Uncovering Life Beyond the Grind: "the world won’t stop when you walk away from it"

Chris: Guys. And welcome to another episode of the Blue Water Cruising Podcast. Super excited. Today I've got Matt and Ashley here on the podcast. We're going to dive into their journey with them. They just came back just recently from a good stint through the Caribbean. Cruising through the Caribbean with their family on their boat. So they've gone the whole way through the process and are now getting out of the process. Are getting out of cruising for now maybe, or forever. I don't know. We haven't talked about it yet, but we will talk about it. And so, yeah, excited to have you guys here. Welcome to the podcast. For those of you that are listening again, my name is Chris, and we'll dive into it here. So, Matt and Ashley, we met you guys, geez, what, over a year ago now? Maybe it's been a while now. Yeah, maybe a little over a year ago. I think you came through one of our early programs that we ran. And Ashley, you are a realtor and run a whole real estate team and business. And Matt, you're a professional diesel mechanic, which I'm sure came in extreme. And you run your own business as well, and I'm sure that came in extremely handy while you were out cruising, which we'll dive into a little bit more as well. But. And you guys, where are you? Where are you from? You're like, in the middle of the country, landlocked, right in the U.S. chillicothe, Missouri.

Guest: Right? Right north of Kansas City.

Chris: Chillicothe, Missouri. Amazing. And before I forget, so there's something. Your boat, you called it Greatest thing since. And there's something to do with your town, right?

Guest: The first sliced bread machine was invented in Chillicothe. So therefore, we called it the greatest thing since sliced Bread.

Guest: We have rolls painted all over our town, and we're considered the home of sliced bread. So we had to do the greatest thing.

Chris: Chillicothe, Missouri, is considered the home of sliced bread.

Guest: There you go.

Guest: Yes.

Chris: All right. Amazing. Cool. All right. So, yeah, I mean, that's a brief intro to you guys. And so it was whatever it was, 12, 18 months ago, we met and you embarked on what some people would probably say is an insane, crazy adventure. And what I want to know is, well, first of all, maybe tell us a little bit about yourselves and then how you got this wacky, wild, and crazy idea.

Guest: Well, I'm Matt Gabrielson, and how did we get this idea? It started as an anniversary gift. We were gonna go to Kansas. I'd never been on a sailboat before, and there's a lot of Sailing in Kans, Kansas. So we decided we were going to go out there, which somehow morphed into buying a catamaran and going onto the ocean without ever doing it before. Essentially. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guest: And just said, hey, I think I want to sail a boat. And I said, well, okay, let's do it. And he was ready to go tomorrow. And I said, let's take a class. Let's do something, you know, learn. You know, we're landlocked, so.

Guest: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris: Okay. And then how did you, how did you find us?

Guest: Actually, the sailing school that I went to for a week was called Blue Water Sailing in Fort Lauderdale.

Chris: Okay.

Guest: And somehow Google algorithm put it all together and that's how we ended up watching a video for you guys. Yeah.

Chris: That's amazing. So you went to the. Excuse me. You went to the Blue Water Sailing school in Florida. And then on by Google, you came in, came across us because we're blue water cruising. And then the whole thing came together. Wow, Amazing. And it all started with, did you do the sailing trip in Kansas?

Guest: Nope. Skip.

Chris: No, you didn't do it. All right, all right. So that was, that, that was just like, that was the kernel of the idea that then grew and grew and grew and. Very cool. Okay, well, can you walk me through maybe? Like, and the reason I asked this question is I know there's, there's lots of people that watch what we do, watch what people, like you've done. And, and the question that we constantly get is like, how did you do it? You know, how did you go from the life that you were living to all of a sudden spending, you know, just about a year on a boat full time sailing in the open ocean?

Guest: Well, we both own our own businesses. I have three locations across the state of Missouri and she has her real estate brokerage. And so it was, that was probably the most difficult thing to just walk away from. Little background story. We had our house listed. It was going to be sold. It didn't sell right at the end. So we ended up with a house with a pool and four acres and a boat and three business or, you know, all businesses all running at the same time. And some of that was supposed to have been shut down a little bit and did not get shut down. So yeah, when we took off, we just, we, we just left. We said, you guys can figure it out or I don't care. So we just did it. We just literally just. I said I was leaving it. I told Ashes, like, we're leaving, we're leaving. I don't care what, how.

Guest: Here's the date.

Guest: Here's the date. We're leaving. Figure it out.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: And we. So what I, I did a little bit of what I did was I just, I took off about a month before we started this journey and stayed in town and just didn't go to work. I gave everybody at work a Matt's not here, but I was still in town kind of thing. So I was, I was off work long before I left, which is terribly boring.

Chris: But.

Guest: It worked out all right. We just did it. We just said, we just made up our minds and said, this is what we're doing.

Guest: We did our sailing, like our ASA certification in August of 22 and end of August. And then once we got back from there, had went and looked at a few boats because we did it down in Fort Lauderdale. We decided, yes, this is what we wanted to do. Sailing was perfection and we felt wonderful out there, but we are used to working 80 plus hours a week. And we have three daughters, 13, 10 and 7. And they were being raised with parents that were literally on the phone constantly. And it was just a, let's get them to a different world and let's, let's just be us five. We kind of like them sometimes we want to keep them. So we decided sometimes. And in January, we bought the boat and we said March 1st. We planned on leaving in May, so we said March 1st. Our businesses are just going to have to figure it out. So that was probably the best decision with them trying to get it taken care of before. And now we, we don't know if we actually have jobs now.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: We came back to, what are you doing here?

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: And it's like, why are you here? Well, I've mowed the lawn twice at my home yesterday, so I can't, I gotta do something else. I can't mow it every day.

Chris: So I was gonna ask, I was gonna ask like, what did it. You just. So you. I'm, I'm assuming you guys are smart people. You, like put some system or you add systems in place. Things was going. But there is always that fear. I mean, we hear it all the time from people that run businesses. I can't leave. I can't. The business is going to fall apart. I'm assuming it didn't, based on what you just said.

Guest: It's not going to fall apart.

Guest: Just leave. No, they didn't. They didn't do anything wrong. They just nailed it. All my guys did fantastic. And yeah, no, it works great.

Chris: So you've Come back now. And now you don't have anything to do back in town?

Guest: Nope, nope. Nothing. Nothing to do.

Guest: So we're looking for projects now. Probably painting red walls next.

Chris: The wall behind you. Okay, well, I'm going to back up a little bit because you said you've got. You got the three kids, the three girls. How did it. How did it go with them? Like, as far as them being. Were they. Were they on board with the idea to, hey, let's go and do this, Were they not on board? Were some of them on board?

Guest: Yeah, they were ready to go. They enjoyed it a lot. As we got towards the end of what we were doing, they were ready to come home and see some friends.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: And then once we got back for, I don't know, maybe a week, they were like, oh, real life sucks. Like 7am softball practices and soccer after school and just going again. Everything went right back to where it was just 100 miles an hour. And they were like, wow, we had a pretty good there for a while. It's like, yeah, yeah, we did just kind of doing what we wanted to do for a good long while, so.

