Scott & Audrey

Port Protection, Alaska and remote Alaska

Scott & Audrey (Both Age 42)

The Alaskan Gypsy

Scott and Audrey are a born and raised Alaskan couple who both grew up in rugged, self-sufficient lifestyles shaped by the wilderness of the Last Frontier. Scott was raised off the road system in the Alaskan backcountry after his father hitchhiked North during the pipeline boom and carved out a life in the wilderness. From an early age Scott learned to survive with his own hands: commercial fishing, carpentry, welding, mechanics, and countless other trades that now form the backbone of his independent lifestyle. Audrey grew up in the coastal town of Valdez, Alaska, where the towering mountains and icy waters of the Prince William Sound shaped her relationship with the land and sea. Drawn to the ocean from a young age, she spent years working on glacier cruise boats and remote islands, developing a deep connection to Alaska’s wild spaces. Though she later spent nearly two decades working as a nurse and building businesses in health and wellness, her heart was always pulled back toward the wilderness.

Both Scott and Audrey had lived full lives before meeting: they had marriages, careers, and children but when their paths crossed, they immediately connected over a shared desire for a different kind of life. Both felt burned out by the routines and expectations of modern society, and both longed to return to the raw freedom of Alaska’s wilderness. Together they decided to test that dream by leaving town behind and moving to a remote off-grid cabin accessible only by boat. Living far from roads, stores, and neighbors, they spent a year relying on the land, the ocean, and each other. The experiment changed everything. The freedom of remote living ignited a vision that neither of them could shake. Then they stumbled across a boat that would change their lives forever…

Moored quietly in a Southeast Alaska harbor sat an enormous steel vessel, a triple-masted motor-sailing schooner unlike anything they had ever seen. The boat wasn’t for sale, but the dream was planted instantly. Scott tracked down the owners, who slowly over time convinced them that he and Audrey were the perfect couple to steward the next chapter of the vessel. However, when they purchased the boat in Summer of 2025, the hull was in rough shape and they would have to do a lot of work to get the Alaska Gypsy back on her sea legs.

With no budget to hire help, Scott and Audrey moved aboard the crippled vessel in a working shipyard and began rebuilding it themselves. Living in the middle of a construction zone, Scott worked around the clock welding steel, repairing the hull, rebuilding systems, and resurrecting the massive ship piece by piece. Scott and Audrey are actively risking their financial future to keep the Alaskan Gypsy afloat. They have invested their life savings into the vessel, sacrificing stability, comfort, and conventional careers in order to build a life of freedom and self-reliance in the wilds of Alaska.

Today Scott and Audrey live full-time aboard the Alaskan Gypsy, which is an eighty-foot steel motor sailboat weighing over 110,000 pounds with three towering masts and five sails. The vessel functions as a completely self-contained home capable of crossing oceans and operating independently for months at a time. Inside the ship is a full galley kitchen, master stateroom, guest bunks for family, generators, large battery systems, and even a twenty-foot workshop where Scott fabricates tools and equipment. The boat carries over 1,200 gallons of diesel yet burns only a few gallons per hour, allowing them to travel immense distances across Alaska’s remote coastline. It is both their home and their livelihood, a mobile basecamp capable of reaching remote locations few people on Earth ever get the opportunity to visit.

For Scott and Audrey, living off grid means true self-reliance. When they’re near land, they hunt their own food including moose, black bear, and deer, filling their freezers with wild meat. They fish for salmon and halibut, forage along the coastline, and rely heavily on the ocean’s resources. Rainwater collection, generators, and careful energy use keep the vessel running. They grind their own meat, cook simple meals, and stretch supplies for months at a time. Every decision is about independence, using fewer resources, spending less money, and relying more on their own skills.

Both Scott and Audrey are divorced and together they’ve created a blended family of five children who join them aboard the Gypsy periodically throughout the year, but not full time. Audrey has two children, Canyon, 16, and Ada, 13 while Scott has three: Riley, 12, Taylor, 10, and six-year-old Addie. When the kids are aboard, the massive boat becomes a floating family home where fishing, exploring, and wilderness adventures replace screens and suburbs. The children learn firsthand what it means to live independently in one of the most remote environments on Earth. And it’s not only the friends, close friends and family members are also known to come visit, spend time on the boat and offer their services in exchange for a taste of life on the Alaskan sea.

The Alaskan Gypsy gives Scott and Audrey a unique ability to travel anywhere along Alaska’s immense coastline, from isolated fishing villages to forgotten islands and wilderness areas unreachable by road. But they don’t simply pass through. Wherever they go, they offer their skills to remote communities that often struggle to access outside help. Scott brings decades of experience in carpentry, welding, construction, and mechanical repair, while Audrey contributes her background as a nurse, yoga instructor, and healer. In tiny villages where tradespeople are scarce and supplies are difficult to obtain, their arrival can mean the difference between a project getting done or waiting another year. Sometimes they’re paid. Sometimes they barter goods or services. Earning money isn’t about wealth, it’s about sustaining their nomadic life and keeping the Gypsy moving.

But living a nomadic life in the remote waters of Alaska comes with serious risks. Storms can rise without warning, dragging anchors and threatening to smash the boat against rocky shorelines. The surrounding ocean is brutally cold, a fall overboard could be fatal within minutes. Mechanical failures, damaged rigging, or navigation mistakes can quickly turn dangerous when the nearest harbor is hundreds of miles away. Injuries and medical emergencies must often be handled onboard, far from hospitals or rescue services. Yet those risks are exactly what make life onboard so rewarding.

For Scott and Audrey, living aboard the Alaskan Gypsy means waking each day to an entirely new chapter of adventure. One morning they may anchor beside breaching humpback whales or watch orcas circle the boat. Another day they might cut trees off a storm-damaged home in a remote village or haul supplies between islands under sail. Their life is unpredictable, challenging, and sometimes dangerous while also breathtaking. For Scott and Audrey, the Gypsy isn’t just a boat, it’s off-grid freedom.