About Sailing Roam

Welcome to Sailing Roam — your digital anchorage on the web. We’re Geri and Shawn, a couple who traded conventional life for a less ordinary one. This site is where we share our story, discoveries, and lessons learned as we pursue life aboard our cruising catamaran.

Our Story

We started dreaming about living a less conventional life back in 2011, long before we ever stepped aboard a yacht. With three growing boys at home, school, sports, work, bills … life was full but the dream lived on.

In December 2014, we chartered a small power catamaran for a week in the San Juan Islands. If we could have fun on a small boat in winter, perhaps we could live this dream someday. We were hooked.

In 2019, we bought our first yacht, a 2005 Meridian 490, and moved aboard. For the next three and a half years, we lived and cruised aboard 2nd Circus throughout the Puget Sound, Hood Canal, San Juan Islands, Canadian Gulf Islands, and Desolation Sound.

In early 2023, we sold nearly everything — our home, cars, business, land, and most of what we owned — and moved to Guatemala to close on our sailing catamaran Roam. That decision marked the beginning of a life built less around plans and more around possibility.

Meet the Crew

Sailing Roam is Geri and Shawn — two people who love cats, helping others, and figuring things out as we go. We’re still not entirely sure how those things are connected, but they’ve shaped who we are and how we move through the world.

Geri is the steady force that keeps everything moving forward. A former operating room nurse, she brings that same calm focus to life aboard — keeping us healthy, well-fed, and grounded when ideas start running faster than reality. She loves night watches, full moons, and the quiet rhythm of the boat underway, rarely gets seasick, and takes on projects that push her to learn new skills. Once she commits, she’s tenacious about seeing things through — whether that’s fabricating, finishing, or fixing something that simply needs doing. And yes, she also bakes the best bread in the world, which turns out to be just as essential as any system on the boat.

Shawn is a technologist at heart — curious, persistent, and always trying to understand how things work well enough to make them better. He has a tendency to overthink problems, which sometimes leads to unnecessary complexity, but just as often results in solutions when replacement parts or easy answers aren’t available. He can fix almost anything, a trait that’s equal parts superpower and liability, and he’s constantly learning when to repair, when to redesign, and when to let something go. He’s driven by a mix of idealism and realism, and while those two don’t always agree, together they keep the bigger picture in view.

We’re drawn to the little discoveries that linger in memory — like the day we floated our dinghy into a quiet channel at Pipe Cay and found an old set of driftwood swings on a sandbar. We didn’t plan it, but we stayed longer than we expected, soaking in something simple and unforgettable. It became one of those moments that didn’t fit into a normal day, so we wrote a song about it. Music has been part of our lives for as long as we can remember, and sharing it is one of the ways we hope to connect through Sailing Roam.

We’ve stepped away from a version of life built around waiting for “someday.” Geri retired from her career in nursing. Shawn didn’t retire — and isn’t sure he ever will — but what we have retired from is postponing the life we wanted to live. Every day, we try to move our projects forward, find new adventures, meet new friends, and experience new cultures. Some days we get to do all of that. Other days, all we can manage is poking at projects and trying to stay motivated. Those days are harder — and they’re just as much a part of this journey as the sunsets and anchorages.

Sailing Roam is about sharing all of it: the progress, the pauses, the mistakes, and the moments that remind us why we chose this life in the first place.

Why This Lifestyle

What pulled us here wasn’t a checklist or a long-term plan. It was a growing sense that the lives we were living—comfortable, busy, predictable—left very little room for surprise.

We wanted days that felt earned. Work that mattered because it was necessary. Space to slow down, to learn new skills, and to experience places in a way that doesn’t happen when you’re just passing through.

This lifestyle gives us that. It forces presence. It rewards curiosity. And while it’s often harder than we expect, it’s also richer—filled with small moments that don’t fit neatly into photos or plans, but stay with you long after.

Why a Boat

A boat is a strange mix of home, vehicle, and long-term project — and that’s exactly why it works for us.

Life aboard Roam compresses everything. Comfort and inconvenience exist side by side. If something breaks, it matters. If the weather shifts, you adapt. There’s no buffer between decisions and consequences, and that clarity has been surprisingly grounding.

A boat also lets us move slowly through the world. To linger where it feels right. To meet people not as tourists, but as neighbors for a while. It’s not about escape—it’s about choosing a smaller, more intentional frame for everyday life.

A boat doesn’t make life easier — it makes it more intentional. And for us, that trade-off is worth it.

The Boat — Roam

Roam is our home and our platform for everything we do — a 2013 Nautitech 542 cruising catamaran that’s carried us into this chapter of our lives. She’s not the biggest cat out there, but she’s perfectly sized for two people to handle comfortably while still offering the space we need to live aboard, work, and explore.

Right now, Roam is deep into a full systems refit. It’s the less glamorous side of this life — tearing things apart, rebuilding, and rethinking how the boat should function for the way we actually live aboard. That process has been slow, messy, and deeply educational, and it’s shaping not just the boat, but us as well.

We’re rebuilding her for offshore autonomy and long-term cruising, learning as we go and documenting the decisions, mistakes, and solutions along the way. Roam isn’t a showpiece. She’s a working boat — and an evolving one — and the foundation for whatever comes next.

We’ll be sharing much more about the refit and systems work as that story unfolds. For now, we’ve started documenting the electrical side of the rebuild here👉Electrical Systems on Roam

What You’ll Find Here

This space is an extension of how we live aboard Roam—part story, part workshop, part journal.

You’ll find:

• real accounts of refits, mistakes, and lessons learned
• deeper dives into boat systems and decision-making
• reflections on life aboard and the moments that make it worthwhile
• music and creative projects inspired by our travels
• resources we wish we’d had when we started

Some of it is practical. Some of it is personal. All of it is shared with the hope that it’s useful—or at least relatable—to someone else walking a similar path.

Along the way, we’ve found a handful of tools and products we genuinely rely on aboard Roam. When something earns a permanent place on the boat, we document how and why we use it here.

👉 Tools & Partners Used on Roam

Why We Share Everything

We share our journey because real life is messy and rarely unfolds as planned. By showing the wins, mistakes, and slow in-between, we hope this life feels more approachable and a little less polished. We also share to remember where we started and how we got here.

All boats and crews begin somewhere. We hope ours inspires yours.

Closing

We don’t have a destination in mind. What we have is a direction—and the willingness to keep moving, learning, and adjusting as we go.

Thanks for being here.
Welcome aboard.

Stay in Touch

It’s easy to follow along:

• YouTube — watch the refit and sailing episodes
• Facebook & Instagram — updates and behind-the-scenes stories

You’ll find links in the footer and in the top navigation — stay anchored with us!

The fine print