February 2018 - Boat Life Larks

I'm standing at my desk, singing "I love my family". My student sings "This is my granddad, I love my grandad!". She is 5 years old. My desk is on a sailboat, anchored off a pristine, uninhabited island in the Bahamas. My student is being driven through the streets of Beijing, China. We are over 7,700 miles away from each other. We live in different cultures and speak different native tongues. My student is learning English at a young age from a qualified native speaking teacher. This language will serve her, personally and professionally, for the rest of her life. I'm doing a job I truly love, from wherever the wind takes me. The internet connects us and allows for this fabulous exchange.

Teaching From Powell Cay, Abaco Islands, Bahamas

Teaching English online is a fabulous way for cruising sailors to have meaningful work and earn money while traveling. How much do I love it? Let me count the ways!

The Students

I teach students from the ages of 5-12. Sure, every once in a while they'd rather be watching cartoons, but these kids are awesome. They learn English every day in school (in a class with 50 other students), and do lots of English homework, but I'm their opportunity to actually speak the language, one on one, with a native speaker. A lot of my students bring their own props to class; having fun makes the time fly for both of us.

The Class
Each class is 25 minutes long, and the curriculum PowerPoints are pre-loaded for you. The portal shows the PowerPoint (both the student and teacher can draw on the screen), your video feed, and the student's video feed. Your job is to guide the student through the lesson. The goal is to have the student speak and read in English for the majority of the lesson.

Money! Sure, I love this job so much I'd almost do it for free.....but everyone needs money! I make $21 an hour, work 22 hours a week, and average $1800 a month.

Schedule

Peak teaching times are evenings and weekends, Beijing time. For me, in the EST time zone, I work from 5AM-9AM, 5 days a week. I actually take 2.8 days off a week....my weekends start at 9AM Wednesday, giving me all day Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to play! Don't forget, I also have 9AM onwards each day to move the boat, read books, paddle board, or pursue other employment.

Flexibility

Crossing an ocean? Don't open slots and let your regulars know you are taking vacation time. When you get connected again, you can re-open your schedule and start teaching again. Bad weather have you pinned in port? Open extra time slots and make extra money! Boat projects and expenses weighing you down? You can teach extra classes and pay down the debt. As long as you don't cancel already booked students, your schedule is totally up to you.

Connection

As you may guess, I'm not connected to a high-speed fiber optic cable. Cell data works! I check tower locations before we decide on anchorages. As long as I'm within a certain distance from a cell tower, I can teach from anywhere! I have a cell booster that really improves data speeds. I've taught for over 6500 minutes and never had a teacher IT issue.(Although I did have a mini-crisis when rolling blackouts turned the power off to a cell tower. We were able to sail to a new cell tower before my next class started).

I've found teaching English online through VIPKID to be the absolute perfect job for me as a cruising sailor. I'm able to fund our travels, have plenty of time to paddle board and read, and I love making a meaningful impact in the lives of young people half a world away.

Bring Your Dog to Work Day

VIPKID is listed as Forbes #1 remote job. It's listed on Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies (along with SpaceX). It's a real job, creating a win-win-win for teachers, students, and employees.

Requirements
VIPKID requires a Bachelor's degree and teaching, coaching, or mentoring experience. They hire teachers who are eligible to work in the USA and Canada. You do not need any Chinese language experience. The class is 100% English immersion.

If you are interested in teaching with VIPKID, please use my referral link. This will connect us in the VIPKID system so I can help you through the hiring process, and I get a bonus for each new teacher I refer. It's a win-win!

There are tons of opportunities to teach English to children and adults online. English is the language of business and the internet and is, worldwide, the most sought after second language. The Journal of Nomads (not affiliated, just a great site!) has published a list of various apps and websites you can teach English through.

By Lucy - because popcorn is one of the only things I will brave the boat galley to make!

Boat life continues to bring revelations. Back in the glorious days of land life, I had a microwave. Its purpose was to pop microwave popcorn. It was a wonderful thing! We used to go to the fair to get kettle corn. This was a delight! Then we moved onto the boat. No microwave. No bags of microwave popcorn. No fair kettle corn. Despair set in.

One day, after I had washed laundry in a bucket and heated water on the stove to shower with, I realized we could take this Little House on the Prairie thing one step further. My friends, it is possible, to make popcorn without a microwave and without a bag of microwave popcorn. Wow! I'll pause here while you take your heart medications.

You don't even have to go to the fair to get kettle corn! You don't even have to burn down the house with burning sugar sticking to the pot. I know, get out! (Take some more heart medications!)

Basic Popcorn
1/3 -1/2 cup of kernels (2-6 normal people, or 1 greedy one)
2-3 tablespoons of coconut oil (or peanut, vegetable or canola oil)
salt to taste

Butter Popcorn
2 Tablespoons of butter

Kettle Corn
1/4 cup of sugar
2-3 tablespoons of water

Step 1. Kettle Corn: Heat sugar and water over a medium heat until the water is clear and the sugar is dissolved. Set aside.

Step 2: Both corns: Heat oil and 3 popcorn kernels in a large pan with a tight-fitting lid over medium heat. Using pot holders to hold the lid on securely, shake the pot slightly to distribute the oil and return to the heat. When 3 pops are heard, carefully open the lid and add the rest of the popcorn. Cover immediately (oil may splatter!), shake and return to the heat. Shake occasionally, and then shake often once popping begins to prevent burning. When 2 seconds elapses between pops, remove from heat and continue shaking.

Step 3: Kettle Corn: When popping stops, open lid carefully and drizzle over sugar mixture. Cover and shake some more. Add salt to taste. Let cool 2-3 minutes then serve.

