Mississippi to Mug: A Riverboat Pilot's Unexpected Path with Chris Nance

Get ready to dive into the incredible journey of Chris Nance . Welcome to Journey with Jake . This is a podcast about adventure and how , through our adventures , we can overcome the challenges of life that come our way . While I expect you will learn some things about different adventures , this show will entertain you .

Each episode will feature a different guest or guests , as they share experiences and stories from the different adventures they have been on . Not only will you be entertained , but you will also hear the failures and trials each guest faces and what they have done or are doing to overcome the hardships that come their way .

My goal is to take each of us on a journey through the experiences of my guests , with the hope that you'll be entertained and inspired to overcome your day-to-day challenges . After all , it's not all about the destination , as it is about the journey . Hello everyone , and welcome back to the show .

I'm Jake Bushman , your host of Journey with Jake and I'm so glad you're here . I'm especially excited for you to hear my conversation with Chris Nance . It's a story of resilience , hard work and unexpected twists . Before we dive in , just a couple of quick things .

First , if you haven't already , be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts , so you never miss an episode of Journey with Jake . Second , if you'd like to connect with me and see clips from past , current and upcoming episodes , follow me on Instagram at Journey with Jake podcast .

It's also a great way to get to know me on a more personal level . And finally , Journey with Jake is proud to be part of the Podmatch podcast network . If you're looking for incredible shows on just about any topic , check out podmatchcom forward slash network . You'll find a fantastic directory of podcasts across all kinds of categories .

Now back to my guest , Chris Nance . His journey is nothing short of remarkable . From dropping out of school to dealing with his father's incarceration , Chris had to fight for everything he's achieved Today . He's a successful riverboat pilot and part owner of Backbone Coffee .

For those of you watching on YouTube , I want to acknowledge that the video quality for Chris in the first half isn't great . We both noticed it , but let's just say my tech skills weren't quite up to speed at the moment . Luckily , it does improve in the second half , so I appreciate your patience . All right , let's jump into my conversation with Chris Nance .

I'm excited . Today I have Chris Nance . You go by Chris or Christopher .

I have no idea what that even means , so we're going to talk about that a little bit . Before we dive into all that , if you don't mind , chris , give me a little background on who you are , where you're from , just so we have a little background on who Chris is .

Mom , she's a really wild human , very abnormal , homeschooled like five kids in a time that homeschooling was not the thing , although I feel like homeschooling is kind of coming back around . Yeah , dropped out of homeschooling quote , unquote after Katrina I think I was like 13 . My mom was just overwhelmed , just stopped school altogether .

After that , dad went to prison for tax evasion , oddly enough . Yeah , and so that's actually how I ended up working in the oyster fields . Mom was overwhelmed , dad was in prison and I wasn't going to school , so I just went on a boat , did that for a couple of years , then started driving tugboats or working on tugboats .

Wanted to follow my dad's footsteps on ships , and that led me to go to Texas A&M Maritime . I got a degree in maritime transportation . Finished that came back , was a tugboat captain for a couple of years , got into the pilots , which is kind of a miracle . It's extremely hard to get into the pilot association and I got really lucky , got into the pilots .

I've been driving ships for about five years now , yeah . Other than that , what I did growing up was driving boats , working on oyster fishing boats and shrimp boats , and I hunted and fished a lot , and in the past couple of years I just spear fish a bunch and I hunt elk .

And now I got three kids and I'm married , so that takes up a bunch of my time too .

are like 11 months apart . So , irish twins , yeah , irish twins , you got your hands full . Oh yeah , yeah , chris , okay , wild stuff from you first of all . So you said one of five kids , is that right ?

And my dad , you know , did pretty well driving ships . So she's like I don't need to work , you know if I'm going to take care of these kids . She said she wanted good , hardworking kids and she was like I'm not , I feel like the education will come after and and honestly , she was pretty correct .

We still did schoolwork growing up but it wasn't the main focus . Like kind of work and yeah , just being , you know , good moral people was more of a focus for my mom than necessarily schooling .

And when Katrina hit it was kind of weird because Katrina hit and our house was fine it's the only hurricane my family's ever evacuated for and we are south of New Orleans but everything else around the city kind of went south .

As most people know , katrina was pretty bad and my dad after Katrina , my dad was responsible , my dad and my now association we were responsible for all the ship movements on the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Baton Rouge . I mean , he just worked for months straight and she had five kids .

She was living in Birmingham or we were living in Birmingham with my grandma and I don't know . I guess just all of it was a little overwhelming and she was just like school's on you and at that time I was really young . It was a strange thing for her to do . It worked out . She did exactly what she needed to do . I think my siblings are awesome .

They're all very productive family people , very hardworking . Yeah , so it worked out . Four of the five of us all have college degrees . So I mean she was kind of correct . The schooling kind of came . None of us can spell worth a damn , but other than that I mean we're doing all right .

It put a lot of stress on my oldest brother , cause I mean , he more or less had to step in and take more of the weight . But my older brother didn't live with us . My older brother and my sister , they were gone . So it was me , one of my older brothers , the one right before me , and my little brother .

This was a couple of years after Katrina , but me and my older brother , matt by the time my dad was in prison , all of us had left . I was 15 or 14 . My older brother , matt , was 16 , 17 . My sister and my brother had been gone for years . So really the only one that stayed in the house was my little brother .