Chris: Right, right. Okay. So there was no. No, no challenges that. With challenges with them, like not wanting to leave the friends in the beginning. They. They were just on board from the beginning, like, hey, let's go do this with you guys. Sounds rad.

Guest: Yeah, no, I. I think they were pretty well on board from the word go.

Guest: Yeah, they didn't know what to expect, and we didn't even know what to expect. So it was. It was going to be an adventure that all five of us were gonna do together.

Guest: And yeah, it actually took us a while to find other kid boats. We really didn't find any kid books till the very, very end. Towards the last month, we hung out with the Vargas's. You've had them on here. And they were awesome. And once we met up with them, it really kind of helped. I think them more than. More than us, because I think they were tired of me more than I was tired of them. They needed other people to talk to.

Guest: True.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: But they really enjoyed. Once. Once we found kids out there. They really enjoyed it.

Chris: Amazing. All right. And what did you guys do for school?

Guest: It was summer.

Guest: It was summer. We didn't. We didn't do any schooling while we were gone, so we. We just let them be. They're bookworms anyway. So they were reading books and doing all their stuff all the time, and we'd little like activity books and stuff. But we didn't actually sit down and have a. Have a hard class anytime.

Chris: Cool. Okay. And so what was the. Like, what was the timeline for. For this, for you guys? You bought the boat when again, we.

Guest: Bought it in January, and I went down a couple times between January and March, and then we moved the boat in March for. From Florida to Nassau and then flew back home. We're back about a month. And then flew back to Nassau and then all the way down to Grenada. We were gone 85 days the second time.

Chris: Okay. And then. And then from Grenada, you flew back, and now you're back in Missouri now.

Guest: Cool.

Chris: And what's the, like, so. Because the last time we spoke, you said you're. I mean, you guys are stopping. You put the boat. The boat's up for sale. What is it? What was the. The impetus to stop?

Guest: I don't know.

Chris: We.

Guest: Honestly, we were probably a couple weeks in, and I think we were just leaving.

Guest: I don't know.

Guest: We were Turks and Caicos probably, and we had just laid down for bed, and we were like, we don't know if this is. For us, like, this is fantastic, but we don't know if this is lifelong, like, or multiple years. And we were kind of then happy that we had put a time frame on it at that point in time. And then a month later, we were like, this is fantastic. Why would. You know. So it's an everyday thing, still is. Like, I love what I do, and I love the people here, but there was not a second that went by on that boat that we didn't love. So it's hard.

Guest: There were a couple minutes we didn't love, but.

Chris: Oh, yeah.

Guest: Yeah.

Chris: There's definitely moments that you. There's definitely moments you don't love. So. I mean, so. So. So where. Where are you at on it now then? Are you. Are you guys. Do you know, are you still in the. I don't know phase? Are you still in the. Are you in the. Like, are you going to buy another boat? You're still going to sell this boat? Like, where, Where. Where. What's your. Yeah, where are you at?

Guest: Well, I am fixing boat as best I can to take it back out, and if it sells in the meantime, it sells in the meantime. That is my. I. I'm. That boat will be perfect when it leaves. Where it's at.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: And if it. If it sells in the meantime, I don't know. We're gonna. We're gonna try to shoot for December going down and getting the boat and bringing it back to Florida. Yeah, there was some timeline, insurance and tax reasons. I had to stay out of the United States for a while. But I can come back now. So I'm bringing the boat back and we are going to reassess after December. I guess we'll see where we end up.

Chris: Okay, very interesting. So you're, you're not 100% for sure done with cruising? No, not by any stretch.

Guest: It was. Man, I don't know how to, I don't, I don't know how to explain it. Like, I try. Of course we're from Missouri, so we're in the middle of land, everywhere, land for a thousand miles in all directions. Trying to explain to people that live here what it's like to be out there is, it's, it's almost impossible you're speaking another language. It just, they don't, they don't get it. And I didn't get it before we went out there. I mean, just, it's completely different. It's a completely different lifestyle. I tell people it took me a month to figure out that Nothing happens before 9:00am Nothing. You're not doing anything before 9:00 o' clock in the morning. Just get that through your brain.

Chris: Slower way of life.

Guest: Slower. Man, it was, it was tough because, I mean I run like My business was 24 hours, seven day a week. We have a towing side of our business and it's, it's just right now everything is an emergency when you're working. You just go 100 miles an hour all the time to just turn that off. And hey, I need this done, okay. Like today. I need this done, okay, like right, like, are we going to do this today? Like we rented a car one and it was. Okay, well you're gonna be there at 9 o'.

Chris: Clock.

Guest: Okay, we'll be there at 9 o'. Clock. You show up at 9, call them. Well, 9:30, okay, 9:30, call back. Well, I didn't. I'll be there around 10. It's like, oh my God. So anyway, by the time he gets there, everybody was already closed for lunch. And it's just like, what, What? Nothing motivated you to get out of bed this morning? And he just. Not just kind of when he got there, but, but after I kind of figured out that everything moves slower. It was much. I relaxed a lot.

Chris: So. Did you? Yeah, I was gonna say, did you, did you, did you settle into that? Like, did you find 80, 85 days was enough time to, to, to adapt?

Guest: Yeah, I think we did about, about a month in. We were like, okay, yeah, about A.

Guest: Month in, it was, we kind of figured it out that just, it's not gonna happen. Just, just figure out what you got to do to, to not do anything for half the day.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: And that was, that was tough to get into, but once we did, it was, it was good.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: Just kind of did what we wanted to do.

Chris: So. Okay, tell me a bit about the, like. So you guys bought a Lagoon 500. Why? Talk to me a bit about that. Like, why that boat in particular? And when you set out, did you originally have this plan of, like, wanting to sail the Caribbean? Was that the plan or did that kind of evolve? Like, what was the plan and why that boat? And why did you make some of the decisions you made there?

Guest: I bought a Lagoon 500 because it was the biggest boat I thought I could handle by myself if everything was going bad. Okay. With my wife and three daughters, I knew I was, I was captain first mate. The whole, I mean, I was doing.

Guest: It all, the whole shebang.

Guest: Yeah. So I, I, I really didn't want to get in. My daughter over here is looking at me like, oh, my God. I did all things. But I, I, I just knew that, that if something bad happened, it was going to be on me. And I felt like a 500 was as big as I could go without being in trouble.

Chris: Okay.

Guest: So that's really why we chose the 500 to start. Really enjoyed the boat.

Guest: We trained on a Lagoon 450.

Guest: We trained on a 450. So we're kind of familiar. Um, love the fly bridge being up top. That's. We spent centered 90% of our time on that boat on the, on the fly bridge.

Chris: Really Interesting. That, that's very interesting. I don't hear that often. Actually, we hear the opposite. We hear people are like, they have flybridge boats. They don't spend any time on the flybridge.

Guest: So, yeah, that's, ours was perfect. And that's where I would have my coffee in the morning, and then the girls would come join me, and then that's where we would put our day.

Guest: Yeah, that's. We, we spent, if we were moving, we were all up there because it's.

Chris: Got.

Guest: Place under the sail where you can just lay out. So the girls were laid out in front. I was steering, Ashley was reading, whatever, you know. Cool. And we, we were there all the time. Yeah, we, that was, that was our favorite, that was our favorite spot by far. Being up high, being able to see everything then.

