Holy Crap We Can Afford It!

Hey guys, it's Chris here, uh, with Bluewater Cruising for the second episode of the Bluewater Cruising Podcast. Uh, where we are sitting down with people that have made the transition to cruising and figuring out the story, the story behind it, how they do it. What was it? How they do it, what's it like now? And I'm super excited. Today. I'm sitting down with Morgan and Darren Gallagher. They've got an amazing story, um, coming from Alaska where it's freezing cold, I think at the moment. And, uh, they just purchased a vote in Grenada, right? Grenada. Grenada. I always say it the wrong way. Yep. Um, so Grenada, Grenada. So they're going from freezing cold to super warm and they, I think they're super excited about it. We'll hear from them, . Um, so just a bit of, a bit of a background on, on these guys. Um, one of the things I found super cool about you guys is you're both musicians, uh, professional musicians, which is amazing, and. Yeah, you kind of the typical American thing in a way. You know, spent a lot of time working and, uh, having fun, I'm sure along the way, which I'd like to hear about. And you have now, uh, made the big transition and you're out cruising, are about to go out cruising, so, , maybe the first question that I would, yeah, I would have for you guys is how long have you been thinking about this for? How long has this been something before you pulled the trigger to do it, that you were mulling the idea around in your head and, um, thought that it was something you might like to do? It's been a long time. Then eventually, Covid hit. And one of a good friend of mine was like, Hey, I found this, uh, this really cool channel. You gotta check it out. It's called DEOs. And I'm like, okay, what? And I'm like, what is it about? And he is like, well, you remember how you were telling me about that sailing dream you had a long time ago? And I said, yeah. And boom, like it opened everything wide open again and. and uh, I'll let Darren, it, it turned step in. Yeah, it turned me on the sailing for the first time, cuz I'd never really thought much about sailing, but I totally loved the ocean. Uh, used to live in Huntington Beach, long Beach area. I used to go to the beach every weekend. I loved being in the ocean and the salt and the sand and the sun and really, really, Since I've been up here for like 40 years and, uh, when she, we saw the duo stuff, that guy sold like everything he owned and threw it all in a boat and just took off. And I, I thought like to myself, Hey, I could, I could probably do that. . It was a little scary and daunting. Initially, but after we watched all the different sailing shows, he watched you guys, he watched Satara, we watched a, a Vaon, we watched all, maybe every sailing show out there, bits and pieces of a, and it just kind of helped build our confidence that we could possibly do this and. it just seemed like, yeah, it's good for me. I'm tired of being cold and freezing in Alaska. Right. Let's, let's go for an adventure. So, well, and I will say that the moment that we for sure knew that this was like, okay, we're gonna do this was during the, uh, the financial chapter in Bluewater cruising on in, in the class online, and. as soon as we had everything mapped out and you could see it all in black and white. Yeah, we could do this financially. We were like, we're gonna pull the trigger. Let's do this. Like we can actually do this. So yeah. Done deal . So, so I have a question around that then, because it, so you said that the financial module that we put on where we kind of go over a bit of an overview and a framework, um Oh yeah. What, was there anything in particular that prevented you guys from doing that before? Like why, what was it about the class? Gave you the and and whatev the exercise that we go through around that. They gave you the. It was just the framework of all of it. I think. You think in your head it's this romantic, you know, idea of, oh, I'd love to be able to do that, but oh gosh, there's no way. You know, and you think of. Maybe all the assets that you have, whether you own a business or you know, rental incomes or little, even just the little stuff that that adds up along the way. And what I think once you put all of it down in black and white and you realize what your assets are versus what's going out and how you could shimmy things around if you really wanted to. And what. , I, it is what, what are you willing to give up? You know what I mean? And you guys also presented it in a, an aspect of you can be like on the bottom edge of, of income and live scrap, like the steer, you know? Yeah. You could be in the middle and kind. Live a little better and Right. Depending on what you wanna spend. And then you can go whole, whole hog and luxury it all the way around. All the way. And, and that kind of gave us a, a base of where we wanna go. Right. And it was kind of like right in the middle. Yep. So it was like, it was, it was having a framework to work within that that kind of prompted the idea that, and then you could lay it all out and be like, Hey, we actually can. Uh, do it. We did the spreadsheet and you guys presented and it came out and we could like, we could, we can do this . That's super exciting. Thanks. See, it's all you guys's. And also, the first time we tried to buy a boat, we went, we tried to go through financing. Okay. And even though had the money. to back up what we were wanting the loan for. They wouldn't give us a loan and it kind of saved our ass actually because we would've bought a, the wrong boat. The boat, yeah. that We didn't know the boat. You didn't know that you didn't want. Right, right. Exactly. Yeah. The boat we're got now is a much better deal. Yeah. Probably about the same price range a lot. It is about same price range. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Amazing. So, so I wanna, I wanna back up a little bit what led you to this? Because I think there's this, there's a conception out there that you need to, you know, you need to maybe be somewhat mechanically inclined or you need to be somewhat of a sailor or you need to have, you know, some sort of skill set to buy boat and go sailing. And I think it's a myth, it's a misconception. So I, I wanted to yeah, hear what your background is. What led you to this? You want me to go first? Yep. Yeah. Um, well, I am kind of O C g I can say I was a facilities manager for a major credit union up here, so I was all into fixing buildings and HVAC stuff and just a little bit of everything. I worked on my own cars, changed my own oil. Mm-hmm. , uh, jack of all three's, master with none. And uh, when I first came to Alaska, I became a professional musician right away because, uh, it was the end of the pipeline and. Pipeline and there was like a boom town here. There were seven bars in walking area downtown that all had live bands in them. So I got employed, gainfully employed, playing musical instruments for a good 2, 3, 5 years maybe before I got my regular day job. And then I did both actually for about a year and a half, which was really a lot of money I made, but I spent it all. But uh, my. Job in the, uh, facilities management area at a credit union up here. I just packed all my money as much as I could in my 401k. They had a four program, a pension program, a great medical dental insurance program, and I just packed the maximum I could in my 401k for a good 20 years. And when I retired from the credit union, I had a nice, nice enough big est, uh, nest egg to throw it down on a down payment for a. And that in itself is really scary to spend all your life savings on a boat. But the boat we bought is so nice that I figured we can sell it. That if everything hits the fan and we can't do this, we can sell the boat and at least make our money back. Yeah. If not, make more money on it. Okay. Cause we're gonna improve it as soon as we get it. So that's, that's the kind of thing that made it okay for me. To do it. Deal. Okay. Okay. amazing. And, uh, Morgan on your side of things. So, so on my side of things, um, I had been raised on lakes in Oklahoma and Arkansas my entire life. I, I was on the water for the most, most of my young years. And, but not on a sailboat per se, but like, you know, fishing boats, pontoon boats, jet skis, like all the toys and all the extras and stuff. But I, I love the water. Once we were in Alaska, the vacations send you to the ocean because we're landlocked up here in Fairbanks, so you don't, you don't get a lot of ocean up here. But once, once we hit the ocean, I, I was in so much trouble. I'm like, just. Leave me here. I don't want to go back to Alaska. Like, you can leave me in Florida. You can come visit. Like whatever. So, so being able to watch some of the stuff from duos to Zara, to all the sailing channels and, and seeing I, I'm like, these people are living my dream. Like I wanna do that. Why can't, why can't we do that? And so we're watching and enjoying everything and eventually, you know, stumble onto blue water, cruising. To you guys training it, it set us up to know that what we were doing was attainable and, and made us push the gut. The go button, . Cool. Cool. Very cool. Yeah. Um, I've got a question on the, so, so Darren, you mentioned on the finances thing, you, you sucked cuz I, I think a lot of people have questions around that. You know, how do people afford this? What's, how. You know, make it work financially. Yeah. Um, so you'd talked a bunch of money way away into the a ira. Um, if you, if you're open to sharing, is that, did you take that out then to buy the boat out of the Yes, yes. I, I, I had a 401k and then when I left, uh, the, the credit union, I had a, a financial advisor at the time and he was managing my 401k, not right, per se, but, uh, I took the 401k. Kind of managed it, rolled it over into a ira, and I, it's been in there for like 20 something years, earning, uh, earning some big interest. So I'd have to go back and see how much money I actually earned on it, but, And, you know, and the financial stuff just kind of took a dive the last year or so. So I kind of lost a little bit of money here. Right. And I'm figuring I'm losing my money. Why not just buy a boat anyway? , , you know? Yeah. And, and, and that it was, it was a little scary, but it's like, like I said, you know, it's like, it's a, it's kind of like an investment. I didn't spend all my money. She helped too, . We, she, she had some rental properties that she sold, so we kind of went in. A little, like 50 50 and it didn't break our bank, so we still have some reserves left. Okay. And, uh, it worked out great. Okay. So, so you used some money from the BA basically investments. You had investments in your ira, you had investments, rental property. Right. Um, and you sold, you sold some of those to make it work. And then what is your plan as far as the, when you said you worked out. The financial framework and you realize you could afford the lifestyle. What is your, are you guys going to, you planning to work? Are you living off of investment income? What's the, what's the plan around that? . Little bit of both. Both. Little bit of both. Little bit of both. So I, I had four investment properties or rentals all together. I sold two and that's gonna help me with the rentals that were keeping and stuff, and still being able to make a little bit of money. To, to pay for fuel cause it's expensive. So, and I was, I was fortunate that the credit union I worked at had a pension program. Yeah. I was fully vested after five years. So I get a pension from my, my employer for the rest of my life until I die. And I just qualified for social security last year in October. So I guess social security too. So I've got income coming to. Maybe, you know, I don't, it's not, I'm trying to think. It was, it's not too bad. Almost, almost 50 grand a year or more. Okay. Just on my social security, so. Okay. Yeah, see and I don't have anything, so he's not allowed to do anything dangerous on the boat at all. He's finding hopefully he's well insured. I'm afraid of, I really kind looking forward to going up the mask to see how hanging out to see how much you can handle. That's funny. Oh yeah, that's gonna be fun. Amazing guys. I mean, it sounds like you're super well. Uh, to, to, to make this happen. I mean, that's, uh, those numbers are, yeah. more than enough to live a nice life. It's not easy though. I mean, to be able to figure all of that out and to like play with numbers and shimmy things around and it, I mean, it's scary. Yeah. I'll tell you that for sure. Like there've been many nights that I've been laying awake. Going, okay, well what if I did this and how if I do this and what if, you know, I mean, it's like back and forth, like, what have I done? Oh no, I bought a boat. You know, change. Change in the unknown, right? The unknown is always scary when you make a change, especially a big change to something financial that you've been contributing to for. 20 years or something. whole life. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I, my, my mom is still alive. She lives here in, in Alaska, up in Fairbank, so she's like 90. And she was a registered nurse and she's, she worked for the state and she probably has a really nice retirement program, but she just, she stayed up here and. So, you know, it's kind of like, I wouldn't, I get the hell outta here. Yeah. He's looking at her and he's like, I don't, I don't wanna stay up here that long. I don't wanna stay up here and be up here being 90 years old, watching TV in a chair all day. That's something. Get me outta here, . So yeah, I'm ready to go. Okay. So, um, we've talked a little bit about how it's, it's scary, right? Like it's making these decisions are not easy decisions to make. Um, what do you think the biggest. The biggest difference was because there's, there's some people that they'll go and they'll start to lean into this and, and try to figure some stuff out, and they, and they wanna do it. It's the dream, you know? There's more and more now, I think. Right. One of the things that resonated with me, what you said was this whole, the YouTube where you got inspired through YouTube and there's more and more people now that watch these YouTube sailing channels and they're like, I wanna do that. And so what's the difference between, like, what made you. Be okay with the fear and to essentially like take a bit of a leap of faith into the unknown. Uh, yeah. What, what was that? What do you think in your mind was the difference? Oh, I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say actually your bluewater cruising class is what kind of got me over the fear factor of the whole thing. Okay. Once we put everything down on paper and did all our finances and all that stuff, and. And, and, and just making the big leap is the big thing because that's kind of how we ended up together. . Yeah. Because when we met each other, we were both married and it was a lot of back and forth before we just decided to like, you know, let's just jump, let's just jump and call. Good. And we did, and here we are. What's the heck? Let's do it again, . Okay. It worked out great time. Let's do it again. I, I, I like that. And the thing in that I think that stands out for me is you, you've made a big decision like that before. Um, I mean, I appreciate you saying the course had had something to do with it and if we played a small role and it, that's amazing. Um, but I, I, and, and I think it dug definitely what, what we, what we put together helps. That's why we put it. Um, but I also think that there's something in people, uh, like personality wise or there's something that you can draw on. There has to be something in like, we can give somebody everything they need to do to do this as far as the tools, the strategies, the frameworks. Yet they still don't make the decision. And there's gotta be something that you can find inside yourself that you're like, I can do this. You know? And that's, that's kind of what I. Looking at like that, that's where the question came from and you, you answered it in a way I think, which was. You've done it before. I, I totally. Adventure always have been. And I think it runs in our family. Like my, my grandfather worked for Boeing and McDonald Douglas and set a world record flying a hang glider . And he, he took off from northwest Arkansas. Flew to the panhandle of Oklahoma. My grandmother thought he had like crashed and died because she didn't hear from him for a few days. So I thi , I think that just runs in my family. My dad was a paratrooper, jumped outta airplanes like my little brother's in the Coast Guard and I, there's just always this like, risk taking, like, okay, we're bored, let's find something else to do, kind of thing. And yeah, I think there's, there. I think there has to be kind of a risk taking side of people that jump into this and yeah, want to, that's go adventure and explore. That's, that's why when I was a kid, that's probably why I rode BMX bike without a helmet. , you know, I love it. I'm like a kid on the street, you know, jumping over, everybody laying on their ground. You know, all that kind of crazy stuff. You split your job. I broke my jaw in half skateboarding when I was 18. We were, we had halfpipes and swimming pools and all that stuff when we were growing up. I love it in, uh, California. So it was always kind of a risk, risk factor involved in excitement and in your life and, and the call to adventure. , yeah. Fall to adventure. Being on a boat and going sailing and ended up in places where no one's been before or people were, there are no people, you know, on a secluded island and stuff. What a, what, what? It can't get better than that. Right? ? Yeah. Well, well, I, I think at the end of the day, I mean, it's amazing and, and I think it does take real courage though to listen to the call and actually follow it. Cause I think everybody, to some degree has that call to adventure, you know? People watch. Every single person I ever talk to, if I tell them what I did on a boat, they're like, that's amazing. I want to do that. But very few, few people do it. You're inspiration. You're an inspiration to us too. It's like what you did what ? Yeah. Well you're doing it. And I think it takes real courage