April 14, 2024 • 25 mins
Join us, Holly and Stephane, in the eighth season of the Covert Castaway podcast as we talk about the liveaboard cruising lifestyle, directly from the stunning Bahamas. In this episode, we introduce you to fellow cruisers Ray and Sarah from Kismet, sharing their captivating backstory, sailing dreams, and experiences. This 'at anchor' podcast offers an intriguing dive into the world of sailing and life on water amid the gorgeous Bahamian setting.
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Welcome to Covert Castaway, our fully uncut experience meeting new people and sailing as liveaboard sailing cruisers on our performance catamaran SV AWEN, our Outremer 52. Join us as we meet wonderful new people in this lifestyle.
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About us: Hello! We are Holly and Stephane 🇺🇸🇫🇷 We have made the transition from full-time software professionals from the SF Bay Area to liveaboard sailing explorers who always keep one eye on the weather and our hearts in a song. Our goal is to complete a circumnavigation and we recently transitioned to a performance catamaran and are madly in love with our Outremer 52. We are working with Outremer in France (with the help of Google translate) to launch our boat project and start our journey as sailing vagabonds. While it’s not a race or speedtest, we are doing our first Bluewater crossing this year and we are excited to see AWEN stretch her legs and dance on the water. Join us as we share what we’re learning living without Amazon, (but with Starlink), and attempt this new life of travel and adventure on the ocean. Please be patient with us as we continue to improve our YouTube vlogging skills. Our goal isn’t to make our life a movie, it’s to give back to what others have shared with us, which is why we don’t monetize our channel.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and thank you for joining us. We are in the breezy Bahamas right now and
we're excited to start back up on our Covert Castaway podcast.
We've decided to dedicate this podcast to cruisers we meet along the way and
then share more of our adventures and what's going on on our YouTube channel
(00:23):
on Sailing Owen. So you can check that out if you haven't already.
So this kicks off our season eight and we will be starting to share more stories
from other cruisers we meet, which are really, really interesting.
So thank you for tuning in and continuing to follow us.
We are so excited to be back on Covert Castaway talking to other cruisers.
(00:48):
And we're going to hear today from Ray and Sarah from Kismet.
Hello, and welcome to Covert Castaway. I'm Holly. I'm Stefan.
Join us as we share what we learned and how we're making the transition to liveaboard cruising.
So first, Stefan, why don't you set the scene?
(01:11):
Oh man, we're in beautiful Bahamas water, Bahamian waters, I guess.
Is Burmese in Georgetown.
And we just came back from a walk on the beach and it's just amazing.
I think we'll miss that. The sand feels so good. The sand, yeah, super soft.
It's like sugar under your feet, kind of. Yeah, or flour maybe. Powdered sugar. Yeah.
(01:32):
So today we're really excited because we have spent the last couple weeks, has it been two weeks?
Making new friends. And one of them are Ray and Sarah on Kismet.
And we love your story and we just love you guys already.
And we feel like kindred spirits. And I know you guys are taking off tomorrow.
(01:52):
So we wanted to kind of capture your story.
So maybe you can just tell us a little bit about yourselves and where you're
from and how long you've been cruising. Well, we're from Arizona.
We have recently retired. Well, I retired two years ago.
You retired about a year ago. And his dream was to sail. My dream was to travel.
(02:15):
So we've been married for 22, 23 years together, about 26 years.
So we learned to compromise and this was the compromise, buying a boat and traveling. Yeah.
So Ray, you want to talk a little bit about what boat you're on and how long you've had it?
So I had a dream of sailing for
(02:38):
many, many years and I've always pictured myself on a smallish monohull.
But when I started showing pictures on the internet to Sarah about the boat
I was looking at that we could sail around in. It's always a way.
Stefan kind of started on a monohull too. Yeah, she put a big kibosh on that.
She goes, I will never get on a sailboat like that, would you?
(03:00):
Well, I said that because my mother and my stepfather, he had a monohull and
they were out sailing all the time.
And I was on their boat at times and it just didn't, it didn't suit me.
It didn't resonate with her. No, it was it was too much, at least that time at that time.
And this was, oh, my goodness, this was probably about 35, 38 years ago.
(03:25):
And it felt like camping to me, especially when my stepdad would always just
say, if it's yellow, let it mellow.
You know and and those things I'm like oh it's really it was really harder to
be on on that boat at the time and I told him if we're going to do this I don't
want to feel like we're camping yeah yeah I mean that's true and having been
(03:47):
on monohulls for long periods of time doing a passage.
It's rough on your body but I definitely know what you mean about the feeling
of camping like you could definitely do a trip on a monohull right but would
you want to live on it you know That was kind of a question for me,
too, when we started kind of looking at boats. So definitely.
Yeah. So I started dragging her to the Annapolis Boat Show every year and looking
(04:12):
at different boats. Because that's how it starts.
Every boat she got on, she goes, no.
How about this one? No. Looking at 40, 50, 55, 60-foot models, no. No. Really?
And then she looked across the way and she goes, oh, that was over there.
I said, those are catamarans, and we can't afford those. She goes,
(04:34):
well, let's just go look. So, of course, after she looked, she goes, okay.
I could live with you on a catamaran. Yeah, definitely. We started looking at
those and saving our money.
