Julie and Gio from Pelagic Blue Cruising Services return to the podcast after their 15,000 nautical mile journey from Mexico to Hawaii, Alaska, and back to the Pacific Northwest. And that’s just the beginning! Along the way, they’ve not only explored incredible destinations but also transformed from eager cruisers to trusted mentors, helping others prepare for life at sea.
In this episode, we talk about:
⛵ Their Pacific Loop: sailing from Mexico to Hawaii, Alaska, and back to the Pacific Northwest
⚓ What they learned about planning, preparation, and staying flexible
🛠 How to prioritize refit projects—and avoid common mistakes
📋 The SMART goals framework for turning cruising dreams into reality
👩🏫 Their journey from students to mentors, supporting others in their own cruising plans
Whether you’re planning your first passage or dreaming of long-term cruising, this conversation is full of practical advice and inspiration.
Transcript:
Annika: [00:00:00] Well, thank you for being on the show again. It’s fantastic to have you back. And when we last spoke, you were in the final stages of setting sail. And since then you’ve sailed something like 10, 000 nautical miles, got your business more up and running and gained a ton of new experiences. So I’m curious, looking back at the last little while, how has your vision for cruising changed compared to your initial expectations that you maybe had?
Julie: Okay. Let’s see. So when we talked to you last, we had just checked into Mexico. We were hanging out in Ensenada after sailing down from California. Um, and we were getting ready to like push off and head down into Baja and the Sea of Cortez with like, no plan, no timeline.
Just, we made it. We bought the boat. We got the training. We’re doing it. We’re just going to hang out for a while and see how it goes and then go from there. Cause you don’t want to have too much of a schedule when you’re cruising. [00:01:00] And we had a blast, of course, and I think it was a couple months in, we were like, well, you know, maybe we’re ready to go across an ocean.
It sure seems like we feel like we’re ready to go across an ocean. Why don’t we sail to Hawaii? It had been like an option that we were considering for sure. There were a lot of options because there’s always like plan A through at least F with sailing and with cruising.
That was probably like plan D. 2 or something sail to Hawaii and then see what happens. So we spent a few months in Mexico, loved it. It was delightful. Baja was incredible. We did sail from La Paz to Hawaii. So the Hawaiian islands for a little bit for the summer and then decided we wanted to kind of come back to the Pacific Northwest for a bit, get some help up here where we have a good support network and we went to school for marine technician training, to do some major refit work on our boat that we didn’t quite have the facilities to do and the funds to do really so we wanted to do that up here. So the same [00:02:00] summer we sailed from Hawaii all the way up to northern British Columbia southeast Alaska and then ended up back in Anacortes completing that loop back to where we first stopped on our training expedition with John Neal and we moved to go back to school and retrained which was like amazing. Super cool.
So I think we’ve done like 15, 000 miles since we talked to you last. And, uh, we kind of thought we’d be waiting for a break. We were like, well, that’s a lot. We got some projects to do. We got to like, see if this works for us. But man, when we like pulled into our slip for the winter, after that big cruise, it was really hard.
We like, did not want to stop. We’re like, I don’t know how we’re going to readjust to land life. Really? The boat is our home. We’re so good at this. Like, I don’t think I remember how to drive a car. I’m much more comfortable parking my boat than my truck. It’s very bizarre. And we, um, made friends with everyone on the dock after we’d been there for a while and they were like, you know, you guys [00:03:00] have changed a lot.
Yeah. But I think we’re like totally hooked. Like this is us. We finally found it. It took us a while in life, but like, we’re there. Like cruising is, it is in our blood. It is in our DNA and we are honoring that. And we’re all in.
Gio: Currently working on pacific loop.
Annika: Ooh, the next Pacific loop.
Julie and Gio: Yes
Gio: seafox is in training right now. In the form of being in the boatyard with her mask off and a cover over her and all of the systems disassembled and a lot of parts are in order. Taking her down to her bare bones again, just evaluating to make sure, that the next big loop, which we think is going to be probably 25,000-30,000 miles will be hopefully 25,000-30,000 miles of very trouble free cruising by doing our diligence ahead of time.
Annika: Well, exactly. And that’s the goal, right? So to prepare well, so that everything goes smoothly when you set off. And I think I saw something really [00:04:00] relevant on Instagram the other day where you talked about your SMART goals for cruising preparation. So now I see where this came from.
So the SMART goals, I’ve heard of it before cause I used to work a lot in project management. But I would love to hear how you have adapted this for something as dynamic as the liveaboard life and cruising preparation. Maybe we need to explain first what smart goals are just for everyone and what do they mean in the context of cruising preparation.
Julie and Gio: It’s such a good question. And it’s funny, I have the same like project and program management background, and that’s where it came from. Really. I was going through a lot of like structured decision making, training and processing for a lot of the conservation work I did for years. And a big part of the contention that happens in like multi entity negotiations, specifically in conservation, is that everybody’s got different goals.
