Kim & Mike's Transition to Full-Time Sailing - S8E2

So we are so excited to be talking to Kim and Mike from Blue Haven, who have been our besties here in the last couple of weeks in the Bahamas, along with Sarah and Ray, who we've also interviewed. And they're here with their Pekingese, Doug, who we're excited to, he won't be interviewed today, but he'll have the podcast. So let's welcome them and have a great conversation. Hello, and a covert castaway. I'm Holly. I'm Stéphane.

Join us as we share what we learned and how we're making the transition to liveaboard cruising. Music.

Cool. So we're excited to chat with you guys today. And maybe Stéphane, you can start by just talking a little bit about what you see around us and what's going on. Yeah, the sun has set, but we're in Georgetown, the Bahamas, near Exumas, and it was a beautiful day, a bit windy. But right now, I always love that moment because you see all these lights on top of the mast, not without runners. So that's pretty cool. And there's dinghies going by, so there might be some background noise.

And then Doug's down below here, panting away and joining the conversation, which is super cute. He's a really cute dog, and he's kind of blind. So, Kim and Mike, why don't you talk a little bit about where you guys are from? Why don't you go ahead. We're from Medford, Oregon. Basically, lived there all our lives. And we were in law enforcement for about 30 years. And we just retired and cruised the country in the model home for about nine months before we picked up our boat.

So, you did the RV thing. Yep. The RV thing. Yeah, we've been doing the RV thing for like several years now, mainly on the weekends. And that's kind of what got us into this is because the RV life is like, you know, kind of a big thing. We're thinking when we retire coming up, we're just going to full-time RV. That's going to be our thing.

And then we were following YouTube channels. And one of the YouTube channels switched to sailing life. And that kind of started that whole thought bubble in about 2016. And then we started researching that. Yeah, the winds. It was a big channel because they had a lot of followers. And then, yeah, they changed. Yeah, they had a great motorhome channel, and I loved all the stuff they were doing. And they said they were buying a boat one day.

I'm like, oh, man, that stinks because I'm not interested in a boat. I just want an RV. And then we saw like, oh, well, maybe it's like a lot better than RVing. And so far, it has been. Yeah. So neither of you had sailed before? No. Nope. Nope. We've been on a boat a lot. We've had lots of water ski boats and stuff.

You know different kinds of boats just on the lake but not a sailboat and no ocean stuff at all but a lot a lot of lay time uh on boats we've been doing that like our whole like i mean we were competitive water skiers for a long time too so private lake so we have a lot of time in boats but definitely nothing on a sailing so like what was the thought process like when you we were like okay we're gonna rv and you had an rv right here we had an rv so we're so we're

kind of used to to you know living in a small smaller space and using the same type of propane and batteries and solar and all the systems similar systems so you're down with the power management yeah meaning that we don't have hookups so we're kind of used to really watching about our consumption watching our water use running the generator when needed doing solar and stuff like that so.

They kind of had gave us a nice preparation for this lifestyle especially because like we were fixing a lot of stuff on our motorhome too just like bow life like stuff breaks on our beast yeah it does because it's just like a bow where it's like it's moving around going yeah highway and and now i feel better i'll erase that as a backup plan yeah oh yeah well i do think that maybe there's more stuff to go wrong on a sailboat but regardless yeah so the

thought process then the decision was pretty natural you feel like yeah it wasn't easy It was more like it was more of a dream. And then the more we kept thinking about it, the more we started doing more and more research on what it takes. And it was very much an unknown. Like, how do you sail a vessel in the ocean? Or how do you just navigate an ocean? So when Kim wasn't on board right away, she's just... Oh, it took you some time to warm up to the idea.

So were you like, you're just crazy. What do we do? You wanted to go on a vacation and learn how to sail. And I was like, on vacation? That's not her thought, vacation. But I thought it'd be good, you know, like, let's go sailing for our vacation. But that's back when we worked and vacations were a big deal. Yeah, a week of time. Yeah. So anyway, I eventually convinced her. I don't know. Finally, like at some point, I got the green light. And I'm like, and then it went.

And then it came as I. okay those videos look pretty cool it was a very slow process you know the budget obviously started like you know we could we could get into for you know 250 250 000 you know just to well obviously that budget it's never like that it's never the base base boat yeah yeah and we had just felt our third home that was our forever home in 2017 we're gonna live here forever we have the view the same um. And you don't have it now. No, we

sold it. Yeah. So you're all in with the Levebord. All in. We are all in. But there's more than that. Our house wasn't super, like, what do you do with a house in Medford, Oregon? And it's not the kind of house you'd want an Airbnb or a rent for various reasons. It had a lot of kind of complicated issues, even though it was a new house. So Kim is the one that figured out, like, what you would do with the house. And she was on that to sign the best way, best case to sell it. Yeah.

