Salty Podcast #59 | ⛵️ LIVE from a Sailboat in the Solomon Islands! 🚨

What if you could walk away from everything? The bills, the commute, the endless cycle of working to pay for things you barely have time to enjoy?

Captain Mark J. Reinhardt didn't just dream about it—he did it. Speaking from his sailboat in the Solomon Islands, Mark takes us deep into the realities of living completely off-grid on the open water. With candid honesty rarely found in sailing narratives, he reveals both the breathtaking freedom and sobering challenges of his unconventional life.

Mark shares the unlikely path that led from growing up on an Orlando lake to sailing 10,000 miles across the world's most challenging waters. After financial collapse following the 2008 recession and a humbling stint as a dishwasher, Mark found himself walking down the Florida coast with nothing but a backpack and tent. In that moment of rock bottom, he recognized his calling to return to the sea.

The heart of this conversation explores Mark's harrowing experience crossing the South Pacific alone—a journey that nearly cost him everything. With unflinching detail, he recounts how equipment failures, a devastating hand injury, and overwhelming seas pushed him to his absolute breaking point. His raw account of battling not just the elements but his own mind reveals the psychological resilience necessary for true self-reliance.

Beyond survival tales, Mark offers practical wisdom about the everyday realities of boat life. From conserving water and managing resources to finding innovative solutions for everything from flies to laundry, he demystifies the sailing lifestyle. His colorful stories of encounters with indigenous communities and the colorful characters he's met along the way paint a vivid picture of a life rich in experience if not luxury.

Whether you're an aspiring sailor, a freedom-seeker, or simply curious about alternative living, Mark's journey demonstrates what happens when you have the courage to choose adventure over security. His book "Off the Grid" and upcoming sequel document this remarkable path—proving that sometimes the most meaningful life isn't about what you acquire, but what you're brave enough to leave behind.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Captain Mark J Reinhardt
• 12:56 From Orlando to Sailing Dreams
• 35:57 Off the Grid Lifestyle Realities
• 57:33 The South Pacific Catastrophe
• 1:21:43 Survival, Recovery, and PTSD
• 1:50:01 Future Plans and Ship Modifications
• 2:04:18 Sailing Community and Support

Transcript

Capn Tinsley: 0:00

Captain Mark J Reinhardt isn't just sailing. He's rewriting the script on what it means to live free. Right now he's deep in the Solomon Islands aboard his beloved sailboat, pompero, making his way around the world one ocean at a time. He's the author of Off the Grid, how I Quit the Rat Race and Live for Free Aboard a Sailboat, a no-fluff, real talk dive into, walking away from the grind and building a life powered by wind, guts and purpose. If you've ever daydreamed about ditching the noise and chasing something real, this one's for you. He's got stories, he's got scars, he's got salt in his blood and zero regrets. But first but first, do me solid. Tap that like, hit, subscribe and share this with someone who dreams bigger than their cubicle. Every click helps keep this channel staying alive and sailing strong. I'm Captain Tinsley of Sailing Vessel Salty Abandoned a 1998 Island Packet 320 sailboat, and this is the Salty Podcast, episode 59. Welcome, captain Mark. I'm calling you Mike. I'm sorry about that, hello. Hey, what's happening, mark? How are you?

Capn Tinsley: 1:13

I'm doing good. You got a good-looking.

Capn Tinsley: 1:17

Looks like you got a studio there. That's a good-looking studio you got there.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:21

Yeah, I'm trying to put my book off the grid on audio. So before I took off I got all this equipment so I, when I was sitting next to some island, I could just do my audio book that's perfect.

Capn Tinsley: 1:34

I do love it when the author reads. I like to listen to audiobooks on the boat, so I'm gonna. When's that coming out with the audio?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:42

i'm'm not sure I got about halfway through it and you know one of my stories is one of the reasons my book Off the Grid is a little bit inspirational is, you know, I have learning disabilities, like a lot do, and struggle to get through school. I never actually read a book in my life and I wrote a book, so that was my premise is what? What's holding you back from achieving your goals? You know if I can do that and so actually reading it for audiobook has been quite challenging. And uh, you know I second guessed myself and blah, blah, blah about halfway through it.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:19

So, yeah, I was sitting in tonga, beautiful environment. You know people always ask me what's your favorite place. Well, it started out in the Sandblast Islands and then I went to Tonga. Now it's kind of back and forth between Tonga and Fiji, but still I think Tonga is the best. It's just so beautiful. The water's deep and mountains coming right up out. I mean you could literally run into a mountain and it'd be 160 feet under your keel. Wow, Just a beautiful spot. And I just found some spots to anchor and just got into my zone and started doing the audio book. But I haven't. It's been put on hold for now. I might get back into it when I get to the Philippines.

Capn Tinsley: 3:04

Well, I do like to. That's my favorite way to listen, especially on the boat. I don't like to read, I like to listen. I can look around and pay attention to what I'm doing.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 3:17

Absolutely.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 3:18

I love audiobooks.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 3:19

I've got a whole library full of audiobooks because I don't read.

Capn Tinsley: 3:25

Tell us where you're from.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 3:28

I grew up in Orlando on a little lake, lake Conway. I got my first boat, or as an old-timer told me, on the Rio Dolce. I asked him how long he'd been sailing. He says I think I fell off my first boat about six years old. So I kind of like to adopt that story. So I probably fell off my first boat about 10 years old. It was just a rowboat. It was just a rowboat. I don't equate my sailing history to being started when I was 10, but not by any stretch of the imagination. But I grew up on boats. But I grew up on boats. We had bow riders and fishing boats and ski boats.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 4:11

Almost my whole life I've owned a boat of some kind, not always a sailboat. Then I thought I'd sail around the world. When I was 30, and I bought a 41 Morgan, didn't know anything about big sailboats. I'd been a windsurfer and had a Hobie cat, that kind of stuff, but I didn't know anything about big boats and there were so many different big boats. I saw a bunch of 41 Morgans on the market so I thought, well, at least I can get the best 41 Morgan for the dollar because I can compare apples to apples. So I ended up with a 41 morgan and took off to sail to uh around the world at 30 years old with hardly any money, no experience and just a big dream. And uh, I made it to saint thomas where I got rooted in uh for four years and then I ended up selling the boat and raising a family. That's why I'm gun shy of women nowadays because you get a boat, you get a woman, the boat goes away.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 5:13

It doesn't necessarily have to be that way. I know that.

Capn Tinsley: 5:16

No, but from my experience being out there sailing, I see a lot of guys alone on boats and they're like God. I wish I could find somebody to.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 5:29

They all love the dream and they love the idea of the dream and they love sailing off in the sunset. Well, the next morning is the sunrise and then there's more shit that happens yeah.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 5:42

You mean like broken things broken things and challenging situations and close quarters and creature comforts are pretty much gone. You know you're, you're I call it camping out on the water. You know it's, it's definitely. But the plus is I'm living in, you know. You know, I've sailed 10 000 miles in the last two and a half years, seen more places than most people ever will. And I would have to have a job. If I lived on land, right, I couldn't support my life. I couldn't support a house and a car and insurance and all that crap. Living on land but a sailboat, all that crap. Um, living on land but a sailboat. Now, I got a lot of crap when I wrote my first book off the grid because I said live for free on a sailboat. Some guy goes yeah, well, you can live for free under an overpass, but what kind of life do you have?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 6:36

and right yep, you can't live for free on a sailboat. Let me just the uh editor. No, and you know, and it's, it's. You know the ongoing there's a little guy canoeing by um, the uh, the ongoing expense of, of, of insurance and for cars and gasoline and the rat race and electric for your house and all that crap, mortgages and taxes and all that crap you don't have on boat, but you still have maintenance costs. You know, I I don't go to marinas. I can't afford marinas. Um, I couldn't live this lifestyle. Go, stay in a marina and I hate marinas.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 7:16

To me, if you're a marina, you're like in a trailer park on your boat, because your boat is not much more in the trailer and when you put it in a marina, you're no longer facing the wind, you're facing whatever direction that dock is in and sailboats are great because you open the hatches and the breezes come through and and you're. You know, right now, um, though I'll pick the laptop up because I might lose this, but you know there's nothing better than this environment. You know there's nothing better than this environment. You know there's nobody. I don't have a neighbor. There are people walking by, not that I'm anti people, but you know it's, it's much more freeing. I don't know if I went around in circles on that statement, but it's. It's more freeing. You, I'm getting ready to I'll probably spend a year in the Philippines with the boat out of the water. I'll be doing some work on it there, can you hear me again.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 8:15

Yes, I can. I think you're back on the regular computer now.

Capn Tinsley: 8:21

What a nightmare.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 8:26

I'll just keep talking, because I think everybody's still there and she's fading in and out. For some reason I thought I'd be the one that had the technical problems, because I'm not that, I'm a little technically challenged and I had Tom Wargo that helped me through all this stuff before.

Capn Tinsley: 8:41

You know this is my. This is my 59th episode and I't I've had a couple of glitches, but this is crazy, like my camera just quit. My expensive HD camera just quit. So I'm using my phone camera.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 8:57

Welcome to my world.

Capn Tinsley: 9:02

So we're going to. I've got it up on the computer so I can at least see all the people that are coming in. So, greg Skelton, um, I guess you know some of these people.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 9:13

Yep.

Capn Tinsley: 9:15

Uh, that's Greg Skelton, I know mischief maker, was here last week. Uh, let's see, We've got. We've got some other people over on Instagram which I have to pull back up. But okay, so tell me you started in Orlando and go back to that story. Go back to that story.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 9:48

I ended up in St Thomas and then I ended up getting married. I had two kids, raised family. My life was motocross. For about 10 years I raced roundy round cars when I was really young and I knew that if I ever owned a business, I had to quit racing, because when you race it you're an addict. Everything goes into your car. Everything you make goes into your car. You live for racing Friday night, you work on the car all week long. So I said no more racing. I didn't realize when I bought my son, when he was four and a half years old, a little PW50 that was getting back into racing. I thought I was just buying him a motorcycle for us to go have fun on. Well, that turned into a full-blown motocross career that my son was in from the time he was five until he was 14. We traveled all over the United States and raced motorcycles. It was just an awesome life. My kid wouldn't have ever wanted to spend that much time with me if he wasn't racing.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 10:43

He wanted to go to the track and I was the one taking him so that I don't. I wouldn't trade that off for anything. So that was another hero of my life. And then, after that um, 2008, I'd flipped some properties, I opened a bar. The bar was successful for the first year and then 2008 hit and the economy crashed and then I just barely held on to everything for the next three or four years and then, after the um, after the bar went downhill, I I basically was flat on my butt with nothing and I uh, I took off for colorado for a ski.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 11:23

I always wanted to be a ski bum, so I went out there and got a job as a dishwasher and that was a humbling experience. I went from entrepreneur, restaurant owner, where everybody wants to know your name, to freaking guy washing dishes, and if I ever told anybody I own a restaurant, they just look at me like, yeah, sure You're an old bum washing dishes, there's a restaurant, I'm sure you own a restaurant, but anyway. So that was quite humbling. So I skied for a season and then I came back and I thought to myself I was staying with some friends and I couldn't even buy a job back then. And at that time the economy was so bad there was nothing available. So I ended up.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 12:10

I thought I wonder if I can walk to Key West. So I got a backpack, started hiking down the road with a tent and I'd walk down the coast and at nighttime I had a little chair. I'd go out and sit and watch the sunset and I'd already had scoped out where I was going to put my tent for the night, because you couldn't do it in the day. You know they'd come and rest here, make you, run you off. So as soon as it started getting darker, go hide up in the mangoes and put my tent up. I ended up doing that and I made about 350 miles and then I suffered an injury from walking. I had this intense pain in my leg and I searched the internet and said one of the reasons for that is excessive walking. That's it.

Capn Tinsley: 12:58

That was the end of the walking.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 12:59

That was the end of the walking, but it was my aha moment in life when I realized I did not want to chase success anymore. You know, I've owned like 10 different businesses, not all successful or anything, but they always supported me and I was always chasing that success. I had to be successful. I guess that was something inside me that just I wanted to be great or something I don't know. But so I, in that moment I decided I don't want to do this anymore.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 13:30

I want to travel, but how can I travel and not walk and I was walking through stewart at the time and I thought, mark man, you're so stubborn, get, get another boat. It just all of a sudden hit me Get a boat.

Capn Tinsley: 13:48

That's a good place in Stewart to be looking at sailboats.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 13:52

Yeah, yeah. At first I thought I'll just get a rowboat, put a little tent on or something. I was almost broke. I still owned a house that my kids were living in. The wife got remarried, so I got the house back. I put it up for sale and I made and went to the Bahamas and wrote the book Off the Grid and that's what really developed my mindset, living this lifestyle. And then there's a whole other chain of events that happened. I lost my boat in Hurricane Irma, got wiped out and then, through the grace of God, someone stepped up.