Every entity or, or agency comes to the table with different idea of what [00:05:00] success looks like. And I realized, over the course of years of doing this for my career, that Making sure everyone understands the goal is how you actually get to move forward on something. And in cruising, it’s kind of taken a similar but different path, whether it’s a couple or a family or a group of friends who want to go cruising.
Everyone’s got a different idea of what the preparation looks like, what the goal of going cruising is. You kind of have these differences and expectations and realities that sometimes lead to not so fun situations or not actually getting to accomplish that goal because you’re still kind of swirling around.
So this smart goal model works really well for individuals, for couples, for everyone that we’ve encountered, and we used it too. So SMART goals are five things. SMART is an acronym for those people who haven’t seen it yet. Your goals should be specific. They should be measurable. They should [00:06:00] be achievable, relevant, and time bound.
So all of those attributes define an actual goal. I can give you an example of it here. So if you’re saying something like, I want to buy a boat and go cruising. That’s awesome. But where do you want to go cruising? What is your budget? When do you want to do this? All those types of things are like the details that you can kind of get wrapped up in if you spend too much time on it, but using that smart framework of like, well, is that specific enough for me to be acting upon helps a lot.
Can you measure your success or your progress towards reaching that goal? Is it time bound? That usually makes a difference. For us, it was a lot of like, we are quitting our jobs on this day, no matter what. We are putting the house up for sale by this day, no matter what, or at least within our power. And it surprisingly, like, it’s tough to have deadlines and cruising for [00:07:00] sure when you are cruising, but when you’re getting ready to go, like, it does, it does make you really think about how bad you want it. How bad you want to leave, like, tomorrow. And what can you do to set yourself up to, like, be successful at doing that? We found it helps a ton.
Gio: Yeah, and success looks different for everybody. And success as a ?Cruiser, depends on your personal goals. And that’s something that we encourage people to take a really hard and honest look at themselves and their goals because most, people they need things on their boat before they even have the boat or have used it.
Right ?So if you want to do coastal cruising, which is totally fine, not everybody is designed to cross oceans. You’re going to be on a very different vessel than if you want to go offshore and if you’re realistic about that with yourself from the get go You could have a lot bigger cruising budget by spending 30 percent [00:08:00] of the money on your boat as opposed to 100 percent on an Offshore blue water cruiser that’s gonna be built really well and withstand the beatings that you are gonna give it going offshore.
Annika: Yeah, I love that idea of having a framework. To process this sort of decision making and planning because if you just go about it, like I tend to do in my daydreams then it’s kind of just daydreaming, you know Here’s like, oh, I want to go cruising and then I want to do this and I wanted this kind of boats but then when you actually start to use some kind of a framework put some structure to it, it becomes a lot more real right?
And it becomes a little more achievable as well, because it kind of then forces you to break down your dream, essentially in a good way into smaller pieces.
then
Gio: having things time bound, I think that’s such an important letter of the acronym, [00:09:00] because when we first interviewed with you, when we were in Ensenada, we left San Diego And all of our refit work wasn’t done, but we said we are leaving on this day. So it made us really prioritize what is safety related. What can we not leave without? And what supplies and tools can we just stuff in the bilge and wait until we have time and anchor that can be taken care of later. And speaking of time bound, Seafox is leaving for her big Pacific loop, August, 2026.
Annika: Well, there we go. Now it’s officially out on the podcast. So it has to happen.
Julie: Yeah,
Annika: happen.
Julie: Yeah, it’s true. We use the SMART framework for everything that we do still and we find that like you can use it on different chunks of your cruising dreams too, whether it’s like deciding where you want to start cruising or where you want to go that helps people a lot to be like well where do I want to go?
And when do I want to be there? That’s part of developing your voyage plan and part of really thinking about where it makes sense for you to buy a boat, where it makes sense [00:10:00] for you to start looking at the fine print and how long can you be there and when do you want to sail there type of thing. It all kind of like feeds into helping you be more successful and actually get out there sooner, which is, that’s what it’s all about. You like kind of wait too long to accomplish all these things, spend too much time researching. Which is hard to do for us researchers. Too much time, we’re in the yard. Too much time waiting to go. We see so many people who don’t end up going, and it’s such a bummer. Like, having that framework really helps you get specific, like you were talking about.
It makes it tangible, and then you’re responsible for just doing it, and just follow your plan.
Annika: Exactly, exactly. So you have a plan and then you follow it and then good things will follow. So just to recap. So SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable… what’s the R, realistic?
Julie: Relevant. Relevant. Yeah. And then time bound.
Annika: [00:11:00] Yes. So talk to me about the relevant bits, which I already forgot. So what’s a relevant goal then?
