Escaping lockdown on a catamaran - Episode 10

Whilst in lockdown in Santa Marta we finally got the time to sit down and reflect on where we are financially and how we can keep our sailing dream alive. We've had many setback which have really eaten into our cruising budget, and although a 2.5 month marina fee was one of them it allowed us to set in motion all the ideas we have, which may allow us to start bringing in an income. Time to get our YouTube Channel up and running: We wanted to start this channel as it’s a great way to document our trip to look back on in the future as well as share our experiences with friends and family and others who we may inspire to do the same and follow their dreams. We never realised how much work goes into video editing and production as well as story planning and construction. To say we have learnt heaps is an understatement! We spent weeks (seriously) learning video editing software, trawling for music, recording voice overs, watching and learning from our favourite channels and generally discussing how we wanted our videos to turn out. Content: We want to show the good, bad and ugly of our journey. Throughout making these videos we’ve been saying “I wish we had recorded the time we got caught in a fishing net”, or “we really should have had the camera running when we were sailing through that massive storm”. These are all instances when your first thoughts are not to grab the camera, for a number or reasons! But they are all part of our story. We don’t want to just show you the beautiful views, and places, we want you to have the full experience, be it fun, scary or frustrating. Equipment: This is another area we have fallen short. When we were budgeting for this trip, camera equipment was at the bottom of our list as “nice to haves” and sadly as many who own boats know, we are still working our way down the “nice to have list”. In fact I can’t guarantee we will ever get there! There is always something that crops up that needs replacing or fixing before we can splash out for “nice to haves”. At the moment our main cameras are our GoPro and iPhones. With equipment comes quality. There are been so many great clips which we have had to discard as the lighting wasn’t quiet right or the sound was terrible. Being on a boat we are almost always in the wind, which creates its own problems when trying to speak into the camera, or trying to edit. Music: We have spent hours trawling for good music. Music really does bring a video to life and gives it a personality. YouTube is so fussy these days that even when you purchase music you need to be 100% sure you can use it on YouTube. We’ve learnt this the hard way and have often completed a video only to have to go back to the drawing board as YouTube didn’t like our music choice! We’ve also noticed that in order to have a choice of good, YouTube acceptable music you need to subscribe to music library sites. Which when you are on a very tight cruising budget like ours is not something we took into consideration. Internet: Living on a boat, comes with many ups, but one of the main downs, besides not being able to take a long soaking bath is the lack and cost of internet. We sometimes feel like we are on a permanent quest for internet connection, whether it’s to transfer money to pay bills or just to find out where our next anchorage will be, internet has become very important no matter where you live. We obviously can’t buy an unlimited, super speedy, hard wired connection plan like you do when you live on land. So we have to rely on pay as you go mobile contracts, or coffee shops with WiFi. Finding a pay as you go SIM contract in a country where you don’t speak the language is sometimes challenging! So we try to upload from cafes, or local SIM cards which sometimes have very little data for rather large price tags. Hopefully someday the mobile phone companies will all realise how difficult it is to travel and get good WiFi and come up with an affordable solution. For now we will keep hunting, and perhaps paying when we can’t find, but we will stay connected to get these videos uploaded. In conclusion, the point of all of this is to assure you we are working really hard to improve. We are very proud of what we have managed to put together in such a short space of time. The future of the Sailing Mokara channel is looking super bright, so be sure to grab your shades! Please consider becoming one of our Patreon’s. From as little as £5 per month you could really help us hone our skills, invest in better equipment, create exciting content, find faster internet connections and ultimately produce better videos more often. There are also a whole host of other reasons to become a Patreon, like personal access to budget spreadsheets, behind the scenes footage and real life onboard blogs. https://www.patreon.com/sailingmokara Thank you for following us and we hope you enjoy the rest of the ride.