Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1182: Learning to Live Aboard a Sailboat Revisited - Nathan Zahrt and Vivian Vuong

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Ep. 1182: Learning to Live Aboard a Sailboat Revisited - Nathan Zahrt and Vivian Vuong · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports Podcast.
0:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for adventuring with us as we discover what incredible athletes and outdoor enthusiasts are doing all over the world.
0:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello everyone and welcome to the Adventure Sports Podcast.
0:21
[SPEAKER_01]: This is Caleb.
0:23
[SPEAKER_01]: In today's revisited episode, we have Mason interviewing Nathan Zart and Vivian Vong.
0:30
[SPEAKER_01]: In this episode, they explore how they're passion for sailing started.
0:34
[SPEAKER_01]: even though they were both born sort of in landlocked western United States and how that passion eventually grew into a career.
0:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Today they take groups out offering offshore sailing adventures and training sessions and through that they've been able to live a life of travel excitement and endurance and a sense of satisfaction with helping others achieve their sailing goals.
1:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a great
1:05
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you don't mind, start with telling us where are you right now?
1:10
[SPEAKER_03]: We are in Solomon's Maryland.
1:12
[SPEAKER_03]: It's about an hour and a half south of Washington, D.C. at a little Marina where we'd like to do a lot of our boat work and yard work.
1:23
[SPEAKER_03]: They have a all-out travel lift and pretty much everything we need to work on the boat here.
1:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's called Springcove Marina and it's probably the best Marina I've ever been to just because
1:36
[SPEAKER_04]: A lot of marinas don't have a lot of park area.
1:41
[SPEAKER_04]: They don't have a lot of real estate, but this marina, in particular, they have a huge area to sit with picnic benches.
1:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And they have a huge yard that they let you do most of your own work on if you don't want to contract somebody.
1:55
[SPEAKER_04]: So it really helps us out.
1:57
[SPEAKER_04]: You get best of both worlds.
1:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So you see, you live on a boat and have a yard you got a main team.
2:03
[SPEAKER_02]: no no in the yard we work on our boat very cool let me ask you this you have always wanted to know when you when you when you're on a boat you want to go to a Marina how does it work me just pull up like you would at a hotel and say hey do you have any have any slots available any space available or do you have to call ahead what does that look like typically with
2:27
[SPEAKER_04]: But sometimes if you are just traveling, you call a head on BHF radio and you say, hey, I'm, you know, about a mile or two out, do you have any available slips?
2:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Of course, you could always call a head on the phone and reserve a slip.
2:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes Marina's don't answer their phones though, so yeah, you do just have to kind of.
2:47
[SPEAKER_04]: sale up and hope they have something available and yeah it's funny it really depends on how big of a city you are in let's say you're going into New York City typically they're usually packed full if you're going in a little river you know inside of the Chesapeake Bay then most likely they'll have a spot
3:05
[SPEAKER_02]: it's really interesting so so take us back I know you guys have probably told the story a billion times and you're probably sick of it by now but I'd love to hear I know you're not from you're not like raised on the water necessarily and you weren't from there you're from New Mexico or you were living there before could you tell us kind of you know where you're both are from what what did you grow up doing and what led you to this because that's you know
3:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's 100% true.
3:36
[SPEAKER_03]: We both grew up kind of in the Western United States.
3:42
[SPEAKER_03]: I grew up in New Mexico, Vivian kind of all over the place.
3:45
[SPEAKER_03]: When I was in high school, I started doing a bunch of white water rafting, and that kind of got me interested in water and boating.
3:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And I always thought it would be cool to go sailing out on the ocean, but I had no idea where to even start with that.
4:03
[SPEAKER_03]: I had gone university and some friends of mine, friends of both of ours asked us if we wanted to move to Florida and learn how to sail and buy a boat and it was funny.
4:15
[SPEAKER_04]: We were just roommates at the time and our friends said, they asked us both, but when we went home that night Nathan was like, oh, so we're moving across the country together.
4:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was like, I guess we are.
4:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And two weeks later, we got married and Vegas.
4:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, I don't mean to try to draw this into us, but my wife and I did the same thing.
4:39
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
4:40
[SPEAKER_02]: She came and saw me while I was biking across the country and came to Vegas and we're like, hey, let's just get married.