And after five or six years of going to the boat show, we settled on a new design
from Leopard, the Leopard 42.
It's their smallest current boat that Leopard's making, but it's very comfortable.
(05:00):
It's an owner's version. And it's got three cabins, electric heads.
You know, solar, lithium, all the modern comforts of home, air conditioning.
My wife had a generator, air compressor, studio compressor.
And also diving was a thing because I got into, I want to do treasure hunting.
(05:24):
So if we go to different dive sites, different places, we had to have our tanks
or dive gear. And I have to constantly thinking about what are we going to do
while we're on this boat?
So that was one of them, a dive compressor.
Yeah. Yeah. So it took them two years to build it for us, but it went on like 22 months, I think.
And we picked it up now last August, moved aboard last August. 2023.
(05:50):
We've been living aboard ever since. It came from South Africa.
It was put on a big container ship with 15 or 20 other leopard boats and brought
over to Fort Lauderdale.
And so we picked it up August 2023 in Fort Lauderdale. We did the handover there.
And we've been living aboard ever since. I have a question about the name.
(06:11):
I've been asking myself this question. Where does Kismet come from?
Because I saw, I Googled, I mean, I Googled, but in the Wikipedia.
Wikipedia? Yeah, Wikipedia.
Oh, in the AIS app, I saw a lot of kismets. Do you really? Yeah.
Yeah, what's it mean? So the meaning, well, the meaning means meant to be or destiny or fate.
(06:34):
It's a Turkish. It's a Turkish, Hebrew, or Arabic, I think, yeah. Arabic.
And I kind of got a little flack from my Greek side of the family.
I'm like, but so we, the, the way our schedules work, we didn't,
our anniversary was coming up and he had to work on the day of our anniversary.
(06:55):
And so I had made reservations for the day after when he got home at our favorite
restaurant and he had made reservations to our favorite same restaurant the day before he worked.
And so we, we told each other this and we said, we said, let's just keep both of them.
Let's go to the one that you made because we love this restaurant.
(07:17):
And so we went there and he went to work and then the day that we came back on the day I reserved.
We came in and the waitress literally sat us at the same table that we had. That's so funny.
The day before as we're sitting down. Same waiter. Same waiter.
Same table. As we were sitting down, both of us go, man, this is kismet.
(07:37):
It was kind of like meant to be that we happened.
And we had been going through all different names, but just our life kind of
how we met and everything.
It just kind of felt like it was kismet.
It was meant to be. We were meant to be together after so many years and,
you know, it's just our families and it had a deep meaning for us.
(07:57):
Yeah, that's really cool.
So did you guys sail before or?
How do you prepare? Yeah. Once you pick the boat.
We did not sail before. But, you know, Columbus did it like 500 years ago. How hard could it be?
We actually did prepare. here. Once we realized that we were buying this boat
and that insurance requires some training, so we started taking all the ASA
(08:22):
courses out in San Diego.
We started chartering cats. Once we got those courses under our belt,
then we started chartering for a week at a time and just trying to get on board
other people's boats as much as possible to learn from them.
Just kind of like Like we've picked your brains on everything that you've been doing.
So we did it that way. But living in Arizona, we're landlocked.
(08:46):
So we really had to be very creative.
We've been to the Bahamas several times, up in Abaco, chartering boats.
So that's basically all we did to get ready for it. And it was...
Crash course what you got on the boat. Yeah. Delivery. Sometimes I think it's better.
I mean, I don't know. Everybody, grass is always greener. But when both people
(09:07):
in the couple are learning at the same time versus kind of dealing with the gap, I don't know.
So how has the experience been so far? The first season.
It's been very interesting. It's quite a steep learning curve.
We found it to be quite a steep learning curve. We all find in the first year. Yeah.
(09:29):
And I've heard that before. They said, don't don't judge your sailing experience
on your first year because there's so much to learn.
So when we picked up the boat in Fort Lauderdale in August, there were hurricanes chasing us.
And who delivers boats to Fort
Lauderdale in the middle of a hurricane season? It seems like a bad idea.
So we we took delivery of a boat and we had to drag out of there.
(09:53):
I mean, we were feeling the effects of the hurricane as well,
because it's not just the hurricane, but it's the wind bill.
I mean, and we, that first, our first sail up out of Fort Lauderdale and up
the coast, because we just, it was overnights that we did.
Yeah. Overnights. And we had never done overnights before.
Did you have anybody else on board? Our brother-in-law was with us. So, three of us.
(10:16):
He's quite, yeah, the experienced sailor. Okay. So, he was, it was that,
it was, he was the comfort that we had.
There is but he really kind of let us deal with everything
on our own but it after that i
was almost ready to just we had two dogs on board and it was it was a nightmare
i will say that i was about ready to say no no i can't we can't do this anymore
(10:40):
so how did you recover from that first experience like what what happened to
just say okay we continue yeah.
When the boat first got delivered, it was August in Fort Lauderdale,
and we had probably five or six weeks' worth of aftermarket stuff to do.
And while that work was being done, every afternoon are thunderstorms and lightning strikes.
(11:08):
And even a couple boats in the marina where we're having our work done got struck
by lightning around us. We had a proximity strike. Yeah, we had a little proximity
strike. So that was all very scary.
