Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1142: How a Goose Led a Pilot to Full-Time Sailing with Ryan Ellison - Revisited

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Ep. 1142: How a Goose Led a Pilot to Full-Time Sailing with Ryan Ellison - Revisited · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: your listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:09
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk with adventures from around the globe to give you the inspiration you need to get started in the outdoors or keep moving if you're already there.
0:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
0:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey friends, did you hear it?
0:22
[SPEAKER_02]: On Wednesday's episode, The Big Announcement finally came out and that announcement is, I'm joining a group of old guys who are climbing Kilimanjaro in January to raise money for a humanitarian organization that rescues homeless children off the streets in Africa.
0:41
[SPEAKER_02]: The organization is called We See Hope.
0:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And each man climbing Kilimanjaro is raising a dollar of foot where rounding up so that's $20,000 per person.
0:53
[SPEAKER_02]: We're trying to raise $300,000 to help rescue the children off the streets in Africa.
1:00
[SPEAKER_02]: The plan is for 100,000 kids to be helped next year because of the Kilimanjaro trip.
1:09
[SPEAKER_02]: that is so exciting to me.
1:11
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you did not hear Wednesday's episode then go back and listen to it for one because Lisa Thompson knocked it out of the park and she was talking about climbing the seven summits fantastic.
1:22
[SPEAKER_02]: So you got to hear that.
1:23
[SPEAKER_02]: But for two, the full story about the Kilimanjaro trip is there.
1:29
[SPEAKER_02]: However, to make it simpler, if you just want to hear about what we're going to do for
1:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I recorded a mini episode called a special announcement, Kilimanjaro for we see hope, and I did that for two reasons, for one to make it really easy for people to catch up on what's going on, and for two, so you can share it with others, so that people that you think might be interested in being a part of this sort of an effort can easily hear what we're up to.
2:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I want to sweeten the pot a little bit.
2:04
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a big one.
2:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you ready for this?
2:06
[SPEAKER_02]: If you have a business, I know that many of the thousands of listeners that listen in to the Adventure Sports podcast or even people that have been on the Adventure Sports podcast do have their own businesses.
2:19
[SPEAKER_02]: If you have a business, then I have a couple of offers for you.
2:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Number one, if you make an appropriate donation to we see hope.
2:28
[SPEAKER_02]: None of that's going to the Adventure Sports Podcast is going to we see hope.
2:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Then if you have a banner that you would like for me to carry to the top of Kilimanjaro, to film, to photograph on the top of the roof of Africa,
2:43
[SPEAKER_02]: then I will do that for you that you can use in any way you want to promote your business and I will also of course talk about your business on the Adventure Sports podcast to help promote what you're doing.
2:56
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you would like to be a part of helping kids in Africa through we see hope then consider that offer.
3:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Now here's a second one, business owners, again, I am offering as a competition, a year of free advertising once per week on the Adventure Sports podcast and that is a value of several thousand dollars.
3:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So here's the way it's going to work.
3:24
[SPEAKER_02]: If your business makes a tax deductible contribution do we see hope?
3:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, it all goes to the kids in Africa.
3:32
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't go to the Adventure Sports podcast.
3:34
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't go to any of the climbers.
3:36
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't even go to the founders of we see hope.
3:40
[SPEAKER_02]: It goes just to help the kids in Africa.
3:43
[SPEAKER_02]: If you donate $1,000 or more,
3:46
[SPEAKER_02]: then you're going to be put in a competition for this year of free advertising on the adventure sports podcast and the biggest donation wins.
3:59
[SPEAKER_02]: We only have a couple of months left for this competition and to raise at least $20,000, but I don't see why the thousands of us in the adventure sports podcast family should stop at $20,000.
4:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Why not $40,000?
4:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Why not $60,000?
4:16
[SPEAKER_02]: This is an opportunity to make a very real, significant difference in the world.
4:22
[SPEAKER_02]: So simply click on the link in the show notes and when you get the donation, make sure you don't go anonymous, so I know who to talk to.
4:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And we will follow up with you to see if you win a year's worth of free advertising on the Adventure Sports podcast.
4:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Today is Friday which of course means a revisited episode we have Mason Gravely interviewing Ryan Ellison in the episode title is how a goose led a pilot to full time sailing adventures so it's gonna be fantastic now here's Mason Ryan Ellison welcome to the show
5:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you so much, good to be here.
5:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, absolutely.
5:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I saw it.
5:07
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I saw Stockholm Sweden in your profile and Skype, but I don't think you're coming from there today.
5:13
[SPEAKER_03]: I might be wrong.
5:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Where are you coming from?
5:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I'm in Des Moines, Iowa.
5:18
[SPEAKER_04]: That's where we're recording this now.
5:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's my hometown.
5:22
[SPEAKER_04]: That's where I hail from.
5:23
[SPEAKER_04]: So not a lot of sailing here.
5:26
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, long, roundabout story.
5:29
[SPEAKER_04]: grew up in Des Moines, lived all over the U.S. and then about 10 years ago I moved to Stockholm for a job and that's where I met my sailing partner and girlfriend Sophie and
5:42
[SPEAKER_04]: We about five years ago decided to buy a boat and go sail the world.