4:46
[SPEAKER_02]: If we got married at the courthouse, I don't know if y'all did as well.
4:50
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, we did.
4:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's crazy.
4:53
[SPEAKER_02]: You're in good company here.
4:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Very, very like-minded folks.
4:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So you got married on your way to Florida?
5:01
[SPEAKER_04]: We got married and then we, it took us about four months to pack everything in the house and have a garage sale and kind of tie up loose ends.
5:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And then we filled up our beat up $500 car with all of our belongings in just across the country.
5:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And then it took us about another four months to find a boat.
5:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm all four of us, but a 37 boat 37 foot boat that we all lived on for about two years.
5:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And then we're like, all right, we got to go our separate ways.
5:34
[SPEAKER_04]: But it was all in good terms.
5:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah.
5:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, what would you say the most?
5:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, intimidating part of that whole journey was it was it living with other people?
5:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Or was it, you know, live on a boat in general?
5:49
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I mean, we had, all four of us had lived together at different times.
5:55
[SPEAKER_03]: And that part wasn't too daunting at all.
6:01
[SPEAKER_03]: We all knew how to deal with each other, but really it was just for me, especially was just learning how to sail and trying to figure out where we were going to learn that and whether to take classes that sometimes were super expensive or what to do, but we kind of just figured it out ourselves and.
6:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, so we learned about sailing and then once we bought the sailboat, we started meeting all these really cool people in the sailboat community that we're just.
6:31
[SPEAKER_04]: living aboard their boat, they were traveling, you know, and we wanted to do the same things.
6:37
[SPEAKER_04]: But at the same time, we had land jobs, and all four of us had full-time jobs ashore, and we're like, how do we go cruising, and how do we afford this lifestyle while still, you know, being able to make money?
6:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So after two years of that, that's when Nathan and I decided that we wanted to go and make a career out of sailing and we moved to Fort Lauderdale and started working on bigger boats as crew.
7:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's kind of how we got into what we're doing now.
7:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, since you know, the classes were expensive, what did you start doing to learn how to sail?
7:24
[SPEAKER_03]: really just by reading books, some of the most simple just how sailing works books, how to sail, and I just kept reading and reading, and then we also found the U.S. power squadrons, and where we were in Melbourne, it's the sail and power squadron, and they have classes from everything from just basic seamanship up to celestial navigation and coastal navigation,
7:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Those classes were actually really affordable, and we took pretty much all the classes that they offer.
8:00
[SPEAKER_03]: At the same time, we were just trying to get out on the water as much to be good, a neighbor of ours who would've met through the power squadron, had a little 14 and a half foot day sailor that he would let us take out whenever we wanted, and so we kind of started sailing on that, and then we bought our 37 foot boat, and we just, we had some guidance
8:22
[SPEAKER_03]: our friend and roommate Megan's dad who was a sailor.
8:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And but then we just started taking the boat out and kind of figuring it out ourselves.
8:33
[SPEAKER_02]: As you've learned how to sail, did anything surprise you about maybe what you had in mind of what it would be like and then actually doing it?
8:42
[SPEAKER_04]: What surprised me most was how easy it was to transition from living in a apartment or a home
8:51
[SPEAKER_04]: moving everything into this boat that, you know, water, being on the salt water, especially it's not the best environment, or, you know, things get corroded, yeah, things get corroded, you get you said, and you know, over time you transition and you say, I don't really need this anyway.
9:10
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just going to if things rot and mold, then they don't belong in the boat, and then you realize that you don't need a lot of material things anyway.
9:20
[SPEAKER_04]: We have what we need on the boat and a little extra, but we keep, we have this thing that we're trying to do.
9:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's if we buy a new piece of clothing, we have to get rid of an older piece of clothing, like if I get a new hat, get rid of an old hat.
9:38
[SPEAKER_04]: So that really makes us mindful of what we buy.
9:43
[SPEAKER_04]: But it hasn't really stopped.
9:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, there's been a lot of that.
9:49
[SPEAKER_03]: As far as other things that we're kind of surprising to learn as we kind of venture into sailing, it really actually turned out to be not as complex as I thought, you know, not knowing anything about sailboats, you look at them and you think, oh, there's all these ropes and lines everywhere and they all do something different and it's, how do I figure out which ones do what?
