Life on the High Seas With The Orton/Bagnall Family
After years of adventure working on private sport fishing boats, Tony Orton and Bea Bagnall felt the call of the open sea once more. Trading their busy lives in Mangawhai for life aboard a sailing catamaran, they’ve set out with their two young children to explore remote destinations and live life on their own terms. We check in with the family to hear about their journey so far.
Log 1 - Tony and Bea
We have always dreamed of living on our own vessel, fishing and exploring remote destinations, and embracing the freedom that comes with it. But for some reason, we were too scared to take the plunge and cut ties with the comfort and security we had worked so hard to build. People often dream and fantasise about things but rarely act on those dreams.
We had burned ourselves out, working long hours building our business in Mangawhai and travelling all over the world for work. Tony was diagnosed with a disease that, if not caught early through regular blood tests, would have shortened his life. Then, the death of a family member drove home the message that life can change in a moment, and that material things really don’t matter.
We realised we couldn’t keep living like this - we needed a change. As we discussed what mattered most to us, our list included family time, travel and exploration, eating well, fishing, time on the ocean as a family, and our kids’ education and what they see in life and the world.
That’s when we made the decision to sell everything we had worked for our whole
lives, including the family home, buy a sailing catamaran, and set off to sail around the world. We wanted to fish, explore remote destinations, slow down, and spend undistracted time with our two kids, Sami (10) and Brooke (5).
As luck would have it, we found a second- hand vessel in Florida, USA. It required a lot of hard, gruelling work in the shipyard to get ‘Ikigai’ (a Japanese word translating to ‘a reason to live’) ready for sailing the world's oceans and becoming a full-time liveaboard for a family of four.
So far, we’ve spent six weeks in a Florida shipyard during hurricane season, taken
a trip to the Bahamas where we damaged our keel, outrun a hurricane up the U.S. East Coast, enjoyed remote anchorages to ourselves, collected kai moana from the ocean, and navigated homeschooling.
Time has started to slow down for us; days seem longer, and we are watching our children learn and open their eyes to a new world, which has made this change all worthwhile. How long can we sustain this lifestyle? We’re not really sure. None of us know what’s around the corner - opportunities may arise, and setbacks may happen along the way. But one thing is clear to us: follow your dreams and live your life, your way!
Stay tuned for more updates on the family’s journey in our upcoming issues and follow their channel on YouTube.