When I was 3 years old, my family and I moved onto a 52’ Irwin Ketch. Her name was Green Dolphin, and she was my home for the next 3 and a half years. We traveled from Naples, FL up to Maine where we stayed about 6 weeks, before making our way back down to Florida. After getting our feet wet by cruising in the States, we crossed the Gulf Stream and went to the Bahamas. This was a whole new world. The further south we went, the less resources we had. I can still remember going into a grocery store and seeing the shelves practically empty except for a few cans of food scattered about. We asked the employee when their next shipment was coming in and they informed us that it had just gotten there that morning, and that they just finished unloading it onto the shelves. I look back and realize how important the little things were, such as conserving water and catching our own food.
When we came back ashore, I was put into public school. This was a very difficult transition because I was so use to hands—on learning and exploring, I was not use to sitting at a desk in a classroom for hours a day. However, we all missed the boat so after about a year of being back on shore we decided to move back onto the boat for one last trip. During this time, I was in third grade and my class got to follow our travels through our blog. This trip only lasted 4 months and then it was back to “land life”.
My first full year of school was 4th grade. In April of 2011, I helped deliver a 36’ Catamaran from Tampa, FL to Oriental, NC. This boat was a sunset charter boat, which means it has no sleeping quarters. During the 9 days it took us to deliver her, we slept on the deck in sleeping bags and ate pre-made frozen spaghetti. We stopped about 4 days into our trip for a shower and pizza, and my next shower was when we got to Oriental. I had the time of my life.
When I was in High School, I ran Cross Country all four years and my Senior year, we started a Sailing Club. It was a small team, but we traveled to Raleigh NC, Charleston SC, and even to Jacksonville FL for a women’s regatta. During this year is when Christopher Newport University in Newport News Virginia recruited me for their varsity sailing team. In the fall of 2016 I attended Christopher Newport University. During my time there, I learned a lot, met some really cool people, and worked very hard. However, after my freshman year, I realized that this was not the school for me. I transferred to the University of North Carolina Wilmington the summer of 2017.
I majored in Recreation, Sports Leadership and Tourism Management with a concentration in Recreation Sports Leadership (or as I say it “Outdoor Recreation”). I always had a goal of getting my Captain’s License and teaching sailing this was the perfect major to go along with that. When I was at UNCW, I took a break from racing and got into Triathlons. I loved competing, however, I was not a fan of the cold water. In the Spring of 2018, I took a week long course and got my Captain’s License. A month later, I got certified through ASA and became an Instructor.
I graduated UNCW in the spring of 2020 after doing a 12 week long internship at the University of North Carolina Greensboro where I ran a week long sailing trip with 10 students. After graduating, I remained working at Bow to Stern Boating, focusing on running our Youth Sailing Camp during the summers, teaching adults, and working on boats. In 2021, I taught myself how to splice line, which opened the doors to rigging. I shadowed a local rigger for a couple weeks before going out on my own. Now I am the rigger for Bow to Stern Boating.
In April of 2021, I helped deliver a 36’ Monk from Naples, FL to Oriental, NC. This delivery took 8 days was a much more comfortable than the other delivery. This boat has a bath tub, 2 births, 2 heads, and you can drive from inside or outside. We had a full galley where we cooked food and we even calculated that if you ran about 147 times around the boat, you would have run a mile. We never got to a mile, we got too dizzy.
When I am not working at Bow to Stern, I enjoy going to the beach with my husband, step-kids, and our dogs. We love traveling and will one day maybe buy our own boat and go cruising.