10:13
[SPEAKER_03]: But as I read a lot about it and then just started doing it,
10:18
[SPEAKER_03]: pretty intuitive, and it really wasn't as complex as it seemed at first, and it wasn't as daunting as it seemed.
10:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Very interesting.
10:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Very, you know, a lot of this is selfish, uh, selfish questions, because I'm curious about this.
10:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know about, was there any, you know, with this is the adventurous sports podcast, so we talk about people using really adventure sports to experience the world experience nature and to to be in touch with, you know,
10:48
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of our greater purpose and using that medium of sport of travel as a way to achieve that.
10:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you find it more physical than you expected or is there a lot to always do or is that also less complicated than you thought it would be?
11:04
[SPEAKER_04]: It's funny.
11:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I just ran into one of our marina neighbors and he's fairly new into sailing and he goes, does this get any easier?
11:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And I said,
11:16
[SPEAKER_04]: No, but you start getting better at it and it gets more fun when that starts to happen.
11:22
[SPEAKER_04]: So I mean, you know, everything there's a challenge, but it's really if you're someone who wants to learn and kind of challenge yourself and push yourself to live on comfortably for a little bit to kind of you get you get the benefit and you get the reward because what we really love to do is being out there in the middle of the ocean, which is where the adventure starts.
11:45
[SPEAKER_04]: When, you know, we're dodging squalls or we're in a middle of a rainstorm or lightning storm and you have to kind of fend for yourself at that point.
11:58
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, I mean, it does get somewhat physically demanding at times.
12:03
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, possibly.
12:04
[SPEAKER_04]: All time, I mean, just bringing in your groceries is a sport in itself.
12:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, a balancing act, I'm sure.
12:15
[SPEAKER_03]: difficult conditions.
12:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And I mean, even just making a simple sale change in normal conditions is pretty physically demanding.
12:24
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, I mean, sailing definitely is a sport, even if you're not racing.
12:31
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's something that you're always kind of competing, at least against yourself, to try and sail as easy and as best as you can.
12:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And there is always something to do.
12:43
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean,
12:44
[SPEAKER_03]: whether even if you're you've just set the sales and you're on a good tech and you're just the boat sailing along with the autopilot there's definitely stuff to do I mean there's always boat maintenance to do there's you know even even cooking underway can be a challenge at times depending on the state of the sea I mean we stay busy pretty much up the time
13:08
[SPEAKER_02]: what is your life look like are you constantly moving around because from what I understand you started out delivering boats as a way to make money and also as kind of kill two birds of one stone.
13:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you still doing that or what is what is kind of daily life looking like?
13:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So after we sold the first boat, we set down to Fort Lauderdale and we were in and out of boats
13:38
[SPEAKER_04]: using the $500 car as our storage and you know there were times where Nathan and I were working separately for months at a time and we started to get sick of it.
13:51
[SPEAKER_04]: We got really lucky where this guy is on the end part of his career and wanted to help people and mentor them into
14:04
[SPEAKER_04]: doing what he does so that he can kind of hand over some business so that he's not so busy.
14:09
[SPEAKER_03]: And when he does is take people out sailing on sail training passages, he could got his start delivering boats just kind of like we did.
14:19
[SPEAKER_04]: So he said, you know, why aren't you guys find a boat that you can have about four to six people sleep comfortably in and let's start doing
14:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And we said, OK, and that was last spring, we bought our boat.
14:37
[SPEAKER_04]: We, it took us, you know, five years to find this boat because over the course of five years from our search for a boat kind of teeter-todder to small boats versus big boats.
14:51
[SPEAKER_04]: But then when we finally had a goal in mind, then we were like, OK, we need a boat with at least, you know, these kind of parameters.
15:03
[SPEAKER_04]: We were in Maryland and we spent nine months in the boat yard, that means that you're out of the water, your boat is on the stand and you're climbing a ladder up and down and you're replacing all the things necessary that could, you know, kind of upgrading gear and installing new parts and we did that for nine months and then we're like, okay, yeah, let's start our business.
15:30
[SPEAKER_04]: We got a few people.
