sv evi

Tomu (12)

For Tomu’s reflection this year, he is using part of his autobiography that he wrote in June 2026 for home school.

8 things I love:

1. Eating fruit
2. Folding paper
3. Living on a boat
4. Logic books and puzzles
5. Playing games, especially board games
6. Reading, specifically fantasy and sci-fi
7. Rubics cubes and yo-yo-ing
8. Running around

I live on a fourteen-meter-long sailboat with a gigantic wheel. Our boat is a white monohull with a blue boot stripe. My room has bunk beds and a door of polished brown wood with metal hinges and screws. I have a fan in my bed because it is always hot in the tropics. The top bunk bed is filled with stuff unless my grandma is visiting us. Our surroundings are always changing; so far we have visited New Zealand, Fiji, Vanuatu, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Brunei with our boat. Right now we are in Brunei, in SE Asia. We have lived on our boat for three years so far. Sometimes we stay in marinas, and other times we anchor out. Usually we anchor out. 

We bought our sailboat in Opua Marina, which is in the Bay of Islands, in the north of the North Island of New Zealand. My two sisters and I attended Paihia School. Paihia School was super fun. The school community was interactive and welcoming. Our parents helped with the parade. Paihia School had three playgrounds, one for every two classes. Paihia is a small town. We especially loved the library and the ice cream shop. Often we came to school by dinghy, and took the ferry without our parents to get home to our boat. I took some excellent photos of harakeke. The Bay of Islands was a perfect place to live on a boat because every weekend we could sail a few hours and be at a different island. We saw dolphins almost every week, and once we saw a mama and baby Orca.

Living on a boat is extremely fun, and I like making new friends about twice every two months or so. I also enjoy dinghying to the beaches that are all around most islands. Jade, Luz, and I love building sand castles and shell shops, where we trade shells. Another perk of living on a boat is that I have a lot of time to read. Reading is my favorite pastime! I read on my Kindle. I take it everywhere with me because you never know when you will have a spare minute to read. I love reading so much that I even read while walking!

My three main loves in life are reading, playing games, and eating fruit. I read fantasy books, especially those set in medieval times. I read approximately four to five hours a day. I love to play strategic board games like Terraforming Mars. I recently learned about board game cafes. A board game cafe is a place where you can pay to play board games, usually by the hour, and they have many games you can choose from. They also serve drinks, and sometimes food. Now when we go to a new city, I check to see if there is a board game cafe. My favorite fruits are apples, oranges, mangos, grapefruit, passionfruit, and mangosteens. I don’t like durian, starfruit, or rose apples. I eat more fruit than I eat other food on a daily basis.

I would say that I am a kind, easy-going, and helpful person. I can relate to kids of all ages. I say thank you and please all the time. After I eat in a restaurant, I push my chair in. On the boat, I help my papa fill the diesel tank from the jugs, and I help my mama set up the shade tarps and stow the food after she provisions. 

I usually wake up around 9-11 am. Next, I eat breakfast of milk and granola and/or toast with nutella. If we aren’t sailing, I start to do school. In school I have three subjects: Maths, Earth Science, and Language Arts & Literature. I often have an orange or an apple halfway through school. Sometimes, if we are at a marina, we do school in an air-conditioned room. After school I have lunch. I read the rest of the day basically, until midnight or 2 or 3 am. Well, now I have a curfew of midnight, so I only read until midnight. Sometimes I listen to an audiobook, but only if it’s not available as a book. Often we play games or cards as a family in the evenings after dinner. Sometimes we explore the place we are at in the afternoons. Jade and I do weights after dinner and before bed.

Luz (8)

This past year when we first got to Malaysia we met up with a boy named Vetle on SV Escape. We had met him in Vanuatu a year ago! We buddy boated with him up the Malacca Strait. Then we celebrated his birthday in Langkawi at a fun water park. We went to a really fun marina called Rebak with bird feeding, a pool, a lounge, and ping pong. 

