Gaia: Onboard a Sailing Yacht

We didn't say a lot about the sailing yacht we crewed in the Mediterranean, so we thought we'd say a few things here. The ship is named Gaia which means "goddess of the earth," and she has belonged to Alberto (our skipper) for about 35 years. Gaia was originally set up as a "ketch," a ship with two masts, but Alberto converted her into a "sloop" by removing the smaller of the two masts. She is a 52 feet long yacht with ample storage and living space. Basically, Gaia has all the comforts of home, although you need to be conservative with fresh water use and electricity (which is generated by two large solar panels on the rear of the ship). We'll show you a few highlight pics below so that you can check out where and how we lived while we were cruising the Mediterranean.

Above: Overview of the entire yacht looking in from the entrance which is located at the stern (back) of the boat.

Below: The galley (kitchen) where Alberto prepared Italian culinary delights. The stove is set on two horizontal hinges so that it will stay level and not dump scalding pots on the chef when the boat is rocking in the waves. The galley is also equipped with a large refrigerator.

Above: The command center where Captain Alberto runs the ship. Modern Sailboats are equipped with motors, gps, and even auto-pilot systems, so there is a lot of technical stuff going on.

Below: Living room/dining room/library. Under every floorboard and seat is storage space.

Above: Kelsi and Rusty's bedroom. The ship is quite wide, so the living quarters are divided into starboard (right) and port (left) sections. Our room was on starboard side, and there was an almost identical bedroom on the port side of ship where Alberto lives. Around and under our beds was a large fresh water tank and more storage space.

Below: Double beds in the bow (front) of the ship. This is where the other crew member, Melodie Fee, stayed. She was sweet to take these living quarters since the bow section moves more when the ship moves.

Above: Our bathroom. On the side of the toilet is a pump which sucks in salt water and flushes it back out... you can imagine how that looks! The faucet has a long, retractable hose so that it can be extended to use as a shower. The shower uses fresh water which is heated by the motor and drains through the floorboards after use. We shared our bathroom with the other crew member, Melodie fee. Our bathroom had a door to our room on one side and another door to Melodie's room on the oposite side. Because of the boat layout, to reach the bathroom Melodie eıther had to cut through our room or climb through her room's window (all windows opened up vertically to the deck). Alberto had an identical bathroom in his living quarters, although his bathroom was not shared with another room.

Below: The amazing crew and captain of Gaia!