15:31
[SPEAKER_04]: uh booked on our passages and then the pandemic hit and we were in Florida and we were about to go to the home and you know that's the best thing to do right start a business to the during a pandemic and so we were supposed to go to the Bahamas in two days before they shut their
15:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Palm Beach, just south of a peanut island for all of quarantine.
16:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, we spent two months there.
16:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
16:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And then the delivery business also kind of picked up.
16:09
[SPEAKER_03]: So while we couldn't really take our boat anywhere, people were still looking to have boats delivered.
16:14
[SPEAKER_03]: We brought a boat back from St. Thomas to North Carolina.
16:19
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we were in talks with people to deliver boats all summer.
16:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Some of it fell through due to us not being able to travel
16:28
[SPEAKER_03]: But then this fall, we have delivered two boats and we have two more to deliver in December.
16:36
[SPEAKER_03]: So we kind of split our time between delivering boats and running training packages on our boat.
16:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Whenever we are on our boat, where we're constantly working on it, we're upgrading things all the time.
16:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And things break when we're sailing as well.
16:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you know, happen.
16:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it happens.
16:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it happens.
16:56
[SPEAKER_03]: back in June we were sailing from Florida up to Maryland and we had a sheet block break and I ripped our sail and we couldn't sail anymore.
17:07
[SPEAKER_03]: We ended up motoring into Beaufort, North Carolina getting some stuff fixed there before continuing on up to Maryland.
17:16
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, things are always happening and but it's fun.
17:20
[SPEAKER_03]: It is fun.
17:21
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, but every day is different and
17:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, if you're the kind of person who doesn't want routine, then boating is definitely for you.
17:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So you've got your boat now and you can do tours and take people traveling.
17:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously not right now.
17:38
[SPEAKER_02]: So so the or not as much over the summer, maybe it's starting to pick up more boat.
17:43
[SPEAKER_02]: What did you went when it came to deliveries?
17:46
[SPEAKER_02]: What does that look like?
17:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you have to
17:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, a lot of times fly somewhere, how much time does it take to get used to the boat, to how much care you're taking of it and then getting it to where it needs to go?
18:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, it feels like an adventure, of course, but also you've got someone's very expensive asset on your hands.
18:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Sometimes they're also not the best quality boats, too.
18:16
[SPEAKER_04]: You can also ask the owners for a survey, which is basically the report like what you get during a home inspection.
18:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It's called a boat survey.
18:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And then you can kind of run and see what needs to be worked on if it has been fixed and what kind of equipment is on the boat.
18:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And then, yeah, any time that we show up to do a delivery, I spend a bare minimum of probably about two days going
18:47
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's a very similar process to me as looking at boats when we were looking to buy one.
18:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I just get on board the boat.
18:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I generally look around on deck at first check all the lines and ropes and the rigging all the stuff that's holding the mast up and maybe take a look at the sales.
19:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Make sure we're actually going to be able to move the boat.
19:09
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I go below and I start opening up everything.
19:14
[SPEAKER_03]: And I open up all the cabinets, saw the lockers, they check all the villages.
19:18
[SPEAKER_03]: I find where all the through holes are, all the systems, how stuff is ran, wiring, everything.
19:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And I just try and as quickly as I can familiarize myself with the boat.
19:40
[SPEAKER_03]: if we need to do any work on it before we take off or if the boats get to go.
19:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And I would say that overall we've been very, very fortunate and we have had the opportunity to deliver some very, very nice boats.
19:54
[SPEAKER_03]: But when we started, there were times where we delivered boats that were constantly leaking and we're going to feel that we're pretty rough, but for the most part, we've delivered pretty nice boats.
20:09
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like house sitting and car sitting at the same time, you know, you've got a, you've got a home or this, this large thing, this vessel, but you also kind of have to maneuver it somewhere.
20:22
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's like, like house sitting, but you got to drive it around.
20:26
[SPEAKER_02]: That's pretty funny.
20:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
20:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And then also, it's with
20:29
[SPEAKER_04]: What's becoming interesting is that the owners that buy these boats, you know, during the pandemic, there are a lot of people who have bought boats because it's a great way to kind of still be active and be outside, but you are away from crowds and you can bring your family aboard and you can still do something fun.
20:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And so there are a lot of people who have been hiring us who just bought a boat, but then they also want training as well.