Next we went to Thailand and our cousins, uncle, and auntie came to visit us. When they left, our grandma Po Po came to visit us. Then with Po Po we went on a big trip to Vietnam and Cambodia and places around there. We went to a museum where it talked about landmines and people getting blown up. 

But we also went to Angkor Wat, rented bikes, and biked around to different temples. Mama read us a history book about the Vietnam War. 

After Thailand, we sailed back to Langkawi and had my birthday at the same fun waterpark. This time, I went on the two big slides! The first time at Vetle’s birthday I was too scared. My birthday was a joint party with Marin from SV Meercat. There was an orange bunny cake!!!!

We met a kid boat with two twin girls, Nina and Kate. They were six at the time. We buddy boated with them until we finally got to go home to visit. 

The plane ride home was so long — 15 hours! We got to do screens and play this fun video game. But then…we were the only row in the whole plane ride that couldn’t get service, so the tv turned off! When we got there, our friend  Mo picked us up. We stayed at their house for a little bit. We went to the library and played with the Beamo. We also went to the park. Next we went to Port Townsend and stayed there for so long. It was so fun. Then we flew to Santa Fe. Jade and I went to a camp with our cousin Espy where we learned guitar and Espy learned banjo. I wrote a song with my class, Arlo, Ricky, Lucy, and Luna. My song was called Santa Fe Express. Next we went to our family reunion where we rented bikes every day and played a fun family trivia game with the whole family. After family reunion, we went to Third Beach and had Mama’s 50th birthday party!

After home, we went on a plane ride to South Africa to visit our friends Chloe and Finley while Papa and Tomu stayed in the States. On the plane, I found a new game called Ball Defender. We had a long layover in Istanbul, and we went into a deluxe lounge. Mama slept while we watched two movies. It was funny because at the end we had to run to get to our flight. In South Africa we went to a beach with penguins. I was following one penguin, then it went behind a rock, and I went on the other side of the rock, and we scared each other! We walked down the boardwalk to another beach where there were so many penguins! The next day we took a cable car up to Table Mountain. The following day we drove east out of Capetown to an Airbnb where we got to eat chocolate in the hot tub! We got to watch a movie, and there were bunnies in the yard. We went on a game drive and saw rhinos, giraffes, cheetahs, wildebeests, elephants, and Cape Buffalo. We saw 3 of the South African Big 5 Animals. The next day we went to an animal rehabilitation center and saw a leopard, lions, and baby cheetahs. After that, we went to the beach house. We hiked to a lighthouse. Finley and I found a dung beetle and a bone. We saw a super cool blowhole that got us soaking wet. Gisela saw a puff adder snake! Later we went to Addo Elephant National Park. It was cool because we got to drive our own car. Guess how many dung beetles I saw? 49 alive dung beetles! And one was rolling its poop. We saw zebras, a bunch of elephants, kudu, a black-backed jackal, a baboon, lots of warthogs, and a cerval! We got to stick our bodies out the windows, but then a guy told us we weren’t allowed to do that, and he took a picture of us. Jade and Chloe made a whole bunch of friendship bracelets. We said our goodbyes. In the airport while waiting at our gate, Mama went to go get some water, but then came back to get money to buy the water because there were no water fountains. We didn’t realize she was going to leave again, and the line to board the plane started moving. Jade told someone that our mom wasn’t there, but then someone told us they saw her. Phew! On the plane ride we played Ball Defender. We finally got back, home sweet home. Ahhh! 

The End

Jade (10)

Living on a boat is so amazing. I was sad to hear that Tomu wanted to move back home, but spending more time with my friends back home, especially the super duper nice and smart Sterling, will be fun. Lately, I have been in a super helpful mode. For example, I will finish school in an hour, then clean up the salon without being asked, then move on to the bookshelves, my bed, Luz’ bed, or the game drawer, etc.

It’s so nice buddy boating with Nina and Kate for such a long time. At first I wasn’t so sure because they were so shy, but we have really grown close to them. Also, we get to enjoy Koen’s amazing cake on every birthday. Plus, it’s easier to plan birthdays when you can distract someone by having them go over to the other boat. I’m super stoked about my awesome cousin Espy coming to visit.

