. Hope you enjoy the video, and sending you lot's of love from us currently enjoying our 85th day out here in isolation! Capt. Breeyawn, Kazza, and The Little Nugget

Day 1 at Sea! It's time to put civilization behind us and some miles under the keel! Our destination is the Ragged Islands, Bahamas some 600NM west of our current position. This passage is the culmination of months of planning and dreaming and we're as nervous as we are excited about getting underway. We pull up the hook, set full sail, and watch Puerto Rico slip over the horizon, all while feeling a bit nervous as this will be our longest passage so far. It's juist Brian and I handling the watches, the cooking and the sail changes by ourselves all while taking care of Sierra at the same time. But sailors must sail and now it's time to get underway!

Day 2 at sea! What's a day in our lives like offshore sailing? In this episode we show you our daily routine, including the dull and exciting things that happen in a single 24 HOUR PERIOD on a small sailboat at sea. We get a call from a boat next to us asking for help, we do a bunch of sail changes, and Brian decides to attempt to wash dirty baby diapers while Delos is rolling around in the swell.

Day 4 at Sea! Brian Is it easier or harder than you though sailing with a 6 month baby? - “Well we’re still alive and no one is going crazy, so I guess easier” :p After 3 days averaging 4 hours of sleep a night I was definitely starting to feel like I needed a solid NAP. Delos was making great speed flying along at 11 knots from time to time surfing down waves when we spotted the outline of an island just after sunrise. After a pit stop at the Island of Great Inagua to clear Bahamas immigration and customs we continue for another 24 hour sprint to arrive in the isolated Ragged Islands. Oh I was just soooo happy to set the hook in crystal clear water right next to a beautiful white sand beach!!

Catch and Cook Lobster from our sailboat! Join us as the days stretch into weeks, and the weeks into months as we document our isolation in paradise. With months of supplies aboard we begin our exploration of the Ragged Islands, an uninhabited island paradise located in the very southern portion of the Bahamas. It's the perfect place to be for us as we're set up to make our own power and water and best of all I'm able to support our family by fishing only a few hours a week!

Are you ready for some spear fishing, catch and cook action from the largest swimming pool on earth?!? We wake up to find Delos anchored in perfect calm conditions and decide to take our dinghy Maggie around to the normally rough and windy side of the island to go food shopping for the week. This is our version of the supermarket, but WAY WAY more fun! Within a few hours of spear fishing I have enough lobster, conch, and fish for our little family to last for days. We proceed to go on a sea food eating extravaganza dreaming up delicious catch and cook recipes that delight our taste buds. It's not all fun and games though as in the middle of the night a sudden wind shift puts Delos on a lee shore and we find our selves bashing the keel against the bottom. A middle of the night move your house drill is required to get us back to deeper water and safety!

What do you do stuck onboard for 5 days as your house is beaten by the wind and waves? As sailors we live and die by the weather. Every morning wake up, make some coffee, then check the weather. Sometimes the forecast is nice and we can stay put, but sometimes we gotta move our house to somewhere with better protection. In this episode we decide to move Delos to a new island to seek better protection. We have a fantastic sail set the hook, and begin exploring the amazing uninhabited island of Buena Vista in the remote Ragged Islands of the Bahamas. Soon the wind starts to kick up and we get pinned onboard for 5 days of terrible wind and weather!

Welcome to one of the most spectacular places on earth! After weeks spent in isolation and craving the company of fellow sailors we decide to sail to an island rumored to have a yacht club built by locals and cruisers on a remote, desolate island. After dodging the weekly cold front bringing northerly winds we arrive to find a random mix of cruisers anchored in front of an idyllic beach on a deserted island! We immediately set out on a fishing mission to bring home dinner for a BBQ we were invited to and have great luck but decide to BBQ something else entirely..... At this point you might be wondering what is the most exotic yacht club in the world? Well you'll just have to wait until we show it to you :).

Can we make MOONSHINE and still live off solar power? Join us for a typical day of our self isolation on our 53 foot sailboat home! It just so happens to be our 56th day of being away from civilization in this uninhabited island paradise. We wake up, do some normal stuff like eat and all that, but then Brian decides to use our excess solar power by brewing up a batch of moonshine. He also wires up our power inverter so we can run the laundry off the solar and batteries and save even more diesel fuel. After our daily chores are done I head into the island for a walk and Brian goes spear fishing to catch us some dinner, which turns out to be a conch and grouper chowder. YUMMY!!! Life is simple but good out here for our little family.

What to do when all the liquor stores in the Bahamas are CLOSED until further notice? Lucky for us we just happen to have 2 stills onboard! Brian gets right on it and starts brewing alcohol for the whole anchorage. We also navigate the rules and regulations for the pandemic and create a social bubble of isolated sailors. And in the mist of all this craziness we celebrate Brians birthday on a gluttonous day with good food, foil boarding and fires on the beach with new found friends.

Delos, Delos this is the US COAST GUARD on 16 OVER! It’s not every morning you hear the US Coastguard calling you on the radio, then doing a close fly-by when you're anchored in the middle of no where. I definitely felt nervous as Brian answered the VHF call. We’re anchored in an incredible spot and with 0kn of wind its like our house is floating in a swimming pool. Brian heads out to catch some dinner before diving head first into some boat work that involves drilling a pretty big hole in the side of the boat :)

Our food is running low and the Bahamas is on lock down, but we have a plan... We begin our 59th day of isolation with an absolutely amazing sail flying both spinnakers as we move to a new uninhabited island. Running low on food Brian goes spearfishing but we're nearly out of fresh food for Sierra so after a week of preparation and planning we cross our fingers that the Mailboat arriving to a nearby island will have some food boxes with our name on it. I like how Brian summed up the day - “Most exhausting but single coolest grocery shopping I’ve ever done.”