20:58
[SPEAKER_04]: So not only are we.
21:00
[SPEAKER_04]: moving and, you know, fixing boats, but we're also kind of teaching people how to sail their boats as well, which is, you know, at first it's a little, I would say I'm a little hesitant to be like, well, you do this, this and this because it is their boat, but then you just realize, you know, you're, you're helping someone kind of live their dream and it's really satisfying to see.
21:24
[SPEAKER_04]: to look at, you know, sometimes some of our clients will send us pictures of them sailing.
21:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And you're like, yes, that's awesome.
21:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, it's really rewarding.
21:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And most people really are more capable than maybe they even give themselves credit for.
21:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
21:39
[SPEAKER_03]: But in teaching people doing these training passages, it's really just kind of empowering them and being there and showing them what they can do.
21:49
[SPEAKER_03]: love letting people just do as much as they're comfortable with and kind of urging them to get comfortable with more and just trying to let them do as much as they can.
22:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And I feel like a lot of people who end up buying boats, they have already really well versed, they've read all the sailing books, they've taken all the classes, they know what to do.
22:09
[SPEAKER_04]: The only thing that they're cautious of is actually how to live on a boat, you know, how to run a boat,
22:17
[SPEAKER_04]: how to put your provisions away or how to even grocery shop for, you know, two weeks to the Caribbean from the States.
22:25
[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of our clients are very proficient sailors, but they've either yet never lived on a boat or they've never done a long ocean passage where they've crossed, you know, thousand miles of ocean.
22:38
[SPEAKER_03]: They've never maybe done overnight passages.
22:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that's the kind of,
22:45
[SPEAKER_04]: that we bring in is our little unique twist on the business is that we help people realize that they can sail offshore overnight on these really long distant passages and after day three or four you're in the rhythm and then you know by by day seven and nine you're like I don't know it's kind of it's exciting to see land but then when you get close to the land
23:14
[SPEAKER_02]: just turn around and go back.
23:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Right?
23:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Stay able to know where.
23:18
[SPEAKER_02]: That's too funny.
23:21
[SPEAKER_02]: It has to be rewarding to take what you've learned in someone who wants to actually, my friend Paul, my best friend, he told me one time, he goes, someone out there is willing to pay you for what you know.
23:35
[SPEAKER_02]: and I always think about that and it's like, what do I know that other people need to know or want to know and would be willing to build something on that I could pay some bills with, not, you know, millions of dollars, but just make a living.
23:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it sounds like that's exactly what y'all have done.
23:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
23:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
23:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And I mean, when, like I said, when we first started, we were
24:04
[SPEAKER_04]: how do we get rid of our land jobs?
24:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Because we are super unhappy with our land jobs.
24:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And it didn't seem to be like any future with it.
24:16
[SPEAKER_04]: So we just feel very fortunate that we get paid to do this.
24:21
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it's the dream come true, I think.
24:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, we've worked really hard to get where we are, but it is absolutely a dream come true.
24:34
[SPEAKER_03]: And part of that is definitely sharing our knowledge with people.
24:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So can I ask this?
24:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I always want to know for folks who have taken a passion and turned it into a career at least a partial career.
24:51
[SPEAKER_02]: How has it changed your relationship with the passion itself?
24:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Because sometimes it's good, sometimes it's more challenging.
24:58
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't love it as much.
25:00
[SPEAKER_02]: How has that experience been for y'all?
25:03
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a good question, and it has changed kind of how I feel about sailing.
25:07
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a big jump going from, you know, crewing on deliveries to being the captain on these deliveries.
25:16
[SPEAKER_03]: And just taking on all that added responsibility and not having anyone else to rely on.
25:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And really, I mean, deep ocean sailing, sort of it's really all about as self-sufficiency.
25:30
[SPEAKER_03]: being resourceful and relying on yourself and your crew.
25:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And that was something to get used to as I transitioned from crew to captain.
25:38
[SPEAKER_03]: But I wouldn't say that my passion for being out on the ocean has diminished at all.
25:45
[SPEAKER_03]: I still, that's what I want to do when I want to share it with as many people as I can.
25:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And for me, I guess my passion before sailing was film and photography.