My reading has really, really, really, really, really improved since the super amazing Chloe gave me a book called The Girl Who Stole an Elephant by Nizrana Farook. I read it a lot while traveling from South Africa back to the boat. Now I read every day, so yay Chloe. I feel much better about reading knowing that I have dyslexia, and that NOBODY EVER TAUGHT ME HOW TO READ. However, it wasn’t Mama’s fault because we left my bilingual school in the USA when I was starting second grade before I learned to read in English, and then when we got to New Zealand, the other kids my age already knew how to read. So I missed a lot of phonics instruction in English, but now we are doing the super easy UFLI curriculum. I really want to get my Spanish back. 😦

Even though I love living on a boat, visiting home was really fun. It reminded me that when we move back home, we are going back to a bunch of friends and family. This summer we had a longer visit than last summer, which was nice because it wasn’t so rushed. We went camping a lot with Mama’s side of the family, and we got to spend a lot of time with our cousins Jasper, Mira, Julian, and Celeste. We also went to Santa Fe to visit our cousins Espy and Willie, and our aunts Susha and Christy. Espy and I liked to play out in their backyard, which is a desert full of trees. We made dinner one night, which was so yummy. It had appetizers, drinks, a main course, and dessert. Later in the summer, I got my ears pierced with my friend Darya, who is nine days older than me. That was nice because it wasn’t scary. I got to play a lot with my best friend Sterling.

The average day for me living on a boat is: wake up, check the time, get out of bed, start listening to an audiobook (usually the 39 Clues) and do some school. Then Mama wakes up, cuts a dragonfruit, and makes breakfast. Then we keep on with school. When I am done and Tomu and Luz are still working, I read my book, brush my hair, and work on some presents for people. Then Luz finishes, and we play Aina Amelia while cleaning. Then Luz reads her book, while I do some art. Afterwards we play with Nina and Kate. Then we eat a delicious dinner, Mami goes to sleep, and we sometimes play a family game without Mami or Luz and I listen to an audiobook and craft while Tomu reads. Then Luz and I go to sleep, leaving Papi to work or do a crossword and Tomu to read until around midnight. Our usual bedtime is between 8:30 and 10:00 pm.

But the usual isn’t usual because Mama likes to schedule lots of trips! Like going to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Going back home to visit. Going to South Africa (but that was kinda my fault). Not to mention the trips she is going to schedule like an excursion with Sanne, Nina, and Kate to the interior of Borneo. And climbing Mount Kinabalu (without us kids). Also, when we have visitors, that interrupts and improves my daily routine.

I really really really want to go back to Indonesia after Japan. I am learning Dutch from Nina and Kate. They like to laugh a lot when we try to say stuff in Dutch. My new favorite words are: bevy, athletic, heroic, amazing, awesome, super, and epic.

We have great plans for the future and farewell.

PS. Mama has perfected the art of making popcorn. 🙂

Countries visited in the past year	High	Low
Malaysia (4 months)	the fun waterpark where we had Luz’ and Vetle’s birthday; Rebak Marina with bird feeding and a pool; learning that we could go to South Africa after all	all the terrible, awful, bad swimming; thinking we couldn’t go to South Africa for two days, and the evil death plant that stung me on a hike and hurt for days.
Thailand (3 months)	climbing around rocky small islands; playing with Vetle; Worty, Justine, Jasper, Mira, and Po Po visiting	sooooo many things breaking and Papa always working; the dinghy getting swamped in the surf, while the kids were alone on the beach not knowing where Mama and Po Po were…but we heroically saved the day
Cambodia (4 days)	Biking around and seeing the cool temples; going to the awesome circus; spending more time with Po Po	Papa leaving to go back to the boat
Laos (10 days)	Learning about rice farming and some more cool temples; Tomu’s excitement about game cafes; the awesome ziplining Gibbon Experience!	Po Po cutting her leg with a scythe, bed bugs, and realizing how many people die from landmines in Laos
Vietnam (2 weeks)	Harvesting cinnamon (which I still have!), picking tea, biking, and more cool temples.	Luz falling on her bike soooo many times
South Africa (10 days)	Chloe!! and seeing all the amazing animals with Chloe.	Saying goodbye to Chloe at the end of the trip
Indonesia, again (2 weeks)	Being back in the clear swimming water of Indonesia; making bakeries and shell shops with Nina and Kate	Leaving Indonesia plus the terrible hike where everybody said we weren’t lost but nobody knew where to go, and there was red biting ants.
Brunei (6 days)	playing soccer with Nebo at the yacht club, and Sanne’s birthday which includes the river boat tour; learning the word ‘bevy’ which is so fun to say	When we went to check in, they had no more forms so we had to check in the next day, and Mama was annoyed.