to, to actually do it. You know, regardless of what the outcome is. I mean it's, and it sounds like it's going well so far, but um, it's amazing. So, Okay. So I wanna switch gears a a little bit. Um, what would you say, like what, we've touched on one of 'em, which is finances. Were there any other big unknowns that you guys were trying to sort out that were roadblocks to you actually taking the leap in the transition? I mean, one of them's gotta be family, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, I have a 17 year old daughter who's just getting ready to graduate high school, and there's a huge part of me that's like, oh my God, like I can't leave her now. Like she's been with me 24 7 for the past like three or four years, especially once Covid hit because it was just easy and she was homeschooled and stuff, but. And so there's, yeah, I mean, there's a big part that's going to miss out on quite a bit of, you know, family life history, family stuff, family. I mean, his, his mom's getting up there and, and, uh, I, yeah, of course we wanna be here for every second of, you know, her lifetime and, and different moments and stuff like that. But I. It's like, it's like we might be on a boat, but we're not off the planet, right? Mm-hmm. . Right. You know, it might take us another extra day or two to get to a porta, somewhere to have, if I would have to fly back up here, right? We can. It might take a little longer than if we weren't on a boat, but we're still on the planet. Unfortunately, we don't have a spaceship . Wait, you got a boat. But that's what people think. You're getting on a boat and you're taking long. It's like, oh, we'll never see you again. You'll never see you again. It's like we're on the planet still and just take us a little longer to get back. Yeah. To where you are. See you is all and. . It's, it's not that big of a thing. We're just on this planet still. And just for the record, I tried, man. I'm like, you can come with us. You should just take a your roof and come with us. And she's like, yep, votes not for me. Mom. I love you. Have fun, . I'm like, it's like, okay. Yeah. I'm like, if my mom had done that when I was her age, oh, I'd have been there. You know, a heartbeat, but yeah. Yeah, she's very, I wanna make money, I wanna start my life and, um, I totally get that. So cool. I I, I hear you on this one. I feel you on this one, cuz we've got, well, has a daughter from her previous marriage that I've known for her entire life. Um, and it's the same deal with us, you know, she's 12 now. Um, and it was that decision of how do we make that work and. Yeah, I think you just gotta come to a place. For me, it was, we just had to come to a place where it was. . I think the, I, I, this is what I believe that the most important thing is to live your life. You know, you cannot live your life. Yeah. For your kids or for your parents, or for any other fam, family member or friends. Like, it's just in the end, gonna create a resentment. You're all gonna be unhappy. Yeah. And, uh, yep. If you do what? You know what's right for you. It might create this tension or, or some emotions and things, but it's, if it's right for you, it's, it's, I trust that it's right for everybody. That's my position on it. But Right. We get a little, we got a little bit of that. We got a little bit of that, a little kickback from friends and stuff, so. Well, you can't leave your mother's up here. Well, I can't stay up here and wait. You know, wait for my mother to pass, not gonna pass away. I'm gonna pause my life. So that, and if she does pass away, like I said, I'm still on the planet and it take me a little longer to get up here. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I have a brother that lives in, in California, he's not that far away. Yep. Um, yeah. So, you know, we're all, we're all taken care of. We good. And man. Yeah. And that, that's not an easy decision to make either. And I think it's another one that requires a little bit of courage to be like, you know what I'm doing what's right for me. And you guys can have your opinions and, uh, go pound some sand. Yeah. , right? You get a lot of, you get a lot of people telling you, you can't do this, you can't do that. That's on a boat. You can't, you know, you're gonna drown. You're gonna. Even. Even some people in the boating community that we were talking to were saying, you know, your catamarans gonna break in half and it's gonna flip over. And I'm not joking. Really . It was the day that we signed on the dotted line, and dude was like, well, I've seen catamarans break in half in 20 and 30 foot waves, and I. Um, why would you say that to someone else? I think, I think, you know, honestly though, I think the bigger picture there, cuz I, I, I hear this from time to time, I mean, that, that's this conversation around, around naysayers, right? Uh, and they're everywhere. Uh, especially when you do something that a lot of people wanna do and nobody ever really. Then they come outta the woodwork. There's a couple of our friends that are totally stoked and they can't believe that we're doing it. They're, they're like, , we can't believe you can. We have lots of friends that are super proud and like really excited and really wanna come sailing with us, like once we get our feet wet and are confident and everybody's excited about the fact that we're taking a little piece of Fairbanks with us on our trip. So. Cool. So, um, can, can you tell me how were your, like, your expectations before you set out and what you thought about the cruising. And how those have maybe shifted around the reality of what things are actually like and the reality of what you experienced, uh, both taking the course with us and then the reality of actually doing it yourselves. What the changes are, the shifts were through that, if that makes sense. Um, I don't, I'm trying to think back to like our first. boat buying experience that we didn't qualify for financing, which was a good thing because we, we were gonna get a mono haul and we were all in the dus thing. We did a bunch of, uh, research on the