Julie: That’s a good question because it’s going to, it has to align with your, your ultimate cruising dream or your vision for your cruising.
So if your dream is to sail in remote places or to remote places, then you might say something like, well, I want to purchase a boat that’s got Simple systems, just what I need. And it’s equipped for offshore cruising so that I have what I need to get to those remote places. Instead of something like, I would like to buy an 80 foot catamaran.
It has to have a washing machine and I don’t want a heater. That might be kind of tough. So it should help you stay focused on what really matters and support your longterm cruising goals.
Annika: Yes, exactly. So we’re not talking about [00:12:00] getting a 30 foot boat with no heater or shower or hot water, and with the dream of sailing to Greenland.
Gio: Yes.
Julie: I’m sure you could do it. But man, it doesn’t sound very comfortable.
Annika: Well, you know, it’s each to their own. Many ways to sail, but I actually have talked to somebody who sailed to Greenland with no hot water, so that’s what reminded me. It was the very first episode of the podcast with Darren and Amanda from Outer Passage
Julie: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can totally do it and you figure it out. The cool thing about cruisers and cruising is that you’re just stuck in this bubble of your boat. We’re like, you got to figure it out.
It’s so often that we don’t have that opportunity in daily life now to just work through something with what you have.
And you, you get to fire those neurons hard when you’re out cruising.
Annika: Yes, absolutely. Your brain is on all the time trying to mitigate risks and come up with, uh, with the next plan because the previous one didn’t quite [00:13:00] work out. but you know, that’s life and that’s cruising life probably even more specifically.
So it’s great to hear about your new plans , I want to come back to your first pacific loop which I know you left very prepared because you are that kind of people who think about things ahead of time and you left prepared.
But as we have heard from time to time on the podcast, cruising does bring up unexpected challenges. So I’m wondering, could you share an instance where maybe you felt unprepared if that ended up happening on your trip?
Gio: So, I can think of a good one. We left San Diego, with, like Julie said, an open ended plan. Not sure exactly where it was going to lead to. But we didn’t leave San Diego not expecting to go to a grocery store for three months. And that is what ended up happening. Oh, I’m sorry. We left Ensenada not expecting to go to the grocery store for [00:14:00] three months. So we left Ensenada and we made a big jump down the Pacific coast to Bahia Magdalena. And that is a big Bay and estuary where the gray whales go to have their calves.
And it’s an amazing, fantastic, experience and magical place that we absolutely fell in love with and we were being very stubborn and we didn’t want to leave.
Julie: We were having a great time. We would wake up in the morning and we were the only boat anchored there most of the time and there were Gray whales popping up all around us and moms pushing their calves up.
And it was like, why would you leave? Why would you leave? There’s
allegedly
Gio: a town called San Carlos in Bahia Magdalena And we tried to go to San Carlos three separate times for groceries and No one would answer our radio hails. One time it was blowing a gale and we could not safely dock the boat. Another time It didn’t work out.
Anytime we went to San Carlos, there was nowhere for us to [00:15:00] go. We just didn’t end up getting groceries.
So we, got creative. There was one cantina out in the middle of nowhere, in Man O War Bay. And it was a little restaurant. They had the most delicious shrimp on the planet for anyone that’s a shrimp fan.
Um, that’s where you want to go is Magdalena Bay. but we kind of went there and made it work. We, um, Asked them if we could buy, like, tortillas, and they sold us, you know, a few kilos. And a kilo is, it’s a considerable stack of tortillas. It kept us in business for a while. And we raided their snack counter and bought everything that they had.
So we stayed in Bahia Magdalena. We made it work. It was amazing. We’re getting almost scurvy esque at that point wanting some fruits and vegetables. So we planned on getting some provisions when we went down to Cabo. We plan to go down to Cabo, fuel up, run to the grocery store, continue on our way.
Well, we get down to Cabo, and long story short, They did not welcome us at all. They wanted $200 U. S. for us to stay at the [00:16:00] fuel dock for an extra hour to go get groceries. And we felt about as unwelcome as possible. So we’re like, whatever, we’ll make it work. So we left there and that’s probably the part of the journey where we encountered the worst weather.
We got into probably 15 foot seas on three to four second periods we were just getting smashed and we’re going as hard to windward as we possibly could and made it to Bahia de los Muertos where we stayed for a little while and licked our wounds that still Had no grocery store there. So literally three months between when we left Ensenada and we finally made La Paz and the night we set anchor in La Paz, I got on the kayak and I rode as fast as I could to shore and I hiked to the grocery store and I came back with a backpack full of fruit and it was the best fruit salad I’ve ever eaten in my life. But what I learned from that is you not only bring fresh fruit, [00:17:00] you bring canned fruit, you bring dehydrated fruit, you bring freeze dried fruit, you bring fruit bars, you just be as prepared as possible.