Chris: So you said you, you were like, you were the captain. You did everything so did you. Did you do all the sailing, Ashley? Did you do any sailing of the boat? Or is that. That was not. You weren't interested in doing that?

Guest: I did adjusting autopilot. I did whatever he asked me to do, and I would have to ask for instructions on how to do it again. Every time it was, what do I do again? Which line is this? Okay, good. But only when he did. Fantastic doing it all by himself. But the girls would love to join in as well, but, you know, I didn't want to get interrupted in my book or anything. So he was happy wife, happy lady. He did it well.

Chris: Yeah. Sounds like what it's like when I'm sailing with Sayo. Not don't interrupt her in her book and tell her what line needs to do what on what winch.

Guest: But sailing is still my favorite feeling ever, especially whenever I don't have to do any of the work, you know, that's amazing.

Guest: Pretty much what it was. Yep.

Chris: Cool.

Guest: My daughters did help. My oldest daughter especially. She's gonna get mad if I don't give her a plug in this.

Chris: And she enjoyed it.

Guest: Oh, yeah. Yeah. The girls love, you know, launching the dinghy and getting everything tied on. And it was an argument every time who was going to tie the dinghy back to the boat and where was. I mean, they. They love. They love getting in there and helping. So.

Chris: Okay.

Guest: A lot of fun.

Chris: And so what the other question I asked there was, like, what was the original plan? Were you planning on doing the whole Caribbean? Is that. Was that the plan, or did you have a plan?

Guest: Yeah, well, we wanted to go all the way back down the islands to Grenada, and then Grenada all the way back to Panama. And I drastically underestimated the speed in which we could move in a day or how far we can move in a day. And it was more based on. We did a lot of day cruising, just move from one spot to the next, one spot to the next, one spot to the next.

Chris: Chill.

Guest: Yeah, we didn't. We didn't put that. We did one overnight or two overnights, I guess, one of which we lost the autopilot. And so that was no fun. That was the. The first time I really set Ashley up to sail. I'm like, here. Everything is. It's perfect. It's set.

Guest: I'm going to bed.

Guest: I'm going to bed. Give me a couple hours. And I could hear. I don't know, maybe I was down there 15 minutes, and I could hear the. The boom slapping back. And I thought, that's not Right. And then I could feel us going in a circle and boom.

Guest: And we had planned on sailing all night.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: And I thought, this is. This is wrong. So Anyway, after about 30 minutes of that, Ashley comes down. She's like, this boat won't go in any direction I want it to go. I'm like, it's on autopilot. Just leave it alone. Anyway, so the autopilot failed.

Chris: The autopilot broke.

Guest: I pan steering that the whole night till we got. Oh, God, we got new parts down there. And replaced. Replaced it all.

Chris: So how was hand steering all night?

Guest: I. I should screenshot you the map of me. It's really funny doing this number. It was. It was good. It was not good at all.

Chris: It's not.

Guest: It was a beautiful night, though. The moon was bright. It was. It turned out being pretty good. And, yeah, I still did not help him. I just sat up there and kept him company and snored probably the entire time.

Guest: She slept most of the night.

Chris: That's nice, though. At least you hung out. There's nothing worse, in my opinion, than hand steering. I hate it. So tiring. Terrible.

Guest: We got. So we lost it somewhere at 10 o', clock, I think, between Turks and Caicos and Dominican Republic. We went from the Dominican over to the far end of the Dominican, far east side of Dominican, all by hand. Well, we had. We had it. It was coming and going. And then we sailed from Dominican to Puerto Rico by hand the next day. And that sucked a lot. That was not fun. And I. We parked that boat and we got off and got an Airbnb for three days. And I said, I don't care what it costs. I'm not getting on this boat again until it has autopilot.

Guest: We were crazy with the boat and we needed a time away.

Guest: We just parked it, rented a car, and spent three days in Puerto Rico. It was fantastic.

Chris: You gave the boat a bit of a time. It gave the boat a timeout.

Guest: Yeah. Exactly what we did. We just said, yeah, we're done with you. And then we got autopilot back and took off again. Away we go.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: So I would recommend having a spare anything. Autopilot.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Very good suggestion. Very, very good. There's nothing worse than losing your autopilot.

Guest: I didn't realize how bad it was gonna suck, but it sucked a lot.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I have a buddy here. He. He's. He's on a monohull and he was. He was a new sailor, too, and he was heading off from here to go 800 miles. And he had no autopilot. And he was like. He asked me. He said, chris, is there anything that I should put on this boat before we go? So. And I was like, yes, an Autopilot. You know, 100. You need to put an autopilot on that. And he's. These guys had spent. They spent two and a half years driving a van around North America. And he was like. He's like, yeah, but, dude, like, I've driven. You know, I've driven all over North America in a van. I'm like, I don't have autopilot in a van. I'm totally happy to drive all night long. It's no problem. I'm like, it's not the same, man. It's not even close to the same. You get. It's like comparing apples and oranges. Anyway, he left without an autopilot, and, like, literally less than 48 hours in. Like, it was, like, less than 24 hours in. I got a message from him, and he's like, you were right. I need an autopilot.

Guest: So you learned that one. That's over 100 miles, maybe. Maybe 200 miles without an autopilot. We're done.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: Parking this boat. Can we ship whatever we got to get? We're just here until it comes. There's nothing else we can do.

Chris: Yeah. Cool. Another question. So, in general, like, so what was your idea? Or maybe a better way to ask. This is. Is I'm assuming you had some sort of an idea of what cruising was like, you know, before you went, when you had this. When this kernel of this idea came around of let's go sail in Kansas and then evolved into, let's go buy a boat and cruise the Caribbean down to Panama. Did it. How did the reality of that compare to what you had thought? If you go back in time to there? Like, was it everything you thought it was and more. Was it worse? Like, how did that. How did your. How did it lay? How did it meet with your expectations?

Guest: We watched a lot of sailing. Zatara.

Guest: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. Okay.

Guest: And with three little ones in tow, we were like, we've got to figure out things to keep them busy. And our first two full weeks were in the Bahamas, in the Exumas. And if you've ever been there, it's fantastic water and everything is stunning. So our first two weeks was kind of like, oh, this is what it's gonna be like. Like, it's gonna be heaven every day and, you know, untouched waters and beachfront. And once we got down to Turks And Caicos and the autopilot crap happened. It was like, no. Okay. We're gonna have problems as well on the way, But I think we adjusted pretty well.

Guest: Yeah. I don't know that I had any expectations going into it. I can't say that I was like, oh, this is what it's. I'm gonna do this every day. Okay. Outside of. Outside of. I thought I could go farther. Like, I had it all. I had a plan for, you know, every place we were going to stop. The whole way down there, that literally went out the window. Day one. Day one. Day one, it was like, oh, we're gonna sail from West Palm beach to West End. And then we're gonna. After we get there, we're gonna go around and do some other stuff down there, you know, all the way down to here or whatever. And it was like, when we got to western, it's like, oh, my God.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: How was. How was this day so long? It's like 12 hours later, we're like, this is. This is crazy. Very first day sailing. And it was like, well, we're not going to get to the next spot to get to the next spot. So the whole thing's thrown off.