ml, uh, MEU boats and we fell in love with, and we found one and, and we just jumped on the plane and went for it to go buy it. And turns out through the survey that there was some funkiness. with the, uh, where the owner got the boat in Turkey and there were something wrong, like the hole number, the hidden number had been altered or something. It had been scraped off where it was originally supposed to be, and they said it was from paint or something and, and they put it somewhere else and the number didn't match the years that the boat were made. And it was all kind of funky and everything. And our surveyor said, I'd buy this boat in a heartbeat. Yeah, it's a great. And they, and uh, and we went, we almost pulled the trigger on it, but it fell through and it w it worked out better in the long run in the end. And, and then we ended up finding another super mill Miu in, uh, carousel when we were, was it Aruba? It was in Aruba, yeah. And we were, it was vacation in St. Lucia and we almost pulled the trigger on. And we met this broker guy, uh, who was selling the boat, and we found out something about that boat from a previous surveyor guy that didn't, said You shouldn't buy this boat. There were some problems with it. And so we had to back out of the deal and we felt really bad because we really liked the broker. We really wanted the boat and we really liked the broker. He was really cool guy. And uh, and that was our second attempt and it was kind of, well, you know, so we backed off, we back off, we quit looking. and just took a break and sat back for about six months to almost a year, I think. And we decided that we would start shopping around again this December for Catamaran for a cat . And, and we, we wanted to do the whole adventure cat, you know, the expedition all set out and ready to rock and roll. And we thought once we bought the boat that we'd have. A bunch of stuff to it to do that and retrofit and do, you know, so we were ready for all of that. And, uh, and your, your chorus really helped us about narrowing down the search for the boat because you want an older boat that was built, you know, very hardy like they did back in the day. They don't do. . The fiberglass isn't as thick as it was back in the day, and we totally searched for that. We searched from 98 to 2008. Yeah. And put all the specs in that. That's part of how we found the boat that we found, right, was because we followed all the, all the guidelines and stuff, and as of December I started looking around and about two weeks in just. Blemo and I'm like, Hey, Darren , I think I found our boat. Uhhuh. And he came down and sat and looked at it and I, it, it was just everything. It was all the solar, all the lithium. two refrigerators, an extra cooler that you could use as a freezer. It was already set up with a rain catchment system. I mean like there, it couldn't have been watermaker everything. It couldn't have been set up in a better way. The Davit system is really cool. They were originally not planning on selling the dinghy with it at all, as well as the other like freezer cooler thing they had. Other arrangements to sell that, and that fell through too. So we ended up with the dinghy and, and the cooler. I just, everything, I have this huge, everything happens for a reason and I know it's cliche, but it. It totally does. And everything just the stars were in the right alignment and it worked. And it ended up being that the broker that we loved so much from Aruba was the one selling this boat for the couple that was, that had owned it amazing. And the couple was Cape Town. So when I looked at the broker, I'm like, oh, no crap. I'm like, it's Tony. I'm like, I, we haven't talked to him since we backed out of that deal. And I felt so bad, but I'm like, I, I'm not gonna let that stop me from getting my dream vote . So I'll go ahead and call him and, and we'll start the chit chat. And, and we had a great time. He stayed on the boat and was with us the entire time. Through the buying process and all of it. And it, it was fabulous. Yeah. And we, we had actually when, uh, we started looking for a CATA Moran and we decided not to go with the mono hall. And it's basically just because it's got more room, you don't have the side to side wobble as much as you do on a cat. And we saw other cats that were out there that were way less expensive than what we bought our boat for. that were leopards and fell inside their guidelines, but a lot of them had a lot of work that needed to be done on there. Yeah. And we would've ended up buying the same boat and having to put just as much money into it to bring it up to what we wanted as the boat that she found. Yeah. Right. So it, it, it totally worked out. Yeah. So I was gonna ask you on there, so the, I mean, it sounds like you found a diamond in the rough, um, which is mean, talk about, and I think that the, the, the key, you mentioned the key in that, to finding that, which was you had a very defined search parameter of what you were looking for. Um, and when, when you have that, that's when, cuz those boats don't pop up. Pop up all the time. And when they do, they sell pretty quick normally cuz they're good. Um, and I think there was a guy actually had a offer on the boat and his, I think there were two offers. His financing fell through. when we had a cash offer and we, we just like snuck right in there and there were people lined up behind us. Yeah, there were like three or four different offers. It's a good boat. And that was another thing that made me ready to pull the trigger because there are people out there, like four or five people that want this boat. So I know that if it doesn't work out for us, they're gonna be looking for this boat. Yeah. We could sell it to them and we almost lost it. Oh, we, I was ready to have a heart attack. Tony called me and we had signed an extension, right, because it was like Christmas holidays and the couple that owned the boat were on holiday as well. So once we had signed the contract to extend our contract, they hadn't seen it yet. Ah, because they were still on holiday. So it