He had a lot of analysis. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember all the spreadsheets, like keep it, rent it, da, da, da, and you're doing all the models and you're trying to calculate out and it's like, you know what? It's just better to sell. Better to sell and we're not. Yeah.

There's a lot. Get another house somewhere. So you made the decision and then you start looking at boats. So how did that process go?

Well, yeah, I mean, we did. as soon as we made the decision at that point i needed to figure out how to do this um so i, i called up an instructor who was referred by a friend who who also didn't have a lot of any experience and they were doing i'm like how did you get started he's like we'll call this guy so call him and he said well first you should buy a sailboat and you should start taking our online classes and eventually our our other classes like asa or something it was rya okay yeah

and they have funded they have yacht master theory so i did the yacht master theory i bought a 10 foot sailboat oh that's great yeah and and i learned a lot of stuff on the sailboat like i had some best way to learn accidental jives that really messed me up and so it's nice to do it on a small scale but in the rya that really doesn't teach sailing it just teaches navigation and i think that really helped and then i used that same instructor to take we took lessons from.

Practical lessons and then he was ultimately our instructor that helped us deliver the boat on a thousand mile journey so that was kind of how we made that transition into this crazy lifestyle so so it seems like you took the lead here right did you what how did you approach this uh in this process i tried to like go through some other questions with him and like like learn some of that with him but like the whole process of like leaving the home

and moving on to the boat i think I think it was pretty easy because of camping, like our whole, I think 25 years that we've been together, we couldn't wait to go camping each weekend. So this is sort of like camping, but like glamorous and luxury and yachting and beautiful places.

So that part wasn't hard. and we've worked in the same job for the last 30 years at the same department with each other and done all the same so we're we're kind of used to being in close places high stress situations so we kind of thought like if we can't do it nobody can i think it's a real asset like if you had plus you you met when you were like born right Right. We were kids. We were like teenagers. Yeah. And so you've known each other for your whole lives, basically.

Yeah. And you work together. Yeah. Maybe in the same circles, at least. Very close. Yeah. Pretty close. Yeah. At times. Pretty darn close. If one's in a foot chase or a car chase, the other one's right behind.

Okay. So you really, and I think this is a huge asset because I think a lot of couples that get on boats, they may be in the same industry, like Stefan and I were in the same industry, but at different companies doing different things and then and then you are working on a project together on a boat together and suddenly you're like wait and, So that's how you communicate. Oh, this is what you mean. So I think it's a big asset for you guys.

That's really awesome. Yeah, and we got in our first knockdown drag out fight together. First fight ever. We went together back then, actually. But she was backing me up on a call. And the situation deteriorated very quickly. And we had our hands full. And it was a long, long fight. So who saved the day? Kim saved the day or you saved the day?

Very much a group effort it was a big guy with a lot of hair and i had to handcuff him and there was a lot of hair and handcuffs yeah it took it took every i was just like the both of us and yeah every picture in the whole house was off the wall yeah but we had just turned over the door by the time we had six other cops we got in my handcuffs just the two of us so that's a good early 20s so they give it like a boat kind of yeah big windstorm yeah exactly yeah

we rassle the yeah wrestle our boat into submission to us working as a team and trusting each other right and you know i must say like we've had some stressful situations on the boat which you can get into but kim is the calm cool and collected where i thought i kind of was and i started you know getting a little bit too excited and upset and she's she's the voice of reason so it's talk through this what's going on it's great it's great when you have kind of a balancing energy you know

even maybe sometimes your excitement will be important you know and and calm is always important on a boat i think so yeah so you got your boat and what has the first year been like then for you so far it's been amazing and super scary i'd agree because we've had some very fun. Times and but you gotta sound like we're learning how to sail in an ocean and we have a brand new boat which you think would be problem free because it's brand new and it's also completely new to us.

The handover process of like the Letfords is basically they show you the systems, they throw you the keys, it takes all of a couple hours. Is that how FP was? Yeah, that's it. And then... There. And a lot of things went wrong, unfortunately, with that boat. Some of it was on leper. Some of it was on the aftermarket stuff that we put in. And some of it was on self-inflicted us because we're doing it wrong and we're messing things up. So I would say it was much more stressful than I anticipated.

