Salty Podcast #55 | 📢🎙️LIVE from Tahiti ⛵Sailing to French Polynesia! 🌊

What draws sailors to cross vast oceans, leaving behind comfort and certainty for the unknown? Saskia shares her remarkable journey from the Florida Keys to French Polynesia, revealing both the exhilarating freedom and surprising challenges of the cruising lifestyle.

Originally beginning her Instagram (@saskiasailing) simply to update family about their Pacific crossing, Saskia never expected thousands of followers to join her virtual journey. Together with her husband Kyle, they've cultivated a life that prioritizes experiences over possessions, sailing their Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 409 named "42" through some of the world's most breathtaking seascapes.

Their Pacific crossing wasn't the gentle downwind sail many envision—instead, 30 challenging days at sea with equipment concerns tested their resolve before reaching the dramatic cliffs of the Marquesas. Since then, they've explored remote Tuamotu atolls, swum with humpback whales in Moorea, and connected with locals in ways that transform typical tourism into profound cultural exchange.

Beyond the postcard-perfect visuals, Saskia offers candid insights into the practical realities of long-term cruising: how they financed their dream through charter operations in Key West, their meticulous provisioning strategies, and the art of interacting respectfully with officials in foreign countries. Their approach to budgeting—asking whether any purchase is "worth X days of cruising"—reveals how meaningful priorities reshape financial decisions.

As they prepare to continue westward through the Cook Islands and eventually to Australia, Saskia's story reminds us that modern cruising isn't about escaping life, but embracing it more fully—challenges, beauty, and unexpected connections included. What part of this sailing life calls to you?

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Saskia Sailing
• 3:12 Sailing Background and Life in Key West
• 11:31 The Panama Canal Experience
• 17:30 Crossing the Pacific to the Marquesas
• 21:51 Exploring Remote Pacific Atolls
• 31:40 Managing Budget While Long-Term Cruising
• 43:10 Pacific Island Living and Meeting Locals
• 49:57 Provisioning and Expenses in Paradise
• 58:20 Future Plans and Sailing to Australia

Transcript

Capn Tinsley: 0:01

If you clicked on this video because you saw the words Tahiti and French Polynesia, I get it. I've been drawn to my next guest's eye-catching Instagram post from the Bahamas to the Panama Canal, across the Pacific and now in Tahiti, french Polynesia, and she's been covering some serious sailing miles. I know very little about this guest, so tonight together we find out who she is and what she's all about. Let me put up this banner here because I need a salad. If you could, please do me a favor, like, subscribe, share this video and drop your comment in the live chat on YouTube or Facebook so we can respond in real time, including my guest.

Capn Tinsley: 0:41

So I'm Captain Tinsley of Salty Abandoned and Island Packet 320 Sailboat, and this is the Salty Podcast, episode 55. Please help me. Welcome straight out of Tahiti at saskiasailing on Instagram, and her name is Saskia. So here she comes and there she is, hi, yeah. So here she comes and there she is, hi. Everything. I can hear you, I can see you, and can you see and hear me? Yeah, I can, perfectly. Ok, great, all right.

Capn Tinsley: 1:17

Like I said, I don't know much about you, so you don't give a lot of clues on your Instagram. I'm like Whoa, where is she? You know, I don't know where you started or how big, what's the name of the boat or anything.

Saskia: 1:35

Well, um, yeah, that's not really intentional, but I just started. Well, we've been sailing for three years, but I only started my Instagram a year ago when we left to sail across the Pacific, and I actually only started it to share where I was and like my little daily update with, like, my extended family I have a very big extended family and so, crossing the Pacific, I didn't want to use a lot of Internet to send 10 or 15 messages to all our different both me and my husband all of our different family members. So I thought I'll just tell everyone to go to this Instagram page and I'll post an update every day of where we are and a little bit about what we're doing, and then everyone can just all keep updated in one spot. So how?

Capn Tinsley: 2:23

many followers do you have now? I think like eight thousand, eight or nine thousand. Oh yeah, 96, 48, very impressive uh yeah, it was literally.

Saskia: 2:35

it was just gonna be for my nana and all my cousins. But, um, I think at the same time when I was sailing, uh, there was a couple of um female, female solo sailors doing some cool stuff and it kind of got a lot of people interested in sailing and so my daily updates got pushed out to a lot of people. That I wasn't expecting. So that's why I don't intentionally have been mysterious or anything. I just started posting for my family and now other people have joined in started posting for my family and now other people have joined in.

