Boats – Coast Guard Couple

May 27, 2014May 25, 2014

Atlantic Ocean

Birthday post! Another year gone by and so much has happened!

Like, a lot.

A lot a lot.

So yeah, um…so we’ve been busy. Really really busy.

Not lots of time to keep up with the blog busy.

Busy how exactly?

Well, we learned how to escape overturned crashed sinking helicopters

so that’s cool.

…and there was that whole “Look Greg! A 10 foot crocodile in the Everglades!”

“Oh lets go canoeing with it!”

Seriously, that’s pretty much how it went.

and oh yeah, the boats got bigger.

the boats got a LOT bigger.

and when the boats get bigger the licencing goes through the roof.

Because, as we’ve said before, to sail a private yacht through thousands of miles of open ocean to Tahiti you don’t need a license.

But to even step on a ship at the dock you need the freaking paperwork.

and that paperwork has mostly been what we’ve been up to.

Because, and here I quote the US Coast Guard Licencing Agent at the National Maritime Center:

“The US Coast Guard does not recognize the US Coast Guard Academy
as a maritime training academy.”

…Yeah.

So paperwork. From the ground up. and classes.

Classes about Radars.

At least they don’t recognize Annapolis either…

So we’ve been busy. However that does not mean we have forgotten the blog.

Because that story about how we hung out with elephants on the tropical island of Bali,

that story needs relaying.

So yes, it’s been a while but yes, we do plan to finish this epic tale.

Birthdays are usually Greg’s opportunity for a little introspection – and last year’s wanderings are particularly interesting based on what has happened this year.

About the authors

Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures. If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, 3-day delays for wine tastings, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out atwww.CoastGuardCouple.com

March 4, 2013

The Great Australian Overland Excursion

Enroute Cairns, Queensland, Australia

3 people

1 frigging huge campah

5 days

1786 miles

1 vast barren wasteland that inspired the Mad max movies

Some dinosaurs

(…because everything is better with dinosaurs…)

And let’s not forget it’s us right? So…a boat. There needs to be a boat.

And this is how all that turned out…

Continue reading “The Great Australian Overland Excursion”

October 11, 2012September 28, 2012

Find a fleet

You want the real secret we used to find ships to travel around the world with? How we were able to find a ride in Tahiti before we even pulled into port? Well, here it is:

Find a fleet. Travel with it. Make friends.

That’s it.

Wait, find a fleet? What the heck does that mean? Are we joining the Spanish Armada here or going for a vacation?

Continue reading “Find a fleet”

October 8, 2012September 28, 2012

Getting your first crew gig

Ok so after deciding the cruising thing is for you,

Testing it out and finding you like it

And deciding that you, for starters at least, will grab a ride with a costal cruiser

You’re oh so patiently waiting for us to tell you how to find your first freaking boat!

Ah, but if you’ve done everything we suggested so far you already have started looking!

Yeah, how’s that for a little sailor-Yodaism?

Continue reading “Getting your first crew gig”

October 4, 2012September 28, 2012

Up until now we have been talking about a successive series of experiences to build up your sailing experience before taking “the big leap”. We talked about how to test out sailing, how to build experience in your local area and how to work your way up to costal cruising. Now we want to make it clear that there are a lot of people spend their entire sailing lives doing costal cruising and are quite happy, with good reason. We know sailors who have spent the past 5 years doing nothing more than exploring the Pacific Coast of Mexico and have new experiences each and every day. Using that as a base, how long you reckon it would take to explore the entire cost of North and South America? Ok, now after that you can hit up the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and with a flight or two, South East Asia and Australia. Overall, it’d take a while. There are plenty of adventures to be had and cultures to be explored in costal cruising because, well, there is a lot of coast out there.

But then, there’s a lot of ocean out there as well…and that’s the rub. Yes, there are many places you can explore with costal cruising but there also a couple of good sized seas and, of course, two oceans. Two very big oceans…

and way out there in the deep, that’s the domain of the bluewater cruisers

Continue reading “Bluewater cruising”

September 24, 2012September 23, 2012

Coastal Cruising

Sailing around the world for free on someone else’s luxury yacht sounds like a doable thing for you huh? You took our advice on how to test the waters with sailing and did a local trial class or joined the local racing team and now you’ve had you can confidently say you know your way around a beer can race? (hey, that’s what it’s actually called!)

You got that first taste of salt in the air and it tasted so good you decided you might just want to follow that breeze to a sunny beach somewhere. A beach perhaps where the cerveza is cheap and the locals provide a really comprehensive foreign language immersion experience?

You’re ready to go, so what’s next?

