Help Gabbi & Rémi recover from Hurricane Season

Help a Family Recover

What have we been up to - recap

Help us recover from Hurricane’s 1 Debby, 2 Helene, and 3 Milton. Our family was separated when I had to return to Florida to rescue and protect our vessel during hurricane season, then it sunk during Milton.

We have been travelling with our kids and dogs for over 4 years. We've driven across Canada, the US, and Mexico always striving to show our kids more of the world and cultures.

We’ve spent the last year bringing this boat back to life and have a place to call home as we get ready to take it around the world. It's been our favourite chapter yet

While on another emergency mission out of town delivering the Airstream to its new owners. I (Gabbi) was forced to fly back to Florida alone and attend our boat for hurricane debby. 

We have restarted with only our backpacks before, losing our Camper Van and then our Wagoneer overlanding rig - we didn't want to risk losing everything again.

We had a damaged rudder, swim platform, main sail and lost our beautiful dinghies during the first hurricane Debby. I also woke up to news from my husband (Rémi) that our beautiful red teacup poodle had an accident and passed away.

While preparing to move the boat somewhere safe, we randomly had raw water in the oil of our newly installed and rebuilt diesel engine. Leaving me unable to motor the boat somewhere safe and forcing me to work on patching our main sail.

I was aboard during Hurricane Helene, we lost another new dinghy and ripped the brand new headsail leaving the boat with no method of self propulsion. 

As Hurricane Milton approached I no longer had a way to move the boat to safety, there was a stormy day before the hurricane leaving everyone in a panic, this is when I was evacuated and only quickly able to prep the boat. I had only a few minutes to fill a garbage bag full of belongings and hopped off into a dinghy…

After last year’s hurricane season, I’ve learnt that there’s usually a calm before the storm… and the next day (before Milton made landfall) expected to be that way. It was beautifully calm giving me hope that I could get back out there one last time to grab things and double check the boat prep for the hurricane. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the resources to make it back out since everyone had already evacuated the area days in advance.

I was hunkered down near St Pete for the hurricane, and woke up in the morning to devastating news that the boat had sunk. In desperation and disbelief that morning I also sunk the drone, knowing I had no battery life to make it there and back to shore. I just wanted to get the drone over the boat and see for myself. 

Remi and the family are making their way back across the country to come home, and our next mission will be refloating the boat.

We’ve always planned to refit/rebuild the whole boat. Now it’s happening sooner than expected. Refitting the boat now will ensure us that it’s ready and safer to take on its next well deserved voyage.

We don’t give up easily and will be needing all the help we can get to restart once again.

Our boat isn’t like any others, it’s a very strong, vintage, special and unique boat which you can read about on my blog here.

https://www.gabbiigoose.com/post/__csy

I’m glad to have posted and shared many of our adventures online and on YouTube because I most importantly lost my computer, new camera, and hard drives on the boat. The equipment I’d use to work as we travel.

The hard drives contained some of the only copies of photos from my childhood, my kids baby photos, all of the adventures we’ve been on the past 12 years across Europe, Mexico, the US and even from Indonesia where I had photos of horses on a beach featured in Travel & Leisure magazine.

We also had a beautiful acoustic guitar, ukulele, and a very special Birds Eye maple engraved violin that we’d use to meet the locals as we travel, and make new friends by playing music together.

As Canadians we can’t claim our damages through FEMA in any of these hurricanes. 

If you have local or remote work opportunities for us, that is also of great help to our family. Rémi and I cover quite a variety of skills and will be thankful for any work we can find.

We are raising money to restart and restock our home/life,

We are raising money to get the boat floating again and most likely on the hard (land),

We are raising money for new solar equipment for a new bilge pump,

We are raising money for our own dive gear, and maybe airbags which could allow us to float the boat without the cost of professionals. This could also give us a business opportunity, and experience to help others,

We are raising money for new dinghies and outboards,

We are raising money to more quickly build our van and give our family a place to live and wheels to move while refitting the boat,

We are raising money to replace our equipment (computers, cameras, hard drives, starlink) which I need for work while travelling,

We are raising money to more quickly reunite our family

You can also help and support by following/subscribing on Youtube and Instagram, or by joining our Patreon from $1 a month. I also have a website where you can find some of my art.

@GabbiiGoose @SailingRedGoose @OurLittleCupPups

PATREON

MY WEBSITE