Capn Tinsley: 3:08

Um, yeah, and that's how we knew exactly where you were, or, and you didn't have to give so many clues.

Saskia: 3:11

Yeah, yeah, I could just say kyle, and everyone that was reading knew that that's my husband. We've been married for six years, so everyone sort of knew and then are you solo right now or is your?

Capn Tinsley: 3:21

is your?

Saskia: 3:21

husband no, my husband's with me as well um, and uh, yeah. So we have been sailing, just the two of us. Well, we've been on the boat for six years and we've been cruising for three years, just the two of us, with friends and family coming on board just for a couple weeks here and there, um, and actually just two weeks ago was the first time we've ever gotten crew in. So we have two crew now from new zealand as well. Um, this next little leg because we're going to be moving a fair bit between tahiti and and fiji will be moving quite quickly, for us at least. So we got crew. So it's me, my husband and um, michaela and Jacob are our crew.

Capn Tinsley: 4:04

Okay, so tell me where you're from. I'm trying to figure out the accent.

Saskia: 4:08

It's a little confusing. Well, my accent is confusing. I'm from Australia. I grew up in Sydney, moved up to Brisbane and the Gold Coast, queensland, for work and that's where I met my husband my now husband and he is from America. He's from Texas originally, I thought I heard some southern in there.

Capn Tinsley: 4:26

I think you might be picking up some some good old texas I definitely have my in-laws, uh, texan through and through, so I'm sure it's.

Saskia: 4:36

It's kind of. And then also I lived in florida. We lived in qs for three years before we left to christmas, so there's a little bit of all. All of the south, um right so what a great mix.

Capn Tinsley: 4:51

So where did you, where did you, buy the boat?

Saskia: 4:53

oh, tell us about the boat, tell us what the name of it is and what kind of yeah so the name is 42, like the number um, and she's a 40 foot, janeau, san jose, uh 409 from 2012 okay and oh, that's the age of the boat.

Capn Tinsley: 5:11

I mean it was built in 2012, or do you bought it in 2000? No, it was built in 2012 wow, okay, and where did you buy it? In?

Saskia: 5:21

fort lauderdale.

Capn Tinsley: 5:23

Okay, yeah, wow, and okay, all right, and here's where you can reach her. I only found you on Instagram, so, um, yeah, but that's that's where I found you. Um, okay, so where did you? You started from Fort Lauderdale, and then where did you go?

Saskia: 5:40

Uh, we well, we yeah. Uh, we well, we yeah. We bought the boat in fort lauderdale and we just sailed down to key west, so it's just a short, um 200 mile sail. And then we lived there for three years and we were running we ran.

Capn Tinsley: 5:51

Did you live there? Um in key west yeah yeah, well, we started.

Saskia: 5:56

We were just living in the mooring field at first when we first, okay, got arrived and then we ended up moving into um stock island marina which is, I think it's just called the Perry Marina now.

Capn Tinsley: 6:07

Yes, yes, I've stayed there several times. Yeah.

Saskia: 6:10

Yeah, we ran our charter out of there for three years, or just under three years, and we were doing a sailing and scuba diving charter on 42 on our boat. Wow.

Capn Tinsley: 6:22

Wow OK, wow OK, did you live in? You didn't live in coconut coconut row we did live in coconut row yeah, so we probably know some of the same people. Um, oh, so here's, here's a, here's one that lives in coconut row, right here, it's mike, and uh, oh, he knows you. Oh, hi, oh, maybe he knows you, mike. Well, they just sold everything in ohio or iowa and then they on, and then they, um, moved on to an island packet in coconut row, nice one.

Saskia: 7:01

Um, it's cool to still to hear that's still happening. Yeah, when we left three years ago, there was some movements, some changes.

Capn Tinsley: 7:11

I'm gonna get rid of it and turn in it to a big place for yachts yeah, basically, um, which was a bummer and that's sort of what made us.

Saskia: 7:21

We were planning on going cruising anyway, but, um, we got a little push a bit earlier than planned, um, because they sort of shut down part of our business oh, they did.

Capn Tinsley: 7:31

Oh for the. Was it for the okay?

Saskia: 7:34

because yeah, we were. We were advertising on airbnb and they didn't like that.

Capn Tinsley: 7:38

So they said ah, okay, we'll go sailing instead. Yeah anyway.

Saskia: 7:45

Yeah, so we we lived on coconut row for a while. Um, we were on a boat there. We're living on a boat there called hadley, but we've since sold that boat.