And then when the boat's done, they go, okay, the boat's done and we need to slip. So you have to go.
And so we hop aboard and we start heading north. How did we recover from all that? No, I know.
(11:34):
It was mostly rough going up the East Coast, but there were some really nice
days and evenings as well.
And I think if you have a few of those sprinkled in with the rough times,
it's enough to keep you going.
And then once we got up to Annapolis, the Annapolis area up in the Chesapeake, we were in a nice marina.
(11:59):
Storms were all gone. Weather was nice. We were plugged in. Everything was working well.
And there are other boats out there who just went through the same things we
did. and we and we got to sort of bounce frightening stories off of them and after a couple days,
You forget that stuff and you look at how awesome, you know, the other stuff is.
(12:23):
Yeah, and he hit on a key thing. There are other boats that went through it.
We have, we had a buddy boat.
We have a buddy boat that, man, if we didn't have them with us either,
I think it was the comfort knowing that they're out there as well because they
went through and left with us.
And it was just like, we made it. It was like, it was a huge accomplishment
that we made it through all this.
And you know we didn't we didn't die at
(12:47):
the time but also having that that companionship
when you're out there sailing out there and i think i think the first year part
of it what's hard is you don't know what's normal right like you don't you don't
like is this is this normal waves or is this like really big waves or is this
a normal sound on the boat or is this like something's breaking like you You
(13:09):
just don't know what normal is.
Exactly. I honestly thought it seemed to always hit at night and it was,
you know, pounding up and down and left and right.
And the dogs are freaking out. They're throwing up. He comes in throwing up.
And I honestly think our boat was going to fall apart.
This is as normal as things falling off. You know, it's just and at night it's
(13:32):
all worse at night. It's an amplifying night. It is. Yeah. Yeah.
So do you feel like the good times have kind of, there's been enough in that
bucket than in the other bucket? I think so.
You got to. I think, yeah, I think there's been now many more good times than those bad times.
And it was just such a, you know, thrown into the fire and skedaddle.
(13:58):
There was no opportunity to go slow and sort of get a feel for the boat. We just had to go.
And my brother-in-law, he was awesome.
He would sleep through all the terrible parts and wake up and go,
oh, it's a little rockier than it was when I went to bed. What's going on?
So he was a very calming attitude.
(14:19):
And then when we got up there, we even talked about how, you know,
people talk about their boats as she's and, you know, they become very attached to their boats.
And we can see why, because she really, really took care of us.
When we didn't know what the heck we were doing.
And she just said, come on, I got you. Yeah, that's such a great feeling when
(14:41):
you trust your boat and you feel really good about your boat.
Yeah, we have another friend that was describing her boat when she was taking classes.
And how she described her boat is that,
heard the name of their boat that was fighting against us. It was like a horse
were trying to rein in to fight against us. And I thought just the opposite.
(15:01):
I said, our girl was fighting for us to get us in, to get where we were going.
But I think that's the difference between full-time liveaboards versus somebody
who goes on the weekend every once in a while.
Oh, because they don't know the nuances maybe. Yeah.
I think that because I thought, wow, our boat really, she took care of us.
(15:23):
But I think I think during that whole process, learning for us to learn how
to trust each other and, you know, thinking, I think the first time we chartered
and you were able to pull off the dock without anybody helping.
I'm like, oh, he's he learned good. Good job.
So I was pleasantly surprised. So what are your plans? Do you live aboard full
(15:46):
time? Full time. OK. Okay.
And what are your plans to ultimately, you know, not like next couple of weeks,
but like long term? Long term is to get over to the med.
That's my goal. We would love, I love the Bahamas. It's beautiful.
The sand, the ocean is absolutely stunning.
(16:07):
But I want to get into more culture. I want to get into the history of where we go,
learn about the people, learn about where we're at
and enjoy that culture part of
it the travel part the travel part yes there and and
and i'm i'm i'm tapping my
fingers i'm waiting i'm waiting i know we have to get this experience first
(16:27):
and this is a good learning experience here but ultimately i'd like to get over
into the med i know that friends so that's your whole destination yes okay that's
good i mean there's a ton of stuff in the med for sure yeah that's her whole
destination well i mean I mean, Croatia, Italy, France.
I mean, it's all just... It's awesome. And I want to go there as well. My ultimate...
(16:51):
Destination for me would be the south pacific
i want to i want to get down to the south pacific so by
the time we're done with those two things that will have been halfway around the
entire world so that's amazing that's great maybe we'll
maybe we'll talk about this for five years yeah okay
five years to stay on the boat don't give
up five years and then five years we might be
(17:13):
too old to yeah no i think i
think sailing keeps you young because you you you're
doing things and you're active i mean you
guys were pretty i mean firefighter and you know police investigator
i guess but you know it's uh when we first got on it though we were sore yeah
we were waking up sore every morning and i was like is it gonna go away yeah
(17:38):
yeah so a lot of what we talk about in our podcast and in our YouTube channel,
which is what we've been kind of focused on recently,
is just trying to reset people's expectations about what it's actually like
to be on a boat, because I think it's very Instagrammy and there are some fabulous,
wonderful things, and there are some just kind of crappy things.
(17:59):
And so we're trying to communicate the reality of what that's like.
Based on your experience so far, what advice would you give people who words of starting out?
Well, somebody gave me some really good advice.
My advice is if you do something on a boat, good or bad, talk about it.
(18:20):
Talk about what was the good part about it, what we did very well.
And then if something went bad, you know, talk about it, sit down and talk about
it. What could we do different?
And I think that was the best advice that was given to us by years truly here.
The debriefs are just, I mean, it changes completely because we were trying
(18:44):
to be like, okay, what did we learn from this really crappy thing we just did?
Yes. And whether it's how to communicate or how to do the maneuver.
And I mean, it's really helpful.
And I think the toughest thing about being on a boat is living in a confined
space when you're not used to that.
And it magnifies if you have any issues in your marriage or your relationship,
(19:07):
it magnifies that and it brings it out.
And so that's also been a huge thing we've had to work through is that trust factor.
I got to trust him that he kind of knows what he's doing.
And he has to trust me that I can do this.
And a lot of times I think that trust doesn't come back on me a lot.
(19:28):
He still is in that protective mode. Well, it's protective.
I think men, I think men, you guys can comment after I'm done saying it,
but I think men have a tendency to, they want to be sure that they know everything.
What they're what to do and before they
ask someone else to do something and so i think if they're learning something
(19:49):
new it's uncomfortable right you know to kind of let go of that a little bit
just because it's a protective nature thing i don't know what do you think right
i agree it's you know and the way i look at it is like all the things i love the most in the world.
This small little vessel with me and i just want to make sure that you know
things go as absolutely well as possible.
(20:11):
Yeah. So it's a lot of responsibility probably that you feel.
Yeah. Yeah. I remember that first year with a new boat.
Like it's now, it's your home. It's a lot of money invested in it.
And then you're afraid of like another boat hitting you. And now you've been
hit twice. And you realize the boat is not going to fall apart.
It hurts you, your boat is hurt, but you're like, wow, these boats are solid.
(20:34):
So it's like, okay, when we come close to another boat, like,
you know, or something were bad to happen it's like
yeah i i know the first year i was like putting
a lot of pressure on myself and then second year was
like okay it's not going to be that bad of course we want
to avoid any uh any yeah you want to avoid what you can but when you're in anchorage
you are like always worrying and i start to worry so much and and then yeah
(20:57):
the first year or two i remember holly's mom says are you going to keep my daughter
safe so you're like you you say
yes but you always Always kind of remember that in the back of your head.
So as you do things, you want to make sure you protect your boat, your home.
And at the same time, yeah, the people. So it feels like added pressure for
sure. And then over time, it just kind of dissipates a little bit.
(21:20):
Ray, what about you? What advice would you give people? What advice would I give somebody?
I think to temper your expectations and just go slow. You don't have to be a
ocean racer the minute you step on your boat and, you know, head out there.
Even if you are an ocean racer. Even if you are an ocean racer.
(21:43):
But, you know, small day hops are...
Good weather windows, try to travel when the weather's good,
you know, and just go slow. There's, there's a lot to learn.
You're not going to learn it all in a short amount of time. It takes a while.
And, you know, especially if you, if you have your wife or your family who maybe
(22:07):
is less enthusiastic or experienced,
you don't want to scare the crap out of them and And then they never want to
go anywhere or do anything.
So I would just say go slow and give yourself a break, man. Yeah.
And definitely I think it's important. And we heard from a lot of different couples over the years.
(22:28):
It's never good for the, if it's the man's dream, that is the seed idea.
And then the man or the woman for that matter is sort of saying,
oh, it's great. It's wonderful.
It's just not because you're kind of trying to downplay it because you want
to kind of pull the person in.
It's not really fair because they're not
getting full disclosure about like what it's really like so
(22:50):
it's like you need to know what it's really like but then you
need to know but we're not going to do that all at once like you
know it's managed risk you're not like diving in the deep
yeah for sure i think my
expectations were a little bit
more realistic than my my husband's dream
he dreamed of a boat no seriously he had
(23:11):
this dream for i don't know how many years and
i think he it was romanticized you know all the videos
he watched you know and sailing can be that way yeah yeah it can and i think
i have to remind him every once in a while i go this is boat life yeah this
is boat life upside down yeah standing on my head in a locker trying to of chase
(23:32):
down an electrical short of some sort. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So before we close, so what's your favorite part and then what is absolutely
the thing you can do without?
My favorite part is actually meeting people.
Our background is such that it wasn't always pleasant to be interacting with people.
(23:54):
And to see that there's actually really good people out there and the selling
community is such a supportive community.
And you don't really have that anywhere. I mean, you have other communities,
but this one, everybody comes together to help.
Somebody puts out a call for it. And that's been a lot of fun to meet the new people.
(24:17):
And I could do without the, I don't know, what could we do without?
Constant, terrible weather would be nice.
Watching the weather constantly. Yeah, just a few days of beautiful,
balmy breezes would be awesome.
Apparently that never happened. Yeah, we're on a boat now. You run into some
(24:40):
background. One, I think there's a dinghy parade over on the beach there.
They're making like a bonfire.
So a lot of dinghies are going by, but there's some wind. We have 20 knots.
So we're at this anchorage. Yeah. And I mean, the wife and I don't always agree on things,
but I would have to agree that meeting new folks and other sailors who are sort
(25:02):
of going through the same thing and even super experienced ones who have stories
about going through what you're going through has been awesome. sometimes.
And I originally got on a boat to get away from people.
But it has been the best part about it. It's true. It's like really awesome
people are all living on boats. So I think that's kind of part of it. Yeah.
(25:24):
Very cool. Well, I know we're parting ways tomorrow, so we're going to miss you guys.
And we'll see you around, I'm sure, in the Caribbean maybe next season.
Next season, we'll be there.
And we might pop by online. Yeah.
Come by Tahoe. You're welcome. Very cool. Thanks so much.
Music.
Hello and thank you for joining us. We are in the breezy Bahamas right now and
we're excited to start back up on our Covert Castaway podcast.
We've decided to dedicate this podcast to cruisers we meet along the way and
then share more of our adventures and what's going on on our YouTube channel
(00:23):
on Sailing Owen. So you can check that out if you haven't already.
So this kicks off our season eight and we will be starting to share more stories
from other cruisers we meet, which are really, really interesting.
So thank you for tuning in and continuing to follow us.
We are so excited to be back on Covert Castaway talking to other cruisers.
(00:48):
And we're going to hear today from Ray and Sarah from Kismet.
Hello, and welcome to Covert Castaway. I'm Holly. I'm Stefan.
Join us as we share what we learned and how we're making the transition to liveaboard cruising.
So first, Stefan, why don't you set the scene?
(01:11):
Oh man, we're in beautiful Bahamas water, Bahamian waters, I guess.
Is Burmese in Georgetown.
And we just came back from a walk on the beach and it's just amazing.
I think we'll miss that. The sand feels so good. The sand, yeah, super soft.
It's like sugar under your feet, kind of. Yeah, or flour maybe. Powdered sugar. Yeah.
(01:32):
So today we're really excited because we have spent the last couple weeks, has it been two weeks?
Making new friends. And one of them are Ray and Sarah on Kismet.
And we love your story and we just love you guys already.
And we feel like kindred spirits. And I know you guys are taking off tomorrow.
(01:52):
So we wanted to kind of capture your story.
So maybe you can just tell us a little bit about yourselves and where you're
from and how long you've been cruising. Well, we're from Arizona.
We have recently retired. Well, I retired two years ago.
You retired about a year ago. And his dream was to sail. My dream was to travel.
(02:15):
So we've been married for 22, 23 years together, about 26 years.
So we learned to compromise and this was the compromise, buying a boat and traveling. Yeah.
So Ray, you want to talk a little bit about what boat you're on and how long you've had it?
So I had a dream of sailing for
(02:38):
many, many years and I've always pictured myself on a smallish monohull.
But when I started showing pictures on the internet to Sarah about the boat
I was looking at that we could sail around in. It's always a way.
Stefan kind of started on a monohull too. Yeah, she put a big kibosh on that.
She goes, I will never get on a sailboat like that, would you?
(03:00):
Well, I said that because my mother and my stepfather, he had a monohull and
they were out sailing all the time.
And I was on their boat at times and it just didn't, it didn't suit me.
It didn't resonate with her. No, it was it was too much, at least that time at that time.
And this was, oh, my goodness, this was probably about 35, 38 years ago.
(03:25):
And it felt like camping to me, especially when my stepdad would always just
say, if it's yellow, let it mellow.
You know and and those things I'm like oh it's really it was really harder to
be on on that boat at the time and I told him if we're going to do this I don't
want to feel like we're camping yeah yeah I mean that's true and having been
(03:47):
on monohulls for long periods of time doing a passage.
It's rough on your body but I definitely know what you mean about the feeling
of camping like you could definitely do a trip on a monohull right but would
you want to live on it you know That was kind of a question for me,
too, when we started kind of looking at boats. So definitely.
Yeah. So I started dragging her to the Annapolis Boat Show every year and looking
(04:12):
at different boats. Because that's how it starts.
Every boat she got on, she goes, no.
How about this one? No. Looking at 40, 50, 55, 60-foot models, no. No. Really?
And then she looked across the way and she goes, oh, that was over there.
I said, those are catamarans, and we can't afford those. She goes,
(04:34):
well, let's just go look. So, of course, after she looked, she goes, okay.
I could live with you on a catamaran. Yeah, definitely. We started looking at
those and saving our money.
And after five or six years of going to the boat show, we settled on a new design
from Leopard, the Leopard 42.
It's their smallest current boat that Leopard's making, but it's very comfortable.
(05:00):
It's an owner's version. And it's got three cabins, electric heads.
You know, solar, lithium, all the modern comforts of home, air conditioning.
My wife had a generator, air compressor, studio compressor.
And also diving was a thing because I got into, I want to do treasure hunting.
(05:24):
So if we go to different dive sites, different places, we had to have our tanks
or dive gear. And I have to constantly thinking about what are we going to do
while we're on this boat?
So that was one of them, a dive compressor.
Yeah. Yeah. So it took them two years to build it for us, but it went on like 22 months, I think.
And we picked it up now last August, moved aboard last August. 2023.
(05:50):
We've been living aboard ever since. It came from South Africa.
It was put on a big container ship with 15 or 20 other leopard boats and brought
over to Fort Lauderdale.
And so we picked it up August 2023 in Fort Lauderdale. We did the handover there.
And we've been living aboard ever since. I have a question about the name.
(06:11):
I've been asking myself this question. Where does Kismet come from?
Because I saw, I Googled, I mean, I Googled, but in the Wikipedia.
Wikipedia? Yeah, Wikipedia.
Oh, in the AIS app, I saw a lot of kismets. Do you really? Yeah.
Yeah, what's it mean? So the meaning, well, the meaning means meant to be or destiny or fate.
(06:34):
It's a Turkish. It's a Turkish, Hebrew, or Arabic, I think, yeah. Arabic.
And I kind of got a little flack from my Greek side of the family.
I'm like, but so we, the, the way our schedules work, we didn't,
our anniversary was coming up and he had to work on the day of our anniversary.
(06:55):
And so I had made reservations for the day after when he got home at our favorite
restaurant and he had made reservations to our favorite same restaurant the day before he worked.
And so we, we told each other this and we said, we said, let's just keep both of them.
Let's go to the one that you made because we love this restaurant.
(07:17):
And so we went there and he went to work and then the day that we came back on the day I reserved.
We came in and the waitress literally sat us at the same table that we had. That's so funny.
The day before as we're sitting down. Same waiter. Same waiter.
Same table. As we were sitting down, both of us go, man, this is kismet.
(07:37):
It was kind of like meant to be that we happened.
And we had been going through all different names, but just our life kind of
how we met and everything.
It just kind of felt like it was kismet.
It was meant to be. We were meant to be together after so many years and,
you know, it's just our families and it had a deep meaning for us.
(07:57):
Yeah, that's really cool.
So did you guys sail before or?
How do you prepare? Yeah. Once you pick the boat.
We did not sail before. But, you know, Columbus did it like 500 years ago. How hard could it be?
We actually did prepare. here. Once we realized that we were buying this boat
and that insurance requires some training, so we started taking all the ASA
(08:22):
courses out in San Diego.
We started chartering cats. Once we got those courses under our belt,
then we started chartering for a week at a time and just trying to get on board
other people's boats as much as possible to learn from them.
Just kind of like Like we've picked your brains on everything that you've been doing.
So we did it that way. But living in Arizona, we're landlocked.
(08:46):
So we really had to be very creative.
We've been to the Bahamas several times, up in Abaco, chartering boats.
So that's basically all we did to get ready for it. And it was...
Crash course what you got on the boat. Yeah. Delivery. Sometimes I think it's better.
I mean, I don't know. Everybody, grass is always greener. But when both people
(09:07):
in the couple are learning at the same time versus kind of dealing with the gap, I don't know.
So how has the experience been so far? The first season.
It's been very interesting. It's quite a steep learning curve.
We found it to be quite a steep learning curve. We all find in the first year. Yeah.
(09:29):
And I've heard that before. They said, don't don't judge your sailing experience
on your first year because there's so much to learn.
So when we picked up the boat in Fort Lauderdale in August, there were hurricanes chasing us.
And who delivers boats to Fort
Lauderdale in the middle of a hurricane season? It seems like a bad idea.
So we we took delivery of a boat and we had to drag out of there.
(09:53):
I mean, we were feeling the effects of the hurricane as well,
because it's not just the hurricane, but it's the wind bill.
I mean, and we, that first, our first sail up out of Fort Lauderdale and up
the coast, because we just, it was overnights that we did.
Yeah. Overnights. And we had never done overnights before.
Did you have anybody else on board? Our brother-in-law was with us. So, three of us.
(10:16):
He's quite, yeah, the experienced sailor. Okay. So, he was, it was that,
it was, he was the comfort that we had.
There is but he really kind of let us deal with everything
on our own but it after that i
was almost ready to just we had two dogs on board and it was it was a nightmare
i will say that i was about ready to say no no i can't we can't do this anymore
(10:40):
so how did you recover from that first experience like what what happened to
just say okay we continue yeah.
When the boat first got delivered, it was August in Fort Lauderdale,
and we had probably five or six weeks' worth of aftermarket stuff to do.
And while that work was being done, every afternoon are thunderstorms and lightning strikes.
(11:08):
And even a couple boats in the marina where we're having our work done got struck
by lightning around us. We had a proximity strike. Yeah, we had a little proximity
strike. So that was all very scary.
And then when the boat's done, they go, okay, the boat's done and we need to slip. So you have to go.
And so we hop aboard and we start heading north. How did we recover from all that? No, I know.
(11:34):
It was mostly rough going up the East Coast, but there were some really nice
days and evenings as well.
And I think if you have a few of those sprinkled in with the rough times,
it's enough to keep you going.
And then once we got up to Annapolis, the Annapolis area up in the Chesapeake, we were in a nice marina.
(11:59):
Storms were all gone. Weather was nice. We were plugged in. Everything was working well.
And there are other boats out there who just went through the same things we
did. and we and we got to sort of bounce frightening stories off of them and after a couple days,
You forget that stuff and you look at how awesome, you know, the other stuff is.
(12:23):
Yeah, and he hit on a key thing. There are other boats that went through it.
We have, we had a buddy boat.
We have a buddy boat that, man, if we didn't have them with us either,
I think it was the comfort knowing that they're out there as well because they
went through and left with us.
And it was just like, we made it. It was like, it was a huge accomplishment
that we made it through all this.
And you know we didn't we didn't die at
(12:47):
the time but also having that that companionship
when you're out there sailing out there and i think i think the first year part
of it what's hard is you don't know what's normal right like you don't you don't
like is this is this normal waves or is this like really big waves or is this
a normal sound on the boat or is this like something's breaking like you You
(13:09):
just don't know what normal is.
Exactly. I honestly thought it seemed to always hit at night and it was,
you know, pounding up and down and left and right.
And the dogs are freaking out. They're throwing up. He comes in throwing up.
And I honestly think our boat was going to fall apart.
This is as normal as things falling off. You know, it's just and at night it's
(13:32):
all worse at night. It's an amplifying night. It is. Yeah. Yeah.
So do you feel like the good times have kind of, there's been enough in that
bucket than in the other bucket? I think so.
You got to. I think, yeah, I think there's been now many more good times than those bad times.
And it was just such a, you know, thrown into the fire and skedaddle.
(13:58):
There was no opportunity to go slow and sort of get a feel for the boat. We just had to go.
And my brother-in-law, he was awesome.
He would sleep through all the terrible parts and wake up and go,
oh, it's a little rockier than it was when I went to bed. What's going on?
So he was a very calming attitude.
(14:19):
And then when we got up there, we even talked about how, you know,
people talk about their boats as she's and, you know, they become very attached to their boats.
And we can see why, because she really, really took care of us.
When we didn't know what the heck we were doing.
And she just said, come on, I got you. Yeah, that's such a great feeling when
(14:41):
you trust your boat and you feel really good about your boat.
Yeah, we have another friend that was describing her boat when she was taking classes.
And how she described her boat is that,
heard the name of their boat that was fighting against us. It was like a horse
were trying to rein in to fight against us. And I thought just the opposite.
(15:01):
I said, our girl was fighting for us to get us in, to get where we were going.
But I think that's the difference between full-time liveaboards versus somebody
who goes on the weekend every once in a while.
Oh, because they don't know the nuances maybe. Yeah.
I think that because I thought, wow, our boat really, she took care of us.
(15:23):
But I think I think during that whole process, learning for us to learn how
to trust each other and, you know, thinking, I think the first time we chartered
and you were able to pull off the dock without anybody helping.
I'm like, oh, he's he learned good. Good job.
So I was pleasantly surprised. So what are your plans? Do you live aboard full
(15:46):
time? Full time. OK. Okay.
And what are your plans to ultimately, you know, not like next couple of weeks,
but like long term? Long term is to get over to the med.
That's my goal. We would love, I love the Bahamas. It's beautiful.
The sand, the ocean is absolutely stunning.
(16:07):
But I want to get into more culture. I want to get into the history of where we go,
learn about the people, learn about where we're at
and enjoy that culture part of
it the travel part the travel part yes there and and
and i'm i'm i'm tapping my
fingers i'm waiting i'm waiting i know we have to get this experience first
(16:27):
and this is a good learning experience here but ultimately i'd like to get over
into the med i know that friends so that's your whole destination yes okay that's
good i mean there's a ton of stuff in the med for sure yeah that's her whole
destination well i mean I mean, Croatia, Italy, France.
I mean, it's all just... It's awesome. And I want to go there as well. My ultimate...
(16:51):
Destination for me would be the south pacific
i want to i want to get down to the south pacific so by
the time we're done with those two things that will have been halfway around the
entire world so that's amazing that's great maybe we'll
maybe we'll talk about this for five years yeah okay
five years to stay on the boat don't give
up five years and then five years we might be
(17:13):
too old to yeah no i think i
think sailing keeps you young because you you you're
doing things and you're active i mean you
guys were pretty i mean firefighter and you know police investigator
i guess but you know it's uh when we first got on it though we were sore yeah
we were waking up sore every morning and i was like is it gonna go away yeah
(17:38):
yeah so a lot of what we talk about in our podcast and in our YouTube channel,
which is what we've been kind of focused on recently,
is just trying to reset people's expectations about what it's actually like
to be on a boat, because I think it's very Instagrammy and there are some fabulous,
wonderful things, and there are some just kind of crappy things.
(17:59):
And so we're trying to communicate the reality of what that's like.
Based on your experience so far, what advice would you give people who words of starting out?
Well, somebody gave me some really good advice.
My advice is if you do something on a boat, good or bad, talk about it.
(18:20):
Talk about what was the good part about it, what we did very well.
And then if something went bad, you know, talk about it, sit down and talk about
it. What could we do different?
And I think that was the best advice that was given to us by years truly here.
The debriefs are just, I mean, it changes completely because we were trying
(18:44):
to be like, okay, what did we learn from this really crappy thing we just did?
Yes. And whether it's how to communicate or how to do the maneuver.
And I mean, it's really helpful.
And I think the toughest thing about being on a boat is living in a confined
space when you're not used to that.
And it magnifies if you have any issues in your marriage or your relationship,
(19:07):
it magnifies that and it brings it out.
And so that's also been a huge thing we've had to work through is that trust factor.
I got to trust him that he kind of knows what he's doing.
And he has to trust me that I can do this.
And a lot of times I think that trust doesn't come back on me a lot.
(19:28):
He still is in that protective mode. Well, it's protective.
I think men, I think men, you guys can comment after I'm done saying it,
but I think men have a tendency to, they want to be sure that they know everything.
What they're what to do and before they
ask someone else to do something and so i think if they're learning something
(19:49):
new it's uncomfortable right you know to kind of let go of that a little bit
just because it's a protective nature thing i don't know what do you think right
i agree it's you know and the way i look at it is like all the things i love the most in the world.
This small little vessel with me and i just want to make sure that you know
things go as absolutely well as possible.
(20:11):
Yeah. So it's a lot of responsibility probably that you feel.
Yeah. Yeah. I remember that first year with a new boat.
Like it's now, it's your home. It's a lot of money invested in it.
And then you're afraid of like another boat hitting you. And now you've been
hit twice. And you realize the boat is not going to fall apart.
It hurts you, your boat is hurt, but you're like, wow, these boats are solid.
(20:34):
So it's like, okay, when we come close to another boat, like,
you know, or something were bad to happen it's like
yeah i i know the first year i was like putting
a lot of pressure on myself and then second year was
like okay it's not going to be that bad of course we want
to avoid any uh any yeah you want to avoid what you can but when you're in anchorage
you are like always worrying and i start to worry so much and and then yeah
(20:57):
the first year or two i remember holly's mom says are you going to keep my daughter
safe so you're like you you say
yes but you always Always kind of remember that in the back of your head.
So as you do things, you want to make sure you protect your boat, your home.
And at the same time, yeah, the people. So it feels like added pressure for
sure. And then over time, it just kind of dissipates a little bit.
(21:20):
Ray, what about you? What advice would you give people? What advice would I give somebody?
I think to temper your expectations and just go slow. You don't have to be a
ocean racer the minute you step on your boat and, you know, head out there.
Even if you are an ocean racer. Even if you are an ocean racer.
(21:43):
But, you know, small day hops are...
Good weather windows, try to travel when the weather's good,
you know, and just go slow. There's, there's a lot to learn.
You're not going to learn it all in a short amount of time. It takes a while.
And, you know, especially if you, if you have your wife or your family who maybe
(22:07):
is less enthusiastic or experienced,
you don't want to scare the crap out of them and And then they never want to
go anywhere or do anything.
So I would just say go slow and give yourself a break, man. Yeah.
And definitely I think it's important. And we heard from a lot of different couples over the years.
(22:28):
It's never good for the, if it's the man's dream, that is the seed idea.
And then the man or the woman for that matter is sort of saying,
oh, it's great. It's wonderful.
It's just not because you're kind of trying to downplay it because you want
to kind of pull the person in.
It's not really fair because they're not
getting full disclosure about like what it's really like so
(22:50):
it's like you need to know what it's really like but then you
need to know but we're not going to do that all at once like you
know it's managed risk you're not like diving in the deep
yeah for sure i think my
expectations were a little bit
more realistic than my my husband's dream
he dreamed of a boat no seriously he had
(23:11):
this dream for i don't know how many years and
i think he it was romanticized you know all the videos
he watched you know and sailing can be that way yeah yeah it can and i think
i have to remind him every once in a while i go this is boat life yeah this
is boat life upside down yeah standing on my head in a locker trying to of chase
(23:32):
down an electrical short of some sort. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So before we close, so what's your favorite part and then what is absolutely
the thing you can do without?
My favorite part is actually meeting people.
Our background is such that it wasn't always pleasant to be interacting with people.
(23:54):
And to see that there's actually really good people out there and the selling
community is such a supportive community.
And you don't really have that anywhere. I mean, you have other communities,
but this one, everybody comes together to help.
Somebody puts out a call for it. And that's been a lot of fun to meet the new people.
(24:17):
And I could do without the, I don't know, what could we do without?
Constant, terrible weather would be nice.
Watching the weather constantly. Yeah, just a few days of beautiful,
balmy breezes would be awesome.
Apparently that never happened. Yeah, we're on a boat now. You run into some
(24:40):
background. One, I think there's a dinghy parade over on the beach there.
They're making like a bonfire.
So a lot of dinghies are going by, but there's some wind. We have 20 knots.
So we're at this anchorage. Yeah. And I mean, the wife and I don't always agree on things,
but I would have to agree that meeting new folks and other sailors who are sort
(25:02):
of going through the same thing and even super experienced ones who have stories
about going through what you're going through has been awesome. sometimes.
And I originally got on a boat to get away from people.
But it has been the best part about it. It's true. It's like really awesome
people are all living on boats. So I think that's kind of part of it. Yeah.
(25:24):
Very cool. Well, I know we're parting ways tomorrow, so we're going to miss you guys.
And we'll see you around, I'm sure, in the Caribbean maybe next season.
Next season, we'll be there.
And we might pop by online. Yeah.
Come by Tahoe. You're welcome. Very cool. Thanks so much.
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