Chris: Day one.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: So we started each evening, like, making our plan for the next day, depending on the wind and really, really wanting to sail. And until we got to, like, the BDIs, we were against the wind every day.

Guest: We motored a lot.

Guest: We motored a lot. And then as soon as we started going south, it was like, oh, this is sailing.

Guest: Oh, it was night and day difference from when we turned the corner bbis and went south. It was like, thank God. We just put the sails up and sat back and enjoyed life. It was tough getting there. Like, I, I, I've told people this, but I, I was done at Puerto Rico when we lost the autopilot. I was like, well, it was fun. We're back in America. Let's just fly home. It's a good spot to park. I, I was, I was out of commission. And she's like, the hell we are. She's like, you sign me up 85 days or whatever we're doing, we're doing it. We can just go back. Like, we liked the Bahamas. We can just go back. And it's like, once we, Once we go past here, we can't go back. No, no. And, like, had it not been for her, we would have. I would have turned around somewhere around Puerto Rico and just.

Guest: He was ready.

Chris: That was fun.

Guest: That was fun.

Guest: I was like, no, no, no, we are going.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: And then 13 countries later in 85 days.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: I think he's happy.

Guest: I was so glad we kept going.

Chris: Once we.

Guest: Once we were sailing and not just beating ourselves to death motoring. It was so much better. So much better. Yeah.

Chris: That's.

Guest: Life got good.

Chris: So you're happy that Ashley pushed you to keep going?

Guest: I had more books to read.

Guest: Yeah.

Chris: Now that's cool. I like. I. I like hearing stuff like that. It's the beauty of the partnership, you know, and doing it together. It's like, because you're on different pages at different times. And even I think I've told this story before, but when we bought our boat right before, I, like, we bought it and sailed it. I sailed it to New Zealand. And then right before we were supposed to go move on to it to start, you know, do our first 90 days, I was like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. You know? And Sayo was like, well, I'm going. So you're either coming with me or you're not, because I'm. I'm going. So are we doing this? And I was, okay, yeah, fine, I'll go. So that's cool. Keep the morale up. Yeah. So. And I was gonna say the other thing about that. You learned. You've learned then where the old adage comes from, gentlemen, never sail to weather. And you know now why everybody goes one direction around the world. Downwind, not upwind.

Guest: We actually had two different apps. He would have one app on his phone, and I would have the other one. And, like, we would argue over it. We're like, well, this one says this. Dang it. Like, windy.

Guest: And you. So all aspiring sailors get a windy and a predict wind, and then delete them off of your phone because they're worthless. And then just look outside and see what the wind is doing. It's much more.

Guest: Flick your fingers, stick in the air, and see where you're going at that point in time.

Guest: Yeah, they're junk. Literally. Looking at the thing, it's like, oh, wind is going to be due east all day long today at this nottage. And I'm watching the flags on my boat pointing straight north, and I'm like, it's. It's real time. You can't even get it right in real time. How are you supposed to predict eight hours from now where I'm supposed to be 100 miles from here? Worthless.

Guest: I'm pretty sure girls learned how to curse the apps, so, yeah, they did.

Guest: Learn a few words.

Chris: They didn't. So you didn't. You didn't have good luck with. With weather forecasting?

Guest: No, no.

Guest: Which it was, honestly, weather wise, it was stunning. It was. It was glorious the entire 85 days we were out there. Except we got in two good sized windstorms that were unpredicted, of course, because, you know.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: The app said they were going to be beautiful in 18 knots and it ended up being 48 knots. And, you know, not a good day. Not a great day.

Chris: Not a good day. That's not a good day at all. Any kind of scary moments or anything like that?

Guest: Yeah, there were. There were definitely some scary moments. So on our first 10 day trip, I made a very rookie mistake and anchored. And then essentially. So we're here. We're not going to worry about weather or anything else. We've made it. Why am I looking at. And overnight, a storm blew up that was well predicted. They. It actually made national news. They had Disney cruise ship trying to get into the port where we were at. And they was. It was bad enough that the cruise ship was like big, big ship. And we were out in it like.

Guest: It was at Nassau.

Guest: We were on the wrong side of the island on Nassau anchored. And come midnight, we were laying in bed and hear this ungodly kaboom. And it was like, oh, my God. And so what had happened was one of our bridles had broke to the anchor. And. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was an interesting.

Guest: It was a very loud, very off on our boat.

Guest: Huge explosion. And so I'm out there and it just like, it reminded me of the. Of the. The part in Forrest Gump where Lieutenant Dan is just on the mask and he's losing his mind. Yeah. That was literally me laughing on the front of my boat when. This is the dumbest damn thing I have ever done in my entire life. We're five days into this trip and we're out here just getting beat to death.

Guest: It was our very first sail of just us five.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: And so it was kind of. And we had enjoyed the five days before, and it was just like, holy shit, what did we get ourselves into?

Guest: Yeah. And, yeah, that was not a good night. That was. That was a really long night. That was another time when we just got.

Chris: What did you do?

Guest: I pulled the anchor in, hung off the front of the boat, re tied a new bridle to one side and then let it all back out. And then about an hour later, kaboom.

Chris: The other side.

Guest: Yep.

Guest: It was pouring down rain, like torrential Rainfall. And he's out there, and I've got. I'm inside with a spotlight trying to help him. It was not helping.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: He's whistling like a crazy man out there.

Guest: It was not good. It was.

Chris: I love these stories. I love these stories.

Guest: This is. This. God cares nothing about what I'm doing right now. The ocean cares nothing about me being here. There's nothing I'm gonna do about it. Might as well fix the problem.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: And just. I was having a pretty good time, actually, but I was not.

Chris: It was.

Guest: It was pretty intense. It was pretty intense.

Chris: But you got through it.

Guest: Got through it. Yep.

Chris: Yep.

Guest: We woke up the next morning, actually. The girls were flying out. Are the next day. The next morning. Yeah. Yeah.

Guest: Our slip.

Guest: Our slip got pushed back, so the girls had to leave because they kept their flight. And so I had the pilot, so I went to shore with them and then just got an Airbnb. This is. We left this boat quite a bit. I just left the boat. I said, it's insured. I don't give a damn. And so we left the boat out there on anchor with two makeshift bridles attached to it, and I went and spent the night, two nights in an Airbnb and went back and I was like, well, it's still there. So I guess then I pilot it myself to the slip and put it in the slip.

Guest: And I thought it was crazy.

Guest: Yeah. That's why I showed up in this 500 at the marina. And they're like, okay, just have your first mate come out and help you. And I'm like, nope, just me. I am who you got. And they're like, what? I'm like, I'm coming in that slip with this boat right now.

Guest: He's like, my wife and kids left me on a boat.

Guest: Yeah. I was. I was having a bad day that day. It was good. We made it all went in.

Chris: So what. What broke on the bridles? Did it rip the. Like, the D's off the. Off the crossbeam?

Guest: It literally pulled the bridles apart.

Chris: Oh, like the actual. The actual rope failed?

Guest: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. Wow.

Guest: And it was a huge rope. Like, it was thick. And we got a bigger one, though.