THE END FOR NOW!

Hannah (50)

I am sitting at the table in our salon (living room). I have the portable fan blowing on my face, and it is 4 pm on a Tuesday. Tomu is reading in the cockpit, while Jade and Luz are at the pool at the Royal Brunei Yacht Club. Riki is on land tracking down a new propane bottle and some fuel biocide. It’s nice to have some quiet time on the boat. Today I spent most of the day cooking: ground chicken lettuce bundles for the meat-eaters, broccoli over rice for Jade, and roasted cauliflower. The cauliflower took a long time because I had to cut off a lot of brown spots. We also did home school this morning.

While I was cooking, I was listening to Tomu, Jade, and Luz playing a game they invented with a box of animal crackers. First Jade divided all the crackers evenly between each kid (she is the “fair police”, and always the one to divide food between the three kids). Then Tomu and Luz would each choose an animal to do battle with. They would advance their animals on the cluttered table, using the speaker under a T-shirt as a mountain and my blue recipe folder as a lake. They would say, “I just jumped on you so you lost a leg.”

Jade was the judge, or arbiter — she would say, “no you died, or you lost an important part of your body”. And then when the animals died, they would eat them. Tomu made the loudest slurping noise when his animals were drinking from the lake. I think they played this game for about an hour.

Today kind of sums up boat life — lots of time spent on mundane tasks like cooking combined with lots of creativity from the kids. I loved hearing their imaginative play today.

In the evenings if I have enough energy, we play a family board game like Ticket to Ride, Splendor, or Catan. The kids and Riki also often play without me if I am too tired. One night Luz told me, “I wish we could play a family game every night because it’s so fun when we are all close together — it feels like it fixes all the problems. Like if someone is grumpy, then they aren’t grumpy anymore.”

The kids are great helpers these days. Jade will often decide to organize and clean some part of the boat, and Luz is her trusty sidekick. The other day it was all of our books. Then they wanted to organize my clothes! They were aghast to find out I have 3 shelves plus 5 (small) drawers of clothes, while they have only 2 shelves (Jade) and one shelf (Luz). All three kids help me to stow groceries when I get home from provisioning. They like to play a game where they describe the item they take out of the bag, and I have to guess it.

Home school is going well — Jade keeps us all on task. She has figured out how many lessons we need to do a month to finish on time, and she wrote the lesson goal at the end of each month on our calendar. On passages we have been doing one subject a day. Riki helps often, and is the sole teacher when I am out buying groceries. He has started incorporating music lessons this year. Today Jade was finished with maths before I woke up!

Last year was a challenging year vis a vis boat maintenance. Basically, in Thailand we didn’t get to do much exploring because we were limited by a broken alternator, re-rigging project, and all new canvas. However, now we are reaping the benefits of our full boat awnings. We love them! They provide us shade and keep the boat cooler.

I was just getting into the mindset of thinking: this boat life feels sustainable as long as I can visit home each summer when, at the end of August, Tomu casually mentioned that he wanted to move home. “What?!” Jade, Luz and I said.

“Why?” asked Luz.

He answered, “Sometimes it gets lonely with no friends on the boat. We can wait until Trump is gone, but as soon as he is gone, I want to move home.”