Julie: Yeah, and we learned a lot about our style from this, like, silly experiment, we’ll call it, because a lot of the advice that we’ve been given by more experienced cruisers, we’re like, people eat all over the world, it’s all good, like, don’t buy too much, you’re just going to make your boat slow down.
Well, our boat is heavy. It’s designed to take big loads and we completely forgot to honor ourselves and our style and what we know to be true about how we, we already like to live our lives. We like to go to weird places and we like to stay there for a long time. We like to go to the middle of nowhere and not be in a hurry to have to leave.
And I think that, like, when we reflected on this wow, we only bought groceries for, like, a week. We had other stuff going on, too. It got pretty creative for a while, but we [00:18:00] did not bring anywhere near as much stuff as we thought to bring and it was just our failing to recognize that we’re middle of nowhere people.
Gio: And now even, even when we hauled the boat out I know, that with that lesson that we learned the interesting way. When we hauled the boat out of the water, we could have easily kept going for another six months with what we had in the catacombs of the stores and the deepest, darkest nooks that we’ve hidden for ourselves.
So we did never experience the fruit famine of 2020.
I mean, we were not
Julie: in danger of starving, obviously, like it’s all good. We got a little grouchy from time to time, but like, we just learned that we want to go places and not have to be in a hurry to leave. Cause we’re out of something, unless it’s been like months at a time, of course.
But yeah, we stay pretty well stocked from now on, on most things. And it’s great. That was probably like our biggest lesson. Yes, buy more provisions, of course, but also recognize your [00:19:00] personal style. Like, all the magazines, all of the YouTubes you can watch, consume all that stuff, but make sure that when you apply it, it’s through your personal lens.
How, how is this specifically relevant to me? Because that was our biggest downfall.
but
Annika: That’s a fantastic example. Thanks sharing that.
Julie: We did have a lot of fun. It gave us a purpose to go to shore. Cause we didn’t actually hurry to get to La Paz. We spent like six weeks. We were like, we got to get groceries in a week. We spent another six weeks like, well, we’re on our way there.
We figured out how to make it work. We’ll just go ashore. And if there’s a cantina or a little store, we’ll see what they have and we’ll make it work. So we did. Every restaurant on the beach, we’re like, can we buy some tortillas? Can we trade for some fish? And we had a great time!
We kept doing that actually in Hawaii and in British Columbia, cause we’d been offshore for so long.
We were packed. Gio was on fish restriction, unfortunately, which is what happens when the fridge and the freezer is [00:20:00] so full of fish that we cannot continue to put more fish in there.
We really like to show up with fun pelagic, this offshore species that a lot of people can’t get. So it was very nice for us to be like, we have tuna, we have mahi and. Poor Prince Rupert was like, we’re so tired of salmon. Can we trade? We’re like, yes, of course.
Annika: So you run your own business and you started it as you were preparing to leave for your journey and then you’ve kept it going while cruising and I think that’s a really impressive achievement. And I’m curious to learn what inspired you to launch the business and how do you balance running it with life on board?
Gio: Sure that’s an easy one. Not the balancing part, but how we got started. Our, great friend and amazing mentor, John Neal, is how we got started. He was really, [00:21:00] instrumental in our start to cruising and getting started on the right foot and getting the right advice and being steered in the correct direction on the right boat to have.
And John has announced, I don’t know if you heard 2025 is his last sail training expeditions in Scotland and he was Curious if we might like to carry on the knowledge base that he’s built over 36 years of sail training expeditions. So we’ve worked with him presenting his offshore cruising seminars and are working on his offshore cruising companion textbook and We want to keep carrying on that knowledge and we want to help other people be successful.
Julie: Yeah. We credit our time working with John through the boat purchase consultation process. He was huge in helping us there and going on a training expedition with him was [00:22:00] phenomenal. That really got both of us on the same page as far as working as a team, figuring out how to work together, having our first experience like out on the ocean. In the Pacific, actually, because we came up to Bellingham to do a trip with him years ago. And that really solidified for us that, yes, we wanted to do it. We got to experience that big Pacific swell in more of a controlled environment and we made good friends. It was awesome. that got us to hang out in Anacortes and go back to school and retrain for a while.
And when he was like, you guys should do this. Because I’m not going to do it forever. And we were like, those are big shoes to fill, John. It’s a really big deal. I don’t know about that. But the more we started like working with clients individually and taking students sailing and realizing that we love this and we’re so in it. It became kind of like a natural progression for us. So we’ve had a lot of fun teaching people good seamanship, teaching them the differences between inland and offshore sailing, and figuring out huge [00:23:00] tides, and do you get seasick? Do you not know? Well, let’s help you work through that and kind of figure out if this is for you, and talk through some of the things that you’re nervous about and practice them.
