We are Kate & rufus Brand, a young(ish) south african couple that has decided to do life a little differently...
We tried to do the regular married couple stuff, like buy and renovate a home, run our own business, buy a couple of cars and two precious dogs to go with it all, while making a a rather large pile of debt for ourselves along the way. About 2 years into married life we decided to stop fooling ourselves and started working our backsides off to free ourselves of debt and buy a boat to sail around the world! Nothing about our life is conventional or consistent, other than that it's unpredictability (which we thrive on!).
Kate started this blog to keep our families up to date with our constantly changing geographical positions and to give them insight into what our unconventional nomadic life is like. Since most of them don't know how, or refuse, to learn to use Zoom, Whats App, Facebook, Instagram or any other convenient method of international communication, this is the easiest way to connect with all of them.
We are in our 18th year of marriage and 16th year of semi-nomadic life together. We've lost count of the countries we've travelled to and the nautical miles we have sailed to reach most of them. In 2012 we crossed the Atlantic Ocean from South Africa to Brazil and then in 2016, after cruising, working in and crossing the Caribbean Sea, the two of us sailed our beloved Melody across part of the Southern Pacific Ocean, from Panamá to French Polynesia. The Pacific Passage was a huge goal for the two of us and one of our most meaningful achievements to date. To mark the 10yr anniversary, this year, we cycled the Carretera Austral in Patagonia, another bucket list adventure of ourselves (blog post coming soon!).
As I write this, we are embarking on our second year of Sardinian-based life. It is an adjustment, to say the least. But we are doing our best to embrace all that the Italian and Sardinian cultures have to offer, while adapting to a new way of life and making it our own.
We are grateful for this ever-evolving journey. Thank you for joining us for part of the trip.
Kate & Ruf
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contact
If you have any questions about the posts - want more info on the places and activities we write about - or you just want to say hi! then please do drop us a line: