Met on SAILOR DATING SITE to Cruising Full-Time | Salty Podcast #91

In Salty Podcast #91, I sit down with Bill and Katherine of Mi Salida Sailing in Black Point Settlement, Exumas, Bahamas. They share how they met on a dating site for sailors, bought an Island Packet 465, and made the leap into full-time cruising. 

We talk about their origin story, why they chose this boat, what it’s really like cruising full-time as a couple, and the balance between caution, experience, and learning as you go. Katherine brings decades of sailing experience, Bill brings the dream and determination, and together they’ve built a life afloat with their dog Gracie. 

This episode also gets into the real side of cruising life — expensive repairs, boatyard time, breakdowns, heat, stress, and those moments where you wonder why you’re doing it — along with the freedom, beauty, community, and unforgettable memories that make it all worth it. 

If you’ve ever thought about living aboard, retiring to sail, or chasing a dream later in life, this one is for you.

Transcript

Welcome And Boat Overview

Tinsley 0:00

This is Captain Tinsley, The Salty Abandon and the Salty Podcast, episode 91.

Bill 0:07

We are Bill and Catherine and Gracie, and this is our Island Packet 465, Mi Salida, which is a Spanish phrase that means my exit. We are in Black Point Settlement, Exuma Case, Bahamas, hiding from the wind.

Tinsley 0:24

Yes. Along with me. Okay.

Bill 0:26

And hundreds of our closest friends within the you know 10-mile radius of here. Yes, sir.

Tinsley 0:30

Yes. So we got some good shots that will show us coming to the boat. Tell me about the boat.

Bill 0:36

So the 465 is the center cockpit model. This is production number two. It was the first one in North America. Production one went to Europe. And this particular boat was purchased new by a couple named Mark and Janet, and they sailed it all around our all around the world with the ARC group. In 22 months, they did 30,000 nautical miles. And uh then they sold it to another guy that we bought it from, and we closed on it just over a year ago today. It's got two cabins, two heads, really good-sized galley. We really enjoy the space that's in the in the cockpit. There's seven foot four inches of head clearance in here. So it's very spacious and feels like home for full-time cruisers.

Tinsley 1:21

What's the origin story of you two on this boat?

Bill 1:25

Well, so I've been an Island Packet fan for like 20 years and always dreamed of getting one. And why? Well, I I knew that I was going to be new to sailing. This is my fifth boat, but my first sail vessel. Most people my age do it the other way around, right? Right. But I I I knew I wanted to sail. And Island Packets had the reputation of a great built boat, sturdy and stable and very comfortable and mostly safe. And that was most important to me. And and really the sailability and the speed is sometimes a pleasant surprise for us.

Tinsley 1:58

And why do you say that?

Bill 2:00

Because you know, people talk about the you know the island packet, the island piglet, and it's going to be slow and you're not going to go anywhere. Oh, yeah. That's yeah. But but listen, I mean, we what what what what what was our contest that night? You hit like eight and a half knots, right? And not and we're not talking about surfing down waves. We're talking about, you know, cruising on a on a close reach.

Tinsley 2:19

And is it because she knows how to trim those sails?

Bill 2:22

She does. She she's the sailor in the family.

Why Island Packet Feels Safe

Tinsley 2:24

I've been asleep and and I came up and he said, I got it up to 7.8. I said, Really? And he's I said, That's really great. And so then I He saw some room for improving. I was taking pictures and while you were asleep and I said, I did. And what did you do? What change did you make? I made did some trimming. That's all, you know. And where did you learn that? Let's talk about your origin story. Every everywhere. I started sailing about 35, 40 Well, I sailed when I was a little girl on sunfishes up in Maine. Did your parents do that? No. As an adult I started sailing about thirty-five years ago, forty years ago, and I was dating a guy then that we did we charted a lot of boats. We charted a lot of boats. We did St. Lucia to Grimada several, several times. Many times. And then I had friends that lived on their sailboat that I used to visit all the time at St. Thomas and the DR and all around there. And then I live in Newburn, North Carolina, which is near the saline capital of the world, Oriental. Some people might disagree. Yeah, that's from the case. And you know, so you you I always owned a sailboat in Newburn. I used to sail recreationally, and I used to race as well. Where where'd you race? On the Noose River. And what kind of boats were you racing? Oh, just like you know, regular Yeah, was it like real high tech? It was you know, like Catalina's and like a twenty-two No no no. We used to do like thirty-eight, forty eight.

Bill 3:56

Whatever anybody owned, they would race.

Tinsley 3:57

Whatever anybody owned, they would race. You know, there's yacht clubs, which are that term's used pretty loosely. And um the it's a true yacht club. It's not like an Annapolis rock club. It's right, it's a newborn yacht club.

Bill 4:12

I I took some ASA classes to try to get the basics to learn, and my instructor told me, Do you know do you know how to identify when it's time for a sailing race? And I said no. He said, Whenever there's two boats that can see each other, there's a race.

Tinsley 4:25

Yeah. But I get a lot of experience doing that. Because I think I've heard that you get really good at trimming sails. Well, I you know, you watch, you know, you watch and you learn and and I was often the only woman on the boat which was helpful. And why was it helpful? Well, 'cause I was given a job. You know, I was given a job, and then I would do that job. And and I didn't move around a whole lot, but I do one or two things at a time, and so you learn that. You know, and then And would they move you you guys around on the team? Yeah. So you learn different jobs. Right, exactly. It's a great learning tool. Yeah, it was. So when I met Bill, I hadn't been sailing actually in a couple of years. So where you guys met? We met on a website. So let me just back up a little bit. So here I am, I'm s I'm single and I'm getting ready to retire, and I'm thinking to myself, I wanna go sailing. And I was like, There's websites for every single thing else in the world. Right? Like whatever color you are, whatever religion you are, occupation. Yeah, right, exactly. So I was like, There's gotta be one for sailors. So I Googled dating websites for sailors, and it came up instantly. And I was like, Oh, that's pretty cool. So I got on it. It cost sixty-five dollars for a lifetime dealership. I mean, you're not a bad investment, right?

Bill 5:57

You're gonna get a couple of shots for the books, right?

Catherine’s Sailing Background

Tinsley 6:00

Exactly. You can keep going until you get it right. So I got on it and about two weeks went by and this guy pi pops up and he has this big long narrative about how he wants to retire and go sailing, and he wants to do this, and he wants to do that, and that he's such a big fisherman. And he and he listed like like 15 fish that he usually catching on his violent Yeah. Were you trying to attract a man?

Bill 6:31

No. But I needed I needed it to be clear what we were going to be doing in for for fun.

Tinsley 6:40

And interacted. And and so and I like the way he wrote because I'm I'm a big I I really like, you know, the English word to be written correctly. Okay. And so I wrote him pretty much one simple sentence, and it said, You seem like a very nice man, but I don't eat fish.

Bill 7:05

That was that was the introductory line. So I wrote back and I said, Well my well, my best fishing buddy from Florida didn't eat fish, but we loved fishing together. And she said, Well, I like two fish. I just won't eat the fish. And I said, Well, perfect. Perhaps you could order something else if you know this were to work out.

Tinsley 7:22

Oh wait. So then we talked for a few months, and then we decided that it was time to meet. But he was in Arizona and I was in North Carolina. But he wanted to go look at a boat. So I'll let you take it in Florida.

A Dating Site Leads To Tampa

Bill 7:39

Yeah. So we went to look at a 465. You know, I I had I I had gotten assistance from the Island Packet Resale Division, and they agreed to represent me as a buyer's broker. And one of the first things that the gentleman asked me is, What kind of a sailor do you envision yourself being? And I said, I'm really more of a fisherman than a sailor. And he said, Well, then you need a center cockpit. And I had never even heard of a center cockpit, right? I was just looking at sloops and I was really enamored with the Island Packet SP cruiser for many years. I really thought that's the one that I wanted. But anyway, we we she and I talked on online and I had showed her the SP cruiser that I wanted that was on the market. And she said, That's a really, really nice boat, but there's no salon. And I said, What? And she walked me through the photos, and it was true. There was, I mean, there was a pilot house, but then when you go downstairs, it was a galley and two staterooms, and that was it. There really was nowhere to just live like this. And that really opened my eyes. And I said, She's got a good eye for boats. And so we agreed to meet in Tampa and we went to see a 465 there. It wasn't this one, it was a different one. We ended up not liking that one enough to make an offer. But it just for the condition that it was in and what they were asking, I was a little bit taken aback, like, wow. It just, you know, cosmetics were were way off. And I thought, if you're you're gonna sell a boat for that much money, you shouldn't be able to just come up and wipe chalk off onto your fingertips, right? At first glance. And then the extra features on it, we the the dinghy wasn't really near as nice as the one we we bought, we got with this one, and just a lot of little things. But immediately upon getting there, and there's a there's a good story she could tell upon us getting there, it's actually really related. Scott from Island Packet said another one has come available. Oh, okay. Yeah, so Scott Barone, who is heads up the Island Packet Resale Division, and they'll they don't sell all used island packets, but if it's uh if it's a really nice one in in really, especially they do a lot of the the second generation ones now that are coming to market, right? So since 2019, I believe it was they revamped the the with the the 349 and then later the 439, and some of those are coming to resale now too. So but we went with this one. This one is uh 2008, but in very good shape. And so we tr Scott said that a different island packet has come to market in in Charleston. And so we agreed on Valentine's weekend, which was when we met in person on Valentine's. So we we all drove to Charleston to come see this boat.

Tinsley 10:08

Oh, right then.

Bill 10:09

Yeah, and and and yeah, so we saw the other one on f on on Valentine's Day, and two days later I put the offer in on this one, and the offer was accepted the same day. And so we ended up buying it out of Charleston, John's Island, which was a really great little place to keep a boat. And so then we spent the next nine months. She sh, you know, I asked her if she wanted to come cruising with me, and she said, Well, I I plan on retiring, but not till year end. So if you want to wait around and get to know me a little better and make sure that's what you want to do, smart. So we did that, and she kept working. And I sold my house in Phoenix, and Gracie and I moved aboard the boat there in Johns Island, South Carolina. And you were willing to wait. Yeah. So I got to know the boat a little bit. I didn't get to sail it as much as I would have wanted to in those preparatory days because there were so many upgrades that I wanted to do on the boat. And then we split time between South Carolina and North Carolina. We took off December of 25, and we left Charleston and headed to the Keys. And then we were in Key Largo for a couple of weeks waiting on some parts, and then came across to Bimini, did the berries, went up to the Avacos, came down, made a brief stop in Eleuthra at Spanish Wells, and now we're here in the Exumas, and we are gonna keep heading south as we make Misalida or nosotros Salidas our exit.

Tinsley 11:24

To the Caribbean.

Bill 11:25

We're gonna head to the Caribbean.

Tinsley 11:27

Okay. And how long do you see this going on?

Bill 11:30

We'll see. She she she has a very good piece of advice for me that rings in my ears every time we're out there and stealing rust.

Tinsley 11:39

We'll clip this. I'd like to know this.

Bill 11:43

Oh, I think you'll remember. Because when I met her, I told her that I wanted to sail around the world, right? This boat had already been around the world. I'm a big fan of Barry Perrens, who has Adventures of an Old Sea Dog Who Soloed Around the World. See never one of his YouTube episodes.

Tinsley 11:57

When was that?

Bill 11:58

He did it, he just completed it earlier this year. In fact, in real time he's done, but on YouTube, he's still got a few episodes of conclusion. But I was a big fan of the solo sailors because that's what I thought I was going to have to be. And so when we met, I was talking about, you know, we're going to go around the world and here's what we're going to do, and we could do it in 10 years. And she said, You don't know what you don't know. Let's see what happens. Okay. We'll try it. And every time we're out in the eight foot seas, I remember her saying, You don't know what you don't know. And then we have to, you know, calm Bill down again and remember that let's take a little bit of time. We're going to get to the Caribbean, right? We'll get to Grenada and we'll reassess. That has always been part of the and a number of sailors that I've followed online have have made reference. And I think that Mark and Janet, who who sailed this boat, may have said that in their blog turned into a book. And what they say is that the hardest thing about this full-time cruising life is pulling up the anchor and leaving a place that you absolutely love and know that it's going to be tough going to the next place, but then you find another one that you like even better. And then so on. And so that's what drives me, you know.

Tinsley 13:06

So what did you see that it needed to do, but it was fun to do?

Bill 13:10

So the battery bank used to be underneath one of the settees, and we were inches away from being able to use that space for switching eight for eight. And so um this was basically a broom closet. And so we changed this out and made this the battery bank. So it goes all the way down in there, and each one is on switches and all the proper bells and whistles that you need. I had a really good consultant helped design it. And then look at this. This is where we ended up putting the twin inverters. This was storage cabinet for charts, but it was really thin. Look how narrow it is. It's really narrow. It only went to like right there. So we had this modified, and we these are 3,000 each. So we we don't want for power. Power is like great.

Tinsley 13:55

Tell me about the nav station.

Bill 13:57

Oh, I love it because it was one of my favorite features on the boat. You don't find these old school nav stations like this where you can sit here and do your charting and you know, have your coffee. What upgrades did you do?

Tinsley 14:08

Oh, what did it have? And what did you want it to have?

Bill 14:14

Yeah, so so give them the different yeah, we complain about the money I'd go.

Tinsley 14:19

You know, you didn't really have to put blue lights underneath the hall for at night. That's not like a it's very cool, but it's very cool.

Bill 14:30

Especially when, you know, you paid for one color and then you got two colors, and then you have a third phase that goes between the two colors like a disco light, which is amazing, right?

Tinsley 14:39

No, I could never use it.

Bill 14:41

So it's blue and white, but no, that's just a novelty. But so we we we were having problems with two of the three air conditioners that first summer and spent a lot of money to to keep them running and just decided, you know what, after 18 years, let's just replace all three of them and we'll be do it one time. And at least for the 10 years that we plan on doing this, we should have good air conditioning when we want it. And that was a that was a good move.

Tinsley 15:06

What did that cost?

Bill 15:07

So with let's see, it was like almost 20 grand with labor. Labor in Charleston is astronomically high and so much higher. 185 an hour for general marine labor that we found there from some vendors. My air conditioning tech was much more reasonable than that, something that you would expect it to be. But we compared it to general marine labor, like up in what's that town?

Tinsley 15:31

Morehead. Morehead and new, you know, Wofer Mo Moorhead.

Bill 15:35

Made some calls up there and it was 85 an hour up there.

Tinsley 15:38

Yeah, which we tried to make it up there, but we had a little problem that prevented us from making it up there, the shaft upper.

Bill 15:46

I went to the to the yard to get evaluated to to get some estimates on work I wanted to have done, right? And on the way there to get the estimates, the shaft broke loose from the transmission coupling. The shaft stayed with us, but it turned out that three of the four motor mounts had broken loose. So we we had to get new motor mounts, we had to get a new shaft.

Tinsley 16:06

That happened 4th of July in Charleston Harbor.

Buying Mi Salida And Heading Out

Bill 16:09

That was the overheating thing.

Tinsley 16:10

Yeah, but we were also taking water on because the shaft wasn't No, that was just the shaft seal.

Bill 16:16

That was a maintenance thing that had to be done. Yeah. The reason we were taking on water is because the shaft seal had the normal leak that needed to be serviced, but the the bilge pump had been turned off and I didn't know it. The automatic switch had been bumped. And I still have yet to find a safety cover that is deep enough to cover that.

Tinsley 16:32

You're right, you're right.

Bill 16:32

Yeah.

Tinsley 16:33

I yeah, that was kind of fun though. Fourth of July we were in Charleston Harbor, and the engine kept overheating, kept overheating, kept overheating. So of course you had to turn it off and throw the anchor out. And then we like could hear something happening, and we realized that we were taking water. Like a water sound?

Bill 16:49

Well, I looked in the engine room to see what I could see, and there was like two feet of water inside the engine room. And and immediately I came over to the build pump switch and I see it's off. As soon as we switched it on within just a couple of minutes, the water was gone.

Tinsley 17:03

So we called Cito to come, you know, bring it up.

Bill 17:06

Because I I had a subscription.

Tinsley 17:08

Charleston Marina. They said no, we can't come get you because there's a name storm out in the the Atlantic.

Bill 17:16

Tropical storm Chantal and Charleston Harbor was under watch. Not warning, but watch. But they said that their insurance carrier would not allow them to launch. No, no.

Tinsley 17:26

So so then we called Charleston Marina and we said, if we can make it to you, if we can sail like and try to make it to the city marina without going under bridges, not where we were moored. Yeah, can you if we can make it to you, will you take this? They said, No, not if you're taking on water.

Bill 17:42

Have called in. They said, You my advice is call your insurance company and the Coast Guard.

Tinsley 17:49

So I said to her, I said the Coast Guard's not going to take the boat, they'll come with me.

Bill 17:53

So I said to her, do you want me to get you off the boat? And she said, Absolutely not. And I said, Have you been aboard during a tropical storm? She said, Definitely. I said, You're okay? She said, We're gonna be fine. We've got plenty of anchor chain out. I mean, she just does not rattle. And so what ended up happening was the seacock for the engine intake was open, the handle was open, but the ball valve was stuck. And we didn't know it until another friend of ours, a doc neighbor, who's a licensed captain, suggested that we find a blunt object and stick it down inside there and force the seacock to see if it's really open. And we used a wooden spoon and we popped open that seacock, and that solved our problem eventually. And we were able to go under the bridges and get back to our uh get back to our slip, and that was fine. But that wasn't the day the shaft broke. So the shaf the shaft broke going to get evaluated. So you had asked me about uh upgrades I've made. I won't get under our long repairs, but that was a really, really big bill for 12 weeks in the boatyard.

Tinsley 18:52

But what we did do what were the major items?

Bill 18:56

Well, the broken shaft, right? Um, the motor mounts, three of the four motor mounts were broken from their from their bolts.

Tinsley 19:02

And we don't know if that happened to me one on this trip. In my survey, it said And you was again with just one motor mount? Yeah, the bolt had snapped.

Bill 19:12

In my pre-purchase survey, the surveyor identified motor mounts as something that needed to be done at the first haul out. It didn't say don't use the boat, it didn't say this is eminent danger, it just said, hey, change these out the next haul out, just like it said to change the cutlass bearing at the next haul out and to do a couple other things the next haul out, which were great. So either one of the motor mounts broke and the violent shaking of the shaft broke the other ones, or the shaft broke loose and then sealed the fate of the motor mounts, you know, chicken or the egg. So we were 12 weeks in the boatyard, but while we were there, I had done the aft lifelines. I had those changed out from gate to gate going aft with uh double-tiered stainless steel tubing, inch and a quarter on the top and inch on the bottom. And that was a safety factor. It's super strong. I mean, the fabricator jumped up and down on it to show me how strong the welds were. I mean, he was great. It it was it was a great job.

Tinsley 20:04

And I like she laughs easy. I I'm like that too.

Bill 20:07

You know what? This is what we love about each other the most is we laugh all the time. We have so much fun together, laughing together. It is, it is great.

Tinsley 20:15

So you were you were saying before that she has a funny story of Tampa. It was the day we met. So when he picked me up at the airport.

Bill 20:23

The day we met in person.

Tinsley 20:25

Yeah, in person. So he picked me up at the airport and we drove immediately to the boat yard or to the marina to go see the other four six five. To see the other boat. And you know, he and I are talking and we're kibbitzing back and forth, and as we're looking through the boat and all that kind of stuff. And so Scott says, Scott Baron says, So how long have you guys been together? And I said, About an hour.

Bill 20:51

And he laughed and he's like, No, seriously, how long have you guys how how when did you meet him?