But I mean , I was a 15 year old and I spent in three-year period . I spent over 800 days three or four-year period . I spent over 800 days on a shrimp boat . I mean I kind of lived on the shrimp boat . But yeah , so he went to tax evasion or he went to prison for tax evasion , because I guess he thought it's kind of a funny story , but not really .

Yeah , he didn't pay taxes for 15 years . My position as a riverboat pilot we're kind of under a microscope politically in Louisiana and when my dad went whenever I don't know the details of exactly how it happened , but essentially the judge that trialed his case made an example of him .

So she threw the book at him , I think primarily to deter any other riverboat pilot from doing it again . It worked . It worked I mean all my business partners , although some of them may or may not have tax issues . Nobody's gone to prison since then , so that's good . But yeah , so they threw the book at him and they gave him two years for tax evasion .

Yeah , and it was kind of funny , the same month that he went to prison for a fraction of the tax bill , the guy Blade , the actor that played Blade I don't know if you've ever seen that movie . It's not Wesley Snipes , is it ? I don't remember . I just remember that he owed like 40 million and he got four months in the same two-month period .

So we were like I know my dad didn't know 40 million , so it was just the judge just threw the book at him and he was gone for two years and we had a blast . We'd go visit my dad in prison and go back to you know , go back to work in in new orleans . We didn't .

I didn't mind it , most of us didn't mind it , my little brother minded it , mom didn't like it yeah , I'm sure your mom , I'm sure your mom didn't appreciate it .

Your mom raised you to be a hardworking , productive citizens . Yeah , that's what you were doing . So on the oyster boat Kuna . Yeah , so on the oyster boat kuna . Yeah , what is kuna and oyster ? Because I saw you know that's what it says . You said you were kuna and oysters before you could drive .

commercial thing . So you know , I was pretty independent , but my mom didn't . Just , you know , let me go live with random people . My dad went to , you know , summer camp I forget what he called it camp fed . He went to a federal prison so he went to summer camp . I forget what he called it , camp Fed , he went to a federal prison .

So he went to Camp Fed . Right after he left , my dad's high school buddies , who he grew up with and we hunted with and fished with , saw that we needed somebody to take us do stuff . And so I mean it was one or two months after he had left they took me to go goose hunting at the at the mouth of the Mississippi river .

I had a blast and I guess I just saw that I worked really hard . Goose hunting in Venice can be physically demanding , you know , and I guess they just saw that I I I worked hard . At the end of the hunt it was two or three days at the end of the hunt they're like hey , I know you're not in school , do you want to come work on a leisure boat ?

And I was like , yeah , absolutely Growing up , I had heard stories of these guys and they were very manly manly how do you say that . They had some wild stories of fighting . It was crazy . The oyster field like the oyster industry , and when you're working oysters people get really touchy-feely about boundaries .

And so there was all these stories about fighting and just working hard and I had admired these guys and just thinking they were the most you know bad to the bone guys ever . You know commercial fishing guys are just gnarly guys and so when they invited me to go work for them , I I jumped on the opportunity .

Yeah , it started from there , and and and they they started me out . Coon and oysters and and the term coon and oysters . There's two types of oyster fishing , like two types of ways that you harvest oysters . Here in Louisiana you dredge oysters , which is , you know , you've got a fairly large boat .

They come in all different sizes , but big enough to have an engine . Um and uh , they drag , uh , a rake , a dredge , and so it's .

They're usually about , depending on the size of the boat , but they're usually about three feet wide and four foot long and they're they're shaped like a triangle and at the bottom of the triangle there's a bunch of teeth and these teeth they break off , the teeth drag down and so you're dragging these teeth across the bottom and the oysters pop off and into a

basket that's on top of that rake . It's hard to explain that any better than that , but essentially , just drag it across the bottom and it picks up the oysters , and then you use a winch , you winch it up , you dump it on a table , you throw the rake back in the water , keep dragging it and then you clean the table .

And then you clean each individual oyster , you throw it in a basket , you sack it up , you repeat until you've loaded the boat . The other , the way that you would harvest oysters is kunin . When you dredge it's in deep water . So you need at least two feet of water at least Depending on the size of the boat .

Like there's styles of boats that have three or four foot of draft , so you need six foot of water . It just depends on what type of bottom you're working . The coon and oysters is when you have beds that are dry half the year . So when the tide goes out , the oysters are pretty much sticking up out of the mud .

When the tide comes back in , they're on the edge of that tidal range where , like half the year , they're , or half the day they're , out of the water , the other half the day , you know , depending on where the tide's at , they're under the water .

Well , you can't drive a dredge boat up in there , so the only way to harvest those is to get little flat boats about 10 to 15 feet long . You put your chest waders on or your wetsuit on . You get a chip and hammer which looks like a tomahawk really . And yeah , you just go out there and you crawl around on your hands and knees .

You can't stand up , no-transcript , because if you stand up you're going to go to your crotch in mud .

Now , if you get closer to the bank , where the , where the marsh grass is , you you know you can obviously stand on the marsh grass , but where most of these oysters are it's just deep mud . The term coonin is like .

If you drive through the marshes down here you'll see these guys pulling these little 10 foot boats and they're crawling on their hands and knees and they're cleaning oysters with a hatchet and it looks like from afar like a really big raccoon cleaning his dinner Gotcha like from afar , like a really big raccoon cleaning his dinner .