Capn Tinsley: 14:50

Were you in the Keys during Irma? Yeah, I was in Key West.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 14:53

I actually got hired. It wasn't supposed to hit the Keys. I got hired to move a guy's boat up in Fort Lauderdale and so I left. And soon after I left Irma turned and headed straight towards Key West and at that time all roads out of Key West were one way. I couldn't even turn around if I wanted to. So that made that decision for me. This is what I'm going to do. But I lost the boat and a gentleman. This is a story itself that I don't want to get into right now, but it's in my second book. I guess I'm plugging the second book. I'll tell you a portion.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 15:31

A guy bought me Pampero. He just didn't even know me. He read my book off the grid and he said he wanted to learn how to sail. He wanted some adventure in his life and wondered if I would teach him how to sail and he was going to buy a boat. So I looked at four or five boats for him and on the last one we looked at Pampero. He bought it. We went out to dinner that night and he says I'm going to put this boat in your name. I said well, obviously it means you don't want me doing something with it. That would cause you financial burden. He goes no, I'm giving you this boat.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 16:11

I'm like what, what, yeah, and that really turned my life around.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 16:16

Because Pampero is the boat that can be used for charter, I went into charter business. After that, I went into Airbnb in Pampero and it really changed my financial situation. And then I was in Key West for the next five years, where when in Key West? I was right off of Fleming Key, anchored right there, okay.

Capn Tinsley: 16:48

Okay, you were in.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 16:48

the anchor were anchoring, not mooring yeah, yeah, I wasn't in the mooring field, I was anchored off and I ended up starting a water taxi business, running people around and running people out to airbnbs, and and that's really what turned the whole thing around was getting this boat, which allowed me to generate income in order to get me to the point where I am now. Then I did Boy Scouts with the boat. I did three or four seasons of Scouts where you do 12 trips in a row with six Scouts for a week, just in and out, in and out, in and out for three months, which was pretty rewarding.

Capn Tinsley: 17:26

Hey, mark, you've got a bunch of fans backstage, you've got a lot of women following you. Oh no, here's a dude. All right, let me just bring him up. I don't understand that. Mark accidentally gave out the link to come into the studio, so I'm just going to pull up some people here real quick so we can see.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 17:50

Sorry guys, I gave you the wrong thing. My alarm went off, the time was wrong, but I'm glad I straightened it out.

Capn Tinsley: 17:57

Look at this, look at all these guys, he's literally posting it, right yeah.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 18:02

If you can read out their names, because I can't see their names. I barely see their faces. I got Lisa Ford, susan, I All right, let me talk to Lisa for a second. Okay, Lisa, her brother was my first friend that moved away when I was like seventh grade and then through Facebook, we reconnected and Lisa's been great. She's a woman of common sense and she always puts good stuff on my Facebook. Hey, Lisa.

Capn Tinsley: 18:34

Well, you also got Susan Ives Ward. And because I'm Susan Ives.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 18:39

She was my online editor when my spelling and grammar was so bad. She would check things out for me before I put them out there, and she's been a great help.

Speaker 2: 18:48

Okay.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 18:49

Hey, Susan hey.

Capn Tinsley: 18:53

We got Lance Okay.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 18:57

You got to turn Lance's mic off. Lance is going to say something that's going to embarrass all of us. Love him like a brother and Lisa oh no, he shut up.

Capn Tinsley: 19:11

What's up, guys? You got a lot of fans, all right, I got to pull you all off. Now, hey, mark, hey now, hello, hey now, hey, now, hey, mark. If y'all want to say something, now's the time I love you buddy, hey now.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 19:26

Hey, Mark, If y'all want to say something, now's the time. I love you buddy, Love you too, Mark, Be safe. Love you guys, Be good.

Capn Tinsley: 19:31

Where are y'all from Before I pull you off? Where are y'all from?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 19:34

Ravon County.

Capn Tinsley: 19:36

Florida Okay.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 19:37

Orlando, florida, all right, north Carolina, woo-hoo, north Carolina.

Capn Tinsley: 19:44

Woo-hoo Mark seasoning soon come. Where Seasoning soon come, I'm pulling y'all off now.

Speaker 5: 19:57

As they say in B-Week, seasoning soon come.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 20:02

Oh yeah, I think that's a Jimmy Buffett song. All right, bye, all right, see you. Sorry, guys, I made a mistake and sent you the wrong link.

Capn Tinsley: 20:14

That's fun. We're having some fun with it, though we're having some fun. What's one thing that land people, land lovers, lovers totally misunderstand about the lifestyle you're living?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 20:31

Well, first and foremost it's it's like camping out. You know, if you don't like going camping, the only thing is you don't get dirt. You know, when you camp out you usually have a dirt, but it's a lot like camping out, unless you got a million dollar yacht, which I don't get dirt. When you camp out, you usually have a dirt. It's a lot like camping out, unless you got a million dollar yacht, which I don't have.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 20:50

Even then you're camping out. If you got anything less than a 40 foot, you're in a little camper. That's one thing you got to get used to. You have to be a miser. It's not because of that's one thing you got to get used to, you got to. You know you have to be a miser and excuse me, it's not because of money, it's because of resources that are available to you. You know, your, your water, you, you know.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 21:17

When the scouts came on board, I used to tell him. I said, hey, listen, you don't turn the water on and start brushing your teeth and let the water run until you're done brushing your teeth like you do in the house. I mean, you have to be. They call me the water Nazi, you know, because I'll be laying in my bunk and I'll hear that pump turn on and they could be filling a water jug. But it sounds like they're just taking a shower and letting it run forever and I jump up and I go water conservation. Water is a biggie. And then it's other things too. It's not just water, I mean propane.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 21:51

You, know yeah I've learned to.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 21:53

I've learned to make ramna noodles by heating the water up, put the noodles in there and let it sit on the counter for a half hour and not even cook them a whole way, and and then they hydrate and they're perfect. Because where am I going to get propane? There's no propane out here. It's not because you're being a miser and cheap. It's because when you run out of your resource, you can't just replenish it, so you have to. Really there's no laundry machine, there's no dishwasher. My, my shirt I hang on the rail and I hope it rains because that means it gets washed. You know, and then it's amazing how you hang a shirt on the on the rail for a week it smells better than it did when you took it off, you know. So you learn all these little things that people don't realize and you just can't even imagine doing something like that if you were living in a house. You know, you just throw it in a clothes hamper and then dump it all in the laundry machine and then run the washer.

Speaker 2: 23:01

But you don't do that on boats.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 23:02

Some boats if you have a million-dollar boat might have a washer and a water maker. They do. I was fortunate for the last three years to have a water maker. But even then it takes power to run your water maker. And you know, I'm all solar so I can make 15 gallons an hour but it takes a lot of battery juice to do that. And then, you know, through my crossing my water maker went out and so I haven't had a water maker for about six months, but luckily it's been raining like crazy. I have a rain catch on the boat so I always have water. You know, my first go around in my 30s I didn't have a water maker and I was always hauling a five gallon jug out of my boat, and it was. I said I'd never do that again. So right now I'm pretty set with that.

Capn Tinsley: 23:53

Mary Cable, Mary Carol, Tobias says you clean up good Mark.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 23:59

Yeah, I went on. I went on Facebook live without a clean shirt on because I said, hey guys, don't get shocked because I'm going to put a shirt on for you.

Capn Tinsley: 24:10

It's like a button-down shirt, long sleeve and everything.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 24:14

This shirt was hanging behind my head door there. It was hanging back there, so it was nice and clean. It almost looked pressed and I was like oh bingo.

Capn Tinsley: 24:25

Look at there, there is that, your one good shirt that you keep on board I have two.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 24:31

I have, uh, I have this one and I have a black one, uh and um. So, yeah, I will tell you something I've learned that is amazing. Just, it's not Lysol brand, it's just a spray bottle, but in the islands there seem to be an abundance of flies and if you just take dish soap and water, for some reason it kills flies. No, yeah, and you don't have to. You know, the fly can be laying on your leg and you can spray it. You're not worrying about putting chemicals on you like you would if it was some kind of fly spray. You know, and and that's how I keep my keep the fly population when they come on board is I just spray them with this, uh, soapy water and they they freaking that's it.

Capn Tinsley: 25:23

You heard it here on the salty podcast. That's the tip of the day right there.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 25:28

I don't know why everybody doesn't do that? Because it definitely, uh, you know, sometimes I have to hit them twice if they're a big fly, you know, but uh, it, it's amazing. I've used a whole bunch. At first I thought it was a certain type of dish soap I was using, but I've used two or three different kinds since then and it always works.

Capn Tinsley: 25:49

Yeah, I've noticed certain times. All of a sudden it just seems like the boat fills up with these big black flies and I'm not sure where they come from. They're hard to get rid of.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 26:02

I said this in the Bahamas the first. The first time I said it was uh, I was, I'm in the bahamas, off in the island, and I'm um, let's see, I think I was on the windward side of the island and I'm cooking hamburgers. No, I was on the lee side of the island. So I'm cooking hamburgers. Why would not be on the lee side? But anyways I. So I'm cooking hamburgers. Why would I not be on the lee side? But anyways, I'm cooking a hamburger and all of a sudden flies come here and I'm like going alright, we're downwind from this island, a half a mile away, and these flies are smelling this hamburger.

Speaker 2: 26:39

I mean, what the heck?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 26:42

they hover in on stuff like that. So yeah, yeah, it's what the heck?

Capn Tinsley: 26:45

you know, they're just like they hover in on stuff like that. So, yeah, yeah, it's a dim bastard's bite to bruce williams, yeah, or when you're in the keys, well, I'm in the like, I anchor in the everglades. What?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 27:07

and really, if you're in marco or any of these places, what happens at sunset and sunrise? Yeah, the no-see-ums and mosquitoes. You probably can't see it on mine. Let me see if I can turn this a little bit right. There is my mosquito net. I sleep is my mosquito net, so I have a I, I sleep. Oh, sorry about that. So I I sleep in the cockpit most of the time even though I can't stand to be down below when I'm sailing by myself underway.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 27:36

Um, I, when I, when I go to sleep, I sleep like a dead body. And and I, you know, when you're a solo sailor you need to be more in tune. So if I sleep in the cockpit, I can hear the wind changes. You know, my AIS alarm is right there. It will always wake me up. And so I sleep right here in the cockpit and use that mosquito net. I put it over top of me If I'm in anchorage. It works out well.

Capn Tinsley: 28:03

Yeah, do you need it when you're underway?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 28:08

Not when I'm cruising and I only put it up in Fiji I hadn't used it ever until then, because usually it moves.

Capn Tinsley: 28:19

Uh-oh, I think he froze up this time. Yeah, oh no, we'll give them a minute. Can you guys hear me?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 28:35

Yeah, I'm back. I just realized my star link, dropped the feed, oh okay, okay, it happens.

Capn Tinsley: 28:43

So how big is that? I'm just curious, how big is that mosquito?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 28:47

net. It's a pretty good size. I got a rope running across the top and it'll go run it. It goes underneath my cushion in the front, it goes underneath the cushion behind me, so it's not actually sitting up or anything, so it works out well. That's cool. I think every sailor after me using this thing. I don't think I'll ever be without a mosquito net. I've even used it down below, tied to my hatch above.

Capn Tinsley: 29:25

Mosquitoes. As you probably know, they're usually not a big deal unless you're in some low harbor, you know inland, or you know Bruce says show us the bug spray one more time. He doesn't know, it's the Lysol. Oh, there it is.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 29:35

Spray bottle. What I like about it? For some reason flies land on me, maybe because I'm a solo sailor and I only shower once a week. But I shouldn't tell people that. But I did shower for this podcast. But I got to tell people that. But I did shower for this podcast. But I got to tell you the truth I didn't put deodorant on because I figured you couldn't smell me anyway.

Capn Tinsley: 29:54

We can't. No, you look good. That's important, that's the important part. You look good.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 30:00

The cool thing is, if a fly lands on you, you can spray your leg and it's not going to do anything.

Capn Tinsley: 30:07

Yeah, I'm like you. I sail solo a lot most of the time and I just sleep right there in the cockpit. And I must wake up every 15 minutes or 10 minutes and check make sure I'm still on track and look around, make sure nothing's going on, and then I just go back to sleep.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 30:27

Yeah, I do a couple things. One, I set my alarm for two hours if I think I'm really tired. I usually do the same thing. I'll wake up every so often, but if I'm really exhausted, if I had a challenging day, I will set my alarm for two hours. And another thing I've learned is if there's an island, even if it's 10 miles away, I steer to the left or the right of it.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 30:52

So if I don't wake up in time, I don't run into the island, because the first time I ever soloed by myself and fell asleep, I'd sailed to Guatemala, which was about 1200 miles, and when I hit the English Channel that runs along in front of Belize and goes up to the Rio, I all of a sudden I'm in this peaceful, beautiful, you know, beam reach sail, no waves Cause I'm on the inside of the reef and the channel is about five miles wide and I had like 30 miles to go, and but it was at the end of my trip and I was exhausted and I fell asleep during midday and slept for five hours straight and when I woke up, I went holy crap were you on the beach?