Tinsley 20:56

Like, like in person, like an hour ago.

Bill 20:58

He just picked me up at the air force. And Scott's like, No, really? And we're like, Yeah.

Tinsley 21:04

We've been together for 20 years.

Bill 21:06

And he's like, How does that work? So then we told him the story. So he he he thought that was funny too. But it it's it's one of our favorite stories.

Tinsley 21:13

And here's the question for you. Are you calm because you've been a sailor, or are you a sailor because you're calm in times of maybe a little bit of both, because even when I wasn't a sailor when I was really new to it, I never used to really get rattled very easily. You know, I And so now you have all that experience to draw on. Yeah. To know it's probably gonna be okay.

Bill 21:38

Yeah, most even killed woman I've ever met in my life. Yeah. But still with a personality, right?

Breakdowns And Big Repair Bills

Tinsley 21:43

She's not like, you know, for me to just kind of bump one along. No, and no, I don't think I am no, no.

Bill 21:52

No, we we laugh so much. We have so much fun together. We we like to tease each other a lot, and uh, we're not afraid to tell stories. Oh, okay. So I I was hoping that you had read the the blog chapter I sent you.

Tinsley 22:07

Oh, not yet, not yet.

Bill 22:08

Okay. So one of the funniest things happened to us just a couple of weeks ago. We had left Spanish Wells in the Eleuther chain and we had an 11-hour sale down to Highborn Key. Okay.

Tinsley 22:22

Yeah.

Bill 22:22

At the top of the Exumas, almost the top. And it was it was really the half, the first half was a great sale. I mean, we were doing six and a half, seven knots the whole way on a beam reach. It was great. And then you, and then you have to kind of make kind of a hard left turn to start coming back to the east to come into the Exumas. And so when we made that turn, it got rougher and then our headway got slowed. And still we made it, but we we we were going to arrive after dark. And I hate arriving after dark, right? Especially in a strange harbor. We've done it. We did it on the outside coming down from Charleston to the Keys. We didn't take the intercoastal. We went outside and tucked in, and inevitably it was almost always at night, but it was fine. So we finally get tucked into Highborne and we get we get anchored out. And I come downstairs to turn off the windlass. And I see she has she's a great baker. She bakes homemade breads, she makes banana bread, she makes homemade pizza from scratch. I mean, makes the dough. She makes ice cream on the boat without a churn. She makes it from scratch. It's the best ice cream I've ever tasted.

Tinsley 23:19

Very simple.

Bill 23:20

Yes.

Tinsley 23:20

I made on this morning, actually.

Bill 23:22

Peanut butter chocolate chunk ice cream on the boat while cruising.

Tinsley 23:26

Did you look out or what?

Bill 23:28

In more ways. I can tell. So I get down here at Highborn and I look over and there's this pizza sitting there ready to go in the oven, right? I mean, that it's not nice, nice dough, and it's meat lovers. It's just loaded with toppings, kind of stuff a guy likes, right?

Tinsley 23:41

Yeah.

Bill 23:42

And uh so great, we're gonna have pizza. So we, you know, we're on anchor watch, we're doing our duties up top, getting everything ready. And it's like, I don't know how long, an hour or so later. We're really tired. Right now it's been well over 12 hours since we launched the boat that morning.

Tinsley 23:56

I tried to cook it so that it was gonna be ready when we got done, pull it out of the oven. Because it is like nine o'clock at night.

Bill 24:03

You know, we don't want to eat so so I'm I I think I might have been up top and I hear this this the even keeled calm one exclaim out loud that something has gone very wrong. And I come downstairs. Yeah, and I'm like, what happened? And and what happened was she had taken the pizza out of the oven, put it atop the gimbaled stove, and then went to close the oven. And if you have a gimbal stove and you know that when you don't lock the gimbal, but you go to close the oven, the entire thing tips forward and the pizza went behind the oven on the wall, down. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. And she said, now listen, the only good thing is I just got done cleaning down there. Everything down there is clean and it's lined with spill, spill, what do you call those? The liners, absorbent cloths, right? So she's like, let's check it out. So we go down there and the pizza pie is still in the pan, intact, but all the toppings have slid off, mostly all over the clean pots and pans that are down there. So we just she starts just give me a spotula. She's scooping the toppings off and spreading them back on the pot. And I'm like, that looks so good. I am so hungry right now. It was the funniest thing. We were laughing our butts off about it. It's like I'll cut. And he would cut it.

Tinsley 25:24

It looked terrible, but it was great.

Bill 25:27

We we ate the whole thing, it was excellent, and we were so so satisfied by it. I'm like, okay, well, we got some more cleaning to do tomorrow, but let's go to bed. But uh yeah, luckily, luckily she had cleaned there beforehand. So anyway, that's one of our fun new stories.

Tinsley 25:42

Yeah, if I had not cleaned back there prior, I wouldn't have done that. But yeah, because it was it was pretty nice.

Bill 25:47

The vlog chapter was titled something Spanish Wells to Highland Key, Arrival After Dark, and a tossed pizza.

Tinsley 25:54

Yeah, I make all our own I make our bread and and I have some rice. Wow. Very simple recipe. Aww. I make rosemary bread, and you know what?

Bill 26:07

He says he likes peanut butter on the peanut butter and jelly is the best peanut butter jelly sandwich ever on her homemade bread.

Tinsley 26:14

Interesting.

Bill 26:14

Ridiculous.

Tinsley 26:16

I did drink some of it this morning, so it's still the ice cream. Yes. Go ahead and show the show the bread. Okay, though he likes rosemary. So I make that more than anything. But so I made it this morning, it's rising. And I usually let it sit overnight, because when you let dough sit overnight, the flavors really develop in the in the bottle. Tip of the day. Yeah. I put it in a bag actually and put it in the fridge and let it s rise in the fridge. But the ice cream, so I got this off of the internet. Wasn't so cool. It's one can of sweetened condensed milk. And then I fill the can up two times with heavy cream. Oh, I gotta put in the van I forgot the vanilla. I gotta put you put in a tablespoon of vanilla. And that's it. I added a little extra milk just to try to make it settled a little bit.

Bill 27:06

But you forgot the good stuff that I like.

Tinsley 27:08

Oh yeah. So he likes peanut butter chunk. So I put in crunchy peanut butter. Which I warm up in the microwave first so it's not all globy. And and then once it starts to solidify, I'll add the chunks in because otherwise they float to the bottom. But you know, and then like once or twice a day, I just go in and turn it up and down in the refrigerator. And I'm telling you what, if you had a blindfold on, you would not be able to tell Mrs. Joe ice cream. Oh and what does it get?

Bill 27:37

It's creamy, it's not it's not icy. It's not like ice milk. It's it's it's it's just like ice cream. And it is high quality creamy ice cream.

