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Our Story
John is from Washington and has recently retired from driving a cement truck. Karen is a Texan who has lived in Washington almost 30 years working as a Real Estate agent. Both of us have been casual boaters in the Pacific Northwest, spending time in the San Juan Islands, Canadian Gulf Islands and Desolation Sound. For holidays, we escaped the cold and wet Washington winters by going someplace warm and spending as much time under water as possible. Scuba diving is our happy place!!
We travel with Sunny, our 11 year old Golden Retriever/Black Lab mix. John adopted Sunny from a Safeway parking lot when Sunny was 6 months old. He carried Sunny home in his motorcycle jacket and they have been inseparable ever since. Sunny stayed with John's daughter while we crossed the Atlantic but we brought him to Brazil and he made the crossing from Brazil to Grenada. Everywhere we go, Sunny is the center of attention; loved by children and adults.
Now it's time for a new adventure! Both of us have talked about trying offshore sailing when we were younger but didn't think much about it over the years. After John retired, we began to talk about what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives. We knew it must be travel and scuba diving related in some way. During Covid, I found sailing channels like Delos, The Wynns and Zatara; an idea was planted. What better way to travel than to take your home with you?? We both have had sailing experience in the PNW and Karen knew she couldn't live on a 20 degree heel so sailing a monohull was not an option. We wanted to give catamaran sailing a try, so we took ASA classes in Grenada. That was awesome! Island hopping in the Caribbean and scuba diving in warm, clear water was exactly what we were looking for.
We began researching boat layouts, costs, and talking about the most important amenities. We decided we would start our journey wherever we found the right boat. We found Estrela do Mar on Yacht World, she had exactly what we were looking for at just the right price but she wasn't in the Caribbean. She was in Durban, South Africa. That took the adventure meter way up!! Who starts their first offshore sailing journey in some of the most difficult waters in the world?? Only crazy people, that's who.
We may be crazy, but we aren't stupid. We hired a professional captain to help us from Durban to Cape Town. We spent 5 months in South Africa getting her ready to cross the Southern Atlantic. We left Cape Town late October 2022 and headed northwest. We stopped at remote places like Saint Helena and Ascension Island before arriving in Cabedelo, Brazil. After a short break we sailed from there to Grenada and plan to spend a season exploring the Caribbean. If we like this life, then we will continue the journey from there with the goal of circumnavigating. If we don't, then we have had an amazing adventure and we will continue to travel by other means!! We hope you will come on the journey with us!! Please subscribe to our YouTube channel it helps us get noticed by the almighyt algorithms!! You can also find us on Instagram or follow Sunny on his own special page. If you would like to receive an e-mail with the latest info each time a new video comes out, please sign up here.