expired. Mm-hmm. . And they thought that we weren't gonna pick up the pieces. When we totally had, it was a little bit Tony, it was a little bit us. Like all of us were like, well, it's Christmas, it's holidays. You know, we weren't thinking they were gonna jump on a different offer, but they were real, real close. Wow. And we like slid back under and were like, yeah, we almost lost. No, no, no. What are you talking about? We're totally still all in. Don't sell it to anybody else. What do you know? Yeah. So yeah, it was, it kind of got hairy there for a minute, but glad it worked out. Once they realized we were back on track, it was fine. what, um, you, you alluded to this, what was the big change, the big thing that catalyzed your decision to, to, to move from the model hold of the catamaran? And are you happy with the decision? Just the stability, I think, I mean, overall room and just the stability of the. That the, I'm assuming the decision came from you, Darren, not from Morgan . Well, actually no. Actually, it was a friend of, it was a friend of ours who kind of turned us onto the whole sailing thing and he was a gonna be like our first mate, our it it guy. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he went to Boston with me to look at the first, to look at the email both that we were gonna buy and he kind of, after we did all that and it all fell through, he just kind of said, you should look at catamaran. Catamarans are really cool too. Right? And we were thinking he was crazy. Yeah, we're gonna like, that's too big. It costs twice as much. You've got two motors. And, and I'm like, I really wanna sail. Like I want sail, sail. Like, I don't, I don't, I wanna be able to feel the wind and be able to like, you know, ke over, heal over. And I want, I want all of that and. and then eventually we're sitting one night and Darren's like, you know, I'm not getting any younger, it might not be a bad idea to look at some catamarans. And I'm like, Uh, I'm like, they're a lot more expensive. Are you sure? And then, you know, after all was said and done, I'm sold too. So, and you had, you said you ended up getting it for around the same price of what you would've paid for the amount. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yep. The, uh, we, we were in the right place at the right time. The, the, uh, owners of the book we bought. Found a repossessed boat in South Africa. Yeah, they're in Cape Horn. It was a, uh, uh, repossessed by the government. Cause there was a drug boat. Drug boat, apparently. Okay. A six, a 60 foot nexus. And they needed to unload their boat fast and they like left everything on the boat. It's cut. I can see why linens and those, it's linen and silverware plays that boat that they bought is gorgeous. That's the ultimate, it's the ultimate diamond in the rough cruising boat. They didn't build very many of them. . And if you ever find one for sale, send it to me. when our broker went on us with us on the, uh, sale, he was just livid about this boat. He's gonna, I love this boat. I want this boat when I retire, . And he was like telling people, I wanna race you cause this. Yeah. He kept trying. He wanted to race everybody. Yeah. It's always arena. It's always a race. Yeah. And he was like, I know people who've got a boat that's supposedly in newer than this and blah, blah, blah, and this boat would kick their ass. Yeah. And he was just having a great old time. So yeah, it was funny. Very good. You know? Very cool. Very, very cool. It's a good deal. Amazing. So you guys have, you've, now you've got the boat, you've been on the boat, you got a boat. So what are, what are the, what are the plants? What are you, yeah, what are you gonna do? So, I mean, our plan, we have to go back down and do some classes, obviously for insurance purposes, to be able to sail it ourselves by ourselves. Um, but I'm thinking, you know, two, three weeks, I wanna stay in the Caribbean for probably the next year or so just to get our feet wet and to. Be able to pop around and like adventure and explore a little bit in the Caribbean. My main goal is to hit Indonesia. I wanna go study food there really badly. Um, I wanna do a cooking show. I'm gonna start in Grenada just because we got really lucky and found a cool restaurant that is willing to teach us how to make what they call oil down, which is their national dish. Um, but I wanna explore and, and. New fun foods and be able to take people diving and be able to show people what I love so much about the ocean and. And new spices, new foods, new fun, you know, ways to cook and whatnot. So that was, that's one of the reasons we wanted a galley up as well. Like that was one of the boxes that the leopard checked. Big time. I'm going to, uh, I'm gonna do show you how to play musical instruments underwater. . I'm water. Are you, you know, there is, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna bring as much musical instruments that we can, that, uh, we don't care get destroyed. Yeah. Uh, we're putting a few of like choice items away. It's storage. Yeah. So in case we come back Yeah. And we'll, we'll see how everything fair. So if we come your way, you know, we're gonna have a, a little PA system and. Guitars and everything, and my, you'll hear us before you see us, you'll hear us coming. I'll come, I'll come play with you guys. , super fun. Right? We can sure. Play in some nightclubs somewhere, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's rad. There is, there is a bit of a, uh, There is a bit of a music scene, a a bit, if you find the right kind of boast to sail with. There's people that play, I used, we used to do all the time a lot in Fiji. We would have, we had, we would have two or three times a, a week jam night on my boat. People would come over, bring acoustic guitars. We had a little PA with a mic too, and a little keyboard and yeah. Yeah. And I had my, my base and. So just gotta find right people. You go. Yeah. That's super fun. Super fun. Remember one Christmas we had, we had, uh, my friend Franz, his wife Sylvia, a couple other friends, they're kids