Tinsley 27:46

Is this your invention?

Bill 27:48

Oh, she found it online. But now everybody can try it.

Tinsley 27:52

That's right. Tip of the day. It's so simple. It's sweet and condensed milk, heavy cream, and vanilla. Oh, you gotta come up with that. Well, yeah, but that you can get that everywhere here. Okay. Yeah. So the other day when we went shopping at Maxwell's in March Harbor, he said, I was trying to get back from the States because I went to visit my grandkids and he's like, How much uh heavy cream do we need? And I said, How much ice cream do you want? Yeah.

Bill 28:21

The funny thing is, is I've done nothing but lose weight since I've moved aboard the boat. Yeah.

Tinsley 28:25

And it's I think it's just What's your secret?

Bill 28:27

It's it's high quality food that she makes. I mean, getting getting away from all the processed stuff that I used to use. I mean, when she came to my, you know, she came to my house in in in Phoenix to help me pack up. I mean, she was kind of appalled at my pantry. But, you know, I mean, I was, you know, a widowed man living alone trying to, you know, get by. And so I I would cook for convenience, not so much for health.

Tinsley 28:50

We get rid of the Marie calendars and the dinty mork.

unknown 28:53

Yeah.

Bill 28:53

People are like, what's wrong with that?

Tinsley 28:56

Sailors, thousands of sailors are wrong. What's wrong with no? That's true.

Bill 29:01

But yeah, it's amazing how much bread weed, like a buddy of mine, he always says, Oh, you gotta get away from bread. You gotta get away from bread. We eat I eat bread, I mean, almost pretty much every morning I will have a slice of her homemade banana bread with my coffee at like five o'clock in the morning.

Tinsley 29:14

Well, you that's the other thing. So he has this thing where you gotta restart. Right. So this is the other thing. I learned uh very early on that when he has his coffee in the morning, he likes to have a little snack. So I learned that he likes banana bread.

Bill 29:28

So we we we we have a loaf for you to take.

Tinsley 29:31

You can take some home. Cause I make I make a bunch ahead of time. And so he so there's always some banana bread in this little pan here. You're a lucky man. And then what he does is when he eats the last piece, like this'll be tomorrow, he leaves so you I leave the lid off.

Bill 29:50

I mean when like Aladdin's magic lamp, I come back the next morning and it's filled with banana bread.

Tinsley 29:56

Well, we're a lucky man. I've been saying that. You guys look like you're having a great time. You have matching necklaces and everything.

Bill 30:05

It looks like our boat.

unknown 30:06

Yeah. Yeah.

Bill 30:07

Because we have the flag blue hull. Right?

Tinsley 30:09

He bought them.

Bill 30:10

Yeah.

Tinsley 30:10

He bought them for us.

Bill 30:12

Anyway, we're having a good time. It's been it's been over a year and it's been been working well, and you know, we have our challenges. It's tough. I mean, it's you know, and we're going to What's tough about it? It's so because of of because of my lack of sailing experience, it's, you know, she has to deal with with you know with with me sometimes getting frustrated when, you know, the one winch that's not self-tailing is a pain don't use, or something else happens. And you know, it's just just growing pains, right? But she's she's so great about it.

Tinsley 30:43

But sorry, it just reminds him that you know, people can tail too. You know, we don't need a self-tailor all the time.

Bill 30:49

I know I look at the old sea dog's boat. He has no tailing winches. Yeah, in the big scheme of the well, we have three power winches, so what do I have to complain about? Not the puppets.

Tinsley 30:58

Yeah, yeah, reality.

Solar Power With Victron And Lithium

Bill 30:59

But but you know, the the the we but we don't run the air conditioner when we're at anchor, right? So it's it's very humid where we're sitting right now, right? So that's tough to deal with. We're gonna go to where the weather's gonna be even harder to deal with, and so there's gonna be challenges, but you know, I mean, if it was easy, everybody would do it.

Tinsley 31:17

What kind of equipment do you have on our like solar batteries? You know, how many amp hours do you know? Oh, the batteries and generator do you yeah?

Bill 31:25

So we we have an eight kilowatt generator with a Yanmar engine on it. So both of our engines are Yanmar 75 on the main engine and then the uh the generator engine. So we have the generators inside the engine room with the main engine, so that's really convenient because it's lots of heat shielding in there to to make it you know not be too hot.

Tinsley 31:42

I'm jealous. Yeah, it's right down there, and it's right there.

Bill 31:45

Yeah, but so the boat the boat had solar for Mark and Janet, but it was 18-year-old technology. So I changed out what was 405 watts for 750 watt bifacial panels in the same footprint on the on the rear arch.

Tinsley 32:00

With more wattage, you small in a smaller place, yeah.

Bill 32:04

Right. And and uh so you know, my I I had a a consultant with the solar install, and he begged me to do more panels. He's like, You don't have enough panels, you need more panels. But everything that we looked at for where to put more panels, I didn't like the look. I didn't like the aesthetics of it. I love the looks of our boat. We did a little 360 around the boat that she can show people what the boat looks like, and and so I didn't want to go nut so on panels. Like I sent him this meme one time that had just it was just panels with a boat underneath it. I'm like, is this what you want me to look like?

Tinsley 32:34

Yeah.

Bill 32:34

But anyway, it it does the job. We supplement it with the generator every couple of days. We'll run the generator for a couple of hours to get back up to 80 or 90 percent. But on bright sunny days, I mean, we'll pull in 750. Sometimes I've seen over 800 on our on our on our panel. So batteries, we have eight 100 amp hour battle-borne batteries. I know they've had some bad press recently from one of the YouTubers. I I've been a big fan of them since I had a fifth-wheel RV that had battle-borne batteries, and they had the industry best warranty. And so you put those on with my consultant's help, yes. I I I we we got rid of AGMs that probably still had three years left on them, but I wanted the Life Po 4 on here. And then we changed out a very questionable 2400-watt Magnum inverter that did not work like an inverter. You could not make coffee without the generator running, that's not an inverter. So we changed that out with twin 3,000 watt Victrons. So you're old school.

Tinsley 33:31

Yes, I am. I we go through a lot of things when we're out and about, and uh Bill Bill's very safety conscious. He wants to follow all the rules. He wants to follow all the rules, he wants everything to be perfect, and I am safety conscious. I try to be smart, but I don't always follow all the rules. And I grew up you know she's a realist. It's like there were no self-tailing winches. No, and there wasn't a lot of things that we rely on today, and that's what you fall back on in the room. Right. It's like one time we were losing a boat hook over the uh in the bow and and uh and I I said, I go up and get that. And it was kind of rough. It wasn't bad. It was rough for him, but it wasn't rough for me. And and I he goes, Oh no, you didn't you shouldn't go out there when it's like that. And I'm like, Yeah. Were you strapped in? Nah.