Guest: Yeah, we got bigger ones. We were not doing that again. Yeah.

Chris: Wow. Wow. That's a good story.

Guest: There were scary moments. We lost the. Lost the sail north of Martinique.

Chris: Lost the sail.

Guest: It started shredding.

Guest: We shredded. We were going our Genoa.

Chris: Okay.

Guest: Like.

Chris: Yeah, that's. That's what I was wondering. I was going to ask you as I saw you're getting a new one. I'm like, why are you getting a new genoa? But I guess if you shredded the old one, that's why.

Guest: Repaired it in Guadalupe.

Guest: Yep.

Guest: And we were like, man, they did a really good job on this.

Guest: Yep. Yeah, it just needed a little. Like, the sunscreen was coming off, whatever. And so we. We had it patched up a little bit, and the very next day, we destroyed it. Just literally blew it into pieces.

Chris: The next day?

Guest: The next day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in a squall, we. Yeah, so we were going in and out of these squalls all day, and it really wasn't that big a deal, but we met the squall at the island at the same time, and it was trying to get around the island as we were trying to get around the island. And so what happened was the winch for the genoa, I popped. I popped the breaker, and I'd never done that before, and I didn't know where it was to reset. And so this wind is coming, and we were in, like, 20, 30. Then I saw 40 knots come across the gauge. And I'm like, we are in trouble. I Both sails wide, full open. Everything was up, and that boat was flying.

Guest: It's spinning.

Guest: And I'm like, this. We have. We have a real problem.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: So I. The only thing I could do was put down my mainsail because I couldn't get my genomi in. And so I just reached up there and just clutched that thing wide open. The mainsail all the way down.

Chris: All to the side.

Guest: It kind of just came down on the. On the. And then once the mainsail was down, then I couldn't keep my heading, so I just turned with the wind at my back because the genoa was taking the boat. And once that wind was full into that genoa, it was over.

Chris: I just blew it out.

Guest: Shredding. And it was like confetti playing.

Guest: And there was.

Guest: We were only about a mile out of. From Martinique.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: And so we. You know, you feel like you can touch it and it's right there. But I got scared enough that I was like, okay, girls, life jackets stay in here. The lines hit so hard on the.

Chris: They're flogging on the deck. Yeah.

Guest: The girls were, like, freaking out down there. But then by the time I went down there after I had had my panic attack, they were all, like, giggling and.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: Having fun down there. And we're like. They were like, what's going on up there? We're like, nothing. Nothing.

Guest: Yeah, it Was.

Chris: It was.

Guest: It lasted all of 10 minutes, maybe just a squall. And then I'm just sitting there on the top just soaking wet with a sail hanging off the side, one sail flopping in the wind, just going, what just happened? It was beautiful. And now.

Guest: Yeah, it was.

Guest: It's not, it's not beautiful anymore.

Guest: And I think we were in bed by like 6 o' clock at night because we were just so emotionally drained. We were like, nope, we're done.

Guest: So I tied a knot in the genoa and tied the rope through it, kind of fed it through there. And we sailed the rest of the way to Grenada, another 100 miles or so on a kind of ripped up. So it was kind of funny because we would meet people at Anchorage and our kids would be talking to someone and they said, which one? Which boat is yours? And they'd be like, it's. They're like, oh, the one with the tore up sail. And it was like, yeah, that's how we were down. Everywhere we went it was like, oh, here comes this 500 with this shredded sail hanging off the front. It's like, yeah, that's us. It was pretty good.

Guest: I mean, it was three in the afternoon whenever we got there, to our place or in Martinique, and we were like, the girls were like, what are we doing for dinner? And we're like, we're drinking alcohol. You can make sandwiches. We're alcohol.

Chris: Thank you.

Guest: Yeah, that was a long day.

Chris: That was your dinner?

Guest: Yes.

Chris: Now you know why sailors drink.

Guest: You could always have at least a handle on your boat.

Guest: Yeah, that's funny.

Chris: Any good moments?

Guest: All of them.

Guest: Oh, yeah. No, the good way outweighed the bad. Coming in at night looking at those islands all lit up is amazing. It's amazing being in the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night and just stars. Stars. And we, we had a couple moonless nights that were just unbelievably beautiful. The people we met, they. We. We purposely went to whatever side of the island the cruise ship couldn't come to or didn't go to. Everywhere we went, if there was a big port, we went to the other place.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: So we went to a considerable amount of places on these, well traveled, you know, cruiser islands. I remember there's one particular story where like there was a little kid that was like, look at the white boys, look at the white people. And it was like, yeah, hi. I mean, we were that far off the beaten path of, of a normal cruising route. So, I mean, I know we were some places where Their people didn't come.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: That generally stop. But the. The history. We love that. The museums were awesome. I mean, just. And yeah. Was way, way outweighed the bed.

Guest: We had went to one that was. And I don't even remember which island it is. The. Had waterfalls. And it was in the town. I mean, it was right outside this town that we pulled up to, and the people had told us, you need to go to. Down to Kingstowne to take a taxi back up here. Like, they were just not used to people coming in and wanting to see their stuff. And we were like, no, we're just gonna hike up to the.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: To the waterfalls. And they were like, what?

Chris: You don't.

Guest: You don't do that. You take a taxi from Kingstown? And we're like, no, we want. We want to hang out with you guys. Like, yeah. And they had. That was. That was the guy who was yelling about the white boy.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. White boy.

Guest: Yeah. She's probably 8 years old. He's like, look at all the white boys.

Chris: So you guys got into the cultural side of stuff, interacting, and.

Guest: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. That's what you.

Guest: Margarita, you want to go. You can do that on a cruise ship. Whatever. Those. That's not for me.

Guest: That's not what we love. Our love was the people that. I mean, they would come out. They would paddle out to our boat every time we anchored.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: Ask us if we want cookies or mangoes, you know, whatever we needed or if we needed our trash taken out. And we were like, you guys are fantastic. This is. This is the greatest thing ever.

Chris: So.

Guest: Yep.

Guest: Greatest thing since.

Chris: Yep. Greatest thing since. Amazing. Any. Any. Like, I mean, actually, first of all, I totally agree with you that the stars at night sailing is one of the. If not the coolest thing ever. I think. Like, it's. Yeah, it's. There's. It's unreal. There's. There's nothing. There's nothing that really comes close to that. No. Any after having gone through the experience now, like, and made the shift. And you said this in the beginning, you know, it's a completely different way of life. Any lessons learned through that? Like, life lessons learned, new perspectives that you've gained as far as having done the experience?

Guest: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I told my daughter just the other day, I was like, if I didn't have to take you to school in the morning, I would not go into the world.

Guest: Like.

Guest: I would stay here in this little house and do just all of us, you know, it was that. Was that Was so much fun. Being with the girls non stop 247 was just. Yeah, that was. That was the greatest experience of my life. Just my family with me for three months.

Guest: Not having schedules was a really weird thing to get used to. And like, I don't know, it did probably take me a good two months into it to figure out this is what life is here. Like, you don't have to. My kids don't have to go to anything. I don't yell at them because they're not late to anything. And yep, the youngest, always missing her left shoe. Well, we didn't need shoes.

Guest: So, like walk without a left shoe today.

