Encircled by ice, we face the risk being crushed if we don't keep the water flowing around our boat. In this episode, we're awoken in the middle of the night when the ice floe breaks apart, sending ice surging into our boat, crushing up against our hull. Exhaust fumes seep into the boat, creating carbon monoxide risks. And we build a skating rink on the lake and play some hockey, just steps from our boat.

With awful sudden news, we leave Northern Reach in Toronto and head to the island paradise of Barbados to spend time with family over the holidays. We go deep sea fishing with Talia's brother, James, and his father-in-law Graham on his completely rebuilt boat "Blue Marlin". Spoiler alert: we catch over 100lbs of KINGFISH (AKA WAHOO)!! We smoke our catch and ring in the New Year, or Old Years Night as we call it in Barbados, at a beach bonfire roasting breadfruits and soaking up some salty air. No content in this video is sponsored, but we did want to shout out our awesome friends and family with businesses worth supporting on the island: @fishinginbarbados www.actioncharters.org @barbadosrumcakes www.barbadosrumcakes.com @sealaviebarbados www.sealaviebarbados.com

In this episode, we tackle the top 3 questions we've been asked about how spending a Canadian winter on a boat is possible in below freezing conditions. How do you get fresh water aboard, and can you shower and cook? How do you keep ice and snow off the deck and from crushing your hull? How do you heat your boat in the winter? We'll explain how we chose to deal with elements, some other options you might consider and how its different from living a normal life on shore. Bundle up, because it's only getting colder....

In this episode of Towards the Adventure, we're not quite done wrapping our sailboat for the winter when a 2 day storm hits us. Winds over 140kph/80mph shake our boat and have us rolling heavily while tied to the dock. Things fall over, and we're on edge as the storm intensifies. While other boats are being tipped off their cradles, we work furiously to patch holes in our cover in the middle of the worst storm to hit in over 40 years.

In this episode of Towards the Adventure, our crew spends 20 hours putting shrink wrap on our boat, as we await a winter storm. The winds pick up earlier than expected, and we end up putting a hole in the boat's shrink-wrap. Our tiny home on the water will stay warm this winter with the greenhouse that we build on top. We finish installing the front door, using our shrinkfast heat gun to heat and shrink the plastic, and make sure everything is tight and secure.

Still working on last week's TO-DO list, as it goes: boat work never ends. Then we figure out how to build a frame to shrink-wrap your boat for the winter... We try to piece together the previous owner's frame and adjust it since we're leaving the WHOLE RIG UP! If COVID restrictions stay in place when the ice melts, we'll be ready to sail and not have to wait for boatyards or marinas to open:) And, of course, our wind generator brake is broken, so we have to tie it off so it doesn't make noise all winter long...SO Michel must climb the mizzen mast! Or actually, Talia must winch him up the mast! And the grand finale, Michel does another song, this time ridiculously long, but still as hilarious for the outro- Enjoy:) Instagram: @svnorthernreach Facebook: www.facebook.com/towardstheadventure

Instagram: @svnorthernreach Facebook.com/towardstheadventure We sold everything and moved onto a boat. Now it’s time to start getting Northern Reach, our 1983 Whitby 42, ready for our winter life aboard on at Port Credit Harbour Marina on Lake Ontario. High winds makes us question our choice to sell everything and move aboard. But thé to-do list awaits, so after the storm we get to it! We remove the Espar D5 Diesel furnace and send it in for servicing. While moving to our winter slip, BOAT FAIL!, Talia almost hits a another boat, well, 2 boats actually. We've still got a long way to go maneuvering this beast in tight quarters. We remove our vintage, err, discontinued, 37 year old marine head in preparation for our luxurious Jabsco Quiet Flush electric head along with trying to tackle an ambitious TO DO list! Yacht maintenance in frigid locations. The adventure continues.

WE FINALLY GET ALL 4 SAILS UP on our Whitby 42 Ketch. We also manage to CRASH a drone into the lake where it sinks to the bottom with all of our HD footage. If you're curious about flying drones off boats, this is a great what 'NOT TO DO'. We continue settling into our new liveaboard home, we try our hand at baking aboard with our 37 year old oven- spoiler alert: it doesn't go well...and Michel and I have a battle of who can decorate the best muffins. We sail west in Lake Ontario to our winter port in Port Credit, Mississauga, Ontario where we'll battle the depths of ice, snow and wind until the spring. Wish us luck!

We're not ALL-IN sort of people... we didn't quit our jobs, and drop everything to sail around the world, and we weren't prepared to take on a full-time "bring it back to life" sailboat. However, we were prepared to move and live aboard a boat while doing some work on it. "What we wanted was a boat with projects, not a project boat", said Michel in Ep.0: An introduction to us....and after a week aboard SV Northern Reach, a 1983 Whitby 42, we find our list of boat TO-DO's is growing at quite the rate! We discover that our club (National Yacht Club) has a boat owner's dream workshop!!! Sanders, grinders, planers, routers, drill press, band saw, table saw, and a bunch of other tools we cannot name. With Michel working long hours at work and COVID keeping Talia's pilot schedule light, she takes the reins on a few projects and learns that a mitre saw plugged in is MUCH more powerful than the 20V saw she's used to. Typical of boat projects, each project is taking more time and patience than expected, and with each project more is discovered in the under belly of this seemingly beautiful sailboat. In fact there are so many projects that Part 2 may be in order- this is just the beginning!

Follow us, Talia and Michel, as we navigate our first few days aboard our new home: a 1983 Whitby 42 sailboat. We go on our first adventure with the new boat: a quick Toronto Island getaway, launch the Genoa for the first time, and fuel up for the impending winter aboard. Talia, an airline pilot, flies off to Tel Aviv, Israel and gives us a glimpse of the Tel Aviv Marina. In the meantime, in Toronto, Michel discovers that their old home (which he's still using as an office) is being torn apart. The cherry on top: boat projects begin to pile up, and is now the only place we can call home.

We finally buy our boat, move aboard and sail away! We spill some champagne, and sail through some storm conditions in 30kts and 5-6 foot waves to move SV Northern Reach down one of Canada’s Great Lakes. It's amateur hour when we fill our boat with smoke - looks like we're in for a steep learning curve with this one!!

What a busy time! Which is why we decided to a break from packing up the house- to go surfing! Surfing near Toronto on Lake Ontario. That's right.....lake surfing....which is why we built a, very amateur animation, tutorial on the weather conditions that bring us waves on the lakes. As usual, we're making mistakes and hopefully learning from them:) Hope you enjoy!

Selling everything we own to move aboard a boat, and make the transition from typical Toronto row house dwellers, to full-time liveaboards, right before winter in Ontario, Canada. Downsizing by 75%. Follow us as we sell our stuff, we sell our first boat and get ready to move aboard our 1983 Whitby 42 sailboat.

Welcome to our very first video! We thought it'd be nice to tell you a little bit about who we are and how we got to this point. And what a trip down memory lane it was to make this video: over the last 6 years we've been to over 20 countries on all sorts of adventures. It starts with how we met and discovered our shared passion for sailing, goes onto us buying our first boat, and then gets into what led us to sell everything, give up our house, and move onto a boat... right before winter near Toronto, Canada. So, join us as we head Towards the Adventure!