Capn Tinsley: 7:54

Um okay, but yeah yeah, well, these, these guys are early, they're new to sailing, so they're they're looking for inspiration from you, so that's where we started our journey.

Saskia: 8:08

Um sure, and yeah, I think the keys are a great place to start. So, you know, we always, we always say it was such a great place to cut our teeth, like we knew we had sailed and I haven't sailed my whole life or anything, but neither is my husband but we've been sailing for a while but the keys are so great. You know it's shallow but you know you, you get, you know you get to learn a lot of things that really pay off when you get. Cruising um the white, in the wider area, like actually in the bahamas, we spoke to a lot of people that were unfamiliar with such shallow waters or little passes and little islands, and they were familiar to us because we'd cruise the keys and the keys have all of those.

Capn Tinsley: 8:50

So, yeah, it's a great place to start sure and last week I did a podcast with a couple of my friends that one lives in key west bite marina and one lives in um coconut row at the perry and um we talked specifically which I've done a lot of anchoring and you know boating and sailing and the keys. We talked just about going uh the different anchorages in the lower keys. So you know cause you can really operate on a budget, especially if you know how to fix your own boat.

Saskia: 9:22

Absolutely, that's the biggest expense. Oh, for sure. We always say that we're always figuring out a way to do it ourselves.

Saskia: 9:31

It's just how you Are you pretty good at that, yeah, mostly Most of the time we can do everything ourselves. Occasionally it does get to the point where we can't. We had an issue with our outboard engine, for example, and we were out in an island group here in french polynesia called the two motors, which is so remote, like as remote as it gets really, um, and then, uh, yeah, we were having an issue with our outboard and we tried everything that we, that we could service, like absolutely everything, even down to getting, um, the fuel injectors out and attaching them to like a battery and a dive tank to clean them, like everything we could. Wow, and that definitely taught us even more than we knew about servicing outboards. But in the end we couldn't fix it. So we had to wait until we came to tahiti to take it to a dealer and it ended up being something in the very center of the engine that we couldn't get to. So most of the time you can, but occasionally you, you can't.

Capn Tinsley: 10:30

But yeah, really I think it's a handful of times, if you can do it, if you can do it mostly, boy you saved so much money so much it's.

Saskia: 10:38

Yeah, we couldn't cruise if we had to pay someone to do all of our boat work. It wouldn't happen very fortunate.

Capn Tinsley: 10:46

So, um, my friend cheryl, here. She wants, uh know what brought you to america and uh well, I know that she met her husband here, or I think it was him. Did you meet here?

Saskia: 10:56

I know I met him in australia. He was living on the gold coast, um at work at a scuba dive shop there, um diving with manta rays, and we met through mutual friends, Um, but he introduced me to the world of boats and diving and well, I I grew up on the water, but not scuba diving and not sailing. So he expanded that a little bit for me and then we made the decision to move to America together.

Capn Tinsley: 11:24

Ah, wow, okay, and so all right, so the Keys, and then what?

Saskia: 11:31

Then we went to the Bahamas we went to the. Bahamas for three months. We cruised there with some of our friends. They were on there. You know, we buddy boated with some friends the Bahamas for three months and we just loved it so much. The Bahamas is amazing and we just loved it so much. The bahamas is, it's amazing, we just loved it beautiful you know just, I think it forever has a place in your heart, um. And then, after the bahamas, we went up, um, up the east coast of the states, and oh, wow you went north.

Saskia: 12:02

Yeah, we went north just for the cyclone season. We decided to go north. We had my sister-in-law works up north in Massachusetts for summer, so we went up there and spent a bit of time up there and that was very new sailing to us. We'd done sort of Keys, florida, bahamas, and suddenly there's these like regal navy blue boats and it was all very, very fun.

Capn Tinsley: 12:23

It's the Mecca up there.

Saskia: 12:24

It's the mothership for sailing we went to we're in Newport around the boat show time and we went we've, you know, we're in Martha's Vineyard and all these places that were like, oh, we wouldn't be going here if we didn't sail in ourselves. Um, but that was, it was really interesting as well. And then we sailed back south and we actually got to sail through the Annapolis boat to the annapolis boat show, which was really cool to be able to.

Capn Tinsley: 12:47

You know, dinging up to the boat show yeah um, and then that is the that was the one in the fall or october or whatever.

