A pair of Millennials who thought they’d sell their possessions and live a carefree life, sailing from island to island on a 50-year-old boat — only to have their dreams dashed when they failed to learn how to sail and capsized their craft — have raised nearly $14,000 toward the purchase of a new boat.
Nikki Walsh and her boyfriend, Tanner Broadwell, along with the pair’s pug, decided a year ago to abandon their lives as working stiffs, and the daily drudgery of paying taxes and living like human beings, buy a boat and sail from island to island, cataloging their adventures for social media.
“How can we live our lives when we’re working most of the day and you have to pay so much just to live?” they told the Washington Post.
The pair made good on their pledge; last year they sold their possessions and car, bought a 50-year-old boat, and moved into the craft full time. After making around $10,000 in repairs, they decided to embark on their journey, but there was only one problem: neither of them had bothered to learn how to sail.
They also did not buy insurance.
It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that they capsized the boat on the first day, just as they were leaving Tarpon Springs to head to Key West. They were accidentally pulled into a channel, it seems, and ran aground on a sandbar. Fortunately neither were hurt, and the pair safely rescued their pooch.
But now the quintessential Millennial stereotypes want to try again, and they asked the Internet to furnish the $10,000 they need to salvage their wreck and start the process of purchasing a new boat. And despite the fact that the pair still doesn’t know how to sail (possibly forgivable), and have not yet committed to insuring their next major purchase (not exactly forgivable), the internet has given until it hurts.
As of Monday afternoon, Walsh and Broadwell have raised $13,181.
“You only have one life. Why spend it doing what you don’t love. Money isn’t everything!” they told the Post, though they are still accepting checks.