Capn Tinsley: 31:37

where did you?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 31:39

you woke up luckily, I hadn't hit my destination yet. I still had another, you know 10 miles to go. But that's when I? I said, well, I can, I'm afraid if I fall asleep I'll run go. But that's when I? I said, well, I, I'm afraid if I fall asleep I'll run in. So that's when I learned to take my course and take it off of. So if I was asleep I'd pass my island and not run into it.

Capn Tinsley: 31:58

So so bruce says talk my brother into sailing adventure this sunday bay st louis to bond balka.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 32:08

I don't know where that is. Bruce Do you Fouca Grant.

Capn Tinsley: 32:13

Well, it doesn't say that. It says Bon F-O-U-C-A, so maybe he's Tell us what you mean, bruce. So tell us your, where did you start this trip? You got the boat and I think Did you say you got this boat in the Keys.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 32:33

Yeah, in 2016. But you know, so I had it for quite a while, but I went to. I actually was at Anchor one night, right before the last Boy Scout season, and a guy hit me on a center console doing about 40 miles an hour. He went up and over the back end of my boat and just crushed the back quarter of my swim steps and I rigged it so I could finish up the Boy Scout season. And I rigged it so I could finish up the Boy Scout season. But then, before I took off on my trip, I sailed up to Titusville and we hauled the boat out of the water and we were doing the repairs before I took off.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 33:20

This was right before I took off on my trip and something happened. I don't know what happened to this day. I fell off the back of the boat, about seven feet off the ground, and I cracked six ribs and broke my collarbone, and I still, to this day, all I remember was at one point feeling a breeze going by me, and that was me gaining speed, falling off the back of the boat, and so I was in the hospital for a couple of days. So that's how I ended up starting my trip. I healed, finished the boat up and then took off with six broken ribs, and that was in November two and a half years ago.

Capn Tinsley: 34:00

Okay, so you left. Where did you leave? You left from?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 34:04

Titusville, Florida.

Capn Tinsley: 34:06

Okay, is that east coast?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 34:09

Yeah, it's directly east of Orlando. It's where the rockets go up Cape Canaveral.

Capn Tinsley: 34:14

Okay, all right, and so where did you?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 34:16

go. I sailed down the coast and went to. I sailed all the way down. I think we took off out of Jupiter and crossed over the Bahamas, did the Bahamas, took off out of Jupiter and crossed over the Bahamas, did the Bahamas and then from there to St Thomas I'm just going to fast forward through all this but sailed from there to St Thomas and then went from St Thomas all the way down island to Grenada where I island, hopped all the way back because I always wanted to do the Caribbean chain of islands.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 34:49

It's not really a sailing the world thing. But I always wanted to do this. So I went down to Grenada, sailed all the way back up to St Thomas and timed it so I could do another Boy Scout season and put money in the sailing kitty.

Capn Tinsley: 35:03

When you say the Boy Scout, because I've known captains that do that in the Keys. So when did you do that?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 35:11

Sorry to backtrack In the summers. I did it for three or four summers. It was June, july and August.

Capn Tinsley: 35:20

What year?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 35:21

I left in November. The last Boy Scout season was probably two years ago. Okay, boy Scout season was probably two years ago.

Capn Tinsley: 35:31

Okay.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 35:36

In my leaving and sailing around the world I stopped back in St Thomas and did three months of Boy Scouts. Before I took off I went from St Thomas to Puerto Rico, to Dominican Republic, to Jamaica, down to the Sandblast Islands. I picked up two girl crew members in St Thomas and they jumped ship in Puerto Rico. No, they jumped ship in Dominican Republic. I think they thought they were going to go on a sailing charter and be catered to.

Capn Tinsley: 36:12

That's not how I roll. No, they had to work. Did they have to cook and stuff?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 36:19

Yeah, yeah, they complained that the dishes were dirty. I'm like wash them. Oh my gosh, it was bad. I want to plug my second book here. My second book I wrote from the time I got this book. The amazing journey that got me this book and then built it and all that and then it's also a lot of my book is the crew members I picked up for the first year, which in turn made me a solo sailor. I don't want to deal with them anymore. I've had some great crews, so anybody that's been my crew that were awesome you know, you guys are great. The ones that weren't awesome I'm sure they're not listening, so I have to worry about that you know I prefer it.

Capn Tinsley: 37:04

I like being by myself in the past. Bruce, I'm up for anything. We'll just do it. I'm a very good galley hand. Bruce, are you asking me I should go sail with him, or are you asking me I go sail with you?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 37:23

He's wanting to jump on a boat. Yeah, I guess. So the problem with me picking up crew now is my journeys are so long. You know, before in the caribbean I could pick you up and you could stay on the more about a week, a month, six weeks and there was another island with an airport you could jump on right. But now it's not like that. I mean, we're married, you come on the boat, you're on the boat for six weeks.

Capn Tinsley: 37:48

If we don't get along, it's gonna be a long six weeks and you have to really want to be there to make a six week passage or a four week passage. Yeah, you gotta really want to be there. It's not for everybody, so tell us about the. Uh. Well, okay, I'm getting ahead of myself, all right, where did you go after? Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself, all right.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 38:10

Where did you go after that, you went through the panama canal. Yeah, so after, uh, the sandblast islands, I, um well, first off, I picked up a crew member in dominican republic and this guy, he spoke, he spoke no english, he was, uh, ukrainian or russian and uh, and I was like man, he spoke sp and at the time I had two girls on board and I thought, well, these girls speak Spanish, these guys are going to be talking the whole time and I don't know what they're saying.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 38:36

I didn't want that situation either. You know I've been in those situations and so I told him no, he persisted. He he says man, once I meet you, we're communicating through Facebook. Once you meet you, we'll be fine. I'm a hard worker blah, blah, blah. And then finally I said all right. So he came to the boat To this day he was the best mate I've ever had.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 39:02

He was so awesome. He treated me like a king. He cooked all my meals for me, he loved plate presentation and alex's name. And he was, he was just awesome and and he spoke very little english.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 39:16

And at one time when we were crossing from jamaica to the sandblast islands about 500 mile run, we get to the sandblast islands and my my tracks all blew out of my freaking main, the. The tracks just ripped right out of the main and so I couldn't control the boat, because now my main is up there like a spinnaker. You know, it's just collecting wind and I'm like Alex and he tells the story. Yeah, I was dead asleep. Next thing, I know, I hear my name. Next thing, I know I'm standing on top of the hardtop. He was up top.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 39:50

Next thing I know it, I'm standing on top of the hardtop. He was up top. He tried collecting the sail, but he told me to turn the boat so he could collect it, and when he did, it caught wind and threw him off the top of the boat. He landed on stanchion on the side of the boat, snapped the stanchion in half and just so lucky, he didn't break a bone or or this, that or the other, and so, anyways, he got back on the boat and I said, alex, what happened? He goes. I don't know one minute. I'm doing this. The next thing I know it is bye, bye, alex he didn't have one hand on the boat, did he?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 40:26

hey how you doing. I'm on a call right now hand on the boat, did he?

Capn Tinsley: 40:32

hey how you doing. I'm on a call right now. Nice to see you. I do have a question over here on uh instagram what's the name of the second book?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 40:39

um first off the grid. So, um, I think I'm gonna uh someone. Um, I had a uh temporary editor and she suggested this and I like it, so I think I'm going to name it off the grid still.

Capn Tinsley: 40:52

Oh, okay, off the grid still.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 40:55

Okay, cool I'm hoping it'll be out. I just sent the message to the editor a couple of days ago to say I'm ready to go full on get it published. So I'm hoping last off the grid. Just for some reason we didn't plan it this way. It came out on my birthday, june 12th, uh, 2010. So I'm thinking maybe the the stars will align and it'll come out on june 12th this year too, so that'd be cool oh, you broke up when you said the year.

Capn Tinsley: 41:25

What time, what year did that come out?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 41:27

the first one came out 2016, on my birthday okay, I didn't even plan it. It's just you look at it says published june 12th.

Capn Tinsley: 41:34

I'm like that's cool, so maybe, maybe this one will come out at the same time well, I've got, um, a link in in the description for youtube and, uh, facebook for the book. So if somebody wants to click on the link down there, it'll take them to Amazon. So, off the grid. If you want to order the book, if you want to get the Kindle, you want to get the paperback, use my link. Please, please, do. If you would, mark, if you'd ask all your people here to subscribe to my channel, whatever platform they're watching.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 42:12

Yeah, please subscribe to our channel. I never understand why people don't subscribe, because it's really no skin off your back. I've really enjoyed talking with her. She seems to bring in interesting people like me. Of course, I'm just plugging myself, why not?

Capn Tinsley: 42:32

subscribe to her. I interview some really interesting people, like you said, all kinds of boats. Some people are going around the world. Some people went around the world, got pirate stories, got all kinds of good stories. You have people that won the races, the different races. Even some famous sailors have been on here and even, like people who just go local, you know, just sail around in their own area. So we got a little something for everybody.

Capn Tinsley: 43:00

But thank you for that. She's loco and a world traveler, so okay, so you went to the panama canal after the sand blast islands, and this is another good story.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 43:17

Um, I'll try to make it as quick as possible no, no, please I had two crew members, three crew members on board, one of them actually all three of them had been in the caribbean on on board. So I thought, man, these guys, you know they're tried and true and they'll be fine.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 43:32

And so they got on board and and there we went through the canal, we, we set sail and we made about 200 miles offshore sailing and I went to crank the motor up and put it in gear. Bam, all hell broke loose. And I went to crank the motor up and put it in gear, blah, blah, blah, all hell broke loose. And I had some work done on the boat when I was on the hard in Panama and I couldn't do the work because of my broken ribs. So I hired a guy to work on my boat, which I very seldom ever do, and he replaced my cutlass, bearing on yeah, and he didn't use case hardened steel boats bolts. He thought he'd put shiny, stainless steel bolts in there. Well, stainless, shiny steel with lock washer nuts don't hold oh really I really didn't know this.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 44:29

But um, he and, and. So when we sailed, the prop was spinning the whole time for the first 200 miles and the bolts all fell out except for one. So when I cranked the motor up, all hell broke loose. At first, I must pick something up off, the must be something in the prop, you know. And so jumped over the side, props clean, get back in, crank it again, and it all hell broke loose and I figured out the problem. So I bolted it back together again, cranked the motor up, and that vibration cracked my exhaust manifold. So when I cranked it up, water's just blasting all over the place.

Capn Tinsley: 45:14

That's the elbow. Is that the elbow? Yeah, yeah.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 45:19

So I put a patch on that, the best I could with big old hose clamps. And what had happened was, because of that crack, it allowed salt water back in the motor and the motor was locked up Right. So I'm out there, I pull the injectors out, get the water out of it. No, the water got in there before I fixed the elbow, before I knew that there was a break in the elbow. I fixed the, I pulled the injectors, got all the water, got in there before I fixed the elbow, before I knew that there was a break in the elbow. I fixed the, I pulled the injectors, got all the water out, put it back together, cranked it up. That's when all water started blasting all over the place.

Capn Tinsley: 45:59

I had that happen before.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 46:00

That's why I'm shaking, I'm going yep, I was done, I was done. So we cranked the motor up because there was no wind to sail, but we had to motor back to Panama. Now. We had no motor and we had no wind, so I had to tie. I tied the dinghy off to the side, called hip tie, and crank the motor up and put the gas tank on the boat so I could keep filling the gas tank up. And the dinghy pushed me back 200 miles to panama, where then, to make this long story short, I had to put a new motor in the boat oh, wow in panama.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 46:48

We stopped for about a month, six weeks. We got turned around really quick, got the new motor in and just before I, the day before I'm we're getting ready to leave we provisioned the boat with all this food. And the day before we were leaving I was feeling um under the weather and I was in the back sleeping. And I hear these people whispering on my boat and I'm like, oh, that's pretty nice and not wanting to wake me up or let me sleep. And then I get up and I find out they packed all their gear. They stayed around through the whole process New motor, everything being done and said we're not going, we don't trust the boat, we don't trust the captain, we don't trust the boat. Oh, we don't trust the captain, we don't trust the boat. Oh no, they said that to me. I said well, I got only one thing to say to you Get off my boat.

Capn Tinsley: 47:42

Here's your hat. What's your hurry? Yeah?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 47:46

They ended up getting off the boat and there's this guy on the dock next to me, adam, he's my buddy. Now he's in australia, he, he was on, he's 26 years old, on a 26 foot boat, solo, sailing across the south pacific, and I'm like going, all right, this guy is more than half my age, less less than half my age how are you going to say it? His boat is half the size of mine and he's going to do this by himself.