5:47
[SPEAKER_04]: So, yeah, it's a very short story of how an Iowa boy got on a sailboat.
5:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
5:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's awesome.
5:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, well, tell us, you mentioned meeting Sophie.
5:57
[SPEAKER_03]: And Sophie has an interesting story about how meeting you, something about an injured turtle costume.
6:02
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if that's a story you tell a lot, or if it's something you want to tell.
6:06
[SPEAKER_04]: The whole story about us meeting in the boat is quite a classic story.
6:10
[SPEAKER_04]: I had met Sophie actually on Tinder.
6:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Just a few months before we got the idea to to move or to do this boat journey.
6:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And she remet on Tinder and the reason she clicked swiped right, I guess, is the right way to go.
6:26
[SPEAKER_04]: It was because I had a picture on there of me in an injured turtle costume that I had made with
6:35
[SPEAKER_04]: So it was a homemade Halloween costume that we had made.
6:39
[SPEAKER_04]: That's yeah, that's the story of why she's wife, right?
6:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, so we met and I mean, it's the Adventure Sports Podcast.
6:46
[SPEAKER_04]: So when we met, I was actually more into a different area, which was mountain climbing, rock climbing, and polar exploration.
6:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So a few weeks after we met, I had booked a trip.
6:57
[SPEAKER_04]: I was going up to Greenland to do some polar survival training, just a couple of us off in the middle of nowhere, Greenland.
7:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And we built our relationship off of SMS over the Eridium in reach device, texting each other while I was laying in a tent at night.
7:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's kind of how we met and started our relationship.
7:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And then a few months later, I was back in Des Moines, actually, of all places, training, helping my family out with some medical things they were going through.
7:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was training for a marathon.
7:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was my last big run.
7:30
[SPEAKER_04]: that I was doing so was out here in Des Moines training and I came across a family of geese.
7:35
[SPEAKER_04]: So you might be wondering where this story is going and how it relates to sailing.
7:39
[SPEAKER_03]: So many things going on.
7:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
7:41
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, I came across this family of geese and they were not happy that I was there.
7:47
[SPEAKER_04]: They had little babies, it was in the spring.
7:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And one of them got quite pissed.
7:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Flu at me, these big Canadian geese are quite big.
7:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm trying to make the story sound much more dramatic than it was.
7:59
[SPEAKER_04]: When this bird started flying at me, I turned around the other way, I slipped in the mud, put my arm out to catch me, and ended up dislocating my shoulder, ripping the labrum and breaking the socket bone.
8:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So everything I had planned going on for the next couple years was essentially lost in that quick instance.
8:20
[SPEAKER_04]: So I went to the emergency room, they set the arm back, and then I had a flyback to Sweden where they,
8:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Essentially reconstructed my arm and told me it was going to be another two years before I was going to be climbing again or doing anything Which for me was devastating.
8:34
[SPEAKER_04]: I was I had big Arctic dreams and I was supposed to be going to Nepal to climb start my 8,000 meter mountain adventures and It was all just taken away So I sat there with my arm strap to my chest for a few months while the arm was healing and came across an article one day about a couple that
8:52
[SPEAKER_04]: had sold it all in bought a boat, and I was like, man, that's kind of a cool idea.
8:55
[SPEAKER_04]: That sounds like something we could do.
8:57
[SPEAKER_04]: So I texted Sophie, we'd only been dating for a few months.
9:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was like, would you do this?
9:01
[SPEAKER_04]: She's like, yeah, I do that.
9:04
[SPEAKER_04]: So the arm healed, we took some sailing on that sentence, bought a boat, and off we went.
9:08
[SPEAKER_04]: That's pretty much how the story goes.
9:11
[SPEAKER_03]: That's, I mean, just just straight line, makes perfect sense.
9:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, exactly.
9:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god, I mean, I gotta go back to the,
9:19
[SPEAKER_03]: the goose what i'm sure you've told the story million times but having aspiration so big literally as big as 8,000 meter peaks how frustrating is it that a goose back home ruined all that for you goose does it that doesn't even know that that it happened to no it didn't even i don't even think it touched me i was screaming so i mean anybody who's dislocated a joint knows how painful it is um
9:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I was screaming so a lot.
9:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it just was like, okay, I've done my job.
9:48
[SPEAKER_04]: It was pretty hard wrenching.
9:49
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't really understand what had happened until I was in the emergency room and the doctor looked at me.
9:54
[SPEAKER_04]: He's like, hey, you can't be climbing anymore.
9:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And you can't, like, because I told him all this stuff I was doing is like, you gotta knock it off because until it gets fixed, it's just gonna keep dislocating and it's gonna get worse.
10:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And worse and pretty soon, it's gonna dislocate when you go to flip like a light switch off at night.
10:14
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, just like raising your arm, it's going to pop out and he's like, you need to re-evaluate what you're doing right now and I was like, I just broke out into tears and the emergency room.
10:24
[SPEAKER_04]: It was pretty emotional.
10:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, it was a bit gut wrenching, you know, but sometimes it takes and I still have a lot of those goals, but sometimes it takes, you know, sometimes things happen and we all have things happen in our lives that change the course a bit and it's changed me a lot of the
10:43
[SPEAKER_04]: done this thing I never thought we'd do that's just changed everything right there that little moment yeah but look what has come about because of it and can I can I ask this how was that how was that shoulder doing was that doctor right on the doctor was completely right I actually was pretty fortunate he had brought in his I guess mentor or the doctor he had learned from to work on my shoulder and another guy so I actually had two of the best doctors in the
11:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So they patched it up good, it did take a while to heal and like regain the motion and rebuild all the strength.
11:21
[SPEAKER_04]: But it was a good process and during that time, we could focus on the new sailing adventure.
11:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Was sailing, because sailing to me almost seems just as demanding as mountaineering.
11:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Constant movement, constant, you know, there's so much to do, so much work, very labor intensive.
11:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's it was a different option I would say it's when you're sitting on the boat day and day out for me I actually get quite bored so if he has lots of things she likes to listen to audiobooks and read and things and I Not really into that so I don't have a lot to do.
12:01
[SPEAKER_04]: But you write like there's the motion to the boat there's constant things going on it takes a lot of energy just to do basic tasks.
12:09
[SPEAKER_04]: that you and I might just take for granted, even like going to the toilet is it can be a monumental thing, especially if you're sick and the boats slamming around and you're trying to hold on to stuff.
12:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, it's just, it's just like a life necessity you have to do, but it can be so hard.
12:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And it can, you know, even for some that are really sick, it's like this daunting task that you're trying to avoid.
12:33
[SPEAKER_04]: So that part of it has been interesting,
12:36
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not as physically demanding on the other side, like rock climbing might be whereas you're kind of doing this exercise with your arms and your legs all day.
12:46
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just different.
12:48
[SPEAKER_04]: The thing I tell people a lot of times is you get yourself into a situation where with a boat, when you go off shore away from land for multiple days on end, that you are now in a situation that you can't get out of.
13:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So if the weather's bad,
13:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's hard going to the toilet for five days.
13:09
[SPEAKER_04]: You just got to deal with it.
13:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Whereas if you're on the mountain or if you're doing a big marathon or if you're doing a triathlon, those are activities generally that you could just stop and say, hey, this sucks right now.
13:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to just take a break.
13:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't collect my thoughts.
13:23
[SPEAKER_04]: But the sailing offshore, it just, it doesn't stop.
13:28
[SPEAKER_04]: So if you get into it, that can be this.
13:30
[SPEAKER_04]: No, and that can be a really big mental,
13:33
[SPEAKER_04]: like a mental challenge for a lot of people and I think that's why a lot of people get sick on boats because they start feeling the waves and the motion and being uncomfortable and then they say to themselves oh man like I've got to do this for six hours or 16 hours or six days how am I going to do this and then the body starts reacting you know to that and yeah I think I think that the mental aspects of it is almost more difficult than a lot of the other sports that I've done.
14:01
[SPEAKER_03]: weak man that's if there was four or five things that the ventures say pretty often and that that is one of them and that is such a good lesson to hear that even across this sport it is it is mental and so if you have that ability to to to to to just grind and get something done and learn something new this is also a sport you can do or also a lifestyle you can achieve when you and Sophie decided to do this
14:28
[SPEAKER_03]: how far out was it from when you because it was like some text messages from what i read and i'll just were like hey let's what you kind of took the temperature and she was like yeah let's do it how far from then until you were actually out there and what and what did that look like we i so i sent her that text message just after i had my shoulder surgery which was which maybe like three months after we met
14:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And then obviously it took me a while to to I had to get my arm moving again.
14:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, we couldn't go do sailing lessons until I could like, was functional.
14:58
[SPEAKER_04]: But that I was able to get on a boat maybe seven or eight months after I had had my surgery.
15:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I wasn't 100% but it was enough that I could I could I definitely wouldn't have wanted to been on an 8,000 meter peak then, but on a boat it was okay.
15:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So we did our first sailing lessons in January of that next year.
15:19
[SPEAKER_04]: So maybe seven or eight months later, it still hadn't been a full year that we'd been dating.
15:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And we did two weeks of sailing lessons and we just did it with ourselves, just Sophie and I and instructor because we want to see if we got along well on a boat and how we as a couple like interacted in that space.
15:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And then
15:36
[SPEAKER_04]: We also wanted it to be two weeks because we knew we would we wanted to maybe live on the boat and we wanted to see what that was like being on it longer than just maybe five days so we did that and then at the end of it we're like well yeah this this seems good it seems like we can manage this and I think we bought the that was in January of 16 and we bought the boat in April of 16 so just after year after us meeting essentially.
16:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And then we spent two years with the boat in Stockholm, kind of getting to know the boat, getting to know how to sail, because two weeks sailing wasn't actually isn't that much time on the boat.
16:13
[SPEAKER_04]: We learned that very quickly.
16:14
[SPEAKER_03]: So we were like, what was it just, could you get a lot on like, is it one thing that was daunting?
16:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you really learned a lot and like, okay, I grasp this, or is it really as complex as it seems?
16:27
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, so I was on a bit of an advantage
16:31
[SPEAKER_04]: why I went to college was for commercial aviation.
16:34
[SPEAKER_04]: So I got all my pilot certificate at the school.
16:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And that helped a lot going into sailing.
16:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, I mean, what we always said in aviation was you don't really learn how to fly until you start teaching people or until you're off on your own.
16:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And we, so I mean, I experienced that firsthand in the boat.
16:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So we got out of sail classes.
16:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was like, yeah, we know what we're doing and then we got the boat ourselves and we're like, we have no idea what we're doing.
17:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Especially on our own boat.
17:05
[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, we spent about two years learning and then in, let's see, that would have been 16, 17, and 18 in the spring of 2018, we left Stockholm.
17:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, off on our adventure and the original plan was just to do an Atlantic circuit to sort of go from Europe down the Caribbean and then back in one year and we just decided along the way like let's just keep going.
17:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's see if we can make this a lifestyle and do something with this.
17:29
[SPEAKER_04]: So we've been on the boat for three years and we've told ourselves that we will keep doing this as long as we enjoy doing it and we have the money to do it.
17:38
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's our plan.
17:40
[SPEAKER_03]: that is awesome.
17:41
[SPEAKER_03]: The original plan go to the Caribbean and back.
17:45
[SPEAKER_03]: When you were out and heading towards the Atlantic, what did that feel like?
17:49
[SPEAKER_03]: To me, that just seems like you're just going out to space.
17:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Just out there.
17:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I know we talked about being stuck during storms, but what was that sensation of knowing we're heading across one of the largest bodies of water in the world?
18:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I had been, when I first met Sophia, I had been in the Outback of Greenland, which is also very remote part of the world.
18:15
[SPEAKER_04]: So personally, I had some experience with that type of an environment, but mentally, I don't think I had really thought about the fact that when we're in the center of the Atlantic, even though there's other ships out there and there are networks available to help if you need that, you're really in some of the most isolated places on the planet.
18:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And the first time we cross the Atlantic, we've done it twice now, we just did it Sophie and I, because that was kind of my dream as I wanted to do it short-handed, they call it.
18:46
[SPEAKER_04]: So it was just Sophie and I on the boat.
18:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And that was pretty eye-opening, I mean, pretty stressful for me mentally, because I was just like, man, we are in the middle of nowhere.
18:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And you look on the chart with your little boat there in the center of nowhere.
18:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And you're like, all right, all the preparations that you made, all the learning that you made
19:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I hope it all comes through for us because there's nobody out here to help us right now.
19:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And we learned a lot on that first passage.
19:14
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, we had some stuff break.
19:15
[SPEAKER_04]: We found ways to deal with it.
19:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It was really tiring.
19:18
[SPEAKER_04]: It was exhausting.
19:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Pushed us both individually, but also as a couple to work through things.
19:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And we made it.
19:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think we were pretty happy that we made it once we got there.
19:32
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a good exercise.
19:34
[SPEAKER_04]: This second time that we've crossed weather-wise was a little bit challenging.
19:37
[SPEAKER_04]: We went from Bonneir all the way to the A's or so back from West to East.
19:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And we brought a crew member on for that trip and that changed the dynamics a lot.
19:48
[SPEAKER_04]: We're still off in the middle of nowhere.
19:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I, as a captain, have a little bit more responsibility because now I have this like third party, this person that's, I'm not really related to.
19:57
[SPEAKER_04]: That's on the boat that you have to take care of.
19:59
[SPEAKER_04]: But it also relieves some stress because you have some extra hands and things.
20:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's, uh, it's definitely an experience being out in the middle of nowhere and just relying on yourself to live and survive.
20:11
[SPEAKER_03]: What did that do for y'all as, uh, as a, as a couple?
20:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I know, I know, I know this was almost kind of from the beginning of your, of your relationship, but just knowing you had to rely on each other had to work together.
20:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, was that was that more challenging than you thought or did, did y'all just work pretty well in that way.
20:31
[SPEAKER_04]: It was definitely been more challenging than we thought and to be honest to ourselves we never considered that aspect of the trip.
20:41
[SPEAKER_04]: So kind of now we've gone with this mantra that for people who want to go out and do a project like this you got to take care of three things.
20:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And the first is you got to know what you're doing like you need to know your boat you need to know the systems of your boat you need to figure out how you know that that piece of it.
21:00
[SPEAKER_04]: pay for it all and survive.
21:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And then the third piece which most people don't focus on is the relationship and the mental aspects of it.
21:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And we hadn't considered that at all.
21:09
[SPEAKER_04]: So we, I mean, even to this day, we still sometimes have a really hard time.
21:14
[SPEAKER_04]: We're on, we live in a very small space.
21:17
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't have our own personal space.
21:20
[SPEAKER_04]: We work on the boat, we sail on the boat, we live on the boat.
21:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And anybody, well, I mean, we've all gone through COVID now.
21:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I think a lot of people are getting more used to this idea.
21:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Or I think more understanding of the idea of living in small spaces and what that can do to a relationship.
21:38
[SPEAKER_04]: So that part of it was really challenging.
21:41
[SPEAKER_04]: But then for me, personally, I discovered that I've got a lot of anxiety with certain things related to control and how do you control situations.
21:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And I learned personally a lot about myself
21:59
[SPEAKER_04]: and the mental aspects of it.
