We gave up our boring life in Scotland to live on a boat in the Caribbean – it’s cheaper AND we love it | The Sun

A COUPLE ditched their life in Scotland to live on a boat in the Caribbean.

Iain and Brioni Cameron, both 36, moved halfway around the world during a global pandemic, to set up a new life on the high seas.



The couple explained that living on a boat had never been one of their lifelong dreams, but Iain came up with the idea when he was sat at home working from his sofa in Glasgow, Scotland.

He told the Sun Online Travel: "I just said to Brioni, here's a stupid idea, I want to live on a boat."

The pair mulled over Iain's grand plan that "he couldn't put down" and kept thinking about it "for another six months".

To see if they could make their new-found dream a reality, the pair went sailing on Iain's dad's boat for a few hours on a lake in Scotland and fell in love with the idea a little more.

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They then went on a two-week sailing trip around Croatia to see how they'd cope living in a confined space at sea.

Iain said: "If we were still talking to each other after two weeks, we'd know that was a good sign."

After a successful trip, they put their house on the market, sold all their belongings, and searched for the boat of their dreams.

But their life-changing move was put on hold when the Covid pandemic closed international borders.

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Iain added: "We spent all of that time searching around for the boat, and we started talking to a boat owner on Facebook.

"He had a boat for sail and that's the boat we wanted."

While the boat was moored in St Vincent and the Grenadines, the owner couldn't leave the Dominican Republic, where he was living, because of Covid restrictions.

"That's when he suggested we go out and live on the boat and see what we think."

When restrictions eased, the husband and wife team booked flights to the Caribbean.

Iain said "We arrived at the airport in St Vincent, jumped in the taxi and the taxi driver took us to our boat, but there was nothing there."

Brioni added: "We were feeling everything – we were the people that you read about in magazines, we couldn't believe that we had been taken in by a man on Facebook."

They jumped back into the taxi and asked the driver to take them to a nearby hill, where they scoured the harbour until they eventually found the promised vessel.

The couple spent the next two months living on the boat rent-free while sailing it around the Grenadines, but the sale fell through and the pair ended up homeless.

Over the next few months, they hitch-hiked their way around the Caribbean on other boats, lived in shipping containers, and cheap cockroach-infested motels until they purchased their dream boat: a 20-year-old Leopard 47 catamaran for $200,000 (£161, 460).

While this may seem like a good chunk of cash, the couple's daily expenses are much cheaper than life in the UK as they fish for food and do all repair work by themselves.

They keep a steady income by posting videos on their YouTube channel.

The couple have now sailed 4,000 miles and made their way through 20 countries including Colombia, Panama, Bonaire and Grenada.

They've had several hiccups along the way including having their boat raided by border forces in Trinidad and Tobago, running aground in a shallow shoreline and having their hull damaged by a suspected cartel group.

Despite all the drama, Iain and Brioni love their life on their catamaran, they said: "We love the freedom of the boat, if we like a place we can stay there for three months and if it's not what we were hoping for then we never have to stay."

Brioni added: "It's the wildlife too, we've swam with dolphins and sailed alongside humpback wales and pilot wales."

Iain and Brioni are now in Panama, but the couple will soon be sailing 5,000 miles to French Polynesia – a voyage that will see them away from the mainland for a whole month.

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Meanwhile, this lawyer left her job to start afresh on a boat.

And this couple saves £1,000 a month after switching their Hertfordshire flat for a boat.



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