Gotcha Right , yeah , and so you , just you pull this little boat around . It starts out light , but by the end of the day you're you're pushing 1500 pounds of rock across flat mud . So it was pretty labor intensive .

In the winter you can leave oysters on the boat for two days and they're going to be fine as long as the temperature is low enough . Oysters will be fine on the boat for max two days . Two days you're kind of like probably don't want to go to market with that one .

In the summer the law is you got to get them on ice or in refrigeration within four hours and that law was there when I was working oysters back in 2008 . I don't even remember , I don't remember the date , but it's always been that way . So in the summer months , when the temperature , the wild line fishery , they'll test the bacteria in the water .

When the bacteria gets to a certain point , which usually has something to do with the temperature , they'll pretty much just put out a notice like , okay , all oysters has to be on ice or in refrigeration after four hours at a certain point , and when that goes , when they put that requirement in there , you pretty much stop .

We stopped oyster oyster fishing because it wasn't worth it . It we didn't . You have to build refrigeration on the boat , which was , you know , just a lot of overhead , and you got to run generators and it , you know , it was just too much . It was too much work . So , luckily , in the summer months , shrimping would kick off .

So we would work the winter months oyster fishing and then when the summer months hit , we went to shrimping . Yeah , we , that's kind of the cycle . And then when the summer months hit , we went to shrimping yeah , that's kind of the cycle . And then we would shrimp into the winter .

When we weren't shrimping , we were spearfishing , and when we weren't crooning oysters , we were shooting ducks .

And that's pretty much how the first couple of years of my life yeah , it was so funny because these bad Northwesterns would come in and it would be too rough or just too nasty to go oyster fishing , so we'd go duck hunting and then , you know , the weather would kind of cool off a little bit , or , you know , we'd get a bluebird day I'm like , all right ,

we're going to go to work . And we kind of worked that cycle where we duck hunt and then we , oh , weather's nice , let's go back to work . And then what ? Because when the weather comes in , the duck hunting gets better . So nasty weather , duck hunting's better , so it's like it was a perfect . It was so perfect .

You know by the time I was finished I was 18 , 19 , you know , when I was finished working with them . But over those years they would always laugh because my mom would never call . We'd go two weeks and my bosses are like , hey , man , you talked to your mom and I'm like I know , is she okay ?

They're like man , your mom loves you , but she's got a funny way of showing it . But we'd always laugh . They were like your mom is very strange , she was an interesting character . She is an interesting character , she's awesome . But when we were growing up it was so funny because I was never allowed

to go sleep over at someone's house ever growing up I would sleep at my house and that was it . But I was allowed to drive around with a four wheeler and a shotgun and go miles away from my house .

So it was like she was really cool with abnormal things that we did , but she was not cool with the normal 11 year old , 10 year old activities of like sleepover .

Oh , because the way you guys are , the way you guys were raised , you know , on the river , in the swamps , and you know it's just , it's , it's amazing and I that's why I'm so excited to talk to you and I love hearing this yeah , and you know another way .

But if you come from the , from the East coast or West coast , and then you come work in the Gulf or you come up the Mississippi river , it's almost impossible to understand some of these guys on the radio . It's almost like another language .

And every time I've got someone that's coming up or training underneath me or just trying to get on the river and we're listening to the radio half the time they're like what did that guy say ? You know , it's just that the accent here is is very wild as well .

I got on the tugboat and then I decided to go to A&M and when I did that I just made a conscious decision to like not have that accent , cause I mean there's always some who love it and then some that don't . And then , you know , sometimes people you know question your intelligence with that accent .

You know , I was trying to go get a higher education degree . I didn't and I was already struggling with spelling and I didn't do a whole lot of , you know , classical education growing up . And so I I just decided , like that's a hurdle that I don't want to have to deal with , so I just cleared up my accent .

What did you do ?

I mean , they're still part of my life , but they never really let me partake with some of the ignorance that was going on in the industry . I worked with a lot of unique characters , from Hondurans to crackheads to that was pretty much it . I worked with a lot of . South American guys who were awesome and a lot of crackheads who were also awesome .

They were just on crack . It's hard to get somebody to work oysters and they're not all crackheads and they're not all Hondurans . If you make it in the oyster field and you got a half a head screwed on , you're going to do okay , there's good living in the oyster industry .

But if you're working for someone else , the likelihood of it is like that's not entirely true . That's not entirely true .

I know a bunch of great guys that were working , but either way they didn't let me partake in any shenanigans and they were always like making sure that I was doing something else and that I saw the other side of the industry , that it wasn't just work , that you know there was administrative things . Know , there was administrative things in that .

One of the reasons that they were successful was it was they weren't just using their back to make money , but they were , you know , using their head to make money . And they were kind of the ones that were like you really need to go get a GED , bare minimum . Yeah , they told me to go get a GED when I was I think I was 16 .

I think 16 in Louisiana you can get a GED , and it was probably part of my mom too . My mom too was probably like , hey , you got to go get a GED just because you got to have something . And so , yeah , I got a GED when I was 16 , 17 . I was not really planning , I never really planned on going to college , I was just going to work .

But after about four years of really hard labor and my mentors kind of like , hey , this is a really hard life , you want to make sure that you can survive without breaking your back for 40 years , I started thinking beyond just working oysters or working commercial fishing or just driving a tugboat . I started working on tugboats the day I turned 18 .