Bill 34:32

I didn't put a vest on though. She she will put a vest on if I ask her.

Tinsley 34:35

I will, yeah, okay. I which I never have worn a vest. I've never worn anything in the past. But you know, you guys balance each other out. You can remind, oh, these are the rules I just learned. Yeah. And was it ASA class?

Bill 34:49

Yeah, I mean, and and and some of it, you know, I mean, I do a lot of reading, all right? I'm I'm I'm reading. I read a lot and and I see about other people's experiences, and I try to retain that and learn from it, right? But in many ways, I'm like the worrisome wife, and she's like the old salt sailor, you know, fine, don't worry about it. You know. But it works for us, you know.

Tinsley 35:10

Um somebody's playing those roles. Yeah, you know, and it'll be like how we like that one thing.

Bill 35:16

I I will say this, and I've and I've made no no bones about saying this. There was no way I could have done this alone. Like I I thought for a long, long, long time that I would that I if I was to do this, I would have to do it alone. And so I had accepted that I would do that. So I started watching solo sailors and reading about solo sailors and understanding what to do. And then when I met her, I thought, gosh, here is somebody that could really, really, you know, be handy to have on board.

Tinsley 35:48

Handy. And can and before what every girl wants to encourage them.

Bill 35:52

And then I found out she bakes.

Tinsley 35:55

So I'm like double handy.

Bill 35:57

No, but I mean, it just I'll tell you what I say is I say she was heaven sent to me. She she was, because I mean I lost a long-term spouse right before we met. And it had been that's you reached out to me. It had been a three-year, it had been a three-year illness. And so I had been alone for a long time taking care of a patient. And when that journey ended, it it it was a relief, you know, because there had been a lot of pain on both sides of that aisle. And so when I met her, it was just great to have somebody that didn't really know me well that would w be willing to listen.

Tinsley 36:31

And but anyway, it the the should tell her about the the pe when the people were dying. The people were dying story.

Bill 36:40

The what? Oh, about the people in my life? Oh, that's Well but. I know it's just not a good segue to what the heck's a good story.

Tinsley 36:49

It's a good story. It's like he we were talking one night on the on case time. And it was before we met. And he was talking about his friend and uh what a great friend he was, but you know, his friend cast away. And then like the next day he talked about another friend, but but the friend passed away. And there's several undestined based on the city.

Bill 37:10

You know a lot of people who are dead.

Tinsley 37:12

Said, did people die, Rick? Legitimate question. Yeah.

Gracie The Frisbee Champion

Bill 37:18

But should you worry? But but anyway, I knew that like I don't know, several months into ownership of this boat. One, it w it would be way too big a boat to have by myself. And two, there's just you were gonna buy a smaller boat. I was gonna buy a smaller boat. I was looking, I was looking for an for a uh a free four nine that was like a 2019 that somebody was ready to move out of or move up from. Yeah, they're nice. Um, but you know, she said to me, she said, I don't think if it's gonna be the two of us and the dog, that's not gonna be big enough, you know, and she's right. I mean, this is a great size for the two of us and a dog. And whose dog was it? Oh, oh yeah. So so my dog, my dog. And she was never a dog person. She would tell people that she didn't dislike dogs, she just wasn't a dog person, right? Um, you'll like her. She was a cat person. Tinsley's a cat person. But um, dogs too, though.

Tinsley 38:09

Uh they're just easy, especially when you're single and twenty in your twenties. Cats were that's when I started just getting cats.

Bill 38:16

But she has become a Gracie dog person. I mean, she loves Gracie, and Gracie prefers females. I mean, she's close with me, but Gracie loves her mama.

Tinsley 38:24

Well, let me tell you. Most dogs are not well behaved. Most dogs don't do what you tell them to do. Most dogs bark all the time. Mo, you know, most dogs that you've been around. Yeah, that I've been around. People in the comments are gonna be like, sorry, but it it's true. And that's I've never been a dog person, but she's like a person, you know.

Bill 38:47

Well, and that's because why?

Tinsley 38:48

Because the way she's trained. But you know, if she's laying on the couch, what is her breed?

Bill 38:53

She's an Australian shepherd.

Tinsley 38:54

Yeah, don't they have good tempers?

Bill 38:56

They're very smart, um, but you have to train them because if you don't train them, they'll train you.

Tinsley 39:01

Okay.

Bill 39:01

And so they they can um, I mean, they can they can they can run the gambit from you know, totally chill like like she is here to being destructive when they get bored. They need a job, right? So her job for her first five years, we played competitive K9 Frisbee. And um, between my two dogs, I had one of her siblings um that um was struck and killed by a car. We so we don't have him anymore. But um, I had two of them and we played um a team sport competition, frisbee. And between us, uh, we won uh the world championship of canine frisbee toss and fetch four times.

Tinsley 39:33

World championship?

Bill 39:34

Yes, world championship. K9 Frisbee toss and fetch. It's a there's a there's a lot of frisbee leagues. This is one, it's a team sport, it's not individual, but um yeah, so in Arizona, uh we competed against clubs in 11 different countries.

Tinsley 39:47

She's a champion.

Bill 39:48

She is a champion. Three for her, uh, four for Jake and I. And uh, but anyway, she's super smart, and now her job is to run the beaches and she still plays frisbee. Great story, right? We took her to uh Hopetown in um the Abacos. Um Hope Town Settlement, great place. Do not fail to stop there if you're in the shout-outs?

Tinsley 40:11

Um Marina.

Bill 40:12

No, no, we we were anchored out. Um, but but the the the lighthouse is great to go tour. You don't want to miss that. Um, but Gracie had been retired from Frisbee for almost two years. And um, we play occasionally, not very much, like we used to play every single day. Um, and so we were at Hope Town and walking the settlement, and I had the frisbee with me in our in our tote bag that we carry when we're walking, and we came across uh a big group of school school children that were out on sort of a recess, and they were kids anywhere from like I would say eight to twelve years old. And they first marveled at her beauty and they were all, oh, look at the dog and how pretty she is. And so uh I said, Hey, get your camera ready. And I took out the frisbee, and the kids were like, What? And I gave the first toss, and those kids went ballistic crazy with cheers. It was like Michael Jordan showed up with a mask button. It was so much jumping fun being they'd never seen a dog do this in their life.

Tinsley 41:09

They were just like so impressed with her.