and yeah, we just played music all night. It was like Christmas Eve or something. It was super, super fun. So, so cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well that's, that's a indonesia's a long way, but, um, , you'll get there if you keep going. We're, we're No. No rush. Yeah, that's the thing. No rush. No rush, no rush. Doing all that planning. Well gotta get there by noon on Friday. It's like, no, we don't have to go anywhere anytime soon. So we're in no hurry to go. We can just provision up and call it. Good to be able to have the time to do that kind of filming and research and stuff. I And dive, dive on your own. Yeah. And go diving on your own. What? Yes, yes, please. So, I mean, that's, that's it, right? That's the freedom. The freedom to, the last time we went diving, uh, it was post covid. and they were trying to make up for last time, and I think there were like maybe, oh, it was past 10 or 15 people on a dive boat and it was just too many people. And I think it was more than 15 people, too much of a rush to get us in the water and get us out and Yeah. You know, do it the next day. And it was, it wasn't, it wasn't very fun. It was okay. It was diving, of course. It was fun. I had, I had like my daughter and her best friend were us, were with us on that trip and it was my daughter's first dive trip. Yeah. . Like it was the first time she'd actually gone like, and she enjoyed it and loved it, but I can remember at the very end of the dive, the dive master, you know, whacking on his tank and I turned around to look at him and he's like looking at me and he is like, you take both girls to do the three minute stop. And I was. . I have no watch. I have no . Like I don't have any, I wasn't expecting to have to do this like O okay. But I was totally wigged out, was not ready for that at all. And it was just, it was so crowded that he had too many people to deal with at one time. And I think one of the girls was a little low on air, so we needed to go up anyway. But it was, yeah, it was interesting. , I'll say that. . Ah, amazing. So there's a compressor in tanks and stuff on the boat for. No, no, there's not a compressor yet. That's the one thing that we're gonna have to add. It does have duct tank, um, like stainless steel racks, racks for them. But yeah, we need a compressor. And we need a compressor and some. Some gear. And some gear. Yeah. Cool. We got fins and snor pole and stuff like that. Spear gun, , fishing poles. There are fishing poles on the boat. A guy left fishing poles on there. There's a couple of deep sea fishing. Reels on there and uh, all we need is BCD and a tank used with some thin, my suggestion would be used. Don't buy new. Oh yeah, yeah. Same thing with the compressor, but get it all checked out. Um, yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. So what, um, coup. So, two questions left. One is, is how, one of the things that's a big theme for Keith and I right now is this idea of like, expectations around each other, around what roles are, what, what the lifestyle's gonna be for you, um, what you're gonna get out of it. How has that changed for you and how did that change? And specifically in relation to our course, um, you know, before you took the course versus after taking the course where you said that you, that kind of catalyzed you to make the decision. So how did the expectations change if they did at all? I don't think they changed. I think they may have developed a little bit. . I mean, obviously he's the tech guru as far as like mechanically inclined and whatnot. But I don't wanna not be a part of that. And I think I've always kind of wanted to be in the middle of everything and try and understand what makes things tick and, and I wanna be able to do it by myself too. I don't want him to have to do everything by himself, you know? So I think that kind of goes together. And we've always said that we want a co-captain. , I think on, and, and maybe you can answer this question for me too, like what the woman's like little brief that we did with, um, your wife women's workshop was awesome. Mm-hmm. . And, and one of the things that we touched on, I wanna say it was that day, was the fact that, um, a lot of the foreign countries that you end up going to, maybe a woman doesn't Yeah. Wanna take on the role of a captain because, They're not gonna think a woman is as capable as a man is, even though that's totally wrong. Um, but I get that and I, I can see where, you know, where that would play a factor. So, I mean, we've thought about both. I mean, we. We sail really good together. I think like I'll probably be manning the helm for a while if he's like dropping anchor. I mean, it kind of takes two people to do a little bit of everything and I, I don't, I don't know. We were learning from each other big time even just how to tie fenders on, you know what I mean? Like we were doing everything kinda teamwork together. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean like, and she, she'd tie the fender rows one way and I'd do 'em the other, another way. And we did it the same way. Just she would go over, over the top under, and I would go under or something. And you know, it was just like, well, so we talk to each other. How are you trying, what are you doing? Well, how are you doing? You know, and so I don't know it, it's, we figure out which way is the best and. Go for it. It's, it's an evolving learning experience, I'll say that. Sure. So the so is the whole boat, I mean, we had an rv. Yeah. If we, uh, that was kind of the adventuring thing a couple years ago. We thought like, uh, we had this money and we thought let's buy an RV and go RVing around Alaska. And we did that for a couple of years and that was. Boating life and AR living on a RV are really similar. The, all the stoves and the ovens and the refrigerators and the plumbing and all that stuff, it's all really kind of similar. And so we've already experienced that kind of lifestyle. And it, it's a little bit, a little bit, it's a little different on a boat. There's a few things you gotta watch for, like using toilet