Actually the day after I turned 18 , on a Sunday , and my dad's birthday present to me was a job on a tugboat . It was the same company that my granddad worked for my dad and all my uncles worked for my brother . When I left this company , all five of my siblings , myself included , worked for this company and the four of them still work there .

It was kind of like you did commercial fishing which I was the only one of my siblings to really do commercial fishing and then you go work on tugboats . And then you know , hopefully you can drive ships , hopefully you can . You know pilot ships on the river . And so I was working on a tugboat for a couple of years and in my head I was going to no .

I was telling people like they'd ask me like , hey , are you going to try to be a pilot ? I'm like , hey , are you going to try to be a pilot ? I'm like , yeah , I want to be a pilot . Let me back up a little bit . When I was working on the tugboats I had never been on a ship and I was real young when my dad went to prison .

When my dad got out of prison they forced him to retire . So he was retired but he wasn't a pilot anymore . So I never had any opportunities to see what it was like on the other side of that fence and to look at the river from the wheelhouse of a ship . I only knew it from the wheelhouse of a tugboat , and my dad wasn't there to want to .

You know , you want to come do a ride along and come ride a ship with me . At that point I wasn't sure if I wanted to be a pilot , because there was a bit of bad blood towards the pilot association . You know I kind of forced my dad out and you know that was here nor there and water under the bridge .

By now I wasn't really sure if I wanted to be a pilot , but I'd never seen a ship bridge . So I was like yeah , I'd love to . And I remember the day I got on a ship with Captain Billy Lanterns I was like this is what I'm doing . I was like I don't care if y'all murdered my old man , this is what I'm doing . And so I was like I love this .

And from that point on , like that was , my goal was to be a riverboat pilot and I'm about 18 at the time . I have my GED . My initial plan was I was going to do what they call hauspiping . Hauspiping is a term that you pretty much work your way up in the industry . Before there was programs like A&M and they got .

They got six more schools in the US where you can go for a four-year degree , get a bachelor's in maritime transportation and when you graduate you're an officer on a ship . You're the lowest officer , but you're an officer on a ship and you kind of jump that haus piping period to , where you're never a subordinate , you jump right into the officer position .

I didn't want to really do that . I wanted to work on boats and then work my way into the pilotage . But the industry was changing a lot at that time and we were , as an association and as a pilot , specific in the industry . Everybody was shifting towards maritime grads .

There was no set rule that you couldn't hos pipe at the time , but there was a couple of senior captains on the tugs and a couple of senior pilots that were like hey , you're 18 years old , you have no dependence , you have a lot of of freedom .

You really need to go get a degree , because there's no telling how long it's you're going to take to get into the association and there's no really no telling what what rules are going to change in the coming years . I grew up very insecure about my education . I've always well . Back then I was very insecure about my education . I I've always well .

Back then I was very insecure about my education . I was like there's just no way I can make it . There's no way I'm going to be able to get through college . You know , I I didn't do school , I barely . I thought I should have . You know , it's funny , I should have failed my GED .

The only reason I didn't fail is because the administrator forgot to set the clock and he gave us an extra two hours to take it . So , like I mean , obviously I could just go back and take it again , but the time that I passed it , like the only reason I passed was because I got an extra two hours , which is bad .

It worked out great for me , but yeah . So I was really insecure about going to college and there was one particular captain that I was working under on the tugs and he I mean I don't think it was a whole lot of convincing we were sitting on the tugs . I was at the time taking developmental classes at a community college in Louisiana , which is .

There's a funny story when I started that community college about my very first classes . But I was , so I was , I was already taking developmental classes because my bosses said , hey , you might as well start taking classes .

I was like , okay , I'm sure you know it seems productive , but it wasn't really for the pilotage , I just was taking it because they had said it Just to do it . Yeah , and but I'm on this tug . I was on the point clear . The captain's like what do you plan on doing ? You know , what are your plans ? I said I want to be a riverboat pilot .

He's like how do you plan to do it ? I was like why I'm going to cause pipe and I'm going to college . Where do you say this ? He's like you need to go to A&M . I was like I can't make it at A&M . He's like sure you can . He's like I went to A&M and plenty of people went through A&M and he's like you could definitely do it .

And so I was like oh , okay , I just accepted . He said I could do it . I was like yeah , sure I can do it . And right there , he's like we went online on the boat computer . He put my application in . We wrote like five essays right there on the computer . We sent it off . I called my mom . I said hey , mom , I'm going to go to college at A&M .

She's like awesome , I'll start saving up for your college fund . I'm like , mom , I'm 18 . You should have did that a long time ago . We all we just laughed at it . She's like yeah , but I never thought you would go . I'm like thanks for the confidence . Mom . You know she's like no , I just thought you were going to be successful elsewhere .

I said , hey , I'm , I'm gonna , uh , I'm going to go to college at A&M . I already submitted my application . Semester starts in two weeks . And I said I'm going to get off this boat on Tuesday and I'm going to go to Galveston and I'm going to start taking classes at the community college next to A&M . Yeah , I did so .

I was on the boat for another three or four days . I got off on a Tuesday morning or four days . I got off on a Tuesday morning , drove to Galveston , signed up for classes , got an apartment and I lived in Galveston with less than seven days from deciding to go to A&M Wasn't accepted .