Saskia: 12:56

The largest sailboat show in the world that show yeah, huge, it was amazing to see just all of these boats and and yeah, be able to anchor out the front of it was so special, one of definitely one of my highlights, uh, and then back down to the bahamas and we did the bahamas for another, I think, four months. And then from the bahamas we sailed down to jamaica, which was an unexpected stop but an also a highlight. We loved jamaica. We went into port antonio, there, um which there, which is very safe. You know there are some parts that are less safe, but Port Antonio was amazing, especially after the Bahamas the lack of fresh food there to go to Jamaica and just have all of this abundance.

Capn Tinsley: 13:38

Oh, is that right. There's more fresh food in Jamaica.

Saskia: 13:42

So much yeah. And then from Jamaica we went to panama. We paused in panama for nine months.

Saskia: 13:49

We went back to the states and did some work, saved up the kitty again and then crossed the canal uh, last february video, yeah, yeah, it was great we got my dad, my father-in-law and my sister-in-law as our crew, because you have to have four people, four crew and your captain, okay, and so, yeah, we got to have all of our family as our line handlers. Crossing the canal was amazing. It was terrifying. It was one of the scariest things that I've done on the boat.

Capn Tinsley: 14:20

Yeah, I saw a picture or a video of a huge tanker right in front of you.

Saskia: 14:24

Yeah, it was. So they pay you up and to go through the lock and there was a big um, what are they called? Like car, like truck, transport ships, and it was. It was so big and every lock gets just a little bit smaller. So by the last, the first one, you're, maybe, maybe there's, uh you know, 100 yards, 300 feet between you and the boat and you think that's so close. And then by the, by the sixth block, 30 feet away from this thing, and it's just straight up in front of you. It's. It was not my favorite, but it was. You know, these people are professionals and they do it every day, so it sort of runs like a well-oiled machine, right.

Capn Tinsley: 15:09

So you really do need four people and a captain. If you guys want to see those videos that they took of going through the canal there, it is on Instagram. So Goose here has a. He has a question. This is Goose His, his, his. That's his nickname. What's the most important piece of sailing gear you have and what was the most disappointing and or biggest waste of money? Those are good questions.

Saskia: 15:36

Oh, that's good. Um, what did you spend?

Capn Tinsley: 15:39

money on. You're like I wish we hadn't spent money on that.

Saskia: 15:42

Well, the thing you always want to waste money on is insurance. I mean, like, if you're going to have insurance, you want it to be a waste. That's like I don't want to have to claim anything, you know, um. But uh, the biggest, the most important piece of sailing gear, um, I mean for me is my crew, like my, my team, kyle, my husband's like.

Saskia: 16:06

I know that lots of people do it solo and that is absolutely cool if you do that, but I think if you're cruising with someone, you have to be able to trust them completely and know each other's grooves and in and outs and be able to communicate with them, whether that's a partner or a friend or you know a crew that come aboard. I think if you have someone on the boat, you have to have absolute trust and confidence and great communication with them. Um, and then I think if you're cruising solo, you just have that in yourself. You know what I mean, right, um? And with your boat as well, and you just have to have that trust with your boat. I think if you lose that trust and and communication with your, with your, it doesn't, it all breaks down. But the biggest waste of money, oh, I'm sure there's so many.

Capn Tinsley: 16:57

You'd recommend a water maker.

Saskia: 17:00

Oh, one of the best things we have spent money on has been our water maker. Yeah, I think depends where you cruise. I think if you cruised in the Keys or if you're cruising in the Bahamas, you absolutely can do it without a watermaker. I don't know. I'm sure there's other places as well, I just haven't cruised them.

Capn Tinsley: 17:16

Yeah, the deeper you go into the Caribbean, the more expensive water is, because it becomes rare.

Saskia: 17:22

Yeah, that's the thing. When because it becomes rare. Yeah, that's the thing when we were in Panama. We were there during dry season at first and water was expensive because they were either catching it or making it, and so water got really expensive.

Capn Tinsley: 17:41

Like how much Someone said I think Bahamas is like 50 to 60 cents a gallon.

Saskia: 17:46

Yeah, I think that's the yeah, that that would be the upper level, somewhere from like 20 to 60 cents a gallon in the bahamas sounds about right. Something in george? Well, when we were in georgetown at least it was free.

Capn Tinsley: 17:56

Um and so there's a place there yeah, you definitely can.

