Docked, for now, at Gold Point Marina in Hixson, the sailboat Caretta is 10 tons of hull and boom and tightly furled mainsail. For owners Barry and Andrea Baker, this 1973 Gulfstar ketch is not just for weekend outings on Chickamauga Lake; it’s the vessel that’s helping them live their dreams. Since November 8, 2021, the Bakers have been tropical-island-hopping on this 40-foot floating home on the seas.
We recently went aboard for a tour of the boat and a conversation with the Bakers. Here are five takeaways from that visit.
Soddy-Daisy couple live aboard a sailboat and island-hop through the Caribbean and Florida Keys
– They’d never sailed before buying the boat. As improbable as it sounds, the Bakers were mostly landlubbers, with occasional lake outings, before Andrea began watching sailing videos on YouTube and convinced her husband they should be sailing the open seas.
“We’ve always had a pontoon boat or a fishing boat or Sea-Doos, stuff like that,” she says. “I’d always liked the look of sailboats, but I never knew that people lived and traveled on their boats. You see them around here and you think they just take them out for the day.”
To test the waters of their new venture, they started with a smaller sailboat at the same marina. Rather than quieting their compulsion, the initial purchase only increased their fascination.
“We were watching the YouTube videos where people would sail around the world,” Andrea says. Thinking the original sailboat wasn’t sufficient for the task, “we started looking for a bigger boat, something that, one day, maybe five years down the road, we’d want to travel on. Then the boat beside us came up for sale,” she adds.
They bought it and christened it Caretta, the scientific name for loggerhead sea turtles. They moved aboard in 2020 while finishing renovations.
– They downsized from a 2,500-square-foot house. The Bakers moved from a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house on a 1-acre lot in Soddy-Daisy. Barry was shop foreman for a multistate electrical contractor. He worked out of town much of the week, and when he came home, there were always chores waiting.
They’d lived there 30 years, but once their two children were grown with families of their own, the house, with its swimming pool and considerable yard, began to dominate their downtime.
“When he would come home, we would do yard work and upkeep the whole time,” Andrea says.
With the boat, however, they say there’s not not nearly as much maintenance as the house required.
– Caretta is more spacious than you might think. Quarters are tight, but there are front and back berths for sleeping. There’s a toilet and sink by their bedroom, as well as a front bath they plan to convert into a shower. When they travel in the tropics, they can shower in marinas or on deck beneath the boat’s outdoor showerhead. (Gold Point has a bathhouse they can use.)
The kitchen area is equipped with a sink, refrigerator/freezer, induction stovetop and dining area, as well as a combination washer/dryer for laundry. All of the appliances are sized to the surroundings.
The cabin is deeper than it appears, with storage behind the walls. They keep their clothes in plastic bins within these built-ins.
A desktop provides space to roll out maps, though they mostly rely on electronics for navigation.
– Their travels have taken them through the Florida Keys and the Caribbean. On their first trip, they floated “all through Florida and Key West for a couple of months, Dry Tortugas [National Park] and came back the next spring before hurricane season started,” Andrea says.
Later that year in 2022, they spent a year and a half traveling through Grenada in the Caribbean. They stayed there through hurricane season and returned to Chattanooga last June.
On each voyage, they’ve befriended more experienced “boat buddies” to sail to the new locations.
– They’re back in Chattanooga only temporarily. Though their children and six grandchildren are as near as Signal Mountain and Athens, Tennessee, the Bakers live aboard their boat exclusively. They made the trip home to see the family and tend to other obligations, such as doctor visits.
Both in their 50s, they’re not yet eligible for social security or pension payouts, so while in port, they have returned to work. Andrea is back with a former employer, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. Barry is at the Hixson Home Depot. He has resisted a move into management, preferring not to take on the extra duties and stress he had before taking up sailing.
“I just want to go to work, do my job and come home,” he says.
When their oldest grandson graduates high school next year, they plan to return to the sea.
They hope they can finish the shower renovation and a few cosmetic touch-ups first. They’ve learned, Barry says, that floating in the tropics leaves little motivation for anything besides lounging on deck, fishing, scuba diving or taking the dinghy to explore the nearest island.
Follow their adventures on YouTube and Instagram at “Sailing Caretta.”