Capn Tinsley: 48:16

What's his name?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 48:17

Adam, I can't remember his last name, but I've got to get you in touch with him. He'd be a good one to interview, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 48:24

I'm trying to think if I talked to him already, but I don't remember.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 48:30

I haven't asked Adam. He's from Canada, I can't pronounce, I don't remember how to pronounce his last name. It begins with an S, sadler or something like that. But I thought to myself, you know, I've got ten times the experience this kid did. He had three years sailing, you know. And I said I'm, I'm doing, I'm going, and that's I guarantee. I, I'm all. I can almost promise you. If he hadn't been on the dock, I probably wouldn't have solo sailed, I probably would have waited, found crew, because I, you know, 4 000 miles, that's, that's a big undertaking. So, but the fact that he was leaving, I'm like man, I can't let this young kid show me up and uh, and I took off and I went, and you know, and is he okay? Yeah, yeah. Well, I finally caught up with him because I suffered some PTSD from my crossing.

Capn Tinsley: 49:34

Oh yeah, you're going to tell us that story, so let me set you up on this. Let me set you up. He's like I don't know if you want me to tell this story, because nobody will want to sail. I'm like no, we hear them all here on the Salty Podcast. People need to know what can happen, right.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 49:50

Yep, so hit it All right. So let me go to the story. I'll just go right to the punchline. But you know I have people my whole life, especially doing Boy Scouts. You know I do what is that? Six times 12. I do 100 scouts a year for four years, 400 scouts. They all ask me the same question have you ever been scared?

Capn Tinsley: 50:16

Yeah.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 50:17

And I always say no, I don't get scared, you know, I I never have. I just I might be challenged, I might be cautious, I might be on edge, but scared that's maybe different names for it, but I've never been scared.

Capn Tinsley: 50:33

You know, my answer is always I respect it, I know something could happen, but you take all the precautions you can.

Speaker 2: 50:41

It's a risk reward you know, and it's not like I don't- have five ways to ask for help.

Capn Tinsley: 50:47

you know that's true and it's not like I don't have five ways to ask for help.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 50:50

You know, yeah, yeah, that's true. So, anyways, I had another guy after the fact ask me if I've ever been scared, and that's when I realized that. You know, yes, now I have been. Okay, I'll tell you real quick about this one guy that asked me that he was a master. You know, I heard a story of, uh, dr wayne dyer one time took a trip on an airplane and he says I'm going to talk to this guy throughout the whole trip and I'm not going to say a fake single thing about me, I'm just going to ask him questions about himself and the whole trip. He just asked him questions constantly and if he, if the asked him something, he'd just turn it back around and put it back on him. And after the trip they interviewed the guy and the guy said he says well, what do you think about that guy that you're flying with, talking about Dr Dyer? He says you know, he's the most interesting man I've ever met in my life. And he didn't know anything about him.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 51:51

He and he didn't know anything about him, he was just listening to him, he was pulling information from the guy listening to him and I think that's that's a big lesson to learn that you know, if you're ever in a situation where you feel uncomfortable, if you just ask somebody a question about themselves, you're no longer, the spotlight is no longer on you and you can be, comfortable in any situation yeah, it's an old, old idea, you know.

Capn Tinsley: 52:11

Try to get out of yourself yeah, so anyways he.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 52:16

He asked me if I'd ever been scared and he kept. He pulled it out of me and I had this shirt on. This friend of mine got me and it says soul survivor.

Capn Tinsley: 52:24

Badass of the south I saw those, I saw the shirt that you, that you have yeah so it was, for it was pretty cool.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 52:31

But so this guy started asking me and he, he says you know, here I am, you're still, oh, stand there looking up at this mango tree, I just love mangoes, and. And he just stopped me and says you never know, you're just sitting here looking at a mango tree. Next thing, you know you're in this big old conversation, but uh, so anyways, back to the south pacific. So I I had almost 3 000 miles under my belt at this point. Some things happened nothing major along the trip and I'm solo sailing it and then past the galapagos, and I have about 700 miles to go, and my autopilot started kicking out. It started malfunctioning about 3,000 miles and so about, maybe even sooner than that, it started just failing. And you know, being a solo sailor, you got to have autopilot. Absolutely, you know this. Oh oh, you can tie the helm down, you can throw a buck. I heard all the freaking things you could do after the fact and oh you should have done this.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 53:37

I'm like dude until you're in 10 to 12 foot seas with 25 to 30 knots of wind, don't tell me how you're going to throw a bucket off your port side and steer your freaking boat, because this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 53:57

I've not heard the bucket one, oh yeah, well, one guy and I like this one guy's idea. But you know, even rigging it would be almost like you take your spinnaker pole and you put a bucket on each side and then you can use the spinnaker pole to steer your boat. I'm like 10 to 12. It's hard to even hold on to the back of the boat. You know, yeah, much less you know anyway. So I heard all the stories and and so, anyways, I'm, I'm underway with the uh auto pilot and it's break-ins, break-ins brain. Finally, it's shut down completely. So I'm hand steering. I I haven't hand steered pampero from the day I put my autopilot on in 2018. If I'm driving into a marina, I'm using the autopilot oh, really, that's a spoil.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 54:46

You know, it's just I don't, I just don't even steer the boat anymore. It's just like so much easier, you know. You don't have to just stand there and watch where it's going. You just got the autopilot on. You want to turn? You just turn the dial. It's so much easier, right. So I literally hadn't hand steered my boat. I mean, with the scouts I make them steer it, you know, to practice and learn the sail and that kind of stuff but when I'm on the boat I don't think I've sailed a mile in five years without the autopilot.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 55:20

so what that did was I didn't realize it when I put my autopilot in I had to cut this big piece of steel out of the way for the ram to go through there, and then I rebuilt steel up over the top of it and back down again and I had to restructure the whole quadrant back there. And this this one was on a pulley that was on that quadrant. Well, in those big seas, in that big wind condition, I was really stressing the steering out, I had to hand steer. Well, that caused the cable to come off of the frickin' pulley and it just got wrapped behind it and just discombobulated. That's a sailor term Discombobulated the cable because it was running off of the pulley on the bolt that goes through it or whatever, and destroyed it. It just completely destroyed the cable. I tried putting it back on, I'd get it back on, I'd tighten it all up, I'd go through this whole process. I'm in 10 to 12-foot seas now just getting thrown and pitched and rolled all over the place.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 56:25

That's not the best part of sailing the place yeah, that's not the best part of sailing so I did it back on and it would last for about half a turn of the wheel and then come back off and it wasn't being fixed. Well, at one point I'm trying to put it back on and I had the autopilot on, but it was intermittent and all of a sudden the autopilot came on and it crushed my hand between the quadrant and the steel and the ram just kept pushing and it about cut my hand right in half.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 56:59

And you're in the middle of the Pacific, by myself pinned to the quadrant with my hand screaming bloody murder that you could probably hear 700 miles away on shore.

Speaker 2: 57:11

Oh my gosh.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 57:13

It ripped the whole top of my hand off and you could my hand. I've got a video of it. I've only shown it to a few people. I sent it to my doctor when I was out there, but you could see my tendons moving in my hand. It was like Terminator. And so now I've got this injury on my hand. I'm starting to break out in a cold sweat. So I come up in the cockpit, I'm standing here holding on and I'm just sweating badly and then all of a sudden I notice I'm peeing in myself and I didn't even realize it and I realized I'm going into shock. Oh no, I'm like holy shit, I'm not a medic and I don't know about what happens when you go in shock. But I said I know I have to recover myself. So I laid down on the cockpit here and I just started trying to calm myself and breathe. I didn't realize I was you know that far gone. But when you, when you pee yourself, you don't know you're being yourself.

Capn Tinsley: 58:14

you're something you're just like what's going on here, oh my god.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 58:20

So I sat there for I don't know how long and just focused on my mind and breathing and relaxing and breathing, and and then I just I finally got better, to where I felt like I could. I was okay and I went down and I got this huge first aid kit. It's massive yeah like. You know what's not in there? What sensors or or butterflies.

Capn Tinsley: 58:48

Oh no, why not? I don't know.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 58:52

I was like are you freaking? I went through the whole thing. I'm like, are you freaking, kidding me? You know, my doc said set me up with freaking everything, to numb it, to sew it up to. You know everything I possibly need. But there was none of that in there, so I had to duct tape the thing across, to pull, all right. So I pull it back over and and this was my main goal was infection in my hand.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 59:20

I'm 700 miles adrift out of the sea and if I get an infection, you you know that would be it, and then, through my not thinking correctly and being all discombobulated, somehow my bilge pumps got turned off.

Capn Tinsley: 59:38

Oh no.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 59:40

And I had a problem with being in these big seas. The waves were crashing over the back end that I put on and there were some drill holes through the back stern of the boat and the back end was filled up with water and the water was coming in and I had, you know, a huge amount of water in the bottom of the boat and I had this friend of mine that was.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:00:02

I was communicating with him. My Starlink wouldn't even work. The boat was thrashing around so much Starlink wasn't working. And also I didn't want starlink on because the amount of power it took to right and and I knew I needed every battery power I needed I didn't need to have facebook, you know. So I started, I shut it down and people started freaking out because they couldn't get a hold of me.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:00:28

But I shut that all down and my buddy, I told him. I said, listen, reach out to US Coast Guard, reach out to Polynesian Coast Guard, call whoever you need to go. I want you to have the correct number and the procedure to go through in case I have to do a mayday. I mean, this is the closest I've ever felt, like you know.

Capn Tinsley: 1:00:50

Well, at least tell them where you are, in case you need to call them, and it needs to be quick.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:00:56

Yeah, Well they had my tracker. My tracker was on my Garmin tracker. They knew where I was, but I was like you know.

Capn Tinsley: 1:01:03

Well, I mean, tell the Coast Guard where you are.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:01:05

Yeah, yeah, tell them there's a potential issue. Yeah, yeah, I need you to know who to call. I don't need you calling information when I'm getting ready to sink to find out the number to who to call. So he said, okay, I'll do that. So the next morning I wake up and I I built an emergency bilge pump and hose to pump the boat out, because my bilge pumps weren't working and I didn't know why, but I still had battery in my lithium battery. So I just wired it and started pumping overboard and I finally got most of the water out so you had an additional, because I have an extra pump on mine too, with a long hose yeah, yeah, okay, I was making hoses fit.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:01:52

Now I got one hose happens, but I was, you know, and it got to a point that I was in such a situation. It was like, okay, we have to do this in steps.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:02:04

First get the pump you know, that might take me an hour or however long, and I get the pump. Okay now. Now you gotta get the wire strippers. Get the pump. You know that might take me an hour or however long and I get the pump. Okay now. Now you got to get the wire strippers, get the wire strippers. Okay, now you know you lay on the I laid on the sole, both you know, while I'm doing all this and then I get up, do a little bit more and then I go lay back down and, uh, I finally got it all rigged and this, that and the other, but then I called my buddy and I said, hey, I just want to make sure you got a hold of that of the Coast Guard.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:02:36

Who to call? He said, Mark, when you told me you're sinking, I told him to come get you. Oh, and I'm like holy crap, you can't do that man. The captain of the boat is the only guy that can do a mayday, you know. And I was like I I'm what, I'm like no, and I said call them back. And so he called back and polynesian coast guard wanted to talk to me. They weren't going to call off the. They rerouted a 650 foot tanker like 100 miles. I was away.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:03:05

I've been on the way for like four hours heading towards me and I got on. I got on. I had to. First I got a landline that wouldn't go through and I'm texting through my Garmin and he, he made me repeat three different texts Tell me your name, the name of your boat, and tell me you're calling off the rescue. So I had to do that like three times and they called it off. And and now I'm glad I did, but at that time I'm like Mark, what the frick is wrong with you?

Capn Tinsley: 1:03:38

Yeah.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:03:39

Are you this guy that's going to go down with your ship? Are you so fricking stubborn or whatever it is, that you can't just say okay, I'm done, you know? Just say okay, I'm done, you know. And so I finally got it together. I found out that I turned my battery switches in the wrong position for the bilge pumps to work.

Capn Tinsley: 1:03:59

That's what I was going to say, and so they weren't broken.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:04:03

They were just yeah, just stupid, but I was so, not myself, so this is after the injury.

Capn Tinsley: 1:04:10

You're still a little not yourself.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:04:13

I'm still all messed up and on the morning of me laying on the floor, I mean I had to lay on the solo boat. I couldn't lay anywhere else I'd be thrown out of a bunk or whatever. I'm 10 to 12 foot waves and the back end is slamming and the waves are hitting and you know I'm like is the back end of my boat going to fall off? You know all those naysayers, are they right?

Capn Tinsley: 1:04:35

You know, oh yeah, cause you, you extended your, you extended your boat.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:04:40

So I'm all these thoughts are going through my head and I'm on the floor of the boat and then I get a text through my Garmin and I had a router, Tom Wargo, and he was with me from way before the beginning. He started following me and then he became my router. He's my IT guy. He helped me with the computer and all this mic and all this stuff and he would find out where I had to go to check into customs. He'd give me all that information.