And we’ve just had such a great time leading training expeditions.
Gio: And it’s so gratifying when you work with clients and students and you know that you are helping them achieve their goals. Cause it’s a really big undertaking. It almost seems unachievable when you’re first like I’m going to drop everything and go sailing. But. It can be done. We did it. but it takes quite a support network. You can’t do it by yourself. And it’s really cool to be that support network for people and to get them to the point where they’re getting more confident and they are getting closer to realizing their own dream and what that looks like.
You know, their Vision of success versus someone else’s versus someone else’s.
Julie: Yeah. It’s really cool. This summer we had some clients of ours, [00:24:00] actually, who weren’t sure if they were going to get to do a big shakedown cruise this summer before they head South. And they did, we helped them like tackle some of their priority projects on their boat and learn some good offshore seamanship skills. And they went all the way up to Sitka. They sailed, gosh, a couple thousand miles this summer. They didn’t think they were going to be able to, and they’re hooked, and they had a blast, and it’s, it’s so rewarding. It’s like being, well we’re not parents, but we feel like extremely proud parents every time. That someone is like, oh my gosh, I did that thing that you taught me, and it worked awesome, and it’s incredibly gratifying. We had no idea it would be so cool to share that with other people.
Annika: That’s fantastic, and I have to say, you two are the exact right people to do this kind of job, if you can call it that, and John was absolutely right in identifying that you two should start taking over, because you are so genuine, and you are really good at [00:25:00] teaching, and you are just full of good stories and advice, and you explain things -as we just talked about earlier- you explain it in a really nice and structured manner. So it’s a great fit. I fully support that
Gio: Thank you, Annika.
And yeah, we wouldn’t have even, I mean, John is, John is brilliant. He’s always right. That’s our lesson
Julie: is he’s always right.
Gio: Wouldn’t have even thought about it. And when he first brought it up, I was absolutely blown away. I’m like, are we getting asked by the living sailing legend to carry on his programs and education? True. And we want nothing more than to successfully fill those shoes and keep getting people out there cruising and realizing the dream because it’s possible.
Julie: It’s true. It’s true. And we put our own spin on it now too. We teach John’s sailing curriculum, offshore sailing curriculum and a lot of the seamanship and preparation skills that he teaches.
But since we’ve gone through this like professional vocational marine technician training and we’re both industry certified, [00:26:00] marine technicians, we add more that we have to contribute from that because the two things that we see a lot of just at the dinghy dock and in our clients and students is there’s some imbalance in the crew training, especially if it’s a couple, not everybody’s on the same page. And we’re seeing more and more, and this has something to do with our lens changing as we have more experience since we’ve been working on boats for a while, is, kind of a lack of knowledge of how to properly maintain a boat and how to actually do your maintenance and make sure that it’s ready for you when you’re ready for it to perform kind of thing. So we add a lot more of that to helping people understand the value and being able to really evaluate their systems and the integrity of the boat and then what they need to do to take care of it.
Gio: Yeah. That’s a big part of the confidence, especially when it comes to going offshore. You can have years of racing experience and years of sailing experience and be 100 percent confident of you and yourself as a sailor, but if you don’t have the other component of [00:27:00] that, which is the systems on your boat and being able to evaluate whether they’re robust enough.
And what to evaluate as far as potential failure points on your boat. I think that’s one of the cool things that we bring to the table , is we have the training to be able to work with folks to evaluate their particular boat, and get that confidence of knowing their systems and knowing how to maintain them and evaluate them, along with having the sailing skills as well.
Julie: Yeah, and it can be really intimidating when you’re first starting out, because when you buy a new car, right, you don’t just go like rip your car apart, you just drive it away. for some reason, when we buy boats, like the first thing we want to do is like rip it all apart and see how it works and fix the things that we don’t even know how to recognize yet.
It’s a really different mentality, but it can be really intimidating as well. I was I was terrified of electricity for a very long time, years. I would hire [00:28:00] people to do that for me, I didn’t touch that stuff. I wrote the grant, so I didn’t have to do it. But now I do it, like it just takes, it takes some exposure and it takes some like comfortable exposure of walking through it with someone and learning what the parts are, really.
Knowledge is always power, truly, and like sharing that with people and helping them just Look through and be like, what is that? What is that? What is that? How’s it works? Is very empowering and just knowing that like the basics like preventative care for your engine or your electrical system or even your teak decks and your sails like it’s not hard. As long as you have just a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of hands on training, and you’ve got your checklist that you’re following, like none of it is rocket science.
None of it is out of anybody’s league of being achievable as far as things that you can do, but it is immensely empowering to be doing those things yourself.
Gio: Yeah. And the preventative care of the boat is, I mean, you can never prevent [00:29:00] anything catastrophic from happening, but the odds of catastrophic things are happening are super low.