Continue reading “Coastal Cruising”

September 13, 2012September 12, 2012

But how much does it cost!?

Enroute Coff’s Harbour, AU

As many of you know the main question we get when it come to how get started as volunteer crew is how to deal with seasickness.

The second most often asked question is similar to the one Mike asked us a few weeks ago:

“All signs in my life point towards the adventure you two have chosen. My top two bucket list items right now are live on a boat and sail around the world. I thought these would be goals for much (much) later in life but as a 27 year old I think the time is now.

Do you have any advice for savings needed for say, 1 year of volunteer sailing?”

Well, yes, yes we do…

Continue reading “But how much does it cost!?”

September 3, 2012September 2, 2012

Semper Gumby

Opua, New Zealand

So there we were (doesn’t every great story start that way?) in Coff’s Harbour and little did we know that this would be the end of our Australian East Coast Adventure.

[fgallery id=11 w=450 h=385 t=0 title=”Great Australian East Coast Adventure”]

We were doing a bit of work at a hostel in exchange for accommodation, deciding what our next move was going to be and looking at the boats available on FindACrew.net. Huh. Imagine that! There was a boat in New Zealand looking for a couple of crew to help deliver it to Australia! We got in touch with the owner, who was willing to pay us to fly out to his boat so he could get it delivered to a transport ship in Brisbane and sent back home to the US.

He seemed like a decent guy on the phone and since he paid for the flight, we decided to take a risk and were off back to New Zealand!

Continue reading “Semper Gumby”

May 2, 2011

Mind the Jetwash

Papeete, Tahiti, Society Islands, French Polynesia

We have established that Papeete is a city of contrasts. A land where, quite literally, dogs and cats are living together.

One of the most striking personifications of this is the harbor.

Now on our journey through the islands of French Polynesia so far we have navigated everything from rock minefields that will spear your hull like a ripe mango to rip currents that turn your boat into a bumper bowling ball with coral reefs and desert islands playing the part of the bumpers. So we had a pretty solid feeling that, with enough preparation, we could handle just about anything this island could throw at us.

Which is of course why, in Tahiti, it’s not the island that will sink your boat. That would be too easy. The reef limits how big the protected shipping channel is but what room they have is clear from natural obstructions. See, Tahiti is a developed port. In fact it’s the only developed port in this entire county. Which means that everything, and we do mean everything, not to mention just about every one, that goes anywhere in French Polynesia comes through Papeete first. And while this town is ridiculously huge by island standards, London-sized it ain’t. Lots of people, lots of stuff, all trying to get somewhere at the same time in a small city. So while the environment has been beaten back for your navigational well-being, it’s everything else sharing your space in this very confined, busy harbor that makes life interesting. Let us elaborate: Continue reading “Mind the Jetwash”

April 11, 2011

The Little Boat That DID!

Papeete, Tahiti, Society Islands, French Polynesia

Tahiti is also the place where we part ways with FLY AWEIGH. A few months and about 5000 nautical miles ago, two friends asked us to come with them on an amazing adventure. To do what many dream about but few actually accomplish: to sail a 44 foot sailboat from Mexico to Tahiti. Along the way we’ve faced thousands of miles of open ocean and become shellbacks, combated air pirates, opened coconuts with dull machetes, swam with 250 sharks and had a dozen other adventures. What was promised was the trip of a lifetime. It did not fail to meet that lofty mark.

Now we are here, in a place we talked about as if it would take an eternity to get to and really it only took a couple of months. Our time together has come to an end. Since we already have our next boat out of Tahiti lined up in a few weeks and Tiffany’s mom is coming out by plane (wuss 😉 we will become “normal tourists” for a time. It should be interesting. Don’t worry, we’ll keep the blog going with our adventures in Tahiti & Bora Bora just like we did in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle. Allan & Alison will continue on their cruise and we will very likely see them again on this trip. From now on though, it will be as friends passing in a port.

“Shipmate” is a term that people throw around a lot without understanding what it means. Most seagoing military types understand what it means to serve on a ship with another person: when it comes right down to it, it’s just you and your crew against Continue reading “The Little Boat That DID!”

Category: Boats

Where the heck are we!?

Atlantic Ocean

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The Great Australian Overland Excursion

Enroute Cairns, Queensland, Australia

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Find a fleet

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Getting your first crew gig

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Bluewater cruising

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Coastal Cruising

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But how much does it cost!?

Enroute Coff’s Harbour, AU

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Semper Gumby

Opua, New Zealand

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Mind the Jetwash

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The Little Boat That DID!

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Atlantic Ocean

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Enroute Cairns, Queensland, Australia

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Enroute Coff’s Harbour, AU

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Opua, New Zealand

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