Guest: It was fantastic. And so we have brought that back to here. And our schedules now, like I said, we don't really have jobs anymore. We're just kind of trying to figure out what to do as nobody needs us in our offices and our kids if they're late to practices, stuff like that, I don't care. And I've already told their coaches this means nothing. Like, being late is. I'm not yelling at my kids to do. You know, this is. I would rather have that extra 15 minutes that I'm late with with my kids and not screaming at them. And you know, in the whole scheme of things, it's. It's nothing. So. So yes, definitely brought that back. And we didn't kill each other for 85 days. Being together for seven.

Guest: So thought about it.

Guest: We did think about it.

Chris: Who's gonna get pushed off first?

Guest: Yeah, I mean, we. We had daily lists of who is actually getting pushed off first.

Chris: But.

Guest: Yeah, no, no, we did. We did really well. That. That is. If that's nothing that, That I would.

Chris: That.

Guest: That is something that I would take away from. That is just the. Our ability to just be a family and just function. There was. There was just. Everybody got in there, did what they needed to do, and we went on. It was. It was fantastic.

Chris: And you made it through some extremely stressful family without killing each other. I mean, you make it through that, you make it through anything. Pretty much. Like, that's usually. That's usually what happens. People either make it through it or they don't.

Guest: More than once. To Ashley, it's like, I'm not yelling at you. You just need to do this right now. Right now. Find it, get it, go. Don't. I don't care what you. I don't care what you're doing. Find me this.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: And. And then after the fact, it was kind of sorry. We were about to have a bad.

Guest: Day there, there was a lot of side eye that was going on, but at the end of it, we would just be like, okay, we know that that's how it had to go. And we were fine.

Guest: And we established that pretty early. And I would suggest that if anybody's.

Guest: Doing that, like, have that conversation, you.

Guest: Need to have that conversation. It's different for me because I'm volunteer fireman work on the side of the road doing heavy recovery, very dangerous, exciting stuff. Just is what happens. You're just what people, you know, high stress vehicle, you know, vehicle crash and there's body parts and trucks and everything's laid over and it's the middle of winter and that's just going to work. So getting on a boat and having these high stress things was just like, oh, yeah, that broke. It didn't really tick to me as being a high stress situation. It's like, I can swim. That's the worst possible scenario that can happen right now is I have to swim.

Guest: His crew then, though, was his family. And I think that was probably a giant stressor on him how he has to talk to his crew or. And just keeping the safety of his crew, which he does on the side of the road too, with his other job. But those are his babies, like his, you know, his three daughters out there. He's got to make sure that's just his initial thing.

Guest: So, yeah, that, that was different. That was definitely different. Where, where you weren't. I wasn't talking to an employee. Go, this is what I need. Get me a chain. Get me a line right now. And it was like, hey, honey, we're gonna die.

Guest: I never heard.

Guest: This ever.

Chris: That's good. Ask it. Was it actually hey, honey, or.

Guest: You.

Chris: Keith and I. Keith and I talked about that a lot, actually. You know, Keith, I've been through the same thing and I mean, I still do the same thing. Keith, same thing. He's like, he had to learn how to talk to his family. Not like there's employees. They're not, you know, And I think you bring up a really great point and we try and stress it and you know, in our programs, it's like, you need to have these conversations. You don't need to. But ideally you have these conversations before you go and set the context of like. And you guys said it perfectly here. There's going to be stressful moments. You're going to speak to each other in ways that are not the most polite and respectful ways of communicating with your partner. It's not personal. It's the Situation and I think like you said, you know, apologize after, discuss it and hopefully do better next time.

Guest: Yes.

Chris: Life for sure.

Guest: Is whenever you go into it as, hey, this situation may happen. And we did it in our first 10 days.

Guest: First 10 days. We figured that out right away and.

Guest: We had that conversation. And even though as a female, I was like, hey, that tone was horrible. I was like, all right, I gotta, I gotta act like a man and yeah, take it. But we're still married and nobody got pushed off.

Guest: Yeah, we did all right.

Chris: No, nobody walked the plank.

Guest: Nobody walked the plank.

Guest: I wouldn't walk just straight in.

Chris: Straight in. Amazing. Okay, so I mean there's lots of great stuff that you guys have touched on here that's like lessons learned and, and I mean it sounds like in general it's, it's, it is and it's. We say this too. It's just, it's a series of highs and lows and they're kind of in your face. It's life in your face. And it sounds like you guys done amazing getting through it all and have grown from going through it all, which is super exciting. And I want to know you kind of touched on this a little bit, but I'm going to push a little bit harder. What is next for you? You're back in Missouri, kind of sitting around. So like what's the next thing here?

Guest: I don't, I don't know. We, we had to come back. We had some. My, my grandfather was 94 years old. He finally, he passed away this just last week, two weeks ago. So we, we knew we had to come back for that. So he lived a good life. 94 years was. It's a pretty good run at it.

Guest: So we put him in hospice eight hours before we left.

Guest: Yeah. Oh yeah. The day we left. The day we left, he got sent home. We were putting a triage room together in, in his home. Like we're leaving in the morning. Hope, hope you're doing okay. Here you go. 91 year old grandma. You figure this out, you know, but they, they had a lot of help while we were gone and everyone really.

Guest: He told us he was gonna wait for us.

Guest: Yeah. Yeah. So.

Guest: And whenever, the day we returned, he said, hey, I waited.

Guest: So. So we're back. There was a few things that I had to take care of at work. Just little people people things and stuff. But I really think we kind of fine tuned the Matt's not here anymore. So that is now gonna be not a non issue.

Guest: Same thing with mine.

Guest: Same thing with Hers. Yeah, she had, she had some things that she just needed to clean up. So I don't know. We don't know what's next. We don't have a clue.

Guest: We're not sure where our next adventure is going to take us. We have started lists of where they want to travel, what parts of the world they want to see, and we're going to try to mark those things off. One a year.

Guest: Yeah. Yeah. We don't know. We don't know what we're doing.

Chris: Cool. Okay. Well, based on what you've said, on what you enjoyed cruising wise, I think you would love the South Pacific. If you love the, if you love the cultures and you love that stuff, like, that's unreal. The people there, Amazing. But who knows if it's in the cards. So for aspiring sailors, like people that are aspiring cruisers, people that want to, that are thinking of getting into this life, you know, thinking that, hey, maybe doing something like what you did, just trying it out for three months, six months, seeing, seeing what it's all about. Do you have anything specific, any suggestions, advice or anything that you would want to share with them to, to make it happen?

Guest: I, I know. So some of my maybe life experience prepared me a little better for this. If you don't know mechanical knowledge, be prepared to be in trouble. You better know how things work, whether it's how a clutch opens and closes because a little spring broke inside it or how your toilet flushes. We took, we had to take a toilet apart because they little wrapper got down the toilet. A little piece of wrapper of the trash had got down the toilet. You just, you better have, you better have a decent amount of knowledge or be able to figure it out how things function.

Guest: I love how he said we. Like I did any of that. I did not. He did that.

Guest: There was. So what?

Chris: One member of the crew better have some knowledge around it.

Guest: Somebody better have some kind of, hey, this is how this, this better function this way or we're in trouble.