Step 3. Butter Corn: Pour popped popcorn into a bowl. With the heat turned off, add butter to the hot pan. The residual heat will melt the popcorn.Tilt the pot to keep the butter from burning. Pour melted butter over the popcorn. Add salt to taste.

Heat the sugar water mixture until clear

Popcorn Kernels

Shake it up!

Butter popcorn

Burn free kettle corn!

What's your favorite snack? Do you have a favorite Little House on the Prairie lifestyle tip to share? Let us know in the comments!

Matt is a smart person. He ordered a Bahamian SIM card online before we left. It started working out in the ocean, before we even saw Bahamian land. Lucky Matt!

It was Matt's turn to do laundry. In fact, he had offered to take over all laundry duties after I kept coming back from public laundry facilities bruised, enraged and screaming bloody murder at my fight club opponents.

Matt felt that as he was quite happy sitting in his old velvet jump suit, eating government cheese, browsing through Instragram to see what the Bahamas look like, that laundry was not neccessary. It would be up to me to run some island errands.

First up: Donny's back porch for laundry. Donny runs a dock here on Green Turtle Cay. He does not have a fancy office, a pool, or a captain's lounge, but he will let you do laundry on his back porch if you are "nice". Donny asks everyone if they are "naughty or nice". If he doesn't trust your answer, he'll ask your spouse. Donny didn't search twitter for #fightclublaundry, so he believed me when I said I was "nice".

Quite a happy family of roosters and hens kept me company. Just as I had dawdled for an extra 2.5 seconds between the spin ending and transferring my clothes into the dryer, a new hen flew in. Chaos erupted. The rooster had hard words to say. The other hens charged. Full on Bahamian fight club at the laundry machines! I loaded the dryer and checked my watch. I could totally run into town, get a SIM card, and get back before the dryer finished and some one (likely someone from Vero Beach) dumped my fresh clean clothes on the ground (out of spite).

The cell phone office is open from 9:30AM-3PM on Thursdays. But not during December or most of January. Last Thursday, the office "re-opened". Sadly, they had 2 SIM cards available and 22 people wanting SIM cards. There was a mini-riot and people who had just arrived from Florida thought about turning around.

At 9:15AM, on a lovely Thursday, I marched down the road. I was a little dismayed to see a line outside the door already! Our savior arrived on the ferry and had SIM cards for all! Alas, she had left the keys to the office in Marsh Harbour. The keys would be put on the next ferry and arrive at 11AM. I went back to Donny's dryer just in time to remove my own clothes. Back to the boat to stare for a while. Then, into the dinghy, back to the dock, walk up the hill. A group of hot people in various stages of despair are loitering and hacking at their cell phones with screwdrivers while mumbling "she said I had to unlock my phone, what does that mean?" Keys have been delayed until the 12:00PM ferry.

A general grumbling of dissatisfaction rumbles in our small, Instagram-less community. Paperwork is produced from a back room and I write in "secret" questions to be keyed into my account. The keys arrive! Salvation is nigh. I'm fourth in line and gleefully produce my credit card to start the account. The credit card machine is down.

Back down the hill, back to the dock, into the dinghy, back to the boat, get cash, back into the dinghy, back to the dock, up the hill. The crowd of loiterers has disbanded. My heart sinks. It's 12:30 and of course, the agent has gone to lunch! Thankfully, she was patiently waiting for me. Within 5 minutes I had a new Bahamian SIM card and could scroll through Instagram to my heart's content, and while even wearing clean clothes! What larks!

It was a beastly thing to leave our jobs in the summer of 2016. We both had great, steady jobs at a university with all the fixings: I had great coworkers, 4 weeks of vacation, paid holidays, health care, matched retirement plan, the whole enchilada. I knew that once we closed that door and walked away, we would never be that lucky again. We'd be reduced to taco crumbs.

Over the last 20 months, we have lived the life we wanted. Sure, sometimes (see: 50 knots and dragging!) living the dream is an unqualified nightmare. Sometimes we joke that it's time to sell the boat and buy an RV. (see: anything to do with our saildrives). Sometimes we even research AirBnBs in Georgia, the country. (see: that time our propellor seized in the Gulf Stream).

The majority of cruisers we meet are older and are comfortably retired after a lifetime of wise planning. The "young" people fall into two camps: those who are on a short-term sabbatical with plans to return to land-based work, and those who work from the boat.

I've always been intrigued by the second camp, however, no amount of rum or prodding has been able to produce an actionable answer as to what, exactly, these lucky bastards do. It's "marketing" or "managing" or "my own business". Yes, yes, but what do you manage, and what is your business? I just want to be like you!

A land-based life of driving around and wearing shoes and breaking photocopiers beckons. We are feverishly slaving away trying to squeeze ourselves into the "lucky bastards camp".

Our first month "back at work" has been the best month of work I've ever had! No commuting, a dog-friendly office, and no shoes! I've been teaching classes with VIPKID, Forbes #1 rated work from home job for 2018. VIPKID connects American teachers with Chinese students who practice their English speaking skills via video conferencing. The hours (4AM-8:30AM) are perfect. I was even able to teach a few classes the day we crossed to the Bahamas! You can find out more about VIPKID by clicking here.

Matt has been getting freelance photography and graphic design contracts through Upwork, including one to shoot photos and test recipes for an Irish recipe book. We drank Irish coffee and ate bangers and mash for a few good days. Not bad for a day's work from our floating office!

Irish Coffee

Bangers and Mash

On January 31 at 9AM we closed the books on the month. For the first time in 20 months, our income exceeds our expenditures....by $33, the exact cost of two cheeseburgers with fries and two "Wrecker" rum punches. Those bygone days of the whole enchilada? Boring and dry. Bring on the days of the cheeseburger in paradise!

Cheeseburger in Paradise!

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