And if you’re paying really good attention to your boat and its systems are well in tune with them, you should have a safe and happy disaster free cruise.
Annika: That is really good advice because At the other end of this podcast, there are a lot of people who are in the planning stages. They are saving up money, thinking about how to approach this, and maybe they have their first boat, but not the boat. So all of this is super relevant. And I wonder, since you have worked with people on their boats, and specifically related to refits and the preparation, and you talked a little bit like people rip out the boat as soon as they get it, is that a common mistake that people just overcommit and start to redo everything that they maybe don’t need to do away?
Gio: That is something that we are seeing. That is a great question. And something that we [00:30:00] are seeing. More and more, is folks will get a new to them boat and already know what that boat needs before they’ve even sailed it. One of the most common ones is lithium. Then when someone gets a boat and like, I need to have lithium batteries and I need to have a massive battery bank before they even understand the implications of putting lithium on board.
And before they’ve even done their own personal power audit and say, Hey, is that really what I need?
Julie: And that’s part of
Gio: the R, right? The relevant, goal. So yeah, if you’re going to have electric propulsion and have an electric stove and make margaritas all the time on 120 volt blender, then there’s a possibility you need a big lithium bank, but we really encourage people to keep their systems and their boat simple because you’re out there to cruise not have to Maintain and babysit a bunch of really expensive equipment and electronics
Julie: There’s nothing wrong with that if that’s if that matches your goals like go for it, obviously [00:31:00] because everybody’s got different levels of Comfort and desire for systems on their boats for sure, but like I think it really comes down to like How can you know what you need if you haven’t used your boat in its current form yet? Right? And we’re both like scientists by training. So we’re very much like don’t introduce any new variables until you’ve got your baseline in here.
Gio: Yeah, so take your boat out use it sail it put the sails up run the engine Put it through all the paces do it do your own little shakedown cruise on the boat with exactly how you bought it and after a week out on the boat, then you can start to identify a thing.
Maybe, maybe you don’t need, no, you need lithium right away, but maybe you’ve identified that there’s a tear in your sails. You know, start really broad and then work your way down into the specifics. And those things will present themselves to you the more you know and the more you use your boat.
Julie: It’s really awesome if you can convince or ask nicely, the seller to go for a couple of sails with [00:32:00] you too, because it’s sometimes hard to visualize how somebody else set the boat up to be functional in a certain way. If it’s got fair leads that you’re not using, or there’s a handhold in a funny place, or something’s stored in a weird location that doesn’t make sense to you, I feel like our immediate reaction is, well that’s gotta go, we don’t need it. But sometimes the previous owner did have a really good reason, it just it’s not obvious to you. Sometimes not for sure, but sometimes it is, so it’s nice to have that context if you can ask them to come out with you for a couple of times and most most sellers are pretty good About that depending on where the boat is taking you out a couple of times to show you how it works Or at least just walking through it if they’re not comfortable sailing anymore. Typically we try To recommend about six months of hanging out on your boat before you really start digging in and deciding what you definitely need.
It is really interesting for us helping people plan their refits and prioritize their projects because we’re trying to help them put together what do they [00:33:00] absolutely have to do before they take off, what’s their timeline for taking off. And how many of these things fit their budget or are like extra luxury things?
Like maybe there’s a workaround that they just haven’t read about in a magazine or haven’t thought of yet. We do a lot of that. Yeah, because nobody has
Gio: the infinity budget that will boat will in indefinitely take, so it takes getting familiar with the Clients themselves and, and recognizing their styles and their needs and then pairing that up with their budgets and their timelines.
Julie: And where they want to cruise, like how you cruise and what you definitely need, like all those things, typically on a boat, since you’re a closed system, it comes back to your power needs. It’s lovely to have unlimited power, but you don’t necessarily need that to go cruising.
Simple is easier to maintain, like Gio said, and it also helps you like enjoy being out there more. Like it’s cool to be able to plug everything in all the time, but it’s even cooler if you’re sitting out on deck reading a book and [00:34:00] there’s whales surrounding your boat, like that’s, that’s amazing.
The rest of it, you don’t need as much as the other stuff, if you’re in the place that you want, if you’ve been honest with yourself about your goals and what your needs really are. it can be hard to let go of land life. And for some people hanging on to some of those creature comforts and deciding what they need on their boat before they try it out is part of that letting go process, that transition process that can take some time to work through, but it’s It is always worth it.
It is always totally worth it. And there’s compromises that have to be made and they’re always worth it too.
Annika: So what i’m hearing is kind of separating the needs and wants and maybe asking why a few times before you determine whether you really want something or need something.
So a lot to do there, for sure, when you’re preparing for this kind of a major life change, so we’ll take all the help anyone’s got, whether it’s [00:35:00] the framework or some professional help, like what you’re offering, because it’s a lot to go through, right?