Guest: It was a daily thing where I said, one of us said, there is no way we would have been able to do this if he didn't know what he knows. And, you know, can, can take things apart and put them back together. And of course, I think, like, our girls would try, but he knows how all these things function. And if I would have just been there reading my book, going, let's, let's sail.

Chris: That.

Guest: And, and we were, we took, we put Starlink on our boat. I would not have enjoyed. I would not have Enjoyed the sailing trip without Internet. Not only for the entertainment factor factor like Facebook being able to keep up with people, but the amount of knowledge that you can get off of one Google search. Yeah, like what, what is in this next town that I'm looking for that I need to be. Where. Where do I. Where do I want to anchor at? Yeah, all of that stuff just is on the Internet.

Guest: And definitely to be away from those anchorages. Like he was talking about wanting to stay away from the touristy sides. Like we needed that because we didn't want to go anywhere near those. There was too many boats. There was too many crazy people. We wanted to, you know.

Guest: Yeah. The idea of having to go to town with my phone and figure out everything I wanted to do for tomorrow and hope there was Internet where I got to there. When I got there was nerve wracking. Like the. I wanted the ability to be able to communicate and have information. So I would definitely recommend any kind of Internet capabilities you could have on your boat for certain.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: If you don't. Any mechanical experience, I would take some training. I'd go talk to somebody that has been in the boating world or engine world. Any. Any mechanic. So I would, I would have some kind of basic knowledge. If that boat was sitting on the hard, I would take a bunch of stuff apart and I'd put it back together before I went anywhere. Kind of have an idea of what works. I mean, we lost a hydraulic hose off of our water maker that busted. It was like the ability to just take the hose off and go to somewhere and say, hey, I need this piece put back on. You know. And you know, they don't really know. It's like, well, hand me your welder. I will do it if you can't do it. Because they're not always. Some of the places you go aren't as mechanical as they could possibly be too. They just don't have the resources.

Chris: And they don't understand boats.

Guest: They don't understand boats. Yeah, I would. Those are. Those are two main things, I think Internet and some kind of knowledge base on how things function.

Chris: I think.

Guest: Yeah, I think boat knowledge.

Chris: I think zero boat. I think you've nailed that for sure. And I would say in my experience, it's like the people like yourselves, like you shared a bunch here of. Of, you know, when I asked about kind of scary stories or things like that, they were all related to weather that you shared, you know, and, and finding yourselves in weather situations. I've talked to other people and I asked that same Question and the first answers are mechanical problems.

Guest: And those are not starter. For us. It wasn't even an issue.

Chris: Yeah. Because you, you, you're competent and confident in that area. So I think, you know, what I've realized is it's if you don't have that, you can still do it. But it just, it's another level of stress that then goes on top of what you guys have already, you know, brilliantly shared is there is stressful moments. But then imagine it's like, okay, you had something break. You then had that experience. Now you're in port and you gotta fix the thing that you don't know how to fix after just going through that experience. And it's like, then it starts to stack. Yeah.

Guest: And I can see, I'm really, if that is one thing that was just not on the list, like if it's broke, I can fix it. I don't care. I put a pile of tools on that boat. They literally went to Home Depot and just started buying everything on the shelf. And it was like, well, I have this in my toolbox and I have this in my toolbox at home. Electrical stuff, mechanical stuff, you know, just everything I could imagine that would make my life easier and then took it with me.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: And yeah, I, I, I, it would be a, that would be, it would have been a completely different experience. I didn't have a clothes if we didn't know any better.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, it would have, yeah. 100% it would have. Yeah.

Guest: Yeah. From a female standpoint, I'd say the only thing any female needs to know is if you have a plan, just throw it out the window and just expect to not. I mean, I would say if you're planning a trip like we did, where we were wanting to hit different places, find, you know, three to five specific ports that you want to go to Anchorages and knock those out. But the rest of it's probably not going to happen as you plan it.

Guest: Yeah, no, you, you can't, you cannot put it in a schedule. Just doesn't, doesn't function.

Guest: So just like gear your head towards that before you even attempt the trip. Because it's just not going to be that way. It's. And I think it turned out even better because we, you let go of the plan. No way. Yeah.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: So we just said, what are we doing tomorrow and where are we going to try to get to tomorrow?

Guest: Yeah, we, we literally planned the entire trip one day at a time. Well, after we figured out that our best laid plan was worthless, was Crap.

Chris: Yeah. I like it.

Guest: Once we figured out what's not going to happen, it was like, well what do we do tomorrow? And we just went to tomorrow.

Guest: Yeah.

Chris: So I like that. I do. I do like what you said though. It's like I think it is worthwhile to have like three or five or depending how long you're going for. But you know, for, for a 90 day or a four month period. Three to four month period. Three or five places that you want to hit but no schedule. Like I think that's the. Yeah. You cannot sail on a schedule. It doesn't. It doesn't work.

Guest: And I think it's the BVIs whenever Storm Brett came through where I was like, but we have to be here. And like I think that finally we were like, whatever. Yeah.

Guest: Don't you think when Brett rolled through and a hurricane just screwed up a whole week, we were like, well okay, bye. We're just here now. So we're just here and figured out.

Guest: Yeah. And after that we did not plan, hey, we want to see this? Or we want to see this. We were just like, hey, this is where. This is the island. We're hitting up tomorrow. Let's see what's available.

Guest: And I'm really glad that happened too because we would have in Grenada way too early.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: Like a month too early. And with nothing to do. With nothing. Not nothing to do. But they.

Chris: We.

Guest: We would have been bored down there for certain and would want to have gone somewhere else. But the way it ended up, we ended up about two weeks down there right before they, before we came home. And that was perfect.

Chris: Okay.

Guest: And you don't want him to get. Because he'll end up buying a boat and we go. You know.

Chris: So.

Guest: Yeah. I really wanted to go to South America and Ashley wouldn't let me go. So.

Chris: To South America.

Guest: It's only a. Yeah. And I was like, no, we're. We're done.

Guest: We. Yeah. We were our sail short. Our genoa was tied on with a rope and.

Guest: And it just, it didn't look beautiful.

Guest: So she's like, we're not. We're just not going any further. So gotta fix, like we made this.

Chris: Gotta fix some things first.

Guest: It was the right call. It was the right call to. To get everything together and.

Guest: And that's where when we were met up with the Verges is then we got. Had an awesome time with them.

Guest: Yeah. And their boat was on the hard too to getting worked on down there. So it worked out perfect. We were both staying in Airbnbs with Three kids, about the same age.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: And it was perfection. Just perfection. That was awesome.

Chris: Cool. Cool. Amazing. Yeah, they're fantastic family, too. Amazing family. Okay, so at this point, then your boat is for sale and you've talked a little bit about it and it is a very nice boat, but you're not 100 sure you're gonna sell it. But if it sells, then you are gonna sell it, it sounds like. But you're fixing it up, so.

Guest: Yep.

Chris: Okay.

Guest: So I'm doing everything I can to that boat to make it my boat again. Make it what I want.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: And if somebody else wants it, then they. They get a pretty good boat for what? What I. Because I put a lot of work into that boat.

Chris: You have.