I can't think of a worse thing to happen right now, just as we got all of this fresh food. And now it's all going bad. ???? Things were going so well... Then the drama begins when stuff starts to break. Just after getting stocked up with fresh food both our freezers decide to stop working and all our hard won food starts to rot in the tropical heat. Luckily we live in the best neighborhood EVER and our fellow sailors come to the rescue with repair skills and supplies. Our little sailing community comes together for a full day of moonshining on the beach, old school style with a pot still powered by beach driftwood!

Things are starting to get strange... We resort to the old bartering system trading haircuts for laundry and labor for dinners. Some members of the Two Titty Yacht Club are getting creative and organize a full on monster mash challenge for the group! I love the way Brian described this time- “Its quite unlike anything I’ve ever experienced” Hope your having a great day! Sending many virtual hugs from us :D If you like the video please subscribe would make my day.

We decide to fill our scuba tanks and take the TTYC members for a scuba dive to check out some local sharks in the area! We return to find the anchorage is being circled by a mysterious plane which we later make contact with... The weather is absolutely amazing and I take time for a little kiteboard session. We then setup the Yacht Club for a massive birthday celebration for our friend Andy and party the night away! Hope you all are having a spectacular weekend- Sending much love and hope you are all safe and healthy.

A call on the VHF from a local Bahamian family out fishing springs us into action! We get so much help and kindness from people in the places we visit, when we can help them out it's our way of saying Thank You So Much. The weather is changing and it's time to get a move on! We leave our beloved spot at the TTYC and seek shelter at Buena Vista Island for the night, only to spot some strange flashing lights in the sky. Is it a UFO or merely an atmospheric phenomena? We hope someone knows more than we do! After an awesome sail to Hog Cay we are in the middle of cooking Pigs In A Blanket for a party when we get an EMERGENCY CALL on the VHF. A local family was out fishing and their daughter cut herself pretty badly after falling on a conch shell. Since we have a huge medical kit onboard we got in touch over the VHF and organized for them to tie up to Delos so we could render care.

Crystal clear water, unexplored beaches, spearfishing, an outdoor movie theater, and even tricky boat projects- this amazing edit by Kazza has it all! Imagine waking up and wandering outside your house to find the most incredibly calm and beautiful view you could imagine. We're floating in a sea of crystal clear glass! What a special way to wake up and start the day :). After spearfishing for some dinner and exploring a new beach we take advantage of the zero knots of wind and set up a full on movie theater at the beach and watch the legendary “Captain Ron”- a must see if you haven’t already. And if you’re interested in boat projects Brian troubleshoots our batteries and spends a few days in the sweltering heat on the heater install.

On our 100th day in isolation Kazza creates a "Honey-Do" list for Capt. Breeyawn! It's time to get our butts in gear and prepare Delos for her escape. We feel blessed to have spent so much time with such amazing people, but the time has come and we need to leave before we're caught between a hurricane and a pandemic. Before we all set sail our lovely friends Conor and Steph decide to get married! The entire group pitches in with their own special contribution to put together a beach wedding in our uninhabited little paradise. This is a real heart-felt edit and many tears were shed in the process.

Surfing down crazy waves, hitting the bottom, and navigating through unlit Islands at night! Ahoy Delos tribe! Hope you all are ready to kick back a bit for the weekend :) We hope this video helps you get off to a great start. It's bitter sweet but ultimately we decide it's safer to sail back to the US then stay in the Bahamas. So we set sail on our longest passage to date with the Little Nugget onboard. It's the beginning of a 1,000 NM sail taking us from the very southern tip of the Bahamas to Annapolis, Maryland. The hurricane season is fast approaching and we're forced to leave our beloved spot in the Bahamas. After 4 months of lazy anchorage life we feel a little rusty doing a longer sail but need to get in the swing of things quickly as we find ourselves surfing down ocean swells trying to sail through a cut between two islands. It's so exciting to be sailing again :D

Sailing on the open ocean for days! Wanna know what it's really like? This episode is for you :) It all starts off with amazing conditions, flying our beautiful spinnaker and the girls showering on deck. The crew is happy and energized. But as the conditions change so does our mood. After lack of sleep everyone is feeling super tired, not making it easier as the conditions get worse and we do something Brian has promised himself never to do again. Beating, Beating, and more beating our brains out trying to sail upwind in the ocean waves.

Beating our brains out sailing into 35 knot winds while getting pounded by BIG waves and never ending squalls.... This video definitely shows the less glamorous part of our lifestyle! Brian described it pretty well - “I don’t think any of us wish we where here right now.” Not only was our sanity put on test but Delos took quite a beating too. With constant wind shifts we rip our sail and the bow starts filling up with bucketloads of salt water every wave we hit!! NOT IDEAL! It was a scary tiring couple of days but we made it through and get a very warm welcome into the USA.

If you like BOAT WORK this video is for you :). We haul Delos out of the water for some well needed maintenance! Brian dives head first into what feels like a million projects... Sanding, painting, patching blisters in the keel, fixing a corroded through hull, servicing the prop and bow thruster just to mention a few. I’ve always admired Brian’s incredible work ethic and the way he can pretty much fix anything AKA “McGyver” :)