But I just saw another thing that I had known and this this captain had told me it was like if you take classes at this other school , the transfer into A&M was much easier , which really isn't true . But at the time that that was the information that I was going off of . So , yeah , I had my application in an A&M .

I mean , the other school was a community college , so they accept you no matter what . And I mean I lived in Galveston . That following Friday I wasn't even accepted and I didn't get accepted for another semester . Yeah , and looking mean , I lived in Galveston that following Friday I wasn't even accepted and I didn't get accepted for another semester .

Yeah , you know , and looking back , like one of the things I learned , it's like I learned through A&M that really all you got to do is work really hard . Like I couldn't spell , I could barely read . I was good at math , but that was primarily just because I was just always naturally good at math but I couldn't spell and I could hardly read .

When I got to A&M , but I just worked really hard . I treated it like a 12-hour shift job . At one point I was taking 31 hours in one semester . Most of my semesters I was taking 25 to 28 . And what I learned was I was just like I just work harder .

I networked really well , like I met friends and they would tell me like hey , you could take this , take a class over at Southwestern , southeastern Texas or West Texas College and community colleges here and I could just transfer classes . And so I , uh , I did it in three years .

I did two and a half semesters , two and a half years of semester , and then I had one full semester at sea . I just worked really hard and obviously if you work long enough like , you'll learn how to read , you'll learn

how to write . You know you'll learn . And another thing I showed up realizing was that you don't there are . No , there was no expectation for you to know very much . It was like if you're here , like the point of this class was to teach you , you don't have to know anything .

I mean , obviously , if you're in , you know higher physics class , you might want physics one and two before you went to advanced physics . But I mean , for most of my classes there was no expectation for you to know very much . But it was kind of funny . My very first class at A&M I almost failed it because I misspelled the word captain like seven times .

There was a captain there that was very hard on the new cadets , the new students at A&M , but once he found out I wasn't completely incompetent , he laid off me . But he failed me halfway through the semester because I kept misspelling words which I'm like Cap , I'm not in spelling school , I'm in captain school . I'm like I'm in maritime school .

I want to learn how to drive a boat , not spell the word captain . And he's like no , you got to learn how to spell . But yeah , so my A&M time it was good . I really loved it . I learned a lot and it was kind of hard .

Something you talked about that I think important through all of this I've kind of caught onto it is you've had good people in your life who've kind of helped guide you along the way oh my gosh what'd you say , poogie ? what was the guy , poogie and the other guy ?

And then , yeah , I mean , the first time you went , yeah , poogie and henry , the first time you went onto that boat and you're like this is what I want to do . The the captain there , yeah , the tugboat captain , you know , saying hey , you could do this .

When you're in your mind you were like no , I can't , I , I couldn't even graduate homeschool , I had to get my GED . He's like no , you can go to A&M , you can do this . So I've been impressed by , you've had great influences along the way .

When I picked a direction , there was multiple captains Billy Lanner's , my dad's good friend . He was one of those guys that would call me about once a semester and say , hey , how are you doing ? Are you eating ? Are you making it through school ? How do you feel about this direction ?

There was another accountant , Mitch Oakley , who right when I decided I was going to A&M , he was a part of the tugboat company but he was a part of the union that I was in for the tugboat and he was a .

He taught like safety and he taught a bunch of classes for the tugboat and he taught safety and he taught a bunch of classes for the union and he had done a bunch of executive work for an oil company up in the Northeast years before .

Fantastic teacher , fantastic mentor , and he also was one that would call what's your direction , how do you want to get there ? And it wasn't that they called . I didn't talk to these gentlemen very often , but every time I talked to them they made sure , like , hey , what's your focus ? What are you focused on ? How do you want to get there ?

Is there anything like , is there a step that you need help from me ? And I guess that was just . They helped cultivate a direction for me and helped me , like , see through the weeds of like where do I want to go , and then talk life into me and then make sure that I was a good human being at the same time .

And I look at that because I've had people who've done that for me along my life and it's like , hopefully I can repay that and do that for others as well as we move forward .

I see the enjoyment that they I guess the only thing that those guys got were they just helped somebody that was already working in a direction and they helped them along and that's an enjoyable thing and I'm very thankful that they did it for me and they taught me how to do it , hopefully , I guess .

But before we do that , you're , you are currently a riverboat pilot , if I'm not mistaken . Yeah , I got to hear at least a story or so , one or two stories about any kind of crazy experiences as a riverboat pilot . And when I think of a riverboat pilot , are you driving like those , those barges , like what is it that you drive ?

What is it that you're captaining ?

If you were to go into Japan or China , australia , the UK , they have the same laws when you go into their waters .

When you hit the sea buoy , a representation from that country gets on board and helps navigate the ship to wherever it's going , and so that's my primary job is to help get the ship safely from point A to point B and be that representation of the country on board .

By the time they get to me , though , they've been with two other riverboat pilot associations , because I go from New Orleans up to up to baton rouge , yeah , so when it gets to us I come on board . I share responsibility with the captain , but I primarily control the movements of the ship and I don't . There's no steering wheel that I'm operating like .

I give commands to the crew on the ship , give rud rudder commands and engine commands . I do all the communication with other vessels . When we approach a dock and we're going to dock the ship . I give all the commands to the tugboats that'll come on and they'll help us come alongside the dock .