Capn Tinsley: 1:05:08

Oh, that's nice.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:05:10

Yeah, he was so awesome. I get a text from Tom Mark.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:05:14

this is and he and I have fallen out because he's like Mark, just lash the helm down. I follow sailors and they, you know they do it all the time Just lash your helm down. I'm like I got 700 miles to go. I can't, it's not going to work. Yeah, this was before the 700. This was before the steering went out. This was just, you know, with auto, without autopilot, I'm like I can't make it 700 miles without autopilot, I can't. But I'm going to be sleeping for eight hours going every which way, yeah, yeah it'd be hard to sleep, that's for sure yeah, so anyways, I get a text.

Capn Tinsley: 1:05:53

Tom died that night of a heart attack oh my gosh and I'm like oh, I'm so sorry I'm like, mark, are you nuts?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:06:07

I mean, this is affecting other people's lives. Now you know what you're doing. You know when it's just me? I'm like it's just me.

Capn Tinsley: 1:06:16

Oh, you think he had a heart attack because he was worried about you? No, I honestly don't. That's what was going through your mind.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:06:23

At the time it was. I knew that he had some problems and they didn't know what was wrong with him. I knew that it wasn't you know, ultimately my situation that caused it at all. I may, I might, have helped it along, I don't know. But yeah, so that was on my plate.

Capn Tinsley: 1:06:42

Did you know about it that night?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:06:45

I didn't know it. It was the next morning when I morning, when I was going through all this crap, that hit me and I was like holy crap, I mean, how much more can you put on my plate? How did you know his wife text me, my Garmin in reach still get messages from? And so I was like this is another point. This was the lowest point of my whole life. That morning on the floor and I'm like going. You know, dying would be easier than what I'm going through right now.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:07:25

I don't know if anybody's been that hopeless but, I had no steering I had, you know, I'm 700 miles an hour, completely uncomfortable.

Capn Tinsley: 1:07:35

You're uncomfortable.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:07:36

There's just no way to relax in those kind of waves I'm like holy shit. But you know, I know I would never take my own life. So you know I had to endure it. There was nothing else I could do, would never take my own life. So I, you know I had to endure it. There was nothing else I could do. And then so I was just I.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:07:53

Finally I started um, I, I tied the, um the rudder off with ropes down below and um, so I could, I could get it to hold, um, I could hold, now hold a course. I couldn't hold a course in the direction I needed to go, but I could hold a course 90 degrees off of the direction I needed to go.

Capn Tinsley: 1:08:16

I'm trying to picture you tying off the rudder.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:08:20

So you know the rudder quadrant that the cable runs over.

Capn Tinsley: 1:08:26

Yeah, do you have a cable type, Like okay, so underneath my seat is the okay.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:08:38

So there's, there's a they call it a quadrant, and there's a cable that goes one way and there's a cable that goes the other way. If you have a cable steering and those cables go down over rollers and come up to the helm and go to a chain, okay, it turns the steering. So you figured something out. Well, I figured out a way that I could go north or south, but I really need to go west if anything was better than sitting in those 10 to 12s, not going anywhere. So, and I saw from adam adam was ahead of me by 10 days and he kept posting how he had no wind but the wind chart were saying he had the same wind I had, but he was in the doldrums.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:09:14

So I'm like my wind chart, my wind app, is not telling me correctly. So if I go north I think I can get less wind. So I would. I sailed for about three days and everybody's going mark, there's nothing to the north. There's nothing to the north. I'm like I don't care, I gotta get out of these big waves and wind. So I finally got to where it calmed down a little bit. You know it was still blowing, but it wasn't, you know, 10 to 12 and 25 to 30 knots of wind, and so it calmed way down. At that point I was able to work on the boat better. I'd had a few days of rest and recuperation.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:09:53

How was your hand? My hand seemed to be fine. I had spraying it with antibiotics constantly. The strange thing is this doctor was on my boat on a charter and she says you need to get Manuka honey on your boat. I'm like, okay, she goes, that is the best thing ever and I had it on the boat because I bought it like five years ago, never used it and then, um, I'd spray it and keep it covered all the time, but it wasn't really healing. That being covered just kept it all gooey. And so then, finally, I put the manuka honey on there and quit covering it and it's gab over. I mean, I had an inch of gap with no skin and I'm like is it going to grow, this skin? What's going to go on here?

Capn Tinsley: 1:10:38

but that's what you see right now. Hold it up and suck. There's, there's not.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:10:43

You can't see much of it right now, you know, but for, but for not getting stitches. It doesn't look that bad. I don't know if you can even really see it.

Capn Tinsley: 1:10:55

I see it. Yeah, I see it.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:10:57

All this right here was exposed.

Capn Tinsley: 1:11:01

Yeah, I can see it. It's a strip, a little strip, wow.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:11:07

So anyway, this is real stuff.

Capn Tinsley: 1:11:11

So what can we tell people?

Capn Tinsley: 1:11:13

Lesson learned, you got to make sure you have your all your stuff in your in your first aid kit. First aid kit. You know you can't have enough backup stuff on your boat. If I would have just had one cable I could have easily have fixed that. I ended up having to rig something. I ended up getting my steering back. When I got the calmer water I took the four-inch grinder and cut the old cable off. I had to take that section out. It was all wadded up from being off the steering. But now my cable's this much too short, so I ended up using a turnbuckle underneath the steering to extend that cable and I constantly threw out a trip and I did that like every hour. I went down to make sure it was still tight, cause I had 700 miles still to sail to hand steer. And so I finally got that fixed and I started sailing. I'd wake up as soon as the sun came up and I would steer towards my destination. But you know you can't steer 24-7. You got to sleep, sleep, you know.

Capn Tinsley: 1:12:26

so then at nighttime I'd lash the helm down and I could do about, instead of doing 90 like I was doing when I had the helm tied off by the quadrant, I could now do about 70 degrees off of the direction I needed to go. So I would make about 10 miles throughout a whole night in the direction that I needed to go. But I was, the boat was at peace, you know, it wasn't being thrashed around and if anybody ever tells me to heave to, don't you know about heave to and I'm going to punch him right in the mouth. Oh, I've served cocktails and and canary boards and heaving to, and I'm like like I'll just, I'll just slap them right across the face because, tell me and I had one guy tell me, oh, I've been in 10 to 12 and he how many times have you done that? Oh, I've done that all the time.

Capn Tinsley: 1:13:28

Well, you're an idiot who wants to be in 10 to 12.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:13:31

All the time. Well, you're an idiot who wants to be 10 to 12, and he's on purpose.

Capn Tinsley: 1:13:33

Yeah, we're talking about that the keyboard warriors right right yeah sorry for you sailors, that you know.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:13:37

I'm not saying you can't heat toe, and I'm not saying you don't, I'm just saying I'll just slap you anyway. So I I could sail for throughout the night, and every night I got in a routine. I was so fatigued and wore out and I just needed to relax. I'd make myself a rum drink, and that's when I realized that sailors drink rum. Because once I got everything lashed down and I was going off in the wrong direction, I could make me a drink and I could fall asleep. And I could sleep, you know, and get my rest. And then, when the sun came back up, I grabbed the helm and I sailed 700 miles, making about 80 miles a day, and then make another 80 miles, 60 to 80, whatever it was. I think I did it in 10 days.

Capn Tinsley: 1:14:29

I did the last 700 miles and that was the first one that was recently yeah, that was um july last year okay, so where did you end up after the seven? I?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:14:45

ended up in um, in Nuka Hiva, in the Marquesas. And another thing that I'm just going to reach out and slap anybody if they send me the Crosby Stills, nash and Young song about. You know I brought Beam Reach to Papari. You know Southern Cross song. I used to love that song. Now I say, yeah, they wrote that song before they got to the South Pacific, because the South Pacific is a beast. That's why there's so many boats for sale in Tahiti. These people go sail around the world and buy their boat in California and they cross the South Pacific and as soon as they get to land they jump ship and leave it behind.

Capn Tinsley: 1:15:31

So tell me, why is it such a beast?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:15:34

Well, there's a I don't know what they call them, I think there's a name for them. So for at least 14 days straight, at least minimum 14 days straight this is even before the catastrophe happened You've got 20, the trade winds On a beam reach they sing about you know, you've got 25 to 30 knots of wind, beam reach, 10 to 12-foot seas. For two weeks I had to put sheets up my cockpit because wind will wear you out. I mean, just the constant blowing on you will tire you out and and it was that for two weeks. Once I got my sheets up, I could relax and I could tell my my energy started filling up and I was in better shape because the wind was killing me.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:16:30

But it's not. You have to be reefed. You can't. You know, your sails might be perfect for 25 knots wind, but six times an hour it's going to jump up to 35 knots. Oh my God, just out of nowhere. I mean you know what it's like when a storm comes and you see the storm coming and you prepare for it, but you don't see a storm coming. Wow, these winds just come out of nowhere and you're just being slammed with 10 knots of wind. So I was reefed, you know, for 14 days for higher winds, and it was sure enough six times an hour and they only last for about four or five minutes six times an hour and I don't even know people even talk about that, but it was I haven't heard

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:17:18

it. It was brutal and I I tried to because I thought somebody said something about and they called it something, but I haven't yet to figure out what the name of that is. But I mean, until the catastrophe happened it was still a amazing experience. I mean, I being a seasoned sailor, it was the feather in my cap. You know that. I'm glad I solo crossed the south pacific because you know there is no rewards for sailors, there's no. That of boys, there's no. You know you do good and we rate you here. You know it's just, you're just another.

Capn Tinsley: 1:17:57

Well, you get followers.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:18:00

Yeah, get followers because you almost die. I don't know if that's.

Capn Tinsley: 1:18:11

Well, speaking of, let's give you a little plug here. So, um, your pampero, say it, pampero, pampero. Uh, there's a way to support mark on his uh, sailing adventures if you go there. I think it's. What is it like? A gofundme, or well it's my, my is it like a GoFundMe or something.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:18:29

Well, it's my router, Tom. He was the one that came up with that website and we were selling T-shirts and doing all that to raise money. And, to tell you the truth, I don't really push it that much anymore because I have friends that help me with that. I've got a guy and a woman that have a garage full of T-shirts that have to go to the mailbox and ship these stuff and you know, and I'm so thankful that they do this for me, but that's a lot on their plate and I just I've got.

Capn Tinsley: 1:19:00

You don't do like a Spotify or something. What's that you do like a Spotify? They do it for you.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:19:08

I know that's one of my next moves and I'm not trying to tell people don't send me money, but I don't really feel I'm in the right place for that right now. I need to get my website set up so it does go to a company that is in business for shipping single items, and that's the next thing on my plate once I get to the Philippines to get that set up.

Capn Tinsley: 1:19:32

Right, okay, yeah, well, I'm okay with plugging you. You don't have to plug you, I'll plug you. So there it is.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:19:41

If you want to go to your website and order a book through you, that would be very beneficial.

Capn Tinsley: 1:19:47

Yeah, go into the description of YouTube, or I don't think it's an Instagram, but it's in Facebook and you can order his book off the grid. So what's the story with your Facebook being Cody Jaxx?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:20:05

Well, in my prior life, before I got back into sailing, I had a bar restaurant.

Capn Tinsley: 1:20:13

Okay.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:20:14

My son. His name is Cody Jack Reinhart, and so I named the restaurant after him. It was a seafood oyster bar, looked like something built straight out of the Keys, and I did that for about five years.

Capn Tinsley: 1:20:30

Okay, that explains it.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:20:34

My Facebook page used to be just got another fly. You're not cleaning up, you're just doing a little cleaning while we're on the podcast I'll just do some cleaning, and anybody that knows me knows I'm lying about that.

Capn Tinsley: 1:20:56

Okay, so you went to the Marquesas first and I'm going to pull it up, and where did you stay in the Marquesas? I just interviewed somebody that was there.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:21:11

Oh it's to, was Hiva Ora and that's where a lot of people go and check into customs. But the anchorage was so still violent. I mean, I was anchored and the boat was rolling and pitching. I was so discombobulated I just left, I couldn't even stay there. And I found another island, just you know, like 30 miles away, and I pulled in this super secluded, pristine little anchorage. I think there was one other boat there which island was that.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:21:46

I don't remember the name of it. It's right next to Hiva Ora and it's got like three bays you can anchor in. It was beautiful.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:21:55

And I just laid there for like five days and had a deep program, but I seriously had some PTSD and I didn't even realize it at the time, some ptsd and I didn't even realize at the time, you know. But uh, after the four or five days of recovery, I, I decided to sail to uh hivo aura or nuka hiva, and um, it was only like 70 miles away and I was scared to freaking death. I, I was just like, wow, I knew I could do it in a day. You know, I still I didn't have any autopilot and I knew I could do it in a day. And um, but I, I found an Island halfway there so I wouldn't even have to make the whole run of 70 miles, I could just go 35 miles and drop anchor. And I did that. And then I did the last 35 miles.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:22:53

But I was, I was, I was messed up. I just didn't even realize it. But uh, yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't even do a simple little little passage like that. And so when I got to uh, the thing that really kind of I remember is when I got to uh thing that really kind of I remember is when I got to Nuka Hiva there's a guy there that does it all for you. When you come and check in, you just meet with him and he does all your paperwork, and then he takes you to the A handler, kind of like a handler.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:23:33

Yeah, yeah, exactly, kind of like a handler, yeah, yeah, exactly. So he, he says, well, you can do this yourself.