22:02
[SPEAKER_03]: I know that's very vague at the moment, but I mean, that seems like a huge, anxiety-inducing experiment if you want me to be honest.
22:12
[SPEAKER_03]: So yourself out in the middle of the ocean in exposure therapy at the least.
22:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I think one of the things I realized, I was really, you see a lot of sailors out there, 98% of them are male on a boat,
22:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And there's like this very macho attitude.
22:30
[SPEAKER_04]: It was like this at most sports or even the jobs that I did flying, you know, it's a lot of it's type A male dominated areas where we, you have an expectation to perform because you have to.
22:45
[SPEAKER_04]: So I flew in the military, you have this expectation to perform because your life depends on it.
22:50
[SPEAKER_04]: You're on a top of a big mountain, you have this expectation to perform and not screw up because your life or your partner's life
22:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And then in sailing you have that same expectation maybe for other reasons, and so there's all this like pressure on me that was self-induced, but I think it was more of like a systemic problem like an image problem in the sailing industry of like well you have to do this and nobody else screws up, but what I learned throughout the last five years is that.
23:20
[SPEAKER_04]: All the guys that I've talked to have felt the same pressure and the same like I'm really scared to go out and do this or I hate going into Marina's it's so stressful because I'm afraid I'm going to crash into something and everybody's got this fear but nobody wants to talk about it.
23:35
[SPEAKER_04]: It's it's like the weirdest thing and then when I started like I started doing a lot of self reflection on like.
23:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Why is nobody talking about this?
23:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I'm stressed about this.
23:44
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I, Sophie challenged me on a lot of this and I started going back and a lot of my mountain climbing and then a lot of my flying and doing some self-reflection on that.
23:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was like, we did the same stuff in, you know, in the flying world.
23:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I was 21 years old teaching other people how to fly planes.
24:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was scary sometimes.
24:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And my friends and I, we never talked about it.
24:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, why was that?
24:09
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like some macho thing, but they were all scared too I found out, you know, 20 years later when I'm talking to people about it.
24:16
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's been like a really eye-opening piece of like this whole sailing project that we've done is is that part of it.
24:25
[SPEAKER_03]: That's wonderful to hear in a lot of ways just just the opening up that I mean that applies everywhere.
24:30
[SPEAKER_03]: I was just talking to some people at work, some of my higher ups and they were like hey we're all just winging it.
24:36
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope you know that.
24:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
24:38
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like yeah.
24:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
24:39
[SPEAKER_03]: It sure doesn't seem like that on the outside.
24:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like I'm the only one that isn't know what I'm doing exactly know what I'm doing.
24:45
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so not true.
24:47
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it's not.
24:48
[SPEAKER_04]: The first year we had the boat, the first season we
24:51
[SPEAKER_04]: We were taking, it was a very last sale.
24:53
[SPEAKER_04]: We were taking the boat over to a marina so that they could haul it out for the winter and store the boat.
25:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was really, really windy that day.
25:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Like these were winds that Soviet I had never ever been.
25:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was a bit stressed about it.
25:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And we got, we did fine getting out and getting going and we got to this marina.
25:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And the first time we tried to get into the slip, it just didn't work.
25:13
[SPEAKER_04]: So we backed out and tried it again.
25:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And in the process, we,
25:17
[SPEAKER_04]: The boat got pushed up against some small boats with their like outboard engines up so the propellers were sticking out and it ended up like all those boats were fine but our boat got like the paint on the side of the boat got all messed up we had big swirl marks from the propeller all the way down the side of the boat and you know we got it docked eventually and I was just like I felt like such a failure with it's like
25:41
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I can't even manage this boat and we're going to go live on it and sail around the world with it.
25:45
[SPEAKER_04]: We got home and I was just so down and depressed about it and, you know, how are we going to get this fixed?
25:50
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going to be so expensive.
25:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And they called some sailing friends of ours and they were, I was telling about this and they're like, there was a big super yacht next to us the other day with professional captains on it and they did the same thing, the exact same thing except the boat was stuck against these propellers for like an hour that put like a hole in the side of the boat.
26:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, after hearing that, I was like, all right.
26:11
[SPEAKER_04]: If a professional captain can do that, I guess I can give myself a little space as well.
26:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
26:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, oh, there's always a failure bigger than you.
26:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly.
26:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
26:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's not a great way to frame it.
26:27
[SPEAKER_03]: But well, well, tell us this.
26:29
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, despite that stress, despite that fear and that anxiety that that's lifestyle or pursuing anything outside the box can can can induce.
26:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you share a story or tell us why it's still worth it to you to get out there and go?
26:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Is there any sort of way you can illustrate that for us?
26:47
[SPEAKER_04]: I think for us, absolutely, it's a hard life.
26:51
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not for everybody.
26:52
[SPEAKER_04]: There's, I'll give you the bad stuff first.
26:57
[SPEAKER_04]: There's definitely times, you know, you just want to sleep in a three in the morning and you're on anchor and you're up in the rain and you're
27:08
[SPEAKER_04]: or somebody's hit you and you just want to sleep, like those days, but what this trip and what this project has done is really open our eyes to the rest of the world.
