Wyoming Couple Sells Home To Sail Around The World Over Next 10 Years

The Schells call Hoback Junction in northwest Wyoming home and had a blue Christmas this year, though there was nothing sad about it at all.

The blue came from the water all around their sailboat and the stained-glass blue sky above their heads. 

The new year is bringing more of the same to the Schell family — spectacular shades of sea and sky blue all around them. 

The Schells have given up their home in Teton County for a new forever home for the next decade, a sailing vessel that is now anchored off the coast of the French island of Martinique in the eastern Caribbean Sea.

“This life is awesome, and we love it, but it doesn’t come without its challenges,” Marlie Schell told Cowboy State Daily. “I left all my friends back in Wyoming, so, like, I have no lady friends, and I was missing my tribe, as I call it, and (son) Aksel was really in need of some kids. We really needed some community, some support.”

That’s how the family found itself in Martinique.

“This is one of the places with what we call kid boats,” Marlie said. “And so coming here kind of helps fill that cup, because part of this lifestyle can be a little lonely if you don’t actively work to meet other people in the community.”

Kid boats are families very much like Marlie and her husband Jim Bob Schell, who are sailing the high seas as a family with their son 5-year-old son Aksel.

“A lot of us are out here with this same kind of reasoning,” Jim Bob said. “We want to see the world. We want to experience different cultures. And for those who are parents, a lot of us want our children to have that as well, to experience a lot of different cultures.

Catching The Sailing Bug

The Schells readily admit that this idea of trading their landlocked home for a sailboat on the high seas doesn’t just sound crazy. It’s nine kinds of crazy. 

“There’s a lot of people who think we’re insane,” Marlie said. “Sometimes we think we’re insane.”

In fact, when Jim Bob first broached the topic with Marlie — after falling in love with the idea himself from watching YouTube videos — she told him outright that it was bonkers. 

“At first I thought it was crazy,” she said. “But then I thought about it for a little while, and I was like, honestly, that is the best possible way to go and see the world and expose our kid to the world.”

Traveling and showing the world to their son was already a huge value that the couple share. But the traditional way of approaching that — flying or driving to a location, booking hotels, eating out all the time — isn’t a bargain. 

“The way he presented it to me was like , how can we travel somewhat affordably,” Marlie said. “Like how people buy an RV and then travel in it. That’s a very similar experience, except we’re traveling by sea. And that way we can go anywhere instead of just being land-locked to North and South America.”

Marlie still had a lot of questions. Practical questions like how would they pay for this idea? What about school for their son, Aksel?

As the couple worked on these questions together, the plan started to sound less and less crazy.

They would save up their money to buy a used sailboat for their trip. It was crucial for their budget not to have a payment for a boat. 

They would either sell or rent their house to provide some cash to support their annual budget. 

And they both plan to work at least part-time with their former employers in new roles that they can do remotely. 

Their annual budget is around $50,000 per year. That includes everyday expenses like food, as well as emergency boat repairs, health insurance, doctor visits and the like.

School On Board A Sailing Ship

As for school, Aksel does that every day aboard their ship Jai Meera, using lesson plans drawn up by Marlie, who took classes on curriculum design in college and has also taught both secondary and college-level classes.

What she likes about homeschooling is twofold. First, she’s able to spend lots of time with her son. All day in fact. And Jim Bob has gotten to spend a lot more time with Aksel as well, although he does do some remote work for 10 hours a week right now and eventually plans to do up to 20 hours a week remotely.

The other thing Marlie likes about home schooling Aksel is the customizability.

“We’re working on reading and writing a lot, and he doesn’t love those subjects,” Marlie said. “So, I’m trying to think of ways to make them fun. So, I let him choose a lot of what he wants to write about each day.”

One day, his writings were about deep-sea creatures that Marlie found an online class in, the next it was about Tyrannosaurus rex.

“Wyoming actually has some homeschool resources, too,” she said. “And what you do is you register with your district. So, our boat and everything is out of Laramie, and we have registered with the Albany County School District.”

Jim Bob, too, likes the customizability of home schooling. 

“We try to in our everyday life incorporate the classroom into what we’re doing,” he said. “We learn about the history of where we’re at, the places we visit, and we try to go on tours, see museums, explore the islands.”

Baking in the kitchen becomes a lesson in math, science, and home economics, Jim Bob said. 