I'm the hub of information when it comes to the tugs , the other vessels . When it comes to the tugs , the other vessels , the linemen that help us , tie us up , I always have a radio and a cup of coffee . It's kind of pointing to my company , but really that's what I did .

That's all I do is I drink coffee and I talk on the radio , and one of the reasons I'm not hands-on is the ship's 140 to 200 feet wide . If you're going to dock something like that , you can't do it from the steering wheel .

You got to be out on the bridge wing , you got to be out on the edge of the ship when you're docking , and so it would be really impossible for me to actually put my hands on the throttles , as they say , to operate the ship .

So I just give commands to the helmsman who controls the rudder , and then I give commands to the mate who controls the engine , the EOT , and then me and the captain . You know , sometimes the captain's involved .

You know he wants to know how we're meeting other vessels and he wants me to paint him a little bit of a picture if he's not sure , but nine out of 10 times I do a little interaction .

He tells me a little bit about his ship so that I know what I'm driving and what I'm stepping into , and there's some information that I need to clear bridges or make sure I don't run aground maybe steering characteristics , stuff like that . We call that a master pilot exchange . So I have a master pilot exchange so that I know information about the ship .

Usually they go to sleep , they'll go do paperwork . It's understandable too , because to get to Baton Rouge might be 24 hours from the Seabury , so you can't expect the man to be on the bridge the whole time . Some of them do Some , some , some of the captains . They'll sleep on the couch on the on the bridge .

For the most part they go back and do paperwork and then when we go to dock the ship he'll come out and out and you know he'll be a part of docking wow , okay yeah , it's kind of interesting and you've been .

You know everybody's speculated that , oh , it was a terrorist attack , oh it was this , oh it was that . You know , the week that ship hit the bridge we had five ships have this not identical failure , but the same type of blackout .

There's a lot of ships , so it's not like a lot of the ships on the water are blacking out a lot , it's just it happens pretty often . So I've had ships lose power completely . Luckily I haven't had anything beyond you stressful couple hours . But yeah , one time I was coming down on a bridge .

I was on a loaded ship so I had about 40 , 45 foot of draft . One of the things that makes our pilotage kind of difficult is the amount of turns and the speed of the current . You can only control a ship if you have water deflecting across the rudder . The only way you can do that is to move the ship forward through the water .

Well , if the current is doing four or five knots , the ship has to move pretty damn quick for the rudder to actually work . It was a pretty normal day . We're coming down in an area called Geismar or Grandview and there was a .

There was a line tow and to paint a picture of the type of tow this was , he had almost 10 acres of barges in front of him , of barges in front of him . We'll say he had a solid eight acres of barges in front of him . So this guy's not , he's not very maneuverable .

He doesn't just get out of your way , he doesn't do anything fast and if anything , his job in certain times is extremely difficult . He can't just stop right . That's another thing about ships . Like it's kind of when the current's doing four or five miles an hour , it's pretty hard to to stop . This thing For sure it could take .

You know , I've I've seen 180,000 ton ships or 80 , 120,000 ton ships take two miles to stop , and that was going with the current . I mean going against the current , going against the current . So I was going against the current and it still took me two miles to stop and so I'm coming down on the bridge .

I'm probably like 10 miles from the bridge and the line tow is in front of me and we had already made passing groomies where I'm going to overtake this guy before the bridge . Well , as we're coming down , there is an anchorage off to the front of us , you know , on the east bank , and there's like four ships in the anchorage .

Very normal , like no big deal . Well , we're just coming down , it's a bluebird day , like nothing crazy is happening right now . I'm just going to overtake him before the bridge and we're going to go through the bridge single file . Well , the ship at the very bottom of the anchorage breaks loose and just pulls out .

It wasn't under power , the anchors failed and the ship just pulled out in front of the tow . And so now for this guy to not hit the ship , he's got to pull out in front of me . So if you could imagine him just pulling towards me and like cutting my water off , there's nothing we could do right , he's trying not to hit the ship that's in the anchorage .

I'm trying to not hit him and at the same time I'm trying to not hit the bridge pier . And it's one of those moments where I remember coming down and it was like I'm definitely not hitting the bridge , right , there's no way I'm hitting the bridge .

So I'm like I'm just going to have to take the front end of this guy's toe off , the front end of his barges off , and I think we I mean I was 40 or 50 feet from the bridge pier and when I looked off the stern of the ship as I'm overtaking the front end of his toe , I looked off the stern and I couldn't see the barges , or I couldn't see the

front end of the barges , meaning like he was right underneath me but a saying that we have in this industry an inch is as good as a mile . And he didn't hit me , I didn't hit the bridge . It was extremely stressful . I remember like not talking on the bridge for like 30 , 40 minutes as my like blood pressure came down .

That was one incident where you could you could see it from from 30 minutes out . Like you knew , like I knew , like as soon as that Brit that that ship came out , I knew what the toe in front of me , the line toe , was going to do .

I knew , I knew what he had to do and I knew that that meant like he's going to cut my water off for like 30 minutes . I'm like man , this is , this isn't good , this isn't good , this isn't good .

I don't know if that's more stressful than the other side , which is it's a bluebird day and , like bam , something jumps out in front of you which is probably more of the stressors that I get .

I was taking a ship from just North of New Orleans in an area called Kenner Bend and come out of the anchorages and we were going to go like four miles and we were going to go into a dock . It was a very congested morning . Toes were everywhere . There was a lot of ship movement .