27:20
[SPEAKER_04]: We were already a bit international, so if you know, I had moved countries for jobs and traveled a lot around the world for work, but we've been able to explore the planet, meet people and cultures from everywhere,
27:34
[SPEAKER_04]: It's been amazing, that part of it has been absolutely amazing and the people that we have met along the way on other boats are on islands or different countries that we visited has just been like it's super cool and it's something that you won't experience if you say oh we're going to go to Portugal and we're just going to take a plane and say there for a week you will not experience a culture or a place like you do when you have to sail there and then.
28:01
[SPEAKER_04]: You've got to sort out logistics in terms of clearing and with customs and getting packages sent in and figuring out where the laundry mat is and trying to find a dentist in the middle of the night.
28:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Like you just aren't going to experience that if you fly somewhere for a week, you know.
28:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's I think the piece that keeps us going.
28:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Tell us a story about something that made you realize that you've made the right decision in this lifestyle and where you're going.
28:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Is there something you can illustrate that could just take us along for the ride?
28:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh man, that puts me on the spot.
28:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll say that I'll be honest and saying that there are plenty of days, I call them sell the boat days.
28:40
[SPEAKER_04]: There are plenty of days that I don't want to do this project and it's so funny because when I talk to other people about it, we all have these same days.
28:46
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, you see somebody having a bad day say, how many times did you sell the boat today and they're like, I don't know, like three.
28:54
[SPEAKER_04]: But a story, a story that, well, one of my favorite stories, and this is actually a little bit away from what I was just describing, but we were, so if you now were off the coast of Portugal one night, sailing south, head into the Mediterranean.
29:10
[SPEAKER_04]: This is right when we started the project.
29:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was probably three in the morning.
29:14
[SPEAKER_04]: We were sailing so if you would sleep in.
29:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was just, I think we were motoring because I see was quite flat.
29:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And, um,
29:21
[SPEAKER_04]: I was looking off the side of the boat and I was like, what is that in the water like it was super super weird it was a really dark night and it looked like there was like snakes like going super fast like jetting through the water like something in a horror movie, you know, like going underneath our boat and it was making the water light up.
29:38
[SPEAKER_04]: I just like what is that and it kept staring and staring and staring and eventually I realized it was.
29:43
[SPEAKER_04]: There was a lot of bio luminescence in the water, so as the water gets agitated, it kicks up this kind of green glow like you would see in like the movie Avatar.
29:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So this green like bio luminescence is kicking up and what it was was dolphins.
29:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And they were swimming underneath the boat, like there's probably 30 or 40 of them, creating these big patterns.
30:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And then that was going on.
30:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And then all of a sudden I looked on the bow of the boat and there was
30:10
[SPEAKER_04]: hundreds or thousands of like fish jumping so they were hunting and we were kicking up this we must have been going through a big school of fish and it was kicking off the fish off the bow and then the dolphins were using about a hunt.
30:22
[SPEAKER_04]: But in the process it was making this spectacular light show for us.
30:27
[SPEAKER_04]: So I woke Sophie up three in the morning.
30:28
[SPEAKER_04]: So if you gotta see this you gotta see this she comes up like half awake and
30:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, she was, I don't know if I was more impressed than she was.
30:35
[SPEAKER_04]: She went back to bed after about 10 minutes.
30:36
[SPEAKER_04]: But it was just, I sat there.
30:38
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought it was gonna last for 10 or 15 minutes.
30:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I ended up lasting for hours.
30:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Just sit there to watch that.
30:44
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's not something that most people, I think, get to see in their lives is an event like that.
30:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's those types of things that keep us going, I'd say.
30:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think most people would even not only get to experience that, but know that exists, know that type of phenomenon.
31:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, oh, yeah, I've heard of by an aluminum essence, and now maybe I've seen a little bit here and there, but like that dolphin swimming through looking like illuminated torpedoes fish jumping off the ground.
31:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that sounds otherworldly when you describe it.
31:20
[SPEAKER_03]: That sounds incredible.
31:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it was like, like I said, it was kind of like an avatar movie.
31:27
[SPEAKER_04]: didn't even understand that that type of thing could, could happen.
31:32
[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, that was, that was super cool.
31:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'd say the second just bit is, it's not a story, but we meet so many incredible people that have so many stories on boats.
31:42
[SPEAKER_04]: It's, it's like one of the few places in the world where you can, you can be with a group of people and on a boat.
31:52
[SPEAKER_04]: anchored next to a boat of a guy that has no money at all and he's just wants to he just wants to be on a boat because it's the thing that makes him the most happy in the world and he's just struggling to get by and you know he's paying taxes on the islands he's at and that's the only way he gets money and but he's you know the coolest person in the world and then on the other side of your boat anchored might be a multimillion dollar yacht
32:15
[SPEAKER_04]: with people that might even be from your same city that you would have never met because they're just in a different class of people, but you're sitting next to them, and then you meet them, and they're super cool too.
32:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And you all get to enjoy the same sound sets and the same experiences and kind of be as one.
32:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And that was something I was not prepared for either, was just this kind of coming together of people from different aspects of life.
