I got the sailing bug while in college in Boston from a newspaper article about a young couple who bought a distressed sailboat and were going to sail it to the Bahamas, and all the exotic places they planned to visit. It sounded like a wonderful life.
I bought my first 38′ Morgan sailboat in ’77 and sailed to Florda and the Bahamas in ’78.
I became a professional Captain with a 100 ton USCG Masters license in 1982 while in St. Thomas so I could take out guests on my (by that time) 50′ Gulfstar ketch “Desperado”.
In 1986 I sold my boat and moved to land. I regretted it almost immediately. Life changed again for me when I met Lisa. I was living in the Northeast building houses and I was bored and tired of the weather. Lisa wanted to live where there were palm trees and she had cooking experience. I showed her my photo album of the sunny Virgin Island palm tree lined beachese during a New England blizzard. It didn’t take long to come up with a plan. We would buy a boat and charter again someplace with palm trees… the Virgin Islands!
We were married in ’89, the same year we bought a beautiful 52′ Ron Holland design sloop and named her “Renegade”. After a year in Florida and the Bahamas, we sailed to the Virgin Islands and began chartering. Since then, we have owned and chartered a 60′ Nautical Sailboat “Southern Comfort”, an 80′ Hatteras Motor Yacht “Obsession”, an 80′ Azimut Motor Yacht “Runaway”, a 62′ Lagoon Sailing Catamaran “Eclipse”, and now “Remedy” a 58′ Fountaine Pajot Sailing Catamaran.
Chef Lisa
Being from the same hometown in New Hampshire, I was definitely over the New England weather and tired of my busy schedule with a 9 to 5 job during the week and my catering service on the weekends. My father was a Chef, so I spent lots of time growning up in the kitchen with him. I enjoy cooking much more than bookeeping!
I met Captain Jim at a wedding reception I was catering for mutual friends. We hit it off right away! After dating for a few months he told me he was thinking about going back to the Virgin Islands. He had shown me pictures and told me stories of his adventures while chartering. The more we talked, the more I was ready to head south together. We were married within a year!
We found a few boats that he thought would be good for chartering and we took a trip to Florida to “look” at them. A week later we owned a stunning Ron Holland 52 cutter rigged sloop “Renegade”.
After returning to New Hampshire to take care of details, putting all our belongings in storage and quitting my job, we headed for sunny Florida in Jim’s pickup truck, shedding our winter clothes into rest area dumpsters along the way. We weren’t going back to the cold again!
We sailed Renegade to the Bahamas for a fantastic 6 week honeymoon that we never got in New Hampshire. Returning to Fort Lauderdale to finish the prep for chartering and the sail east out to I-65 (the sixty-fifth parallel), then straight south to St. Thomas. We arrived in St. Thomas during a charter boat show and although we were tired and not really ready, we met some brokers Jim had known before. We started chartering 2 weeks later. I’ve now been a professional chef on charter yachts in the Islands for over 30 years, on hundreds of charters, serving thousands of guests.
Life aboard has been anything but boring and I would not change it for the world!!
First Mate Daisy
Although being born in Texas, I was adopted in Colorado by a loving couple who never had any children. Needless to say, I get all the love they would have given a child. I love being anywhere my family is, although I’m not fond of flying! I have crossed the country in an RV, boated in the Gulf of Mexico, and sailed from Florida, through the Bahamas to St. Thomas.
I sleep a lot and play with my toys. I like meeting kind new people, although I love my catnaps the most
