Ryan and Sophie are a couple in their mid-thirties who quit their start-up jobs in 2017 after nearly ten years of careers that left them dissatisfied. They departed from their home port of Stockholm, Sweden, in 2018 to pursue a life of adventures at sea, sailing around the world in a 40-foot sailboat. They have sailed 25,000 nautical miles from Sweden to the Mediterranean and three times across the Atlantic. They both work full-time, Ryan as the chairman of the board of a lithium battery company and Sophie as a content creator for their YouTube channel Ryan and Sophie Sailing.

Erin: Your channel is known for the fact that you share the real and sometimes raw side of the cruising lifestyle. Why is it important to you to remain this way?

Sophie: Ryan and I got started in the sailing life the way that many of us do these days — by proxy, on YouTube. The year was 2015, and the videos that we watched at the time made the “sailing life” look easy and fun. But even back then, I knew that there was no way living on a boat would be the perpetual vacation that it seemed to be. 

Fast forward seven years, we have learned to sail, bought the boat, quit our jobs, left the dock, sailed 25,000 nautical miles, and crossed the Atlantic Ocean three times, among many other adventures. Now, we know for sure that sailing the world as a lifestyle isn’t an eternal vacation, and if anything, it isn’t for the faint of heart!

But if we look back even further, I grew up in the 90s at a time where what you were supposed to “look like” and “be like” was vastly influenced by magazines like Cosmo or Teen Vogue. Those magazines would mostly promote the idea that you needed to be thin and wear a $10,000 wardrobe in order to be “cool”. You’d get articles like “lose 5kg before the summer!” or “look at that celebrity at the beach who is fat just like you” which was meant to be relatable but was incredibly degrading for everyone involved. This completely skewed my image of what I should aspire to and made me feel vastly inadequate. No one should ever feel this way! 

These days, while virtually everyone can create their own media, I see the phenomenon of the “unachievable” image of what life should be perpetuated on Instagram and even YouTube, and I refuse to engage in that practice. While it is healthy to have dreams and aspirations, life is perfect for nobody. We all struggle with something, regardless of the posts we see on Instagram. 

So, I do not want to participate in creating false expectations when it comes to what it’s like to live and travel full-time from a boat, or contribute to the misconception that it’s “easy”. Living and travelling from a sailboat can be physically, emotionally, and financially taxing sometimes, and everyone is better off knowing what they are getting themselves into right off the bat.

Yes, there will be cocktails and unforgettable parties, but also some unforgettable moments of disarray along the way. 

Erin: You’ve been very open about the fact that both you and Ryan suffer from depression and anxiety. How has the cruising lifestyle helped/hindered this?

Sophie: Let me start by saying that if living and traveling from a sailboat around the world was a foolproof cure for depression, I think that a lot more people would do it. 

I was first diagnosed with depression in 2012 after a burnout at work and I was only 26 years old. Looking back, I had probably been living with chronic depression my entire life, but at that time, I had to rethink my life choices and priorities. My depression brought along some crippling anxiety, compulsive thoughts, and I even lost some of my cognitive abilities. It was a very scary time, and it wasn’t granted that I would come out the other side alive. I rebuilt myself little by little with the help of therapy and lots of physical exercise. 

Today, I have recovered, and I am fully functioning, but I learned that I will probably never get rid of my chronic depression, and I still experience episodes on occasion. Because sadly, depression does not care how incredible your life is. I have had episodes while sitting on our boat in what looked like absolute paradise. But I have learned to monitor myself, and my early signs of potential relapse, closely and for the most part, I keep it under control. 

The bad news is that sailing as a lifestyle can make it more difficult to deal with mental health issues. You are often isolated from friends and family (if you do not make an effort to maintain those relationships and organize visits), access to therapy can be hard if you sail in remote places, and physical exercise on a sailboat is notoriously harder to achieve than on land. 

The good news is that when you have learned to monitor and manage episodes, it is much easier to deal with them from a boat than having to go to work in the morning and deal with people you wouldn’t normally choose to spend that much time with. 

So, I wouldn’t say that boat life helps or hinders recovery from mental health issues more or less than any other lifestyle. What really makes a difference is the act of living with intention, because hopefully, in the process of re-inventing our life, you stop feeling like you have to endure your circumstances and create make room for dealing with anxiety or depression. When you start living with intention and create purpose, it is much “less stressful” to live and deal with episodes of anxiety or depression. I don’t want to say “easier” because it is never easy, but at least you can give yourself the space you need to recover. 

For me, it was choosing to live and travel on a boat. For someone else, it may look like changing jobs, or starting an activity that allows more flexibility. 

Erin: As a YouTube creator, how do you handle the constant pressure to be ‘on’ and to feed the beast that is YouTube?

Sophie: In order to be a successful YouTuber, consistency is key. Viewers expect their favourite new content to drop on a certain day, and that lack of consistency can hurt viewer loyalty. 

But I have taken the stance to never sacrifice my health or stress myself with it. If I am not ready to publish on a certain day, then I won’t. It can still bring feelings of inadequacy sometimes, but I have to remind myself that nothing is worth making yourself sick, and stress is a form of sickness. 