32:42
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... which which is also i think really really unique in that in that business that is really cool what what would you say you've learned from from the mindset you you had setting out maybe some practical things you've learned about about taking on big challenges are big adventures uh... kind of being in the middle of it now yeah that's a good question at for me personally my biggest
33:09
[SPEAKER_04]: my biggest thing that I've come away from with this is just working on myself mentally, but that's just been my personal big challenge and how to, I always took care of myself physically because I had to because that was type of sports I was into, but the mental aspects of it, it kind of ignored a lot of times.
33:30
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's, that's, I think that's the first piece.
33:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I think I developed this in my mountain climbing days because it was so important was this kind of karma of philosophy.
33:45
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's like what your mommy used to say, you know, do do onto others as you'd like to be done to yourself.
33:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And in the climbing world that really had a strong meaning to me, because you know, sometimes you just need other people's help.
34:01
[SPEAKER_04]: But in the sailing
34:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Meaning means even more, because there are just times that you need other people around you to help, and that could be like, you're having a bad day and you just need help or it could be because you need to fix an engine and you have no idea what you're doing and you're on an island that has like no people around and there's nobody to call to come fix your engine.
34:33
[SPEAKER_04]: So we try to live our lives now or it's like we whenever we have an opportunity we try to help as much as we can because we know someday we're going to need some help and that's bigger than a big experience for us.
34:47
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I know we haven't talked a lot about specifics of living on a boat and what it was like and like the equipment and all that, but it sounds to me like to do these kinds of things and to live this kind of lifestyle.
34:59
[SPEAKER_03]: It is so much more about mindset like we were saying earlier than it is about knowing what you need to know, like that comes in time.
35:07
[SPEAKER_03]: It's almost like you need to decide and just start planning and start taking some classes and making it happen.
35:17
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what it is.
35:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
35:20
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, we know people that have done it every way.
35:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So people with no money, lots of money, people with no experience, they just buy a bow and go, and there's other people that will train for years before they feel ready to go out and try a project like this.
35:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, I think how you describe it is exactly right.
35:40
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just the mental mindset.
35:41
[SPEAKER_04]: You're going to have bad days.
35:42
[SPEAKER_04]: You're going to have good days.
35:44
[SPEAKER_04]: That's just part of it.
35:46
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you understand that going into it, it can be really fun.
35:50
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll redo this forever.
35:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Probably not.
35:52
[SPEAKER_04]: We know people live their whole lives on boats.
35:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if I want to do that.
35:55
[SPEAKER_04]: There's other things in this world I want to see.
35:57
[SPEAKER_04]: But right now, it's amazing.
36:01
[SPEAKER_03]: What is next for you in the world of sailing?
36:06
[SPEAKER_04]: So this year, we've struggled because of COVID and of where do we go with all of COVID restrictions.
36:13
[SPEAKER_04]: This year, we really wanted to go to the US with our boat, but we've Sophie has had some visa challenges with United States, so we've had to stay away for now.
36:24
[SPEAKER_04]: But we think we have that sorted.
36:25
[SPEAKER_04]: So this year, what we decided to do instead to just sitting in the Caribbean in a waiting, we decided to get a bunch of miles under a belt.
36:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Atlantic circuit that I talked about doing when we first had this sailing idea, we are actually doing this year.
36:39
[SPEAKER_04]: So we're going to do the whole Atlantic go all the way around it in one year.
36:43
[SPEAKER_04]: So in May, we left Bonneir, which is in the south part of the Caribbean, just north of Venezuela.
36:50
[SPEAKER_04]: We sailed up to Bermuda, spent a few weeks there, and then sailed over to the Azores, which is part of Portugal, about 800 miles to the west of the mainland of Europe.
37:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's where the boat
37:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And so if you're not taking a bit of a boat break right now, so she's in Paris I'm here and then in the fall and winter we'll continue the trip around so we'll sail from The Azores down to Medira and then over to Canaries and then back across the Atlantic again, the Caribbean spend a little bit of time in the spring there in Bahamas and then hopefully She'll have the green light to go to the US and we'll get to spend some time sailing up the east coast of the US.
37:31
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's our plan right now.
37:33
[SPEAKER_03]: So, Cole, now, do you, I saw you, you have allowed people on the boat before, do you still do that?
37:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we, we do take people on the boat.
37:42
[SPEAKER_04]: We take crew from time to time.
37:44
[SPEAKER_04]: We, I will say, we're pretty selective about our crew that we take on, and primarily that's just because when you start sailing, you'll understand that you have your own
37:53
[SPEAKER_04]: ways of doing things.
37:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So if you and I are really safety conscious, so crew that come on board need to have that same mindset.
37:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's also our home, so you can imagine inviting somebody into your home that moves and travels around the planet.
38:07
[SPEAKER_04]: It needs to fit.
38:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Our last crew member was on board for, this is a little extreme, but a little over two, one, not quite two months.
38:15
[SPEAKER_04]: because it was a long trip, so she was there a long time, but we got along well, but obviously you can see if you have a crew member on that you don't, it doesn't work well with.
38:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It can be very hard just because the space is tight.
38:27
[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, we do take crew.
38:29
[SPEAKER_04]: We usually have a few Skype calls before we decide if we'll take somebody and see if it's a good fit and then we'll take them along.