Speaker 2: 1:23:36

I said no, I don't want you to do anything.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:23:36

I don't care what it costs. I just I can't even think. You know, I was like blah and uh, he got me all checked in and all this, and then I went back out the boat and then I I ran into him again. Um, a little while later that looks like Nuka Hiva. I was in that bay, right right where your cursor is right. There is where I was.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:23:55

Yeah, yeah and it was it nice and calm yeah, it was still a little rolly, but not bad at all. So I think I think that's the bay.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:24:08

Pretty sure it is, yeah yeah, there's all kinds of restaurants here and everything yeah, when when he, when I was talking to him on the phone, he says if you look to the east, you just look for the so-and-so dog, and he was getting all frustrated with me and I'm like you don't even know where I am. How do you know? If I look to the east, I'm gonna see you and it took me forever to find him.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:24:33

I finally found him and and uh, but then after about a week I ran into him again and I said uh, he goes man. He says you seem to be doing a lot better. I said was, was I acting a little weird? He goes dude, I could tell you were messed up. He says but let's face it, you just sailed 4,000 miles. There was a little more of that story.

Capn Tinsley: 1:25:04

You got someone on here. I'm going to bring him out. Let's see who this is. So you got someone on here. I'm going to bring them out, let's see who this is.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:25:12

That's the Bud man Everybody hold on.

Capn Tinsley: 1:25:18

Jeff Bud, you're on line, you're live on the.

Speaker 5: 1:25:22

Salty Podcast. Mark Reinhart, man, I cannot. This is awesome. I don't know how you figured it out. Hell, I don't know how I figured it out. I'm glad I'm here, though.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:25:32

This is great. Tell them about your experience. Jeff flew into Nuka Hiva and sailed a Tahiti with me.

Capn Tinsley: 1:25:39

Oh.

Speaker 5: 1:25:42

He doesn't want to tell that story. I'm just glad I didn't get. When you sent me down there with the, I had to come back up for the knife because that rope was wrapped around that prop so tight. I was like oh, and we had just left the, the place where they were filleting.

Speaker 5: 1:25:57

The fishermen at the docks were like cleaning the fish and throwing the guts in the and these freaking sharks were. They were devoured, they were abnormally large, and then we're like only 200 yards out and he goes hey, jeff, I need you to go down there and pull the rope off the uh prop and I'm like, I'm not a free, free diver. I can hardly hold my breath, you know, for 30 seconds and I'm down, let me throw this in here for real quick a second.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:26:27

You know, whenever a situation like this happens, you know, I know that Jeff's going to come out of that water with his chest poked out, feeling like I'm the man, so I really wanted to give him this experience.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:26:41

I was terrified.

Speaker 5: 1:26:45

My darts were bigger than I was and I figured man at any minute, any minute, they're gonna sneak up behind me and take my leg off, oh I was like panicking.

Speaker 5: 1:26:55

I had to go back. I said I need a knife. So I had to go back up and get a breath of air and say mark man, I can't do it with it by myself. I need a knife and I'm. It gives me the dullest knife in the fucking box. Excuse me, that thing comes undone. And I'm still have my legs and my arms and everything and I'm like it was crazy man. I was like was it your anchor line?

Capn Tinsley: 1:27:19

what was it I remember how that happened.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:27:27

I don't remember you just did that happen. I don't remember, you just knew.

Speaker 5: 1:27:30

You just knew there was a problem and you said I think I got a rope tied around.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:27:36

We might have picked something up when we were motoring because I had a little vibration on the cockpit, but it was the coolest experience.

Speaker 5: 1:27:44

I'm so glad I went. I'm so sorry I was so sick, but it was an experience. I never, ever dreamed in my whole entire life that I would ever go to Tahiti, ever. And when you said, hey man, I'm like hell, yeah, and it was what a wonderful experience, man. It was so awesome. I really thank you for inviting me and I probably would never do it again. No, I'm just kidding you would never do it again.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:28:13

I know you would you was sick in the front v-bird for five days well, where are you right now?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:28:20

people just start seasick you know it was.

Speaker 5: 1:28:23

It was the traveler's diarrhea was one. If that wasn't bad enough, then the pacific ocean is not for wimps, bro. Those freaking waves were but mark's, just calm as a cucumber and I'm like it's horrible. It was horrible I'm sorry I I wish I was more help he goes, why are? You below. That's the worst place to be, and I'm thinking, well, if you think about the physics of it, and there's 1500 pounds of ballast down below and you're up high and it's moving like this and I'm down low where it's hardly moving.

Speaker 5: 1:29:00

I said leave me alone, I can hardly get to the toilet.

Capn Tinsley: 1:29:05

Well, where are?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:29:05

you, where are you?

Speaker 5: 1:29:10

and then, well, where are you? Where are you? I'm right now I'm in Orlando, but that's true, you just never know where I am.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:29:15

I could be in Navarre or Pensacola generally.

Speaker 5: 1:29:17

I'm going to Cedar Key to see a music festival on May 2nd through the 4th. Yes, you can come say Jeff.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:29:24

Jeff is a one of the reasons I threw this adverse situation on. That changed his life. I don't know for the better or the worse, but he helped me with. He was one of the originators of my shirts and he's the one that made the Soul Survivor shirt. He took it on himself.

Speaker 5: 1:29:43

The badass of the.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:29:45

Pacific.

Speaker 5: 1:29:47

Those are nice shirts.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:29:49

Yeah, he was so supportive of me that I wanted to pay him back, and little did I know it wasn't really a payback.

Speaker 5: 1:29:57

No, it was no, seriously it was. I'm grateful for the opportunity. I never dreamed it was so awesome. Thank you very much, man. I never dreamed I would check that off my list.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:30:09

That was cool, it's a pretty cool podcast, huh I don't know how you figured all this out.

Speaker 5: 1:30:15

This is amazing.

Speaker 2: 1:30:15

How long have you been on the podcast.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:30:18

How long have you been on the podcast?

Speaker 5: 1:30:21

Six seconds. I was out with some friends, I'm sorry.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:30:26

Well, you'll have to watch the podcast.

Speaker 5: 1:30:31

I've never been on a podcast before.

Capn Tinsley: 1:30:33

This is your podcast.

Speaker 5: 1:30:36

Say that again.

Capn Tinsley: 1:30:38

He thinks it's your podcast, Mark.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:30:40

Oh, this isn't my podcast, this is her podcast. She invited me.

Speaker 5: 1:30:44

Oh, it's brilliant. Oh, this is a great idea. Yeah, we're going over.

Capn Tinsley: 1:30:48

It's usually an hour, but is a great idea. Yeah, we're going over. It's usually an hour, but I'm just like we're just gonna roll with it my friend said you're not on.

Speaker 5: 1:30:56

I said no, I just got home and she said well, he's still on, susan, she goes, he's still on. I'm like really okay, I got to figure this out and I said help me out, man, I've never done this before and it it was great because I could see you were struggling in the beginning, before captain tinsley came on, but now it's like, dude, I'm down.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:31:18

They would do this more often, bro I used to do a facetime live happy hour back when we were on the same time schedule. But now you know being this time thing, you know, if I have a happy hour I'm bored at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and then I want to reach out to somebody. It's 2 o'clock in the morning back home.

Capn Tinsley: 1:31:39

Yeah, so you have to start drinking early in the morning. I had a beer today for this podcast.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:31:48

That's 11 o'clock. That's pretty early for me.

Speaker 5: 1:31:57

But I admire you, mark, because there's a lot of people that follow you and want to keep in touch. This was a great idea, and the time change is very problematic. I can't even I don't. I don't know how you do it, but I think it's great. This is wonderful and thank you.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:32:06

I don't know how you do it, but I think it's great.

Speaker 5: 1:32:07

This is wonderful, and thank you, captain Tinsley for facilitating this. It's a wonderful thing that we can connect. He's half a world away and this is a lot, think it over.

Capn Tinsley: 1:32:16

Yeah, I saw him posting some salty like posts. I was like I got to meet this guy.

Speaker 5: 1:32:24

He's a trip. She contacted me like a couple weeks ago and yesterday um was such a horrific day on the water.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:32:35

I woke up at one o'clock in the morning and you know the the solomon islands are difficult to find anchorages. I mean, you can have a beach and a half a mile reef in front of it and it drops straight off the 600 or you you know, 165 feet. So finding a place to drop your anchor that's not right next to a reef is difficult. So I found this place. I drop anchor, everything is good. I'm at 50 foot of water and then a storm picks up and swings the back end of my boat right towards the reef and I'm like this is not a good place to be. So 1 o'clock in the morning, I pull anchor.

Capn Tinsley: 1:33:08

Oh my.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:33:09

God, I head over to where I am now. Well, the rain started.

Capn Tinsley: 1:33:14

Tell me where that is. I'm going to pull up a map. Where is it that you are? In Solomon Island?

Speaker 5: 1:33:22

You said the rain was torrential.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:33:25

Do you have an AIS marine tracker?

Capn Tinsley: 1:33:30

I do. How do I pull that up here though?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:33:32

okay, so I just pull up marine tracker and put in um, um, pampero and uh, I used to have my garmin that was always on, but but it freaking broke.

Capn Tinsley: 1:33:49

There's so many boats out there that are coming up. Name Pampero. No, no, let me pull this up. We'll look at it.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:34:02

If you put in search Pampero, you'll find me. I'm across the way from that. Um, head north right from that big island where your purse. Come back a little bit to the, to the east, to the right with your cursor. I'm right in there somewhere, yeah right off this big island?

Capn Tinsley: 1:34:26

yep, okay, let me see, is this? Is that it p-a-m-p-e-r-o? Is there more?

Speaker 5: 1:34:46

than one, yeah that's in greece must be another one this is amazing.

Capn Tinsley: 1:35:00

This is sailing vessel. Well, it says right, I don't know if that's. No, that's in italy. There's a. There's other pampharos. Well, that's not cool. There's only one salty, abandoned, okay.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:35:15

There we go, yep.

Capn Tinsley: 1:35:20

Wow, there we go, you're right there.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:35:24

That's where I left from. It hasn't updated. Oh okay, so let's see where that is on here.

Capn Tinsley: 1:35:28

That's where I left from. It hasn't updated. Oh okay, so let's see where that is on here. That's where I checked in the customs.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:35:35

Yeah, I'm on the southeast end of that island, so I've got what's that right there? Is that a boat?

Speaker 5: 1:35:44

No, somewhere in there.

Capn Tinsley: 1:35:47

You're right in there you're right in there.

Speaker 5: 1:35:51

That looks like a nice little place hell yeah, actually, I'm up above.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:35:57

I'm up above that just a little bit here. Can you see that? Wait, let me uh oh, it's just a little ways north of that.

Capn Tinsley: 1:36:16

Oh, right, there okay yeah okay, let me put this up again we're not worried about time today.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:36:30

Well, right now I've got. So my itinerary is I've got to work my way all the way to the Western one of the Western islands and check out customs here and get my exit papers and then I'm gonna take off and, depending on the wind, I'm hoping to make it all the way to the Philippines. It's 2,000 miles without stopping for fuel again, but the wind is not real favorable. It's like until I get to the top of Papua New Guinea there's very little wind.

Capn Tinsley: 1:37:01

You're going all the way to here 2,000 miles with no wind.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:37:08

My range is 1,500 miles since. I put the new motor and prop on. I've got about 1,500 miles.

Capn Tinsley: 1:37:18

Look at this. I love to do this. Here's the Philippines you came all the way from.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:37:27

I'm almost halfway around the world. Oh my.

Speaker 5: 1:37:30

God.

Capn Tinsley: 1:37:31

From here Panama, oh my God.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:37:39

I think I'm like 7,000 or 8,000 miles from the Panama Canal.

Capn Tinsley: 1:37:44

Just right here. Okay, so this was his first stop, so he went all the way from there. Isn't that incredible?

Speaker 5: 1:37:52

well, he went about a thousand miles out of his way yeah by accident and survived and you're not there yet.

Capn Tinsley: 1:38:01

You're french ponies, you're not. You're not all the way to the big. So then you went all the way up here, and then you're going to go up here, right there.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:38:15

I would go straight towards the Philippines, but I still worry a little bit of my mental state of being that far offshore. So I'm going to leave there and I'm going to go. I'm going to stay about 100 miles off of Papua New Guinea, which is the next biggest island.