Saskia: 18:00

I think you just have to plan your cruising more around it, whereas the water maker gives us just such freedom to be able to like we. We bought a boat to be able to go where we wanted it's. It's lovely to be able to get there and then stay there because we have water. Um, and also for us, I want to be comfortable when I'm sailing. So I like um. I have a lot of hair, my husband has a lot of hair. I like to be able to rinse down after, after a swim and everything. So that was a big expense that I'm glad that we spent the money on. Um, I mean, yeah, there's lots of things that you hope you never use, like a life raft, but yeah, I hope that's a waste of money.

Capn Tinsley: 18:43

Um, if you don't have, it's gonna be bad.

Saskia: 18:47

Yeah, we paid $100 for docking in the Bahamas once. That was a waste of money. That was the biggest waste of money I've ever done in my life, really. Yeah, we needed to pick someone up and they they just said, okay, we'll just charge you. It's $100, no matter what minimum, no matter what size your boat is. So it was our dinghy. It's all a hundred dollars for the day for the dinghy wow, oh wow.

Capn Tinsley: 19:10

Where was that? Was that in georgetown, or?

Saskia: 19:13

no, it was in nassau and I I'm not going to be able to remember the name of the marina, but it, um, it was in the city near ish to the airport and it was in the city near-ish to the airport and it was just these huge, just super yachts and charter boats, just not our normal, we weren't their normal crowd.

Capn Tinsley: 19:34

Yeah, I remember going in that harbor and it's a little intimidating. They have different rules for that Nassau Harbor, yeah. You've got to make certain announcements that you don't normally. You know, and there are some big boats in there, big ships, yeah, huge. And I was scared to go under those bridges because I don't remember it, didn't readily say what, how tall they were. It wasn't easy. So yeah, it's not like here where you see it, you know yeah, it's written everywhere 10 times super clearly.

Saskia: 20:08

Yeah yeah so I was calling people on the radio.

Capn Tinsley: 20:11

What's the height of that?

Saskia: 20:14

and it always looks so close even if it's like it does, looks like you're just straight through it's a little scary.

Capn Tinsley: 20:23

My husband was like you're gonna be fine. I'm like it looks close, because I've seen what happens when people hit a bridge yeah it's not a good day. It's not a good, very bad day, okay, so you go to where we're. Oh, you're at the panama canal. You go through that. Then what happens?

Saskia: 20:43

I'm gonna bring up a map we, yeah, we um. We left from from panama, just maybe a week after we crossed the canal, and we sailed all the way across the pacific to french polynesia um look at this. Look how far I know. I know, whenever I'm on google maps, I I'm like I am in the middle of nowhere.

Capn Tinsley: 21:10

Let's find it. Where is it? It's right A little further south, is it right here?

Saskia: 21:15

No, a little further south.

Capn Tinsley: 21:17

Okay.

Saskia: 21:18

Yeah, so we're going to keep going.

Capn Tinsley: 21:19

It's past Honduras, honduras, okay.

Saskia: 21:21

Past, nicaragua. Oh, here we go, here we go, there we go. So we sailed through the Panama Canal, which is there from Cologne up in the top, to Panama City in the bottom, okay, and then from there we sailed out to we just did a couple last-minute provisions there and we sailed out to Los Perlos, which is that group of islands that you can see just there, right there, uh-huh, of islands that you can see just there, right there, uh-huh. And then from there we left and we sailed all the way to fatu hiva, in, uh, french polynesia, which was, oh my gosh, so is this where I talked to you when you?

Saskia: 21:54

we were talking before was no no, so I, we crossed the, we crossed the pacific last year, so we crossed um. Yeah, we crossed from las perlas all the way to the marquesas, which, yeah, you are my hero and then so, if you so, go up to the right, see where you see nuka, hiva, uahuka and tahawata. Yes, so that is where we sailed into after 30 days at sea, and we arrived. Wow, actually, you know what it was nearly a year ago today. It was like March 25th.

Saskia: 22:29

We arrived and if you go just a little further south than these islands, see a little, just a touch, see that Fatu Hiva, yeah, so that's where we sailed into. It's a place called the Bay of Virgins at Hanavave, up the north.

Capn Tinsley: 22:48

Okay.

Saskia: 22:48

Yeah, that's the first anchorage we went into. Oh, look at that Okay.

Capn Tinsley: 22:52

There's a little thing going on here, yeah.