Just figuring out the boat. Why are these alarms going off? What alarm is it? Right. And it's a different alarm.

And and fixing stuff and why does the bhf not work and why didn't the boat suddenly make a left turn when we're on autopilot going to this destination i mean there's just a lot of a lot of stuff that kind of freaks you out and now we've been through a lot and and i think if it was to happen all again we'd be much more relaxed but it was stressful and i think every day is getting better and better and tell you what getting to the bahamas is amazing it's like it's kind of like Like, okay,

this is really awesome. This is fantastic. Because the first. First six nights were overnighters, all of them. And we had never sailed overnight. We didn't know what that looked like, that it was pitch black outside. And they didn't have a mast light or they weren't on AIS. Did you have anyone else on the boat or just the two of you? Well, we had our captain. We had a new captain.

And then he was off the boat quickly. And just the way it worked out, we went all the way off the East Coast to run away from the hurricanes. Because we got our boat in july and tanned it over august and that's in fort lauderdale so we hightailed it north not having any regard for the weather because we ate hurricanes.

And cooled off chilled out for two months got to know the boat in a marina and now it's getting really cold we gotta head south and and it's still it's like Like, hmm, you know, it's scary and kind of a lot of work and a lot of unknown. In the morning, like early morning, like 4 a.m., it's dark out. It doesn't get light until late. And then it gets dark again at 4 because it was winter.

And we got to make like. We got to make a 12-hour day. We got to make this many miles to get to the next like place to stop because we're out on the ocean. And so we would, our boat doesn't sail exceptionally fast. No. So, yeah, it seemed like we were putting in a lot of work, but there are some really some super highs. Like, St. Augustine was amazing. Salt Beach. Oh, there's so many cool places on the East Coast that were just like, once you're there, it's like amazing. Annapolis. Yeah. Yeah.

There's places in the Chesapeake, like St. Michael's. St. Michael's. So we're really seeing the East Coast, you know, because we're West Coasters. And it has, the destinations have been amazing outside of the Bahamas. So do you feel like the low points and the high points have kind of balanced each other out? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Boy, those storms that come up, though. Out of nowhere. A microburst, and we had one out of nowhere we weren't expecting. The lightning storm over here. Yeah.

All of that, it's just so close to your boat. It's so loud. And your boat's affected by the wind and the current all the time, so that's very new. I mean, still. It's very new. It's like thunderstorms are scary in a house. They're way more scarier when you're on a floating boat in the ocean or in a bay or something like that. And you feel very vulnerable with the mask sticking up out of the way. So the storms are scary and that's probably, we're probably not going to get over that.

But I will say now that we've been through a couple of pretty big ones, well, what we think is big ones, I think each time it happens, we're less and less freaked out. It's like desensitization. Or like knowing to have like your headsets ready and your life vest.

Flashlights ready and vendors yeah vendors ready and they're not outside where you can't get to them and we have a lot of confidence in our ground tackle too like when that microburst hit and we saw 50 knots and we saw these monohulls were at an anchorage just laying over on their side and if you can't see five feet in front of yet like it and it just feels like this is insane saying, but we did not move an inch. And that was... That's a good test. That's a great confidence builder. Yeah.

So one of the things we try to do in our YouTube channel and that we did in Covercast Away in our podcast was to set people... Have you ever heard of that podcast? I have. You were one of my research projects because I was learning this whole thing. These guys came over and said, I listen to your podcast. I'm like, oh, that's awesome.

But one of the things that we try to do is temper people's expectations because there's a lot of you know glamorization i think of the lifestyle there is and it's important to kind of know what you're going into so and that's not really i think reflected in a lot of the youtube channels you know we do see like all the great points and not a lot of low points yeah so i can see how people want to sell the dream especially Especially, you know, advertisers like that, too. Yeah.

But it's really, really important, especially if you make a big life choice. Like, you should know. We feel like you should kind of know not only the realities of storms and weather, but the realities of if you buy a new boat, it's still going to have problems. And then third, the realities of two people learning how to work together. Yeah. In close quarters all the time. In close quarters. Yeah.

And leaving friends and family behind. Yeah. It is a thing. Has that been a thing for you? Yeah, we miss our family. It has. And we've had all our favorite friends out to join us on the boat. And we've gone back to Oregon a couple of times. And we're trying to check that box. But I will say that this lifestyle is very much social. And I was really worried about that. I'm like, we're going on a boat. It's going to be you and I.