Capn Tinsley: 1:38:32

You see, there Can you go around this way.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:38:37

Yeah, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 1:38:39

Okay.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:38:40

And then. But if I went straight from where I am and went a little bit farther north, there's wind, but I'm not Not too keen on that right now?

Capn Tinsley: 1:38:52

No, is there any way to get through here?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:39:00

I could go down through there, but there's even less wind down there. I can still hit islands all the way to the top part of that area there.

Capn Tinsley: 1:39:08

This trench here. That is amazing. How deep is that?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:39:14

I'm not sure. There's a lot of deep water in the Pacific, up to 15,000 feet deep.

Capn Tinsley: 1:39:20

You're going to go all the way up. Are you going to stop anywhere along the way?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:39:24

I don't think so. The only reason I'm going to stop is if I need more fuel.

Capn Tinsley: 1:39:31

Where are you going after that?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:39:34

The Philippines. I'm going to be there at least a year. I'm going to haul the boat out of the water. I've got so many repairs to do to it to make it back 100% ship shape after this long crossing. Some things I want to do I want to put a wind vane on the back of my boat. This is something. All world cruisers can have a wind vane, and I used to think oh, I already got two back.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:39:59

I got a backup. On a backup, I got my cable steering, I got an autopilot, and come to find out the reason autopilot failed was um, it leaked the hydraulic fluid out of the ram and and my router. Tom and two other people told me it was a sealed unit and couldn't have been. Can't you can't add fluid to it? Um, which information was wrong. I'm not blaming tom for that, because I had two other people that reiterated that and so I didn't even try to ask.

Capn Tinsley: 1:40:31

Did you ask chat GPT? What's that? Did you ask chat GPT?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:40:37

No, I didn't. I didn't even know that was around then. Even the manuals said and I searched it myself said you couldn't add fluid to it. Well now, and I added fluid to it. I bought a new ram also, but I added fluid to the old one just to make sure it worked. And I I had vegetable oil on my boat. I could have just taken the nut off, dumped vegetable oil in it, gone on my way and not had that whole thing happen to me.

Speaker 5: 1:41:08

No.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:41:10

But everybody was saying it can't be done. And I didn't even investigate it because you know, I was like everybody says it can't be done, and but I bought a new Ram and before I put the new Ram on, I'm like I'm going to check this thing out and I took this nut off the top of it and hooked a funnel to it and added hydraulic fluid to it and it worked like a champ. I could have done that, but then I wouldn't be sitting here telling you all this great story.

Capn Tinsley: 1:41:41

That's right, and you've got plenty of ammunition for a couple other two or three books.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:41:54

So I actually finished my second book before I crossed the South Pacific and my editor told me that I need to put this story in my book. So I had to.

Capn Tinsley: 1:42:06

It would make a good movie. I had to write this whole thing in my book.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:42:08

It would make a good movie. I had to write this whole thing in the book. It's actually in there.

Capn Tinsley: 1:42:15

You're going to spend about a year in the Philippines getting everything ship-shaped again. If you're like me, you don't plan too far in advance, but you must have some idea of what your route's going to be.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:42:29

I don't even. People always ask me where are you going next? I say I don't plan the next island until I get to the island I'm going to, because you never know, somebody might say, oh, you got to go over there, man.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:42:38

That's the coolest place I've ever been, and whenever you have an itinerary that you think you have to stick to, it doesn't work as well. So the Philippines is a year mainly to. I want a little break from the boat. I've been on the water since 2016. I haven't slept in a bed, except for in case I was visiting or whatever. So I'm going to spend a year in the Philippines working on the boat, just getting everything right and um are you gonna get a? Job. What's up?

Capn Tinsley: 1:43:12

you have to get a job no, no, no job.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:43:22

Hopefully my second book will kick in. My first first book did really well since 2016. It's amazing I still get checks. I'm like it blows me away. It's not retirement money. You know checks, but you know and believe it or not?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:43:39

I get checks from Facebook too. Yeah, I was like are you kidding me? The first time I got a check, I'm like, holy crap, facebook messed up. There's money in my PayPal account. I hope they don't figure it out when they do it wrong. And then it started increasing every month, and I'll tell you exactly how much it was. It wasn't huge, but it got to $250 a month, which doesn't suck for doing something I enjoy doing anyways. Then it dropped back down. Um, I think I have less content to be putting and I'm not pushing as hard as I did. When I first got my first check, it was like 60 something dollars. I'm like I'm gonna work at this and see what I could do, and I pushed it hard for a while and got up to about $250. And then it just never got any higher. So I think I kind of lost interest that it was going to be my retirement fund.

Capn Tinsley: 1:44:34

What was your secret to reaching $250 a month?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:44:40

You know, I have a friend of mine that pushes his Facebook book hard and he tries to get friends and followers. And he called me up and says, mark, what? Tell me your secret. I said I have no idea what I'm doing. I have no idea why it started paying. I didn't. I was shocked when it started paying. I didn't know. They even paid, you know, and I, and then I started they have this thing that you can the professional dashboard that you can start hitting goals on.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:45:08

Yeah, and so I started working on that and um, but I haven't worked on that in a while and that's probably why my money dropped off.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:45:16

But that's that's became too much like a job yeah, yeah, but yeah, I got a little social security money and hopefully my second book will kick in, will help me with my repairs over the next year. And the Philippines is so cheap, you know I could. I can hire people to help me, you know, with the work. I want to redesign the whole bottom uh cabin down below. I want to rip all the benches out. I'm just, you know, I'm going to be one of those guys that takes us all to his boat and people hate me, you know, but I'm, this is my end game boat and I'm going to make one of those guys that takes a sawzall to his boat and people hate me.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:45:50

This is my end game boat and I'm going to make it the way I want it.

Capn Tinsley: 1:45:53

I want a couple of captain's chairs down there. Take one set, tee out on one side and put a couple of captain's chairs with a sliding table for my computer. That's exactly what I'm doing. Make it more comfortable.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:46:06

Yeah, I'm putting two lazy boys in L. I'm putting two lazy boys in Lazy boy type. I'm putting one on the port and starboard side. So if I'm heeled over this way, I can sit in this one. If I'm heeled over the other way, I can sit in that way. I'll have me a coffee table next to each one with all my plug-ins for my phones and everything I you know have a little sliding to.

Capn Tinsley: 1:46:28

It kind of moves over, and you know I want to make it comfortable that's it.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:46:35

These boats are so uncomfortable. Down below they got these bench seats and you're you know, I got to sit all straight up and yeah so that's that's. My goal is to make that comfortable, and I'm going to make a place to hang clothes. I don't even have a place. This shirt was hanging behind a hook on my shower door, you know, and it's the only place I have to hang something. It's just ridiculous.

Capn Tinsley: 1:47:00

Well, it's a pretty big boat. Yeah, you have some storage. You got no place to hang.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:47:07

You don't have any hanging but the thing with the storage on this boat everything is like in hidden, dark cubby holes. You know, you? You pull the back of the, the couch out, and there's these holes that you shove crap in. You can't ever find what's in there. I'm ripping all that out, I'm gonna put the cat wars in and get it all organized, and because you know, if you're not organized on a boat, you know I lost the freaking blender to my magic bullet. I haven't found in two years and it's on here somewhere.

Capn Tinsley: 1:47:41

I know it's not even worth it. I'm just going to buy a new one.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:47:47

I've got all these cans of chickpeas. I was going to make what's that? I can't even think of the name Margaritas.

Capn Tinsley: 1:47:57

Chickpeas.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:48:03

What's that dip? I've lost it. Hummus, hummus, yeah. So I was going to make my own hummus with the chickpeas and all and the bullet, but I got all these chickpeas and no blender. I tried mashing them up with a fork. It doesn't work.

Capn Tinsley: 1:48:17

You got some other fans down here that I'm going to bring out, all right.

Speaker 5: 1:48:22

I love you, Mark, I love you Ben See you, jeff, love you too, brother.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:48:28

What's? Up guys, you guys have hung in there.

Capn Tinsley: 1:48:33

Huh, who do we have on we?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:48:37

have Lisa Ford and Natalie. Lisa Ford, she's always up late. I see her on my Facebook when everybody's asleep. I'm sure Lisa's got some things to say.

Capn Tinsley: 1:48:47

And we have Susan also Susan Ives Ward Yep, lisa's off camera. She's like hiding. Come on, lisa, come on.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:48:55

Lisa, lisa, we got you on camera. Now, how are you doing?

Capn Tinsley: 1:49:01

Y'all tell us why you follow this guy. What's the big deal? Good question oh, you got your mic on Lisa this guy.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:49:08

What's the big deal?

Capn Tinsley: 1:49:10

Good question. Oh, you got to turn your mic on Lisa. You got to turn your mic on.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:49:15

Because I've known Mark since I was a little kid.

Capn Tinsley: 1:49:19

Really yeah, tell us a story about Mark when he was a little kid.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:49:24

That was too long. I don't think there are any stories, are there? No, my brother and mark were best buds back in elementary school and they played gray y football or something like that together. Yeah, we lived. Uh, he lived one street over from me.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:49:47

Yeah, so I've known mark my whole life, but I I hadn't seen him for 40 years, until he started walking the walk so you saw him on Facebook, say this guy, I know this guy, he's sailing around the world. At that time I was well, he was walking the walk at that point, that's right.

Capn Tinsley: 1:50:04

Walking, doing the walk, okay, yeah.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:50:08

So I lived in the Keys. I lived in the Keys and I invited him to camp in my backyard if he needed to.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:50:17

Which I never made it at that time, right I?

Capn Tinsley: 1:50:23

forgot about that. So are a lot of your followers, women.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:50:32

I think so and I don't understand. I think it's because I hate to put a slash towards the guys, but I've reached some enlightenment in my lifetime and I think women are more in tune with their own emotions and thoughts and things of that nature, and I think that is what resonates with some women, I think. Wouldn't you say Lisa? With some women, I think.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:51:05

Wouldn't you say Lisa, and a lot of us went to school with you. I mean, you've got a lot of people from where we grew up that follow you, you know?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:51:17

Yeah, I don't really know why, I don't know.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:51:24

What about you, Natalie Susan Ward? She's a good friend of mine in Florida. She got me hooked on him.

Capn Tinsley: 1:51:32

Oh, okay, she's hiding from the camera. Yeah, I think she is.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:51:36

There she is.

Capn Tinsley: 1:51:38

No, you look great.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:51:40

Come on now, give us your Susan's been so helpful, susan, I used to write a captain's log all the time. I'd write a daily captain's log of what was going on and I'd send it to Susan before I put it out there, because oh, she's on the proofread, okay. Yeah, people got used to me not knowing how to spell and properly use their, their, their, their, our and yours and all those things, and so she kept me pretty straight for a while yeah, I tried.

Capn Tinsley: 1:52:14

I started following him pardon me, he's got a lot of support.

Speaker 2: 1:52:19

Yeah he does what got? Me was. He was a friend of mine from school and I just kept seeing these beautiful images and sunsets of Key West and I lived in Key West when I was young, very young, and my father was on the water all the time down there and it just reminded me of what I grew up in for about five years when we were down there.

Capn Tinsley: 1:52:45

Did you grow up there in the 70s?

Speaker 2: 1:52:47

Actually in the 70s or in the Actually in the 60s I was. We lived there from about 60, probably about 64, 65 to 70. But I was very young, I was like three years old when we moved there. But I do remember going out on the water and you know all the boats. My dad was the commander of the Naval Air Station there or the Naval Air Ordnance Unit or something like that in Key West, so he had to pick up the boats, whatever he wanted to take out for the day, and we always did that. But I just loved his sunsets and stuff and I I I call myself the first person that bought his book off of Amazon, because I sat up until the crack of midnight and push the button, push the button, push the button until it put you know. Let me clear my you know, buy it in my cart. So I always say I'm the first purchaser on Amazon but yeah yeah, yeah, I say I am.

Speaker 2: 1:53:54

I mean, I don't know anybody that's made that claim.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:53:58

I haven't signed that copy yet, have I?

Speaker 2: 1:54:00

no, I still have it here. I was hoping I might be able to hook up with you when you come back in the fall, somewhere between Jacksonville and Key West or whatever. You're coming to Orlando a little bit, right.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:54:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:54:15

Somewhere in that neighborhood with Jeff. I've got to meet Jeff face to face.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:54:22

You've got to be my most loyal follower from back when buying the first book until now and still hanging in there. Yeah, you've got to get him to sign that.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:54:32

I know, I know yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:54:33

I followed him before I got the book and I got the book and I yeah, I yeah. It's been a long time, didn't you?

Capn Tinsley: 1:54:47

Did you work at Disney at that time? Nope.

Speaker 2: 1:54:51

No, no, I've been retired the whole time since I've been dealing with you. I quit work when I was 49 or 50 to stay home with my mother, but Mark's book helped me get through a lot of that too. Just reading his book by her bedside, yeah.