It’s,
Julie: is. And it can be a little self defeating for some people. I think when you are being bombarded with really awesome YouTube channels, really glorious magazine articles and things, like there’s some pretty amazing blogs out there that have gorgeous photos and stories and you see lots of people being successful and it’s very tempting to want to compare, right?
To want to be like, well, if I follow what they did, I will have that experience or I will also be successful, whatever that means. And it’s just like anything in life for, it’s not always the same. You can go to the same college or have the same internship or apply for the same job and end up in a completely different place.
But if you’re happy, That’s all you were in it for in the first place, right? So it’s all good. You just have to find your own like swirly, whirly labyrinth of paths to your [00:36:00] end goal. Not someone else’s.
Annika: No, that’s exactly right. And you are so right in that comparing your plans or your actual situation to something that you’ve seen on YouTube or you read in a magazine. It’s the whole social media thing. Like when your life isn’t as great as someone else’s social media, reel highlights, it can hit you a bit depressingly sometimes, but one thing I just love about you two is that you are always so positive and you’re so encouraging and I’m just curious, what keeps you posititve? Like, I am sure you also have low points when you are out sailing, but what is it that keeps you motivated and positive and planning these new trips?
Gio: For me, it is we make sure that we are on the boat no matter how busy we are two days a week. and we go there and we work full at least eight hour day on Seafox [00:37:00] and we’re getting to be such a better team working together. And it is exciting now that we know more and we’ve done a big successful cruise and we know kind of how we want the next cruise to be like going there and doing that prep work together and just getting excited and knowing that It kinda is a lot of work and spending eight hours on your knees pulling deck bungs out is no one’s idea of the most fun they’ve ever had, but we are getting our magic carpet ready for her next big Pacific ride and it’s gonna be awesome.
So I think that’s how we keep it happy and in a positive framework of going back to why are we doing this, because we’re going cruising together. Uh, again, improving Seafox is amazing, getting her ready to be even more of a bulletproof boat than she was the first time, and I really am enjoying becoming a [00:38:00] better team at working on the boat together.
Julie: Mm hmm. And I think also, like, what we’re surprised that we’ve really appreciated is not necessarily a Telling ourselves that we have to live on the boat full time because that’s what we initially set out to do and we did we lived on board full time for over a year the first time we were actively cruising most of the time and that was fantastic but we realized when we got to our, maintenance layover last winter that like, you know, we look forward to our cruises So much more if we have a little break on land, we appreciate the boat more. We appreciate being out there more. We’re even more excited. We, we get a nice little reminder that we’re not very good at terrestrial life in a sense. We definitely belong at sea. We’re happier with the whales and the fish, for sure. It just keeps you excited all the time when you have these breaks from being [00:39:00] on board.
Some people do feel trapped, in like, I have to sell everything and move on my boat and that’s my life for three to five years, however long their cruise is planned for. And that can be kind of daunting and intimidating and stressful depending on who you are and where you’re coming from. And we’re just very surprised that we do enjoy and appreciate coming back on shore for a little while. It helps us be more efficient working on our boat. It helps us be more objective going through our systems workspace every day. Which is great. Yeah, to have a
Gio: bunk to climb in at night.
Julie: Yeah, it keeps you looking forward to it instead of your contacts becomes your cruise in general.
And then you find high and low points within that. But when you’ve given yourself this little break on land, we, We’ve been on land for a month this winter, and we’re still like, did you take a hot shower today? How amazing was that? Yeah. Did you just do laundry? Like right [00:40:00] here? How crazy is that? You just appreciate and savor all these little things.
And, but then you’re also like simultaneously totally looking forward to getting back out there. You’re so excited for your cruise. You’re so excited for all the new places you’re going to go and the things you’re going to see and you’re. just laser focused on what is it I need to do on this boat before we can take off again. That has been kind of an unexpected source of positivity and energy for us actually.
Annika: And that makes total sense. You’re not burning out when you’re not trying to live on the boat that you’re also trying to do a refit on and get ready for a massive trip.
Julie: Yeah, we did
Gio: that. We did that once and it was, it was tough. It’s a lot more civilized to be able to get off the boat. And we leave ourselves that out. We work our butts off to have enough of a savings to be able to come back to land. And, um, Comfortably transition into a place, be it temporary.
Julie: Yeah, always with a deadline. [00:41:00]
Gio: Absolutely, keep that time metric on there. And it really, we really do appreciate every bit of, you know, life being easy, off the boat. But it is motivating to Want to get back on board right away.
Julie: Yeah. I think even before you go cruising, it’s so easy to be distracted by all the things that are going on in the world and in life. And, and you’re trying to focus on this big goal.