25:59
[SPEAKER_04]: for a few years and then kept doing it while I was sailing and then once we started leaving our hometown or our port town in Florida, I couldn't keep up with the clients who wanted my photography services because I was on a different schedule than I used to be.
26:15
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I was unavailable.
26:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And so for a while, it kind of felt like I was losing a part of myself, but then I started doing photography through a sailing medium.
26:29
[SPEAKER_04]: That is actually really fulfilling and has really changed the way I looked at, both sailing and photography, so creatively, it really makes me happy.
26:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Now I'm like teaching workshops on how to fly drones underway and helping other sailors get the best shots, and I'm just this year getting published in some sailing magazines.
27:00
[SPEAKER_04]: The two have helped kind of morph into this little different thing that is my own, which is really cool.
27:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Nathan used to think that he was dragging me along with this whole sailing thing.
27:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And now I'm like, no, all right.
27:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I got this so you know that's really cool you know I was going to say film and photography gosh you've got like a gold mine now of beautiful boats and just spectacular places you really get to really get to work on that craft.
27:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And also document it because a lot of people are really interested in this lifestyle.
27:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I know there's a lot of very successful YouTubers about the sailing life and the sailing world.
27:44
[SPEAKER_02]: We've had a lot of them on this show and their episodes always just get so much interaction because I think it's something that people see.
27:52
[SPEAKER_02]: This sailing world kind of like the vanlife world.
27:55
[SPEAKER_02]: It's something so different.
27:56
[SPEAKER_02]: So kind of contained and so I don't know appealing in a lot of ways, but it's also a huge jump for most people.
28:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So You get to document that and share it with the world.
28:07
[SPEAKER_02]: That's that's valuable for what you're doing Especially since you have a business attached to it, you know It makes us have more goals in mind for the future.
28:19
[SPEAKER_04]: You know we keep thinking of different
28:22
[SPEAKER_04]: plots and ideas on making our own sailing documentary and what kind of things we'd like to show the world.
28:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's nice to have those types of goals within your goal, you know.
28:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's nice to have things to do other than just sailing.
28:38
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, sometimes times you do want to just get away from the boat and not think about it and focus on something else for a little bit.
28:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Can each of you, do you have an experience or a day or something that you can, you know, that quickly comes to mind that you share with people, you know, when they ask, hey, are you glad with the choice you made like maybe a day that made you think, you know, this is, this is why we chose this this is, this was the right decision.
29:08
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, I would say that there's a there's actually been a lot of those days, but.
29:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Some of the ones that stand out or.
29:16
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we were delivering a boat in the Pacific once and we looked out, we were kind of hugging the coast of Mexico heading north to California and we looked out to the west and coming out of the Pacific Ocean were just hundreds and hundreds of dolphins pretty much from horizon to horizon as far as like the jumping out of the water flipping, you know, running into the boat for fun.
29:45
[SPEAKER_04]: it was.
29:47
[SPEAKER_03]: And when you see stuff like that, I mean, it makes, you know, any of the challenges worth it.
29:52
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, it's their days like that that are that are super fun.
29:58
[SPEAKER_02]: What about for you, Vivian?
30:00
[SPEAKER_04]: For me, oh, man, there's been so many times that I guess for the most recent one,
30:15
[SPEAKER_04]: you know a published photographer and this last month we had a magazine where Nathan did the article and I published the pictures and our friends were just passing it around and you know we're next to these authors who we have been reading over the last few years and were like wow people are reading this you know I could hold it in my hand and it just made me really happy to be able to actually
30:45
[SPEAKER_04]: have something out there in the world, I mean, that's why I do the photography is to kind of share my journey with people and to show them, you know, there's so much world out there, there's I mean, I grew up traveling by car and playing, but never did I step foot on a sailboat until I was in my 20s.
31:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So this whole world completely needs me and it's, you know, it's nice to be a part of and
31:15
[SPEAKER_04]: even more wonderful to share it with people who don't know much about it because I was there once as well and then, you know, now I own a boat.
31:26
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, maybe one day, you're going to own a boat maidson.
31:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you know, who've got a kayak.
31:32
[SPEAKER_02]: That's, it's also going to go to a sailboat.
31:35
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's, I'm not going to lie.
31:38
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we moved from the mountains of Colorado and every other person in this area has a boat.
31:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, our neighbor has two boats, literally 10 feet from our house.
31:49
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a big old boat, not a sailboat, but there's a ton of them around here.
31:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And every time I see it it's like, you know, I need to learn how that works because there's obviously something that There's obviously like a bug that bites you with that because it feels like people who are into it are really into it You know what I'm saying?
32:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It's one of those kind of hobbies and lifestyles so I don't know maybe I'm scared of it.
32:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know
32:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Where has been, maybe a place you really enjoyed one of your favorite locations and maybe a location you're excited to sail to one day or that you're looking forward to?
32:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So for me, it's the island of Medira, which is a Portuguese island off the coast of the western coast of Africa.
32:42
[SPEAKER_04]: We stopped there for a few nights to kind of refuel and repo vision.
32:47
[SPEAKER_04]: And before that trip, I had never heard of Medira.
32:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And I knew of Medira, you know, it's similar to Port-Wine, but yeah, that's the same place.
32:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was just a really cool little island in the middle, nowhere.
33:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And I love the food, the people, the sites, the things to do.
33:11
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, maybe next year once this whole pandemic kind of subsides and we can start traveling internationally again, we were thinking of doing a transatlantic from Florida or Maryland up to back to the Azores and doing a transatlantic loop.
33:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And so that's in the future for us, that's exciting to think about those plans.
33:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think my favorite sailing destination I've been to, it was probably the Azores.
33:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Something intrigues me about these little islands or little island groups that are just out in the middle of nowhere.
34:02
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess they just tend to have this big sailing culture
34:11
[SPEAKER_03]: It's always been part of their lives, so it's interesting.
34:14
[SPEAKER_03]: And the Azores are just an incredible place, and people are so friendly, and the food is so great.
34:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Some of the best seafood I've ever had.
34:23
[SPEAKER_04]: And cheap.
34:24
[SPEAKER_04]: cold beer.
34:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I can't beat that.
34:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Who would think cheap way out there in the middle of the ocean?
34:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
34:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
34:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you're sailing for two weeks straight, non-stop, I mean, you're on 24 hours, you know, the boat is moving.
34:41
[SPEAKER_04]: So after two weeks of that, you're like, all right, I'm gonna walk off the boat and get a cold beer.
34:49
[SPEAKER_02]: my gosh you know I'm also curious about this and I know this is a little different you know you it seems like you jump in that boat in the world is really wherever there's water you can get to not probably technically every single spot but it probably feels that way like we can just go
35:07
[SPEAKER_02]: of what has been the most realistic danger you've faced.
35:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that we hear a crazy stories of pirates or of storms or whatever what are some dangers that you face and that you're kind of mindful of while you're out there.
35:22
[SPEAKER_03]: One thing I'm super mindful of and a big threat is lightning.
35:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Lightning can if it strikes your boat can pretty much
35:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Then it's hard to navigate.
35:39
[SPEAKER_03]: It's hard to do anything.
35:41
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't have cold food.
35:43
[SPEAKER_03]: So lightning's a big one.
35:46
[SPEAKER_03]: And we did at one point, we were delivering a boat.
35:51
[SPEAKER_03]: We had just left OkaPoco, Mexico, when we were heading down to Panama.
35:55
[SPEAKER_03]: And we ran into the biggest lightning storm I've ever seen.
35:58
[SPEAKER_03]: And lightning was just striking the water all around us.
36:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And every flash would light up everything.
36:08
[SPEAKER_03]: but we didn't get struck kind of miraculously, but it's a big threat and it's something that concerns me, but you know, you try and avoid it as best you can.
36:18
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't always do that, but so far we've been lucky.
36:22
[SPEAKER_03]: We've also had our fair share of close calls with hurricanes.
36:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I helped out a friend of ours and a right-out hurricane Matthew back in 2016
36:38
[SPEAKER_03]: And she goes to waterway in Florida, but he had just bought the boat and didn't have insurance on it.
36:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And because there was a name storm in the system, he couldn't get insurance yet.
36:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And we spent the night in the river.
36:54
[SPEAKER_03]: We actually at one point off two of our anchor roads parted and the boat was a drift.
37:01
[SPEAKER_03]: And we had to fire up the engine and just kind of try and hold the boat in place in 90 mile an hour winds while we were.