Speaker 5: 1:55:18

That's awesome yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 1:55:21

Mark, you're really helping people.

Speaker 2: 1:55:24

He's awesome he's very inspirational helping people. He's awesome he's very inspirational.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:55:28

When I wrote that book I had no idea the impact it was going to have on people. I just was telling my story. It's been so rewarding. When anybody ever asks me they say they're going to write a book, I say, man, you've got to do it. I said especially if your message resonates with people, because I get emails all the time, because my email address is in the book and I get people you know tell me stories of how much the book meant to them, and it's just it's wonderful.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:56:00

It's so rewarding and so it's more. It's more rewarding. I mean the finances has helped me over the years, but it's just so rewarding hearing people's stories and how grateful they are and reaching out to me. It's awesome.

Capn Tinsley: 1:56:14

So how long are you going to be in the Solomons?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:56:17

Probably not that long. It really depends on the wind. If the wind was blowing I'd leave right now, but it's going to take me at least three or four or five days to get to the checkout point. It's a couple hundred miles and since the wind's not blowing I'm not in a big hurry. I'm waiting on the wind anyway. So I'm going to just take my time to get to customs and checkout and then, after I get checked out customs, I might hang out for another two or three, four days. If the wind doesn't start picking up by then, I'm just going to take off and start motor.

Capn Tinsley: 1:56:51

And if the wind doesn't start picking up by then, I'm just going to take off and start motor and you think you're going to go non-stop to the Philippines?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:56:55

If the wind doesn't blow, I'm going to have to stop and get fuel. There's a pretty good chance, once I pass Papua New Guinea and I'll still have just a little bit of fuel that I can make it the other thousand miles to the Philippines, because the wind is steadily blowing up in that area. But I don't want to risk that. I don't want to be have a thousand miles to go and be low on fuel. So I'm probably going to have to go a hundred miles or so out of the way to to top off my tank.

Capn Tinsley: 1:57:25

So Well, so is there any good places to see? I don't know anything about Papua New Guinea other than what I've seen.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:57:35

Well tell you the truth I have a phobia of Papua New Guinea because up until recent years they were still into cannibalism.

Capn Tinsley: 1:57:47

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 1:57:50

I knew they were pretty primitive there.

Capn Tinsley: 1:57:51

I knew they were, you know.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:57:53

Yeah, not that they still do, and not that they would want to eat an old bull, they probably prefer young calves but I just I don't know. You know, when you're in an anchorage that you've never been in that before, and it happens all through the Solomon and Fiji and everywhere else. You're anchored next to some island with a tribe that lives there. You know a family of you know, first, second, third generation, and they all live in this tribe and they all have they. They don't have, uh, electricity. You know they're not modern and and you know they they paddle around and they're dug out boats, they may have tree trunks and you know the thoughts go through your mind.

Capn Tinsley: 1:58:41

You know you hear the drums of banging wow, yeah, because you're a rich guy to them oh yeah, you know they.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:58:50

They come out to the boat constantly and ask for stuff and they want. They want to sell you coconuts and I've had some great experiences with a lot. I mean, the last island I was at, the youth just swarmed my boat. I had 20 not 25, it's probably 10 to 12 kids and and I'm playing Michael Jackson and they're dancing in their canoes and they're just, they're having a blast.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 1:59:13

Yeah, I've seen some of those videos and then the island. Before that. They all came out in my boat and I let them come on board because the dad was there, and they came back the next day and I fed them all. I cooked two chickens and a bunch of rice and beans and they brought me 12 coconuts. It's such an awesome experience. The dad he's a fisherman to support his family. I had so much fishing gear because when I took off, I provisioned this boat with everything you could possibly imagine. After two years, if I haven't used it, I'm trading it off. I'm like here, man, I'm not trading't used it, I'm like trading it off. I'm like here, man, not trading it, but I'm like here. I opened my tackle box. I said what can you use? You know? And he was just, it was amazing, you know something that the whole, the whole mess he took, cost me $20. You'd think it was life changing to him, you know. So it was just amazing.

Speaker 5: 2:00:07

Well, this him you know, it was just amazing.

Capn Tinsley: 2:00:10

Well, this has probably been my longest podcast. What's up.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:00:16

Can I interject something here? Yeah, sure, yes, I'd like to toast you, Mark and Captain Tinsley. Thank you for doing this. And here's to you. Mark and Captain Tinsley, Thank you for doing this. Here's to you, Mark. We have had so much fun following along with you Everybody that's watching this right now. It's happy hour for us, so we want to toast you, Thank you.

Capn Tinsley: 2:00:41

I appreciate it.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:00:44

I wish I had something to toast you with.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:00:47

You're awesome, Mark. I was trying to catch you before you finished your beer.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:00:51

Yeah, I wish I had I left one in the freezer from a day or two ago and I said you know, what. I'm not going to make a rum drink, but I'll bring this beer up and drink that.

Capn Tinsley: 2:01:04

Well, I'm going to take everybody off the screen now, except for Mark. Okay, guys, that well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take everybody off the screen now, except for mark.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:01:12

So, uh, hey guys, just one more thing before I, before you go. I really appreciate each and every one of you. I mean I, I read, you know I try to answer every comment everybody makes and you know it makes me not feel alone out here when you guys comment and you like and stuff like that. Thank you very much, I appreciate it, you know it.

Capn Tinsley: 2:01:27

We love you. He wasn't supposed to give this link out, so you guys, he gave you the wrong link, so that's how you ended up in here.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:01:39

We don't mind.

Speaker 2: 2:01:44

We'll do it again.

Capn Tinsley: 2:01:46

Please do. I'm going to take you all off now. Bye. Okay, that was cool. Yeah, you got to have all your fans here. So, yeah, this is two hours and 13 minutes. It was probably what 10 minutes of technical glitches, 10 minutes or so but thank you, this has been awesome and I want to catch up with you again. I've done multiple interviews with people as they're going around the world and I definitely want to have you back on. Hopefully I won't have another technical issue there.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:02:20

Yeah, maybe after I've been in the Philippines for like six months, right.

Capn Tinsley: 2:02:25

I want to hear about the trip from there there over to the philippines and hear about um. You know what you end up doing if you get an apartment, or what are you going to do.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:02:34

I'm that's a trip, I think I think I definitely want to get off the boat, you know, because that's part of the reason I'm putting on land and and you can. You can get a air in the Philippines, right on the freaking water, for $600 a month.

Capn Tinsley: 2:02:52

You know. So it's insane. Do you think anybody will come visit you?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:02:56

Oh, I know they will. I know people are already reaching out and want to, you know.

Capn Tinsley: 2:03:01

Oh, what's his name? I just see Jay Budman. What's his name? Yeah, jeff Bud, he's definitely.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:03:08

He's saying he wants to come out there yeah. You know yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 2:03:15

I mean, he's the keeper of the party. So you know.

Speaker 5: 2:03:20

What the hell I mean, I would love to come visit you, man. That would be Philippines, halfway around the world. Are you kidding me? Who would say no to that?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:03:30

if, if you're down I'm down yeah, we've already talked about that.

Capn Tinsley: 2:03:35

Well, it sounds like it's cheap enough to stay there, so why not?

Speaker 5: 2:03:40

okay, yeah, just let me know the date so I can book it.

Capn Tinsley: 2:03:43

Yeah well, he's not living life by the calendar it depends on the winds.

Speaker 5: 2:03:50

You know what? That's my question I wanted to ask earlier. It's like if you're looking at burning fuel because the wind is down. I just don't understand the rush. What is the rush? Why can't you just wait for the winds and go do what you like to do sail, sail why do you have to burn fuel?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:04:08

Well, first off, you can't sail if there's no wind, which I like to do. But you know what? And I hate what I'm about to say, because somebody said this to me once and I thought you are so tainted Because he said to me he says you know, after a while it becomes one more pristine, deserted island with palm trees. After, another. And you know, I thought, you are, so I can't believe you even said that. I said how the people you met and helped. Oh no, I have enjoyed all the experiences.

Speaker 5: 2:04:44

And they enjoyed it.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:04:56

And they're never going to forget you about the man from america. Yeah, but I got you know my, my boat is my life and I I want my boat to be ship shaped and there's so much wrong with it right now. You know just um, not not, logistics of like the motor and the props and the sails and the rigging and all that. That's all good and strong, but you know just the awnings that are ripped. This awning's missing from this side because it got all tore up in the winds and when it rains it just pours in the cockpit because the awnings aren't here. And it's all these things that just have turned my lovely lifestyle that I've designed to be comfortable into difficulty.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:05:29

So I really want to get there to get this boat back in the shape I want it in, understood. And once I get to the Philippines, I mean my gosh, once the boat goes back in the water. I've got Thailand, vietnam, indonesia, malaysia. I'm going. These places I didn't even know existed before I started researching them and now they're just a skip away. It's no 4,000 miles to get to them, it's, you know, thailand, from the Philippines, I think, is 750 miles. And you know, once I hit Thailand, I think I'll be exactly halfway around the world. That's the reason I want to go there.

Capn Tinsley: 2:06:17

How do you get over to? If you're up in the Philippines, how do you get to the Indian Ocean?

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:06:28

I think you have to go through the Suez Canal, but I haven't really looked at it that intensely, I'm not sure.

Capn Tinsley: 2:06:37

I'm going to. You've got to get in there first.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:06:39

Let me show you the only reason I want to go all the way around the world is just so I can say I went all the way around the world. I get it. Put that feather, feather my cap, but I'm not so sure I'm, I'm not so sure I'm not going to just spend the next five years up in in the philippines and thailand and malaysia and indonesia and you know so this is what like, you've, like you've got the Philippines, and then to get to the Indian Ocean, you've got to come out somewhere.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:07:13

Oh yeah, I'm not going that far south. That's. My problem is, I've never really I don't really investigate too much farther than I never really investigate too much farther than I never really investigate too much farther than where I'm going next.

Capn Tinsley: 2:07:32

You can just pick it up and take it over land. There's got to be some way to get through here.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:07:41

On the bottom part of Thailand. You can cut through between Thailand and.

Capn Tinsley: 2:07:49

Right through here.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:07:52

Yeah, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 2:07:54

Okay, well, alright.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:07:58

And I've heard that the Indian Ocean is one of the most awesome downwind sails there is.

Capn Tinsley: 2:08:04

But this right here is a little questionable, this area. Yeah, I figure by the time I get there, that'll be all straightened out. I don't think so.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:08:18

You don't think oh it might be Okay.

Capn Tinsley: 2:08:20

I see what you're saying.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:08:22

You don't think Trump will have hotels over there on the Gaza Strait by then?

Capn Tinsley: 2:08:26

Yeah, okay, I see what you're saying. Yeah, there is a change. I that might get cleaned up. I'm with you.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:08:35

I'm with you, all right, so we're gonna catch up with you it's kind of like people said about coven when I started to leave. They're like oh man, you know, all these countries are locked down and blah, blah, blah. I'm like by the time I get there, it's all going to be over with.

Capn Tinsley: 2:08:52

Yeah, it was All right, Jeff, I'm going to pull you off the end, sorry, all right. So, mark, it's been a pleasure. This has been fun. I'm using my phone as a camera because my expensive camera quit and I'll figure that out later, but sorry for the technical difficulties, but it's been a lot of fun.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:09:13

Is there a way to say goodbye to everybody and then you and I chat afterwards?

Capn Tinsley: 2:09:17

Yeah, sure, sure, yeah. So say goodbye to everybody, say goodbye, tell them to please go to Salty Abandon and subscribe.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:09:27

Yeah, definitely subscribe to their channel, because for no other reason you'll get to see me again, that's right.

Capn Tinsley: 2:09:35

And if you look above my head you can see at Salty Abandon and all those places, but this will also be the longest audio podcast that I have. I'm also above your head. You can see that it's also on the audio side of things. Anywhere you get your podcasts Apple, spotify, amazon, iheart, all those places you can also listen to the Salty Podcast. So please subscribe. And one more thing Tonight's sponsor is me. I'm Tinsley Myrick Remax of Orange Beach and I sell Gulffront Condos.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:10:17

And let's see where's my I bet I have followers in Orange Beach.

Capn Tinsley: 2:10:26

I lost it Anyway. I'm Tinsley Myrick, Remax of Orange Beach. I lost it Anyway. Tinsley Meyer, Remax of Orange Beach. There's the email. I've been selling condos, Gulffront condos, down here in Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Perdido Key, Florida, since 2003. So I know what I'm doing. I'm good at it. Thanks for the buzz.

Capn Mark J. Reinhardt: 2:10:46

All right, thanks for hanging button. All right, all right guys, thanks for hanging out.

Capn Tinsley: 2:10:50

Yeah, it's two hours and 22 minutes. It's definitely the longest podcast to have. It is a lot of fun. I'm glad you accidentally gave out the link and I'm going to end it now. And the way I end them all is Salty Abandon out.