38:37
[SPEAKER_03]: I know people are out there wanting to try this and maybe they just want to test the lifestyle out and being on with a couple of experts like yourself, just my piece of way to just see what this is like and get a feel for it because you said, yeah, you're writing people into your home and it's not like it's a big, make mansion, you know, it's essentially an RV on the water.
38:56
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not huge quarters to move around in.
38:59
[SPEAKER_03]: So the compatibility needs to be there for sure.
39:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
39:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but I mean, there's not not a lot of room for bags and stuff.
39:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So we typically limit the boat to three people total.
39:10
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's Sophie and I plus one.
39:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And then if there's a couple.
39:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Sometimes we'll take four because they can sleep in the same birth together.
39:18
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah.
39:19
[SPEAKER_04]: So but then it gets really tight.
39:21
[SPEAKER_04]: So cut a balance that exists.
39:24
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I love your aspect of the mental health side of things.
39:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't feel like that gets talked about enough.
39:30
[SPEAKER_03]: And at least just mentioned enough.
39:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, hey, we're all dealing with it.
39:33
[SPEAKER_03]: It's still elephant in the room.
39:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I really appreciate that.
39:36
[SPEAKER_03]: But I did want to ask, well, my favorite question is, what is the biggest misconception about living on the boat?
39:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Or that you hear from people, maybe that are watching your videos?
39:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Love your lifestyle.
39:47
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you think they don't understand about what you're going through?
39:51
[SPEAKER_04]: So I could,
39:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Two things popped in my mind right when you say that and the first is that we are on.
39:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, let me start with this one.
39:59
[SPEAKER_04]: The first one is that Sophie and I are really rich or work.
40:02
[SPEAKER_03]: That's common.
40:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and yeah, and that is definitely.
40:05
[SPEAKER_04]: not true.
40:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And I would say that that's not true for 97% of the younger crowd that we know on boats.
40:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Most of the people have decided they made a life decision to change their lives and be a bit different.
40:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And that comes with a lot of financial sacrifice.
40:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I was just on the phone the selfie before you before we connected, you know, talking about how we're going to make the finances work for next month.
40:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And so yeah, I mean, we get stretch and we have to sacrifice a lot.
40:33
[SPEAKER_04]: to do this.
40:34
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think that's the first big misconception among outsiders.
40:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And then the second one is that we are on vacation all the time.
40:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And so while it is really nice, we get to anchor in really great places and we can sit in the sun whenever we want because of the first piece, the financial piece.
40:55
[SPEAKER_04]: So if you're not both still work remotely while we're on the boat.
40:59
[SPEAKER_04]: So we spend just as much time as anybody else working, plus we have to take care of the boat.
41:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And then, you know, occasionally we'll take a day or two to ourselves to go experience the places that we are to go diving or driving around in Island.
41:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's not 24-7 vacation and that's something it takes people while to understand and say, So I think those for me are the two big misconceptions that we run into.
41:23
[SPEAKER_03]: very interesting and I can absolutely see that I can absolutely see people just just thinking that way and thinking Oh, they've got the life nothing to worry about.
41:31
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know about free as a word.
41:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Riches can be saving all this money I'm sure you know, you know, which I know you're not both are incredibly expensive
41:40
[SPEAKER_04]: We always tell people, I always tell people, you know, I, I just like, after a long ocean crossing the only thing I want is a bed that doesn't move a shower that I can run non stop and take like a 30 minute shower and a toilet that flushes those are like the only things I want after a long long, long, long ocean crossing.
41:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh my god.
41:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Just gets really old, you know.
42:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I can imagine, I can imagine, well, well, here, we'll wrap up with this.
42:03
[SPEAKER_03]: What is, you say that's the one thing in this, any sort of food you miss or any sort of consumable you miss while you're out there?
42:11
[SPEAKER_04]: If there's people listening that really want to do something like this, I'd say, I'd say the best thing is find a French, a French woman to do or a French man to do the project with because Sophie's French and she's an amazing cook.
42:31
[SPEAKER_04]: excellent food on board even underway.
42:33
[SPEAKER_04]: So if you will.
42:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Sometimes even in the biggest seas disappeared out stairs and be making fresh bacon bread or eggs Benedict from scratch We've ended a full Thanksgiving meal from scratch under way a couple years ago in the middle of the Atlantic So that would be that would be the thing.
42:52
[SPEAKER_03]: So no, I don't miss the food because we have plenty of good food on the boat So I sure that makes after the longest tardies day that makes it a little bit better For sure it's quite nice
43:03
[SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't have to be sailing, but if people want to get out there and do things, and that could be running a 5K or running across the US, or getting it a boat and sailing around the world, you can't wait to do it, so just get out there and do it.
43:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's, and we're all scared when we go out to do it too, so don't feel alone with that.
43:22
[SPEAKER_04]: It's scary to change your life and change your habits, but I think the rewards are worth it in the end.
43:29
[SPEAKER_03]: That's it's true for it.
43:30
[SPEAKER_03]: If it's true for you it's going to be true for all of us.
43:32
[SPEAKER_03]: That's scary.
43:33
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to be scary.
43:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's worth it.
43:35
[SPEAKER_03]: But all right man, we'll have a great day in Des Moines and yeah, we'll talk soon.
43:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much.
43:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, have a good one yourself.