37:08
[SPEAKER_03]: until we could get enough light to see and navigate to somewhere where we would be safe.
37:14
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, I mean, hurricanes and storms are out there.
37:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And we have, you know, these days, we have better weather forecasting and weather routers.
37:28
[SPEAKER_03]: So with good planning, you can generally avoid that stuff.
37:38
[SPEAKER_03]: look at the eye and and take what you get.
37:42
[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, I mean, other things, you know, that some people would think are kind of a big concern, stuff like pirates, sort of not that big of deal.
37:53
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you're more likely to have someone break into your house or get mug walking down this trip and you are to run into a pirate in the ocean.
38:00
[SPEAKER_04]: That's exactly what I was going
38:06
[SPEAKER_04]: the type of person who leaves all their things out on deck and then you don't lock up then it's kind of inviting people to take your things.
38:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Other than that we haven't ever had any encounters luckily with any thieves or pirates.
38:24
[SPEAKER_04]: For me, big dangers for me on a boat I guess
38:33
[SPEAKER_04]: There have been times where we're on a boat and winds pick up and then, you know, we have to, we have to change sales really quickly and then something breaks or something comes loose and then because of that another thing breaks or comes loose because it's all kind of connected so that can get really dangerous and heavy weather and you just have to kind of know what to do is, you know,
39:04
[SPEAKER_04]: slow the boat down or heave to, which is a maneuver that we do when we need to stop the boat quickly.
39:11
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, and this all comes with proper training and being and kind of knowing experience.
39:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Experience and also a lot of communication, you know, a lot of the times
39:33
[SPEAKER_04]: just the two of us say a boat non stop for days at a time.
39:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And so it really all comes down to communication.
39:40
[SPEAKER_04]: If I see something wrong on deck and I'm not necessarily comfortable on going up deck by myself, you know, we never go on deck at night, unless another person's in the cockpit, but you know, if it's in the daytime and Nathan's down below taking an app, you know, I'll
40:01
[SPEAKER_04]: whatever it is, but I'll wake Nathan up if something happens or he'll wake me up if he needs an extra pair of eyes.
40:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And we both have to kind of be like, okay, we're running this boat.
40:12
[SPEAKER_04]: There's no other goal than to make landfall safe and sound.
40:18
[SPEAKER_02]: make landfall safe and sound.
40:19
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you miss the most when you're out there about?
40:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what you call it, land life.
40:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Nothing.
40:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Electricity.
40:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, generally when we come back into port.
40:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, after I'm craving, you know, the burger steak, but we pretty well on passages as well.
40:41
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, we have, we're not crazy.
40:43
[SPEAKER_04]: We're not alcoholics or anything, but we also don't drink
40:48
[SPEAKER_04]: by the end of a passage, really.
40:50
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, it's time for a beer.
40:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, beer lasts a while.
40:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Sounds pretty good after being out there for a long, hot shower is really nice, because we conserve water on the boat.
41:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And even though we have a water heater, I actually have gotten it down to our can shower with exactly three liters of water that's rinse shower
41:17
[SPEAKER_04]: You're like everything I'm good with three liters of warm water.
41:21
[SPEAKER_04]: But when we're on land, oh yeah, I'll take a nice 10-15 minute warm shower.
41:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I can imagine that's so that sounds so fun, sounds so exciting, so unique of a lifestyle.
41:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And gosh, this is fantastic.
41:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there anything else you'd want to share with listeners?
41:39
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you feel free to plug your website.
41:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to share everything in the intro as well, but this is just so fascinating.
41:46
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a million more things I could ask, but I want to make sure we share what you want to.
41:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, yeah, if you have any questions or want to see what we've been up to.
41:55
[SPEAKER_04]: We have our writing links and our sailing schedule posted on our website, which is saleoshenpassages.com and our Instagram and Facebook are at ocean passages with an S. And if you want to see my photography, it's at Visa Media.
42:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Perfect.
42:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome.
42:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much.
42:19
[SPEAKER_02]: This was great.
42:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I really enjoyed it.
42:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, thank you for having us.
42:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you'll have a great night.
42:24
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll talk soon.
42:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, cheers.
42:32
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42:37
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42:43
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42:44
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42:52
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43:00
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