A couple have spent £62,000 to live out at sea full time – without any sailing experience.
Dianne Swain, 27, and James Toutounji, 35, met while working for a cruise line company.
They started dating after catching up in a bar one evening and within a year had moved in together.
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It wasn’t long before they figured a house wasn’t for them and they started thinking about life on a boat.
“Living in tropical North Queensland with the Great Barrier Reef at our doorstep, we bonded over our love for the ocean,” Dianne, a marketing assistant, and James, a seafarer, both from the Sydney area of Australia, told What’s The Jam.
“However, working full time meant only being able to get out to the reef on weekends if the weather was good.
“We had been feeling a bit ‘meh’ after the dampening effects from covid, burnout from work and the passing of a loved one.
“And it made us yearn for a big change, an adventure to re-ignite our mojo.”
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The couple, who met in 2021, felt it was time for them to “jump into something headfirst” before settling down and thinking about having kids.
Dianne said: “The idea to live on a sailboat was undoubtedly inspired by other young cruisers online.
“We did think of other possibilities for the ‘big change’ but kept circling back to living on a boat.
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“James has a lot of experience in boating, but zero experience with sailing.
“We did consider purchasing a motorboat to live on, but with fuel prices being so expensive, sailing was the more economic option.
“Also it seemed a great opportunity to learn a new skill together.”
So the couple went ahead and, in 2023, found a second-hand sailboat for £46,560 (AU$90,000).
They put around £15,520 (AU$30,000) of work into it, spending a total £62,080 (AU$120,000) all together.
They said: “We removed four skip bins worth of the old owners stuff, he lived on the boat for 17 years and left with only a back pack.
“There’s lots of work we would still like to do and heaps of gadgets, toys and things we want to buy for the boat!
“We need a new sail bag making at some stage and we would really like auto-pilot and wind instruments, bigger, newer solar panels, a new turquoise paint job and a stove top cappuccino maker!”
“But everything is quite expensive and money is tight, so we have to be selective about our upgrades.
The couple set sail in May this year from North Queensland.
Dianne said: “We really did dive in headfirst with no major plan or preparation.
“In hindsight, I wish we had taken some lessons to get a head start on learning beforehand, we just didn’t have time while working so much.
“We did join the local clubs to learn from the community around us and made some friends in Cairns by doing small trips out to the reef to get the hang of it.
“Then we finally took the plunge in a good weather window to leave the mainland for good!
“I wouldn’t say we prepared for what we are going to experience, but we had a solid foundation and an eagerness to continually learn.”
The duo’s biggest challenge has been actually learning to sail.
Dianne said: “The concept of sailing and all the sailing lingo is so foreign!
“We are slowly learning all the names of things, like the ropes that pull the sails up are actually called ‘sheets’.
“When our rigger told us we needed to replace all the sheets it was very confusing!
“Not having a handover from the boat’s previous owner was also a challenge.
“Each boat is unique and if we had that it would have saved us a lot of trial and error work.”
However, the couple love their new life and say it has brought them closer together.
She said: “It’s an exciting time in our lives, being a newly engaged couple on an adventure of a lifetime.”
The couple are recording their journey as they go.
Dianne added: “We are learning so much about ourselves and each other on this journey.
“It’s also important to find time to do our own thing each day, otherwise we can get a bit agitated!
“But we’re learning how to work as a team and get into routines for how we sail together.”
