As a kid growing up in New
Zealand my parents put me in
cricket and soccer but it wasn't
until I sat in a sailing dinghy
that I found out what I really
wanted to do.
That was where the dream
started.
That dream is still burning today
meeting the perfect shipmate in Mongolia of all places
throwing in our jobs and
security and spending the last
four years sailing on Luckyfish
has brought me closer to
realising the dream.
Equator ! Yay
but has it been worth the sacrifices?
Looking back over all these
amazing experiences you'd expect
we'd say an emphatic yes!
Woo, my God!
But there is a surprising answer
to that question
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We'll never forget the last day as we approached
Barbados.
We just sailed 3000 miles
non-stop and spent 22 nights out
of sight of land Barbados was
the end of our first ocean
crossing so many unknowns had
been wiped away.
What sticks in my mind is how
easily an ocean leg begins by
just weighing anchor and setting
sail.
It's just like a day sail except
this time you become a small
white dot and disappear over the
horizon and just how easily an
ocean crossing comes to an end.
Firstly by dwindling to a short
coastal sail and finally
extinguished by dropping anchor
in a sheltered bay
the only barriers stopping us from going
are psychological.
And we create them entirely ourselves
when you start sailing in tiny dinghies your dreams are
realized when you go around a
course without capsizing.
Crossing an ocean is a very very
distant dream.
So arriving in Barbados was a
dream realized too but just the
start of more dreams for the
Caribbean adventures that followed
Dreams of the headiest kind
fueled by movies and music
and books and history and
customs and countless accounts
of those that had been before.
Tristan Jones did not need no-one to sail with him
4000 miles
criss crossing the Caribbean has
only left us dreaming for more
first the Windward Islands and
the discovery of Bequia the
spiritual home of so many
sailors and now ours too
first introduction to the
impossible colors of the Tobago Cays
The magic of Saltwhistle Bay
[Bird Song]
Carriacou and the easy
passages reaching across the
wind going north or going south
sailing just for the sheer fun
of it and the chance to catch
dinner to deploy too
Tuna jumping! - Oh my God.
Once you're in the trade wind belt
It's just that, a conveyor belt
circling the globe.
We've hopped on and hopped off
so many times now letting the
wind choose our destinations.
When I think back to a place
it's the people who come to mind first.
Their smiles and stories and
just how much the same we all are.
So we jumped at the chance to
attend a meet-up in Florida with
other Wharram catamaran sailors
A Hui.
We sailed fast and rode
the wind almost 2000 miles
getting an all too brief taste
of the Bahamas on the way and
promising ourselves to return at
the Hui.
We really did make friends for
life who steered our journey up
rivers and into hidden places
safe from hurricanes and into
one of Florida's wonderful
backwaters.
There we went to work on all the
small improvements we'd been
planning since leaving South
Africa.
Our amazing little catamaran
that had looked after us so well
now faced another challenge.
To sail against the prevailing
wind down into the Bahamas and
time to meet our first guests of
a new season
it was the first
time we'd been on a schedule and
the boat didn't let us down
For months
we experienced possibly the
finest cruising the Caribbean
has to offer and shared it with
patrons and kindred spirits
wanting to experience life
onboard a Tiki 38
We only want big ones....
with hurricane season fast
approaching we headed to the Rio Dulce
Perhaps the only true hurricane
hole in the Caribbean and called
into Cuba on the way down
If they say the journey
is half the fun,
then they must have been talking
about journeys like these.
We had pretty favorable winds
for the entire twelve hundred
miles and the two week stop in
Havana made us keen to see more
of Cuba playing tactics with the
Gulf Stream paid off and we had
a fairly easy sail down to the
Rio hooking a magnificent Mahi
on the way that fed us and new
friends for a week.
We put the boat up on the hard
stand here at RAM (marina) and we expect
that the boat might be here six
months possibly a year while
we're going to get some work.
So we're just running through
the normal routine jobs that we
do to put the boat to bed.
So there it is viewers four
amazing years on Luckyfish
following, no fulfilling our
dreams.
Has it lived up to expectations.
No it hasn't.
It's gone way beyond them.
It's changed us for the better
and with it has come the
contentment of a realized dream
and the pursuit of more dreams.
How can we ever put a price on that?
Well you know it and
unfortunately we're forced to
put a price on everything.
What could we have done
differently with less sacrifice
and more security.
Next week I'll be sharing with
you my research into the current
state of what I'm calling
"smart boat ownership"
It's highly relevant to any of
you planning to follow your dreams
Be sure to subscribe.
Don't miss it.
And check out our channel for
all the other videos.
Thank you for watching and ...
Good luck with your dreams.