paper and the plumbing. Stuff like that and using water usage and stuff, but, uh, and not falling out of bed, no and not falling overboard. It's a lot easier to not fall outta bed on a catamaran than a mono. And, and, and, yeah, and living in, living in close quarters like that, it's, you know, we've done it before. So yeah. We'll probably be really good at it. It's no problem. Cool. Amazing. Um, like I say, like if you need a privacy. Go down into your own little room and shut the door and stay in there That's pretty much it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Or take a d ride. So what would you say, this is kind of a twofold question. What, what is your biggest takeaway from actually making this happen? Uh, like what's the biggest thing that you guys have realized about yourselves or your life? Um, or anything from Actually now I've gone through it and done. I am gonna say, what she always tells me, she always says, the world is your oyster. . She tells me that all the time. I'm thinking about doing this. She says, the world is your oyster. Do it. Do it. And that's what I was gonna say. Do it. Yeah. Just do it. And just do it. Like, and it's, you're never gonna know if it's right unless you try. It's super exciting and super scary at the same time. And Yep. And there are a lot of memes that you see on Facebook and Instagram that if you're. Living life and it's not exciting and scary. If it doesn't scare you then, then your dreams aren't big enough. Yeah. You're not doing it. Yeah, and I. I'm terrified. So we're good. . Yeah. So you, so, so if I can maybe paraphrase that you've, the, the world is your oyster thing. So you, you, you've got a sense of expansion in your life that, like the world is we can go, we can go anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. We can go anywhere we want. We don't have to rely on the streets or that traffic signals or the airplanes or anything. We could just pull up, anchor, throw up sales, go wherever the hell we want. That's a cool feeling and that's beautiful. That's a super feeling. And it's even to. Even being in a foreign country like Grenada or St. Lucia anyway. Yeah. The way everybody drives there, you come back to America and you got these traffic signals and everybody's stopping and no one's moving and no one knows how to drive. And it drives you crazy. It's like , you're a Grenada. You never just go. You never stop. It's like, yeah. All the way there. So, so the, it's beautiful. The world has gotten bigger for you. It's expanded. The pos, there's more, what's possible is we're, yeah. And we don't need roads, and we don't have to de, we don't have a deadline. We don't have to come back and be at our job on, you know, on July 5th or whatever. We can just go wherever we want, whenever we want. And nothing's holding us back. Lets see what happens. Just go, go do it. Cool, cool. Okay. Um, what would you say to anyone who is thinking of getting started in the Bluewater cruising life and is considering taking one of our program? a hundred percent do it. Highly recommend it. Yeah. You're gonna learn way more than you think you are or than you. You know, you think you will. And, and you guys present everything in such a way that, that it's, that it's really organized. And I think that's what my brain liked so much. . Like you laid it all out in black and white and you take it through step by step and it's a lot. It's a lot of psychology and I, I love that side of of life and counseling and, and being able to talk to one another in, in whatever your right way is and not, you know, feel offended or, or downtrodden or, you know, feel degraded or whatever, like, , I, it's gonna, it's gonna hurt my heart to like pull into a marina and see somebody arguing on a boat. I wanna be like, no, no, no. You're doing it wrong. Like, don't get mad at each other, like yell before you think you need to. And I don't, I don't know. They're just, , do it. Do it. I mean, you're gonna, you're gonna learn something even if you don't decide to buy a boat. And you're gonna learn a lot about each other. If you're a couple or a family, and a lot more about family dynamics and you know, yeah, just do it. You break it all. You guys broke it all down. You laid it out in black and white. All the financials, all the facing your fear. all your relationships with your, your, your, your spouse. Yep. Um, and, and the breakout rooms and getting to talk to everyone else who has the same kind of dream that you do. And talking to all those people in the breakout rooms and stuff like that. Totally great stuff. I mean, and I'm sure we'll end up meeting some of those people. Yep. And we'll probably meet you , especially if you're coming this way, . Especially if you're going this way. Yeah, it's, it might take us a year, but we'll, we'll get over there, there Very cool. Very, very cool guys. That's an amazing, amazing place to wrap it up. Um, Morgan and Darren, you guys are in Alaska now. It's been a real pleasure having you here and having this, this conversation. Uh, there's been some really. cool topics that we've chatted about. Um, and yeah. Yeah, it's been, it's been amazing. And I think, yeah, for anybody that's listening to this, uh, you guys nailed it. Just do it and do it to me means take a step. Um, and if that step for you is to get some more information to see if this is tangible or realistic for you. Um, we've mentioned a few times. We've got the courses available, confused, the captain. uh, as well as now Bluewater Cruising Fundamentals and just ping us a message, send us an email and we'd be happy to, uh, have a chat with you and, and get you guys out cruising. So thank you very much guys. Absolutely. Um, okay, so if you guys have any questions for Morgan and Darren, you can drop 'em in the comments. Um, also you can email them@cruisingravengmail.com. And stay tuned to the description area because when they get a YouTube channel, if you wanna see how they're living the life, we'll drop the link there and you can check 'em out there. So thanks very much guys. It's great to have you on. Thank.