“How do you measure out and read recipes, what’s a half a teaspoon, and things of that nature,” he said.

They also like that their son is learning a lot of things he’d never learn in schools, from exposure to cultures from around the world to practical sailing skills. 

Gifts From The Sea

Aksel is also having the time of his life alongside his family. 

While the family doesn’t celebrate Christmas, they did celebrate the Solstice and gave each other some cool gifts. 

Aksel got a stuffed hammerhead shark and a cool kite with artwork from the popular children’s show, Paw Patrol. 

“We’ll go on a dinghy ride and fly our kite from behind it,” Marlie said. 

All part of amazing experiences and memories that the family will forever cherish.

Among their favorite of these memories so far has been catching wild Tuna from their boat. It’s the most delicious sushi in the world for a reason, and it’s one of those rare fish that can be immediately filleted and eaten.

The Jim Bob’s parents were visiting them for a few days when that happened.

“His mom made us ceviche one night and it was just so fresh, like you can’t get anything more fresh than that,” Marlie said. “It was a really cool experience. And like, we felt, a gift from the ocean.”

That happened twice, she added, and it was amazing each time.

“We were both hunters back in Wyoming,” she said. “So now, to basically hunt from the ocean, and you just catch this big, beautiful fish flies right here on our teak deck.”

Another favorite memory was St. Lucia, which was stunning.

“Like 30, 35 feet of absolute crystal-clear water,” Marlie said. “You could see every single thing on the bottom from our boat. It was unreal.”

The landscape was picturesque, with the 3,000-foot Pitons — steep, mountainous, volcanic spires that reminded them of the Tetons.

“It was insane looking,” Marlie said.

Around The World In 10 Years

The couple started their sailing adventures in the Caribbean mainly because it’s an easier environment to learn in, with lots of other sea-faring families doing essentially the same thing.

Eventually though, they want to sail around the world, and they hope to do this not in just 80 days, but over a 10-year period, working up from the easier journeys to the hardest of the hard.

Jim Bob’s dream location is the hardest of the hard to reach. Patagonia. It will require sailing around Cape Horn, which is notorious as one of the most difficult sailing points in the world. Unpredictable weather, strong winds, narrow channels —  Jim Bob knows it will demand a high level of seamanship. 

“It’s an extremely aggressive goal,” he said. “And we understand that like, it’s a goal, but … we don’t have to do it. I’d love it if we do go to Patagonia. But it’s a hard thing to do.” 

Marlie, on the other hand, wants to see India and Europe, particularly Greece and Turkey, while her son Aksel wants to see Asia and the Taj Mahal in India. 

“We’re hoping to get to Maine this summer,” Jim Bob said. “And I’ve never been to Maine, but it’s supposed to have just this fantastic cruising ground with all sorts of crazy coastline and great anchorages, so a beautiful landscape.”

Not For The Faint Of Heart

One thing the couple cautions people who are interested in trying this lifestyle is to realize that it’s not going to be as glamorous as YouTube and Facebook feeds suggest.

“I’m thrilled with how our journey is going,” Jim Bob said. “But, like Marlie was saying earlier, there’s really high highs, but I think one of the things that gets clouded online is that when things are going bad, we don’t reach for a camera. We don’t document the difficult times.”

Like when brown boobies were flying around the sailboat, diving for fish right next to the boat — that’s was a spectacular, Instagram-worthy moment. 

But no one wanted to grab a camera when Marlie became seasick.

“I was like puking for 12 hours a day, I was so seasick,” she said. “And we had 10-foot waves rocking the boat and you’re like, this sucks so bad.”

Instagram and Facebook feeds rarely show the rockier parts of the journey. That leads to unrealistic expectations, Marlie said, and suggested it’s important to prepare for the full experience, warts and all, rather than rushing out to buy a sailboat and jumping in all at once.

The Schells eased into their plan by first taking sailing classes from the University of Utah and then buying a small sailboat they could take out on Lake Fremont and Lake Jackson, to practice. Once they felt comfortable with their skills, they signed up for a seven-day sea-faring classes in the North Channel Islands to really test what they could do and make 100% certain they had what it would take. 

“Sailing, by itself, isn’t that hard,” Jim Bob said. “But there is a lot outside of that, in the lifestyle, that can be difficult, and the learning curve can be steep.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.