There's a small I guess it was probably Chinese crew or Filipino crews language barrier there . Right , that's actually one of the big troubles is there's a lot of language barrier . They have to speak English , but that doesn't mean they speak good English or understandable English .

Yeah , yeah , and you get a lot of head noddling , yeah , and I'm like no , not , yes , like is it ? You know , did the anchor drop ? Yes , no , I don't think you understand me . Like what's going on ? Yes , and you're like , oh my gosh , culture differences are kind of funny . But yes , I'm on this ship and it's very congested .

There's a lot of toes running back and forth . I'm going upriver tows running back and forth . I'm going up river . I got a really large ship that's going to overtake me and that , so that we're not too abreast coming around the point , he's going to overtake me , so I'm trying to set up for that .

And he was a really I was on probably a 40,000 ton ship and he was on 150,000 ton ship and so he was a much larger vessel . And you know , and when you get really big , they handle really well , but you move a lot of water and they don't move very fast . So there's a give and take there .

I was talking to a couple of tows that were doing some work on the bank and there was a bunch of traffic coming down and I made all my passing arrangements . I told the tows that were doing the work on the bank like , hey , I'm going to get really close to you , you know , but you all just keep doing your thing .

I just want to make sure you know I'm there . Well , these toes are coming down and I go into the back of the wheelhouse and imagine the wheelhouse is 130 foot room , that's probably 20 foot wide and it's just got a bunch of radars and a bunch of electronics and communication systems and it's a big office at the same time .

And well , sometimes a radio there's always radios up forward , but sometimes I'll turn a radio in the back on another channel so that I can kind of hear what's going on in another area . Or if I need to talk to the tugboats , I switch channel . Well , I remember , like looking out the window and I'm like everything's good . It's tight but everything's good .

I told the helmsman to hold it in a straight line and I went into the back , into the chart room and I'm like fiddling with this radio for like 30 seconds and I just remember the captain screaming Mr Pilot , mr Pilot , barge , barge , and I was like I don't know what that means , but he sounded distressed in his voice . So I like popped through the curtain .

There's a curtain between at night , this is at night , and there's a curtain on the chart room so that they can have light on the chart room but not have too much so you can see . So I come through the uh , I come through the , the curtain and all I could see in front of the ship . You can't see the top of this boat .

He's underneath my belly , so close that I could see the very front end of his toe , like his bar . It was a light push boat , it was just a push boat , so he had no , he wasn't pushing any barges , he was just the boat itself . I could see the very front and then I could see the prop wash the water from the back of him .

I knew I was running him over at that moment . If you could have just imagined , like not being able to see something in front of your car and you're doing right and so I'm not going to stop this thing .

I wasn't going very fast , but I was going fast enough that if I hit him , you know , I could potentially be killing the five guys that are on that boat . Yeah , so like I stepped through the curtain , I said a couple of profanities , I went hard over , stopped engines and I just started screaming at this guy on the radio .

I mean I don't know how , but I ended up not hitting him . Wow , I'm not a smoker , but I remember , like everybody's like lighting up cigarettes and I'm like , yeah , I'll take a cigarette .

You know , I need a cigarette right now because it was I don't know if I'm like explaining like the severity of that moment , but it was essentially like there was one second where everything is fine and dandy and then like within 10 max , 20 , max seconds , like I'm killing five people , you know I'm about to cause at least 10 million in damage and I'm , you

know , primarily I'm going to kill these guys . You know no telling what this is going to do to my career , right ? So it's like there's a lot of not that , any of those things . The only thing that went through my head was don't hit this thing Right .

And of those things , the only thing that went through my head was don't hit this thing right and do whatever you can to not hit it . So I get on the radio and do everything you can on the ship to try to not hit it Blow the whistle , get on the radio , scream . I was screaming at him . I didn't know who he was .

I didn't have time to find out who he was . So I just started screaming

in hopes that everybody was going to pick their head up . Luckily he did . It was so funny too . Like I went hard over , stopped my engines , which doesn't when you stop your engines , it doesn't help going hard over , but if I'm going to hit him I don't want to be going full blast on him .

So I stopped my engines , went hard over , screamed at him , blew the whistle , got her back under control . Now I'm shaking and I'm trying to get this guy on the radio . And he never answered the radio . He's like he knew what he did and so I called it . I even called his office . I was ratted on him . But either way it was fine .

I mean other than the three years of life that I lost from the stress in that moment . For sure , no harm , no foul . But it's kind of interesting . It's like sometimes it takes 30 minutes that you're just watching this train wreck from a really far place . The other times , which is more often , it's more more more often than not they pop out of nowhere .

Emergencies happen .

So what I've learned about you , chris , is that you're somebody who's a hard worker .

You've had people in your life who've influenced you , who are also hard workers and , if I'm not mistaken , you came up , you and your some other associates of yours came up with Backbone Coffee Company kind of for that type of person , the hardworking person who's , you know , putting in those 12-hour shifts , like you are , and has to have that coffee to keep going

. Tell me a little bit about Backbone Coffee before we end up here .

And then I was in a season where it was like , okay , I achieved that and that's awesome , but I don't really have anything to focus on anymore . So I was in a season where I was like I was looking to bring value and I was looking to do something in business .

