It all started with our love for the sea.
We always lived close to the sea. had the privilege to enjoy summer times on the beach, being able to visit islands near by and put our heads down in the water to discover the wonders of the world beneath the surface.
That was the Mediterranean Sea, the so called French Riviera. beautiful place visited by millions of tourist every year. It use to be the place where the northerners drove down to escape the cold in winter 50 or more years ago, now to a summer attraction for international tourists.
But for us locals, we knew where to go and how to escape the crowd.
We were young and adventures then. Loved climbing onto the rocks, swimming distances and snorkel around the shores to find cuttlefishes and all sorts of rock type fishes like groupers.
I met my future husband during the summer of 2006.
We were both working in the same hotel in Cannes, in a very luxurious 5 star hotel on the beach. He was a chef, I was front office receptionist. It did not take long to realise we were meant to be together, especially after a trip in Corsica, a French island 138 nautical miles out from Nice. We spent a week there driving around the island when we just met a few month ago.
On our return from Corsica, Fred and I decided to move to Australia and settle there. What a crazy idea that was for our parents. They never believed we would be staying forever. They always hoped for our return. It is hard to move so far away but that was our dream to discover another place and make a living there. Why Australia? That was Fred’s choice. He loved the idea of going to a place with so much nature and wildlife, but especially the Great Barrier Reef. I was in love and followed.
In 2007 we said our goodbyes to families, friends and France.
We grabbed our couple of suitcases each and $2000 in our pockets. Landed in cairns, Far North Queensland and started to look for work. Fred was able to find very quickly a work sponsor for us to be able to apply for residency.
During our 7 years in Cairns, we enjoyed every second weekend going out on the reef and enjoying this amazing environment below the surface. It was magical! We fell in love with this eco-system, the colours, the behaviours and we decided to pass our scuba diving levels. We reached Divemaster level and we could have worked in the industry but our future brought us to some place else.
We opened a French restaurant in Noosa on the Sunshine Coast.
Our first small business, how exciting that was! Extremely tiring, physically and emotionally challenging, but it was our baby and gave it all we could to run it as best as possible.
Our regulars loved the traditional cooking and the environment we gave to the place. You walked in and felt in Provence. You had authentic food cooked by a proper French chef and a bar menu with typical French drinks.
But we struggled. the finances were not good. We loved it but it was all in vain. We hoped for a better life and we had the opposite. The hours were too long; We were barely able to go away on holidays or when we did, we suffered financially. And definitely no holidays back to France, which was hard on our families. Physically we started to feel the pain; Fred had injuries and we decided to slow down and take staff. This is where it all started to go downhill. The financials were not able to support staff and the customers were not seeing me as much as I had to help Fred in the kitchen.
5 years running a small business and we got pregnant.
I became pregnant in September 2017 when we decided it was time to sell. I was not expecting the business to sell so quickly. It was like the Divine Order was working on our side on that one. It was time to move on.
Dream life on a boat couldn’t be any closer.
We always loved our travels in beautiful and remote places, meeting with the locals and discovering the beauty of secluded islands. Always close to the sea, with our passion for scuba diving, we also realised we liked being on boats. Starting with live-aboards while we went scuba diving, we loved the idea of being at sea all the time and spending our days and nights on water.
We are now in the process of learning to sail, looking for a boat to buy and finding our way to earn an income online so we can keep sailing and finance our journey.
I invite you to follow our journey as we go… You might like where it will bring us and possibly give you the desire to do just the same.
Sail away with us!
Melanie, Frederic and little Bub 😉
Journey to Freedom Sailing 