And it’s so often that many of the people outside of that aspiring cruising or actively cruising community don’t really understand why you’re so into running away to the ocean for whatever kind of adventure it is that you’re craving. And when you come back to land for a little while, you hang out with all your friends.
Everything’s groovy, but you’re still so excited about that. You just don’t get caught up in the nonsense, right? Like the distractions are not as strong. They’re not as tempting. You’re not like overwhelmed as much by this. Everything that’s going on. You’re like, I have my plan.
I [00:42:00] know what makes me happy. I know where I want to be. I’m going to enjoy and appreciate this. And then I’m out of here. Cause that’s where my true joy comes from.
Annika: You have accomplished so much in the last couple of years since we last spoke and just as a final thought, well, I think I know what’s coming for you on personal life you’re getting ready for your big trip but what’s next for with your business?
Mm
Gio: We have planned some offshore sail training expeditions next summer, to do here in the Pacific Northwest. We’ll be sailing aboard Obelix Garcia Exploration 45 that came from your neck of the woods. I think this was made right over there in France. And we’re having, six sail training legs between May and June and July and August. And we’ll be going from Bellingham out to the open Pacific and back. And they are eight day long legs and they’re through the San Juan [00:43:00] Islands.
Julie: And the Olympic Peninsula. We planned some really awesome stops, like some of our favorite and challenging stops because it’s training expedition. We want to give people good exposure to like strong currents, narrow passes, challenging anchoring. And we get to hang out with some of the cool people in our network. We have some private Classes planned at Port Townsend Sails, which is like really awesome. Just adding as many like practical add on activities as we can. So it’s like very impactful training. We’re super excited.
Gio: Yeah, very exciting. We did our first sale training expeditions this summer. We went around Vancouver Island a couple of times with sail training students, and that was our vetting process to see, you know, do we love this? Cause it’s totally different than, than coaching people on getting on their own boats and maintenance stuff. And we absolutely loved it. We had such a blast and it was really gratifying. So we were like, how do we expand on this idea [00:44:00] and get to go on a really cool boat?
Julie: Yeah, it is like the perfect teaching platform. It’s a very cool, boat. Probably, I would say probably a little bigger than I would recommend for most couples, but sometimes it takes sailing on something a little bit bigger for you to recognize that it’s a little bit bigger.
It’s perfect for that. The size group that we have, um, it handles the ocean really well, which is very exciting. We’re pretty stoked. It’s going to be great this summer and we will be, let’s see, we’re going to, we’re teaching a ton at the Seattle Boat Show and we’ll be back in Annapolis in 2025. what else are we doing?
We have some hands on electrical workshops going on. We got all kinds of stuff going on.
It is so fun.. And it is so cool when we’re like at an anchorage and then we get a hail on the radio or we see an AIS Signature show up that we’re like, Huh, I think we know that boat I don’t know where, but we’ll see. And then someone dingies over and they’re like, Oh my gosh, we were in your class! It’s so [00:45:00] cool to see you here! It’s so cool. Like we feel like we have this like giant network of cool cruisers who mostly have been our students. We’ve had hundreds of students over the past couple of years and almost all of them have taken off and figured out how they want to cruise and they’re doing it.
And it’s almost feels better than like us accomplishing our goals and achieving like our cruising dream because we’re there. We’re doing ours, but now we have all these other people that we’ve helped do the same thing and that feels so cool. So we’re gonna keep doing that.
Annika: We’ll talk about motivation, but we can’t talk about all the cool things that you offer and not mention where people can learn more about them. So where can we direct people learn more about all this fun stuff?
Julie: Sure. Yeah. So we’re Pelagic Blue Cruising Services. If you don’t know what pelagic is, that’s a really big, important term for those of us who are nerdy and sailing offshore. It means everything that’s offshore, open ocean, your pelagic fish or your tuna and your Mahi and your [00:46:00] offshore bottlenose dolphins, like that’s our happy place for sure. So we’re Pelagic Blue Cruising. com..
Annika: It has been such a pleasure having you back on the podcast today. And I just know that your experiences and stories and your advice will resonate with so many of our listeners. So really a big thank you for sharing again, all this absolutely fabulous, advice with us.
Gio: Oh, Annika, thank you so much for having us. A, and thank you, B, for coming back. Yeah. Everyone misses you. You’re amazing. We all missed you.
Julie: That was
our number one question at the Annapolis Boat Show when people were like, oh my gosh, I heard your last podcast with Annika, but do you know when she’s going to be back?
When’s the podcast coming back? And we’re like, hopefully soon, hopefully soon, because we miss her too. It’s so helpful.
Aw.
Annika: That’s so nice to hear. We are back. So here we are.
Fantastic. Thanks [00:47:00] so much for
Gio: having us. You’re awesome,
Annika: Oh, thank you.