I'm an excellent operator when it comes to the maritime and the commercial industry , but I never started a business . I didn't really have a whole lot of experience in it and I felt like that was sort of . The next thing for me was to start a business , and I didn't really know . I didn't have an idea . I didn't have an idea of like what do you do ?

And not only did it , I didn't really just like want to have an idea . I wanted to bring value somewhere . And there's two folds to this story , too , for why I started . Backbone One was to like I wanted to start a business , I wanted to bring value .

I didn't know where that value or what that business was going to come to like in the beginning , when I was hanging out with Brandon and Cameron , and then the other side of it was , I had this idea that's not original to myself at all about what generational wealth is . I've got three kids hopefully more to come .

There's a philosophy of what generational wealth is that I really stuck to , and that was your ability to create wealth , your ability but I guess this is the way that generational wealth was described .

To me that meant the most was it's not the zeros in the bank account that you leave your kids , but it's your ability to create wealth , your ability to teach how to create wealth to a generation . And then the third step was your ability to teach how to create wealth and then teach how to teach how to create wealth right .

So it's not just the money but it's your ability to do it , to teach it and to teach how to teach it . So I'm sort of and I'm still on that journey of like how to build wealth and how to like run a successful business that produces some sort of value to other people .

So either way , that was like the headspace that I was in when Cam came to me and kind of pitched the idea of like , really , he didn't even pitch the idea .

We were sitting at dinner and we're always talking about business a little bit Like what's the next million dollar idea , you know , and we're sitting at dinner and Cam , he was driving some city a couple days before dinner and he's like man , I was driving I saw a big old crane that was building this skyscraper and he just had the thought , like I wonder if the

world really recognizes what the crane operator does . And does the world think about that crane operator ? And does that crane operator who builds america right ? I mean that sort of that character who's going to work every day , like is he getting the representation in society that he deserves ?

I don't know that premise of like , how do we bring recognition to the people who ?

And then we kind of just pitched around like how do you bring recognition to America that are building America , you know , one cup of coffee at a time and bring them affordable , delicious coffee and recognition for what they do , Just be a good part of their morning .

And I think that was the initial idea , Like like now we're bringing a product that people love and hopefully in a way that represents them really well .

And from there , like we literally were at dinner and we just were talking about it , we did a three-day archery shoot in Broken Bow , Oklahoma , and the whole way there we're talking about like how we could do this .

And then , when we got back , my uncle ran a roastery out in Seattle , and then Max , who you've emailed a couple of times , he was a friend of ours and we flew to Seattle , figured out how to roast coffee , figured out what the coffee industry looks like , how to bring a really good product I mean , obviously it takes more than one visit to Seattle to roast

coffee , by the way and then , yeah , we just started on like learning how to build a business Cause , and that's another thing . Cam and Brandon ran a tree cutting business together . For a couple of years they had sold it and then , yeah , I had zero experience . So everything from setting up QuickBooks to how does Google Drive work yeah , so it's been .

There's a lot of learning to do when you know absolutely nothing about a very large industry .

Someone like you know you who , and you're someone who's adventurous Journey with Jake's an adventure podcast . It's about your journey . It's someone you know when , what you've been through , and you've been through a lot . I mean , your dad was in prison for tax evasion , of all things . I mean you've .

You've had some things , but you've learned how to work hard and you're learning something else .

And then that next , I guess I'm I'm also into like really long journeys , cause it took me like 15 years to to accomplish the , uh , the , the pilotage thing . Hopefully it doesn't , you know well , I guess . Hopefully I can be doing this one for a long time . Yeah , exactly , yeah , hopefully this journey is a little different , but neither is the pilot .

I'm not going to stop driving ships . It's too much fun . It's way too much fun to be to stop . Yeah , it's still a fun journey to drive ships and it's fun to have new journeys , for sure new things for sure , no .

. And one thing I will like to point out about the coffee that we're producing it is specialty coffee . It is very high-end coffee . It is roasted to order , so we don't roast the beans until the order comes in , so the coffee is extremely fresh . We worked really hard to make the process very seamless and very simple . Pretty proud of our website .

But , yeah , you just check us out online , check us out on our social medias . There's always a link to , you know , our website there , until we're in grocery stores that's . That's the only way to get it .

Chris , my last question . I always like to ask this to everybody , because journey with jake , we talked about your journey , some of your adventures that you know , with coonan , for oysters and whatnot , but what does the word adventure mean to you ?

A huge thank you to Chris for joining Journey with Jake and sharing his incredible story with us . If you want to learn more about Chris and Backbone Coffee , visit backbonecoffeecom and follow them on Instagram at backbonecoffee . Also , don't forget to check out the show notes or my blog post about this episode at journeywithjakenet .

Forward slash episode 156 for an exclusive 15% off backbone coffee . Big thanks to Chris for sharing that with our listeners . I really appreciate it . And , of course , thank you to each and every one of you for tuning in and supporting Journey with Jake every week .

For those of you watching on YouTube , I appreciate your patience with the video quality in the first half of this episode . I'm still getting the hang of YouTube side of things , so thanks for sticking with me . Next week we have another fantastic episode featuring David Chaffrin . David was deep in the rat race when he realized something was missing .

He needed to dance that's right dance . And he didn't just dabble in it . He took his passion for salsa dancing all the way to Medellin , colombia . It's an inspiring story you won't want to miss . Just remember , it's not always about the destination as it is about the journey . Take care everybody .