Bill 41:13

And and my my throws were way off kilter because I hadn't played in a long time. They didn't care, they just loved seeing her go after it, catch it, bring it back to me, another throw. And a week later, we're on a different island. We were at at um Marsh Harbor, and um I was playing on a little 10-yard grass space with her, just little tosses. And a little girl came up to me and said, Is this the dog that came to my school? And I said, Do you go to school in Hopetown? She said, Yes. I said, Yes. She goes, Oh, I love this dog. And she turns to these other kids, she starts telling the kids all about Gracie. That was a she was a celebrity. That was one of my that was one of my favorite moments of cruising. That was so everywhere we go, Gracie's crazy.

Tinsley 41:50

You don't see that there. Yeah, no.

Bill 41:52

And she's just so well behaved, and I mean, just everybody loves her, and including Catherine.

Family Support And Live Tracking

Tinsley 41:59

So I wanted to ask you about your families, what they thought of all this. Did they think you were crazy? Well, my family knows I'm a little crazy anyway. Um the re uh, you know, but um my son said to me he like a year and a half, two years ago. Yeah, you're meeting this guy. Well, I hadn't met him yet. But he said to me, I was working and I I wasn't retiring yet because I wasn't quite sure what I was gonna do and I didn't mind working. And um my son said to me, Mom, you need to just retire and find something fun to do. And I said, Well, if I find something fun to do, it's not gonna be here. I'm gonna retravel. And he's like, Whatever, just go live your life, stop doing it for everybody else. So, how did that make you feel? Gri good. I mean, it was great. It was great. Um I miss them though.

Bill 42:54

She goes home about every three months to see the two grandkids in North Carolina.

Tinsley 42:59

Um, yeah. Uh so so then they you said, Well, I met this guy. Yeah, so I met this guy and what was that? And we're going at ceiling, and they were just like, Okay. I mean, they know me. They know that I, you know, I probably vetted him a little bit.

Bill 43:15

I kinda I came up from Charleston and brought Gracie and they got to meet me, and you know, yeah, you were there a while.

Tinsley 43:21

Yeah, and nobody nobody died.

Bill 43:22

Gracie helped. Nobody died.

Tinsley 43:24

Yeah, to make sure while I was there.

Bill 43:26

Well, the funny thing is, is you know, so we have a we have a Garmin inreach that we broadcast, you know, for all of our families to follow us along. And her son, it turns out, on our on our cruise down, he was like our biggest follower on there, and he kept messaging us through the in-reach, you know, go faster. You know, to and then and then we're attacking, and he texted, You're going the wrong way, you know. But she was just loving that he was involved. Like she was just loving that he was he cared that much to to watch.

Tinsley 43:53

And they're are they still watching?

Bill 43:55

Oh, yeah.

Tinsley 43:55

Oh, yeah, yeah. And I have I have this uh like cuteness. Overload video of my daughter-in-law trying to get my three-year-old grandson to say Bahamas.

Bill 44:07

And they say he says, should the his mother asks him, Where's Gigi? And he says, Gigi's in the bananas. And then the mom will say, No, Bahamas, and he'll say, Bahamas.

Tinsley 44:20

Bahamas.

Bill 44:21

So funny, it's so funny. He's cute.

Tinsley 44:23

And what about your family?

Bill 44:24

So I I'm the youngest. I'm the youngest of six, and I still have all my siblings. I still have my mom. She is 94 and still living alone in her house with her Australian shepherd. And, you know, time has caught up with her and and she's ill but fighting through it. I did fly home and surprise her on her 94th birthday on Thanksgiving at Catherine's insistence. I left Gracie on the boat with Catherine and I flew home and totally shocked my mother because I had already essentially said goodbye. Now that might sound like really strange, but the the the ordeal I went through, you know, with my spouse for three years was very trying, and my mother knew that. And when my spouse died, my mom came to me and and looked me dead in the eye and said, do not wait for me. Go chase your dream. You've waited long enough. And that was hard, but it was empowering, you know, and the way that she raised me, you know, we know that that the end on this earth isn't the end. So we'll see each other again. And so that gives confidence. And uh she has cancer now. My mom does. And that's what my wife died from cancer. But my mom is battling through it at 94. Her last PET scan, they said we'll see you in four months. It was unbelievable. And so she'll hit 95 in November. And I told her this year, no surprises. You make another birthday wherever I am in the world. I will come home and see you again every birthday. And so that's been great. And my kids, they know that I've waited for this for a long time and they are living vicariously through me. And you know, they So they were 100% behind me. Go, go have fun. I mean, we I I write a blog, my son produces an Instagram channel.

Tinsley 46:01

Yeah, tell us how that people can find you.

Bill 46:03

Okay, so we're on all the socials under Misalita Sailing, and Misalita is the Spanish phrase spelled M-I-S-A-L-I-D-A Sailing.com. So that's the website, misalitasailing.com. It's misalitasailing on Instagram, on Facebook, on X. And I just send my son raw clips and then he does the magic and puts them on there. Yeah, well, he loves it. He he loves doing it. And you know, the grandkids send us videos and had it got a really cute one from my grandson the other day. He said, Pappy, one day I wanna when you're going around the world, I want to come to the boat. And then he would stop and he would do another take, and he would go, Pappy, one day on your plane, if you have a plane, can I take your plane and come see the boat? I don't know if I barely have a boat. Are you kidding me? Everybody is supportive, and and it's hard, right? I mean, I have a lot of grandchildren, but you know, we're not gonna do this forever. We have the opportunity to do this. You know, I told her 10 years, 10 years. If we could make this go 10 years, we could get around the world.

Tinsley 47:06

Do you do you share your age? Uh so I I'm since people are evaluating. No, it's not a good thing.

Bill 47:12

Listen, I booked the boat at 59, and again, it's my first sailboat.

Tinsley 47:16

I'm 67. So, yeah.

DIY Coppercoat And Bottom Maintenance

Bill 47:20

And so, and but you know what? I mean, we're both in really good health, right? And I mean, my blood pressure's in check. I mean, I don't take any maintenance medication other than a blood pressure pill. And so, you know, a lot of exercise, a lot of flexibility and stuff by having to live on the boat. You know, we do our own maintenance. I mean, I had to learn. I didn't know a lot about diesel engines. I had a diesel pickup truck that I could change the oil in. But now, you know, we do all the maintenance on the boat ourselves. And we did our own bottom job when we were in the yard. We did copper coat, and it took us two and a half weeks to do it.

Tinsley 47:51

It's a very you done it before. I had not done copper coat before. No, I had not done that. And my problem was that I was like eight weeks out of shoulder surgery, but so it took me another four months.