So, our new plan is to move home in the summer of 2028, so that Tomu can start high school in Tacoma. Trump won’t be quite gone…but Tomu doesn’t want to wait until 2029 and start public school his 10th grade year. Now, I am happy with the plan. I am excited to think about living in my community back home again.

One of the highlights of this past year for me was the trip that Jade, Luz, and I took to visit Gisela, Chloe, and Finley in South Africa. It was a testament to the beauty of the cruising community — how you meet people from different places around the world, you can form bonds relatively quickly, and you can later meet up and have new adventures together.

We have been buddy boating with Sanne, Koen, Nina and Kate on SV Nebo since May (with a 3 month break in the summer!). It is the first time we have buddy boated with a boat so closely. It has been a treat to look around on night watch, orient myself to Nebo’s tricolor light and know that we aren’t alone out there in the big blue. It is a change to always have friends around! It means that my alone time is even more scarce, but it is definitely worth it. As Jade and Luz wrote in their birthday song for Sanne, “We know year 39 will be divine because evi and Nebo are better together, forever, and ever! We are going to go to Borneo, the Philippines, and Tokyo!”

Riki (62)

As stunning as this manta tattoo is…it will sweat off by tomorrow! Thanks Taylor!

We are almost two months into our fourth year of cruising as a family on evi. In 2012, when I met Hannah in Fiji while completing almost a decade sailing the Pacific on Guava Jelly, I couldn’t have imagined that 2026 would look like this. I couldn’t be happier!

Fast forward from that fateful Fijian meeting to now. We are anchored at Pulau Tiga, a speck of a Malaysian island off the coast of Borneo. The 10:30 am scene onboard, Luz and Jade are playing with beads and making jewelry, Tomu and Mama are finishing schoolwork of the day, and I am drinking stovetop espresso while writing my required reflection with the Husky football game on in the background. Pretty blissful!

It hasn’t always been like this during the past year. When we returned to evi in Indonesia it started with a slow transition to the Malay Peninsula. The crossing through the Singapore waters, one of the busiest seaports in the world, was exciting and without too much drama. Then up the Malacca Strait, notorious for crazy weather and piracy…again, little drama. Then we settled into Langkawi, an interesting island with plenty of services, nice marinas, restaurants, duty-free shops and a great cruising community. We stayed through Halloween as we prepped to cross to Thailand.

Here is some “little drama” while sailing into Penang in a squall with waterspouts and 40kt gusts. It did shred our bimini!

Everything changed the morning of our departure. First the prop was fouled and though it was an easy fix, 10 minutes of cleaning under evi at 6AM, it was an avenue to let the gremlins in. They were stowaways until our arrival to the southern entrance of Phuket, Thailand about a week after we left Langkawi. While under sail as we rounded the shore, the headland began shadowing the wind and our sailing speed dropped to below 3 knots. I was loving the opportunity to sail at any speed, and Hannah wanted to get there as we had many chores ahead of us, mainly checking in to a new country. Aye, aye…I’ll start the Volvo. Nothing, no click, no AR-AR-ARRR, silence. Going down the list of checks I didn’t solve the problem before we needed to launch the dinghy and motor while sailing slowly, eventually putting Tomu on the tiller to push evi into the anchorage as we dropped the sails and prepared for anchoring.

Here is Tomu learning his chops as a one-year-old in Fiji with our tender Patches to our old boat SV Guava Jelly.

The Gremlins were back and they multiplied the entire time we were in Thailand. Nothing that broke, failed or went wrong was catastrophic or beyond repair though it was a continuous demand for my attention and time-consuming. After fixing the starting issue, the larger of our 2 alternators seized and filled the boat with smoke (frightening but a non-issue). That left us stranded for some time. We eventually pulled up the hook and sailed to another anchorage for a change of scenery. I fixed it later. That’s the challenge of cruising life, prioritizing the maladies you’re dealt. Some of the problems were general maintenance, scheduled or deferred. Some were a new system to me to learn, and others were just bad timing and coincidence. This was much of my time in Thailand.