Sometimes, I feel very passionate about a certain video or piece of content, and I will be spending hours late at night and early in the morning to bring my vision to life, but some other times I have to prioritize my sanity! 

Erin: You’re a huge advocate for encouraging people to try the cruising lifestyle for themselves. What do you love so much about living on a boat? 

Sophie: I think that first and foremost, living and traveling the world on a sailboat is an incredible way of exploring and learning about the world that we live in. When we lived on land and traveled internationally as tourists, we would mostly limit ourselves to destinations easily accessible by plane, because our time and financial resources limited us to those places. 

On a boat, exploration is virtually limitless. You get access to places where international tourism barely exists, such as the little bays of Galicia in Northern Spain, or the Azores. We get to live like locals wherever we go, because we have the same needs as everyone else: buying groceries, going to the hardware store, sometimes going to the local doctor or hairdresser. 

Instead of living in a bubble for a week of vacation, we blend in with the locals and make friends literally all over the world. We are also not limited in time and often wander from small village to small village along the coast. It is a very rich way of living life.

I remember when we were cruising the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, where tourists from all over Europe come to spend their vacation, I told myself, “Man, those people had to choose which one of the Balearic islands they would spend their vacations at, whereas we have seen all of them within a month.”

Erin: If people wanted to follow in your and Ryan’s footsteps, what could they do to learn all they could about living on a boat? 

Sophie: I have spent half of my time since October writing and filming a course about how to get started in the sailing life, and we have identified six pillars on which to build a foundation in order to get into the sailing life. 

The first one is learning to sail and develop seamanship. If you are going to live and travel from a sailboat, being skilled in the art of sailing and seamanship is 101. 

The second is destination research and passage planning, which includes knowing how to get to where you go from a navigational and administrative standpoint as well as understanding the weather and creating a passage plan. 

The third pillar is choosing and equipping your boat according to your sailing and cruising ambitions. You can sail anywhere on any boat, but you need to be aware of what you are getting yourself into and how to make your life a bit more comfortable (we personally believe that the more comfortable you are on board, the more likely you are to continue this lifestyle!). 

And talking about comfort, the fourth pillar is budgeting. Here again, knowing what you are getting yourself into financially will help you make better decisions and sustain this lifestyle. There is a misconception that you need to be rich to sail the world. You truly do not have to be rich, but you do have to be informed! 

The fifth pillar is crew readiness. Another common mistake that we see some people make when they plan their sailing adventure is to plan their boat and finances very carefully, but in their excitement, forget to include their partner in the decision-making or have them involved in the preparations at all. Having an engaged crew is key to a successful, happy, and sustainable adventure. 

And finally, the sixth pillar is about enjoying the lifestyle! There are as many ways to sail the world as there are sailors out there, and no “right” or “wrong” way to do it. It is all about creating YOUR dream sailing life, which starts with a few reality checks about what it can look like sometimes. 

But if you have those six pillars in mind as you get into the preparations of your sailing adventures, you will be ahead of the game. 

Erin: Do you think YouTubers in general are portraying an honest depiction of the liveaboard lifestyle? Where could they improve? 

Sophie: I think that we have seen a lot of improvement in the last five years. With more and more sailors taking to YouTube to tell the tales of their adventures, I think that 2022 sailing YouTube portrays a much more realistic view of what living and traveling on a boat looks like. 

In 2018 when we got started, we would get plenty of negative comments when we would document the harder sides of transitioning to a life on the water, but these days it’s a lot quieter (but then again, maybe it is because I am ruthless when it comes to blocking the trolls). 

I love what sailing YouTubers as a whole do these days. There is such a variety of channels representing all aspects of what the sailing life can be, you can always find someone to relate to. 

I wish we saw more women skippers and also more diversity, but that is how the world of sailing looks like in general, not only on YouTube. It is still a very white and male dominated world. 

Erin: What are your plans for the future aboard Polar Seal?

Sophie: In October on 2022, Polar Seal, myself and Ryan will finally be reunited on the East Coast of the United States after an almost four years long and grueling battle with US immigration, and we cannot wait to close that chapter and put it behind us. 

The first thing we will do when we arrive is to pick up our new boat dog, whom we had been dreaming of getting in years. At the time of writing, she is three weeks old, her name is Barnacle, and she is already a celebrity among our friends, families, and close followers. 

In 2023, we will be sailing through the US canals up to the Great Lakes and will do a “mini North American loop” out of the Saint Lawrence. It will be the perfect grounds to train our boat puppy before we take on the Pacific.

But then again, if there is one thing we know for sure, it is that sailing plans are written in the sand at low tide, so who knows where we will be a year from now! 

Erin Carey lives aboard her Moody 47 with her husband and three sons. After two glorious years in the Caribbean, the family crossed the Atlantic Ocean and are currently sailing the Mediterranean. Erin is the founder of Roam Generation, a PR agency for travel, leisure and luxury brands. Roam Generation is the only PR agency in the world run from a yacht!

Links:

www.roamgeneration.com (Erin Carey)

www.ryanandsophie.com   (Sophie Darsy)