Bill 48:07

The sanding, the sanding is un unbelievable. But it has paid off. I mean, we we did the job last summer, and and now I I just went, I mean, I go under the boat and look periodically and just take a microfiber and wipe the soft growth off. But last what, two weeks ago, wherever we were in Spanish Wells, is that where I did the diving? I put my scuba gear on and went over and did a full bottom job cleaning. It was so easy. It was so easy. The job is working, and it's because we did the work ourselves. It had a copper coat job when I bought it, and it was not done right. He paid a vendor to do it, and there was a lot of spots where the copper coat was missing, and that's why we decided to redo it. And if you do it right, it can last you 10 years.

Tinsley 48:48

And again, you get back to the South Carolina. Yes, yeah.

Bill 48:51

Yes. The sanding was the name of that hardest work.

Tinsley 48:55

Bouillard Ross.

Hard Truths And Why It’s Worthwhile

Bill 48:56

Uh, it was Ross Marine, is where we had the work done, and they let us DIY our bottom job. And uh they were they were very supportive on the work. We had a couple of problems in Key Largo, and they actually honored their work and and paid somebody to come out on anchor and take care of something on the shaft where uh a bolt had fallen out. I could have just as easily put that bolt in there, but when you spend the kind of money we did, the guy's like, no, I'm gonna have somebody come do this and check our work. And so that was really supportive. So thank you, Ross Marine.

Tinsley 49:24

So, last question. What would you say to people who want to do what you're doing?

Bill 49:29

You can go first.

Tinsley 49:30

There's all different kinds of experience levels.

Bill 49:33

She looks worried all the s what advice would you give people that are wanting to do this?

Tinsley 49:39

That are wanting to do this and then never have done it. There's uh there's just tons of people that message me, I'm sure message you. Yeah. I want to do that, I will be doing that. What would you say? It's hard to sound it's hard not to sound negative initially. Because it's all it's all not unicorns and rainbows. Right, it's not. It's it's more expensive than you thought it would be.

Bill 49:59

For sure.

Tinsley 50:00

Things break more often than you think they would. Then your house. In yeah, yeah. Way more often than in your house. Because everything's always moving and everything's subject to moisture and salt water and everything, and so one minute you're fine and the next minute you don't have any water. Like us is funny. There are times when it's miserable, you're either really, really hot or you're really, really cold and it's measurable. There's times when it's scary. There's times when you can't sleep because of one thing or another. You have to be careful of other boats running into you and dragging and doing all that kind of stuff. Idiots that don't know what they're doing. But don't shutterboard it. Yeah, yeah.

Bill 50:44

Here's the butt.

Tinsley 50:45

So why do I keep doing it? So my very first sailing my very first sailing sailing experience resulted in a northeaster in Cuddy Hunk, Massachusetts. Where I was holed up in a 32-foot boat with three three men and we were completely woefully unprepared for that. We ran out of water, we ran we became very close to running out of food. We ate hot dogs and beans for like four days. I had to take my showers up on the bow. You know, it was it was the most miserable time ever. But for some reason I came back. You know, that was my very first sailing like adult sailing experience. So you knew it could be different. Yes. It can be different. It's there's something about you know, when I used to sail from St. Lucia to Grenada all the time, I used to spend an inordinate amount of time up on the bow. And there's just something so peaceful and calming and rewarding about just w seeing that boat go through the waves and through the water. Turning that engine off. Yes. Turning the engine off, getting the perfect trim on the sails so that you know you barely have to touch the steering wheel if at all. You know. And of course all the wonderful places that you get to visit and the wonderful people you meet. You meet so many really, really cool people that have wonderful experiences. And there's one thing that's definitely consistent among cruisers, and that is that that they help each other. You know, if you if you do have a problem, if you do have something you just can't figure out, there's probably somebody within 500 yards of you that can probably help you. If you're like, you know, got your anchor out or whatever. But yeah, people are just super friendly, they're super helpful, they're not pretentious, they're it's just it's just and they're on all budgets. Yeah. Exactly. Yes, they are on all budgets. And it's still that way. Yeah. Yes. And there it's just a good it's a good culture, I guess is is is the best way to say it. Can you add anything to that?

Bill 52:59

That was so I'll add to the butch, right, right, all of the cautionary speak for themselves. But when we were sort of stuck out on anchor 4th of July weekend in Charleston Harbor with a boat that was overheating and we didn't know why, and a tropical storm bearing down on us, and we knew we were gonna spend the night out there on that anchor. We went up on deck and watched the Fourth of July fireworks off of the aircraft carrier there in Charleston. And we're laying there and it was a cool breeze on a summer night. And I said to her, Tell me this is what it's gonna be like. She said, What do you mean? I said, like this moment right here, we're laying up in the cockpit. It's a cool breeze, we've got music playing. Tell me this is what it's gonna be like. And she said to me, It's gonna be even better than this. And she's right, at times it is. All of those negative things have happened. Like that day, I, you know. Oops, I thought you were gonna say so well. No, she didn't. No, she didn't she said it's gonna be even better than this. It was a it was a beautiful moment, but and it has been. I mean, when we we came out of Pete's pub at Little Harbor up in the Abacos at 10 o'clock at night, and we had to dinghy more than a mile back to the boat because we couldn't get into the harbor, it was the zillion stars in the sky, and it was the first time I'd seen the galaxy from the water. And that moment right there, I'm like, this is why we're doing it.

Tinsley 54:17

And you know, like I said, the phosphorescence on a night sail, you know. We've never seen you haven't, Ruth. It's just so beautiful. It's like seeing the northern lights but in the water.

Bill 54:29

You know, like I said, my mom's 94. There's a very good chance I'll see 90, right? I'm 10 years, I could do this for 10 years, and then I'd have 20 years of stories to tell on the porch.

Tinsley 54:40

And maybe decide to keep on going.

Bill 54:42

We might. We might. You know, one of the best blogs I ever read was a guy, a couple out of Seattle that retired, took their boat to Mexico, never intended to circumnavigate. They just wanted to retire and spend time in uh in the Mexico waters. And while they were there, they met so many people that were heading to cross the Pacific, they decided to do it. And they took 14 years to get around the world because they kept staying for like a year or two years at places that they loved. And they went all the way around the world in 14 years, and the next summer she died. And today he is 84 and he still lives on that boat in Mexico. He doesn't cruise, but he still loves the life enough to live on it. That's inspiring to me. When people can do that, and I'm like, we could do 10 years. And if we don't, we gave it our best shot, you know. And I told my kids, you know, if this doesn't end well, just know I did what I wanted to do. Like I got there, you know?

Tinsley 55:36

I think barring any health issues, you know, Bill, we'll be okay.

Bill 55:40

Yeah, do it while you're healthy.

Tinsley 55:42

Go ahead and end with that. Salty Bannon and me Salita, we're out.

Bill 55:47

Out.

Tinsley 55:48

And Black Point Settlement.