What are we going to talk about? Yeah, we're going around things to talk about. No place to go. And, but it's been so fun meeting amazing people. Yeah. Right and left. Yeah. So cool. Yeah. All the people are really awesome. So what advice would you give your younger self maybe a year or two ago? What would you say? Oh, I would say don't freak out over the lows because the lows at the time were very scary, losing sleep, thinking about it all the time and you're freaking out.

Stuff on too and then like yeah and then and then and now when i hear an alarm it's kind of like oh well what is that alarm i'll get to it before yeah i would literally lose my appetite get dry mouth just kind of freaking out which is pretty amazing because in law enforcement like aren't you stress tested yeah and i thought it was i thought it was like a cool cucumber but seemed like everything was breaking everything would break over and over and over and

over again and so i'm like what are we doing yeah how is this yeah like we need water we got through it and i think we had more problems than most but we had a lot of aftermarket stuff that you know it's, even if we didn't have all the aftermarket stuff here there would be some bumps in the road but we, yeah it seems like things have been going pretty well for a while now he's a big tinkerer so he tinkers with a lot of things and he watches the youtube it's

like oh my gosh stephan's twin i I think he'll find one video related to the thing you need and that's all you need. It was that video. But yeah. Yeah. When something goes wrong, there is always, and that's what I tell myself too, my younger self, that like if something goes wrong there, the solution is there. You just need to find it. And most likely it's the simplest thing that you could think of.

Yeah. So what about you, Kim? What advice? There's, there's certain battles that you can fight and don't make everything a battle. all.

You could make the littlest thing a battle and it's going to bug you to death, but maybe it, get over it and don't sweat the stars maybe yeah yeah cool and and that's just in like whatever your roles might be whether you're always doing the sails or you're sailing or you're in the yeah you're anchoring and and if you're i think one of the bigger things too is if you're afraid of doing something make yourself do it like i didn't want to do the anchoring i only

wanted to be at the helm because the anchor is big and it's a big chain and you can lose fingers and you hear these scary things. But if you do both things and keep switching roles, maybe you'll feel more comfortable if something happened and you had to do kind of everything. So what are your big plans like of this whole project? How many years are you thinking? Where are you thinking about going?

I know you're buddy budding with Kismet, but what are your And that's been really nice to have, you know, just somebody else. It's, you know, like a security blanket. Yeah, a little bit. A spare boat. Yeah, it's like my boat's doing this. Is your boat doing this? Can you put your engine in my boat? Yeah. Does this alarm mean anything to you? Yeah. But, yeah, so we're cutting our teeth by taking baby steps with the boat and staying close to the East Coast and doing the Bahamas.

We're going to go back to Florida. We're going to have some little things fixed on the boat. I don't think any more improvements, maybe like a bottom job and just maintenance stuff. And then get off the boat for a few months. We'll go up to New York for one because I haven't been there. So I really want to go up there and see that coastline and go to the Statue of Liberty and bucket list kind of thing.

So what are you thinking? Are you going to take a right or a left? We are going to come down next season, come down back here to Georgetown, and we're going to continue on south. And start exploring the Caribbean chain. I could see us going through Panama that was the first. Before the Met. Yeah. Yeah. I could see flying over there or vacationing over there but you go to Panama and like. Baja and then, yeah, Fiji, Bora Bora, Australia.

It's definitely looking like we're going to take a ride. Yeah. Go down to the Caribbean and take a ride. Yeah. So, or, you know, go down to Grenada and fly back to the U.S. And just play around in the Caribbean and, you know, I don't know. I don't know how long it takes to, like, really explore the Caribbean or if a season or two is enough. Well, the great thing about boat plans is there are never plans unless you're actually there.

There like then it's a plan because we we started planning stuff and we're like why are you making plans they literally change every day with the wind or who you meet you know like we we had a buddy boat and we're like okay i guess we're doing this you know yeah and it was the best thing ever so you know you kind of let go of your expectations of certain places and are just kind of open to where the wind takes you a little bit you know i would have to agree yeah and we seem to

be more we're like we really enjoy buddy boats whether it's our friends at kismet or like somebody else that wants to do the same thing and that really appeals to us where some people are like no i want to be we want to be on our own we don't want to have other boats around we we like the social thing and the more the merrier yeah we like buddy boating too a lot yeah it's good it's kind of sad when you have to part ways which is what we're doing oh i don't

know but we'll see you next next season for sure yeah oh might change our mind and come down yeah well um best of luck to you guys and we'll see you in season awesome thank you thank you. Music.