Saskia: 22:56

I don't know if you can pull up any pictures of that anchorage, but it's tiny, it's very narrow and then it's just absolute cliffs. Yeah, see those cliffs that just come up out of the ocean. Wow, and it's a deep, really deep anchorage we anchored. The first time we anchored was in a hundred feet of water. That was the most shallow we could get in the bay. And here there's a hundred feet. It's a hundred because those cliffs just keep going, just like it goes all the way down. And, yeah, so that's the first place we dropped anchor. After 30 days of being at sea and seeing nothing but ocean, you just see these massive cliffs and rock faces that look like people's faces. And this little town is so sweet we went. That's where we first went for a walk when we got there, and people will be like, hey, you want not in english, but they'll say hey, you want some bananas or some mangoes, or um?

Saskia: 23:54

we went to a lady's house there for lunch and she cooked us poisson cru, which is like the local dish of raw fish, raw tuna and coconut milk. Um, and some like wild delicious.

Capn Tinsley: 24:07

I love food with coconut milk.

Saskia: 24:09

So yeah, yeah, this this is a.

Capn Tinsley: 24:12

This looks like a quaint little place here it's super, super cute.

Saskia: 24:16

I have some some pictures and some videos of that town because it was amazing. And, um, yeah, we met this guy who who carves the tikis the classic tikis out of rocks that are the volcanic rocks that are from the beach, and his son is like the dancer and tattoo artist of the of the town. And so he was. He was just like explaining all the history and I happened to have my good camera on me and I was taking some photos of the guy's art, because he has a man in Papiete here in Tahiti that sells his artwork, but he didn't have any photos. I was like, cool, take some photos for you. And then I'm like you know, I could send them to my phone. And then I, and then his he was like, oh, my son's got Instagram, I think you can send them to him on Instagram. And and so I did. And he was like, okay, well, can you take photos of me now in my in my full, like ceremonial outfit? And like I'm not a professional photographer by any stretch, I'm making little Instagram videos mostly.

Saskia: 25:17

So and so he came out had his full, the full headdress on and he's like he's covered in tattoos the traditional tattoos and and standing in this lush garden and I was just like snapping photos of this guy, this amazing warrior, in doing a full warrior poses, and just thinking how did I get here, like what just happened, how, how many things were this man's photos and? And I sent them to him and he was, like you know, super grateful and now we've connected a little bit on socials as well and so that's kind of cool. But, yeah, it's such an amazing town and people don't even really speak that much French there. They just speak Marquesan, which is the. Did you pick that up, marquesan? No, unfortunately it's well. I mean a little bit. You know, ka'oha is hello because it's quite similar. Basically, the people that lived there then split hundreds and hundreds of years ago and went partially north to Hawaii and partially south to New Zealand, so it's sort of some of those words overlap, like haole and mahalo.

Saskia: 26:22

Yeah Ka'oha yeah, similar to aloha um yeah, okay uh, yeah, there's lots of similarities, so we picked up a little, but it's not very widely spoken, so we were only there for a few weeks, um, before we moved on. Unfortunately, and even the those north islands in the south marquesan islands speak two different, pretty different languages.

Capn Tinsley: 26:43

Wow, and did you go up there?

Saskia: 26:47

Yeah, we went to Heva, Oa, which is the island north. We actually had a lake. We discovered that we had a leak in our sail drive on our boat and we had a leak under the water. We discovered about 10 days into crossing the Pacific which was not fun because we really couldn't turn back and it was just a small leak but the oil was a little bit milky in the lower unit. So we ended up doing like eight oil changes across the pacific and then got hold like on the boat rocking.

Capn Tinsley: 27:23

Oh it was I was gonna ask you how calm was it. I saw some video I'm not sure if it was yeah it was not the pacific crossing of my dreams you're supposed to be passive. That's the whole name, right, but I?

Saskia: 27:41

was prepared for these big long. You know rude, it was not um were you okay?

Capn Tinsley: 27:51

do you ever get? You got a little. I think you did mention that you do get seasick sometimes.

Saskia: 27:56

I got a little seasick. Yeah, I don't didn't used to. It's sort of slowly creeping up on me a little, okay and mainly. But um, yeah, for about the last two weeks of the crossing I was not terribly seasick. I, I think I only threw up once or twice, but just just uncomfortable, you know, and we had the kind of queasy. Yeah, yeah, just didn't really want to, I didn't really feel like eating, I didn't really feel like going downstairs. It was just sort of like sure. So, um, yeah, it's well and it was short, but it was just big enough to kind of knock the boat over and just knock the wind out of the sails. So they would, you know, flap and crack and so throw your seat and then wouldn't do it for two or three minutes and then it would do it again. You know, two, three, five minutes later they were hard to get comfortable in that yeah, and it was.