Guest: It had a storied history and we. We made it. Right. And I. I literally am so tired of talking to the marina down there that sends me emails. It's like, well, do you want us to fix this or we can cobble it together. This. I'm like, no, fix it. Right. Yeah, I want it. Right. If it's not right, I don't even want you to touch it.

Guest: Whether it's going to be ours or somebody else.

Guest: Ours or somebody else. I'm not sending anybody else out there either there with my name on the side.

Guest: So with it, with a shredding sale.

Guest: Or anything that comes from an owner of a mechanic shop, it's like, I don't. I'm not sending. I wouldn't do it if I'm not going to take it out the way it is. I'm not sending you out in it either.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: So I don't know if. If it sells, it sells. If not, I got a really nice boat.

Guest: If it sells, it sells.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: If. If we have to sail it, we're gonna sail it.

Guest: Yep.

Chris: Yeah. And that won't be so bad either. You'll be back out on the water.

Guest: No, I heard.

Chris: I heard a little rumor from a little monkey that. Or not maybe a big monkey that you. You're thinking about a 620.

Guest: Would that be the bear guesses and it would be there.

Guest: That's a nice boat. That's a nice boat.

Chris: Somebody. Somebody told me.

Guest: Somebody told me.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: Yeah.

Chris: Somebody told me that if you had a 620, you'd go back out tomorrow.

Guest: So Hilden's been sending me. Anytime she sees one, she's like, hey, bye. Bye. It's out there.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: That's a tough call because that five. I like the 500. I like the size. For me being able to sail it. But then like, once I got to sailing and realized, you know, Martin is sailing the 620 by himself, I'm like.

Guest: It'S a beautiful boat.

Guest: It is a nice boat. They haven't. They have a wonderful boat. And man, so do you, though.

Chris: So do you. Your boat's a beautiful boat, too. Very beautiful boat. Yeah.

Guest: And then I like, I like the size of it. That 620. They had some issues. They drug a mooring ball through an anchor.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: Like the winds picked up and they just took the mooring ball and the concrete block with them.

Guest: Within the grenadines.

Guest: Yeah. Like just drug it along. Whoa. You better be, you better have your stuff together if you're going to be on a boat that big. Because everything is multiplied. All the problems are multiplied. If something bad happens.

Chris: Yeah, that's exactly it. It's. When it's, I mean, and you said this at the beginning, it's like when it's smooth sailing, doesn't really matter. You could be on a 40 foot boat, a 50 foot boat, a 70 foot boat. It's fine. It's. As soon as the wind picks up and things start to go a little haywire, that's when the size starts to have a real effect. And you better be. Yeah, you better be sailing it really conservatively if it's a big boat. Otherwise you can find yourself in a pretty dicey situation.

Guest: So I think currently we'll just stick with hanging out on their boat.

Guest: Yeah.

Guest: And letting Hildryn make her amazing food and then, you know, go back to our little boat.

Chris: Little boat. They'll go in 500. Relatively. Relatively, I suppose. Cool. Awesome, guys. Well, any, Any last thoughts or comments or anything that you want to, to share? There's tons more stuff that I'd love to ask you and Div, especially since we've got into like the mechanical side of stuff and things like that. But we have a limited time for this one, so maybe we'll, we'll wrap it there. Unless there's any. Anything else. Yeah. You guys want to share that I haven't covered?

Guest: Just go. Go. If you're, if you're wanting to do it, just go do it. Yeah, it'll. It'll all figure it out. I mean, the, the world won't stop when you walk away from it. Trust me. Everything keeps moving.

Chris: Yeah.

Guest: You know, I, I'm, I'm not gonna say there weren't issues back home while we were gone, but you just put somebody in charge and say, figure it out, and they Generally will figure it out. And if they don't, just fly home and fix it. It's not. Yeah, it's not the end of the world. Just go. Just go do it. I'm so glad we did what we did. And I would not have traded it for another minute here. Not. Not any of it.

Guest: There were seconds that I was like, what are we doing? We're crazy. Before we left, and he kept reminding me, we have it in the back of our head. Do you want it to be in the back of your head, you know, 30 years down the road and say, you know, I. We talked about it forever, and we just never did it.

Guest: I kept saying. I said, I am not going to have the conversation. Man, I wish I would have sailed that boat with one summer with my family or whatever. I said, I'm not gonna have that conversation. I will have. I will tell the story of. Remember that time we bought a boat and we made it three miles out and we sank it, and the whole. The whole thing was a shit show, and we had to fly back home? I'll tell that story. I'm not gonna tell the story of, you know, when we wanted to, we thought about it. I wasn't gonna do it. I wasn't gonna do it.

Guest: And it was. It was the best thing for our family, honestly. Best adventure we've been on thus far. So. And it. I think it is just, like, paved the way for all the shows we're gonna be in later on in life.

Chris: So it's expanded the horizon of what's possible in your life. Yeah, I love that.

Guest: So much. More water and stars to see. So.

Chris: Yeah, I love it. I love it. I love it. I have to say, you know, I've. We talked to a lot of people that want to do this, have done it, and. And I literally, like, I've yet to meet somebody that has said to me they regret the decision to buy boat and go cruising. Even people that have had terrible experiences, and they're like, I am never doing that ever again. That was, like, the worst decision ever. They were still like, I don't regret making it because it showed me a part of myself that I'm so grateful that I now know. And, you know, like, everything that you guys said brought family closer together, all this stuff. So I love it. Love it, guys. Super, super, super inspiring. It's inspiring for me, too, you know, I mean, you know, like, I'm. I'm sitting here in. In Bali, which is great, but I'm on land, and every time I do one of these and talk to, like, you guys. I'm like, oh, my God, I want to buy a boat. I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna talk to Sayo. I was talking to Sio, like, the last couple weeks, I've been like, okay, so, okay, how do we do this so that we can get on a boat again in, like, the next year to two years? Like, you know what? And. And so we're. We're figuring it out. So anyway, you've inspired me. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit. Bit short timing. We're building a house in Bali right now, so we're kind of like, yeah, we got at least a year while we build this house. And then. And then. Well, we'll see. We'll see how. How quick I can. I can make the decision happen. But anyway, thank you so much. Super, super inspiring. I'm sure that everybody listening that's going to listen to this, is listening and will listen, listen to it is inspired as well. It's a great story and thanks for taking the time to come on and be so open and share it. Both the. The lows and the highs and, and everything in between. I really appreciate you guys taking the time.

Guest: Yep.

Guest: Thanks, Chris.

Chris: You're welcome. All right, guys, thanks very much for checking out this episode of the Blue Water Cruising podcast. Once again, Matt and Ashley from Chillicotti, Missouri, where it is the home of sliced bread, which is amazing. Didn't know that. Learned that today. Anyway, guys, thanks so much for taking the time to listen. Really appreciate it. Matt and Ashley, if you're watching this and you are on the market for Lagoon 500, Matt and Ashley's boat is for sale. Contact us through the link that's going to be in the description below. If you guys are interested, we'll get you the details. And of course, if you guys are interested in learning more about putting a plan together to get out Cruising think, then drop us a note again, link in the details and we're happy to hop on a call and discuss it with you. So thanks again, guys. We'll see you on the next one. Cheers.

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