Po Po came for her annual visit. It conveniently coincided with our necessary visa renewals as well as an extended haul-out for evi. All of us departed for Angkor Wat, Cambodia for the start of the family’s extended trek around SE Asia. After a few days looking at the ruins and being tourists we split ways, and they continued on while I returned to Ratanachai Boat Yard.

It was sad to miss the month-long trip with the gang. It was also the perfect time for me to get busy with the big list of repairs and upgrades…and exorcising the gremlins/demons from evi! The list was long but not limited to lifting evi out of the water at an industrial shipyard. A complete bottom job removing all the years of built-up antifouling paint, and applying many coats of new primer and paint. Removing the mast and replacing the standing rigging (the 12 wires holding up the mast). Much attention to the aging Volvo (upgrading the exhaust system, heat exchanger overhaul, wiring upgrade, fuel injector service, another new 2nd alternator purchased and installed, other repairs and repaint). Less detailed service on the original Perkins genset. Pulled the prop shaft and replaced cutlass bearing. Serviced bow thruster. Concerning aesthetics we buffed, polished and waxed the hull, received the final finished product of our fancy 3-piece full boat cover and all the new canvas bits like bimini, dodger, full cockpit enclosure, wheel/binnacle covers, winch covers, etc. I also managed to put dozens of hours, with Luz’s help, on my hands and knees ‘shaving’ the caulking on the teak deck.

The time in the yard was difficult since the family was away. It was the longest we’ve ever been apart, and I counted the days until their return. Also with them away it allowed me to dismantle evi, using all her space for working, moving, storing, moving, fixing, and moving stuff again! So much moving stuff! My routine was working sunrise to 9PM daily. I would shower in brand new facilities, reheat a meal, crash…repeat. I did rent a scooter for the entire time, so I could get food for 3 days to have on-hand and also have an occasional meal away from the yard.

We splashed after 6 weeks on the hard and sailed to Ao Po Marina to finish up some rigging bits, refrigeration work, etc. Then we cleared out of Thailand to sail back to Malaysia.

It wasn’t all work for me in Thailand. Aside from caring for evi, which is extremely satisfying, we had a great time cruising the remote islands and crowded anchorages around Phuket. Plenty of holidays and birthdays were celebrated on populated and barren beaches alike. It was great to host Weston and Justine and their kiddos Jasper (3) and Mira (1.5) for a month on evi. It is always interesting turning on land-lubbers to boat-life! The food was obviously delicious. You know, it’s not Thai food here…just food! Most of our favorite places were small local shops with simple dishes, beach cafes, fruit smoothies galore. In Phuket we ate dozens of meals at “At The Beach Cafe” where we were often anchored near, away from the busy Chalong Pier anchorage.

Finally some rewards from all the hard work: we stumbled upon a gem of offshore islands named Koh Haa. There were moorings set up here, and at 20 meters deep we could see the cement ‘anchor’ clearly resting on the bottom! It was initially scheduled as a quick rest-stop, but we couldn’t get enough of the snorkeling in the critter-rich water. So many fish, turtles, sharks, amazing visibility! Also on our return south we stopped at Rebak, Langkawi, Pangkor, Penang and sailed around the southern tip of Singapore to the eastern channel to Senibong Cove Marina.

Malaysia had its charm too. The water was often less than inviting and we found our joy on land. The towns of Langkawi, Pangkor and Johor provided many varieties of food, activities, shopping, and distractions. Penang was especially nice with a modern marina, a large cosmopolitan city, and amazing food. We had extended stays there in both directions.

Finally what really matters. Managing life with a partner and 3 kids is challenging in any location. It was in Tacoma, and it was in Ecuador. Here on evi, Hannah and I made the choice to do it while constantly changing location and countries, living a self-sufficient lifestyle, literally navigating the waters of homeschooling, ‘home maintenance’, and all the challenges of 5 people living in a tight space…and I wouldn’t change a thing. The rewards far outweigh the hardships and we are reaping the gift of watching Luz, Jade and Tomu develop into pretty cool humans!