Saskia: 28:48

It was not repetitive. If it was just continuously, you'd get, you know, the boat would get into a groove. But and no matter how what we tried, we tried to change angles, we tried to change, you know, everything we could and we just couldn't get it to be any better. And we got to the end and we were like, do it? Have we forgotten how to sail, or something?

Capn Tinsley: 29:10

the water and the winds weren't cooperating.

Saskia: 29:13

And then we got to that anchorage and we spoke. We did. We just went to Rangaroa. We love Rangaroa. I just saw Is that in Tahiti. It's in French Polynesia. It's the next group of islands we went to.

Capn Tinsley: 29:25

Okay.

Saskia: 29:26

Yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 29:27

All right, we're going to bring that up. Thanks, koo.

Saskia: 29:30

Yeah, sorry, but yeah, when we got to the anchorage um in in, um the marquesas, there was, I think, 12 other boats there and every single one was like we're talking about these islands right here, right? Yeah, so the south one is the first one. We got to fatu, hiva, right, and then tahua.

Saskia: 29:50

It says tahua, that's where we got the boat hauled and fixed the sail drive okay, but everyone we spoke to I mean nine out of ten people that season that we spoke to said the same thing. They were like where was my pacific crossing that I was promised, you know, catching the sails for two weeks? Um, but yeah, we actually yeah it was. I mean I'm super glad I did it. I feel really proud. It was just me and my husband, so you know it was a, it was a big undertaking for us, but I am so glad I did it and, um, I'm so happy to go back.

Capn Tinsley: 30:23

Well, you're going to go another way, right? Are you going to go all the way around?

Saskia: 30:26

Um, probably not all the way around, at least not like right now. Okay, um, but yeah, we're on our way to Australia. That's, you know where I'm from and where my family is, so we'll at least pause there for a while. Okay, yeah, that's the plan.

Capn Tinsley: 30:44

Of course, you know Things always change, all right, so let's show everybody where you went after this.

Saskia: 30:51

So we went, yeah, we went from the Marquesas. Here you zoom out and then it's just uh, southwest of here is another. Yeah, see those.

Saskia: 31:01

Yeah, if you zoom in, just there, right where your mouse is to, no, so sorry, up to the right a little, yeah, see those atolls up on the top of the screen, yeah, okay so that's the two motus, um, and we sailed into raroya, which is all the way on the right hand side of your screen right now, those two ones that are sort of at right angles to the rest. Yeah, if you zoom in right there, just to the left, right here, nope, a little bit more left, sorry, there's those two islands. Yep, the big one that's raroya, that's where we sailed into. If you, if you've ever heard of like the contiki story, that's, uh, you know, like the contiki raft, um, that's, I think it's takume, I think that's how that's pronounced, but just to the south of that, you can't get in that atoll up there. But the one to the south is raria, um, and, yeah, lots of people might be familiar with the yeah, tell that.

Capn Tinsley: 32:00

What is it? I don't know maybe.

Saskia: 32:02

So it's um, a guy in the 50s, maybe the late 40s or 50s. He was from um, oh yeah, the abridged version is basically he decided to. He had an idea that, um, the polynesian islands were populated from south america and so he lots of people at the time were saying they can't be, because you couldn't get from south america to polynesia with the boats at the time. So he decided to build a boat with only the designs and the materials they had at the time and prove that you could do it, and basically was a raft, and it took them like 101 days and they floated across the pacific and this is where they landed, without any real, with any navigation, without any um, steerage, anything like that, and so they landed on the windward side of roya and they were there was people living there at the time, luckily. So they were able to get rescued and he proved his point. Genealogy since now proved that his theory was correct.

Capn Tinsley: 33:05

I read something about this years ago, and so they did do some. What do they call it? Radions or whatever? Dna testing.

Saskia: 33:16

DNA testing, testing basically, I guess charcoal or something I don't know, how it all works, but um yeah yeah.

Saskia: 33:24

So it's a cool story and and, look, I mean, I have read it plenty before I cruised. So it was really cool to get to go there, and so we went to raroya. Um, another island is called Fakarava. That's quite a famous one, or it's, yeah, thorhajardal I'm sure I'm butchering that name. Where's that one here? Yeah, makemo, that's actually one of the biggest islands. It's one of the only high schools that's in this whole area of the biggest islands. It's one of the only high schools that's in this whole area. Um, so everyone, all the kids, fly from the other islands and go to makemo and basically do boarding school there for three months at a time so you can get in here inside.

Capn Tinsley: 34:06

Yes, is this okay, wow?

Saskia: 34:09

yeah, so you have to time it with the tide and okay um, you know, can the the ocean conditions and stuff.

Saskia: 34:17

Um, I've got some videos of when it is like not at its best and it's good, you don't even notice you.

Saskia: 34:24

Just you know it's just flat water and it's like you're going through, you know, in between any two islands. But when it the water comes out of there, when the tide's coming out, it just can really, especially if it's if you've got waves coming on one way and the tide coming on the other, they'll the waves will stand up and you can get really uncomfortable and eventually. So how is it, once you get in here, calm, calm, champagne sailing, like I mean, it depends on the conditions, but if you've got wind blowing, sort of if you're on the, if you're on the windward side and protected you, you can be sailing perfectly in. You know 15, 20 knots of wind and it's big, yeah, they're really big. So if the wind's coming from the wrong direction and you have lots of fetch, then it can get choppy. But you can also usually get protection from wind they wherever it comes from, although it's pretty consistent um, in in that in this part of the world all right.

Capn Tinsley: 35:26

So where'd you go after that?

Saskia: 35:29

um, we went to tahanea. You can see on the left hand side of the screen. That was beautiful. We saw coconut crabs there and, um, we had it. Just we swam with manta rays in that pass on. You can sort of see on the north east side. Yeah, just there. Um, there's a manta ray cleaning station there. So we, we swam with them for hours and hours and hours and we just spent, yeah, we, it was the best time we we got to go scuba diving with them and um hung out with some really cool other cruisers in that little nose in those clear, light blue waters there.

Capn Tinsley: 36:05

That was so oh, I see um um, they live there sometimes.

Saskia: 36:13

Uh, they have. There's a of places that have little shacks and they do. Okay, yeah, they dry and collect copra, which is, you know, coconut that they scrape out of the hull and then it's pressed for oil so they sell it to boats going past and that's how a lot of people make their money. But then they also usually just do that for a few months a year, so they're there for a little while and then they'll go back to wherever their family is Tahiti or one of the bigger islands for a few months.

Capn Tinsley: 36:42

This is incredible. This is very picturesque.

Saskia: 36:49

We kept saying this is what postcards were designed from. When people say postcards, this is what they mean were designed from you know like, when people say postcards, this is what they mean.

Saskia: 36:56

You know, when people think of paradise, like, these are the paintings that it's based. That was based off it was so. It was. How long were you here? Um, well, we're in the two motus. Um, we've been in. In total, we spent um seven months in the two motus. We just got back from five months there, which was really, really lovely, and most of the time we were in uninhabited atolls just moving slow, and sometimes it was just us, or sometimes it was just one or two other boats and you know, hanging out on the beach, swimming off the back of the boat, having fires.

Capn Tinsley: 37:37

Yeah, just you know what if we?

Saskia: 37:38

caught beautiful. Yeah, just like everything that we had really just dreamed of. We felt so lucky that last last season we've had has just been everything. Yeah, it was. It's just been sort of like the real, a real, I mean a yeah, a yeah, real highlight it's beautiful, and so then you came here yeah, so well.

Saskia: 37:59

We actually came to morea for three months last year. We had a bunch of family and friends visit, so we were in in rare for three months during the whale season so we you can swim with it's one of the only places you can swim with whales um, just off your own boat. There's lots of, there's lots of laws surrounding you know how far you have to be. There's I mean, there's, yeah, there's a lot of um legalities around, what you can and can't do, which is amazing. Right, you can very, very, very good, that's, you know, very happy for that. But it was amazing to be able to take the dinghy out and, um, jump in the water and see these these huge humpback whales, um, day after day after day. Yeah, it was, that was so. So it just the first time I, we I saw one. I just got out of the water and I felt like I was dreaming or something. It didn't even didn't even feel like it was, um, yeah, something that I had got to see. I felt like I'd just seen a movie or something.

Capn Tinsley: 39:01

Well, I dove with sharks and I dove with dolphins, but I've never dove in whatever dive in.

Saskia: 39:12

Gone diving?

Capn Tinsley: 39:13

Yeah, gone diving with uh whales? Yeah, I mean, I guess, if I can do it with sharks, I can do yeah well, you can't.

Saskia: 39:23

Yeah, yeah, it's, they're just so big. You, I was looking, you, look at them, and I realized that, like, that thing's fin is the size of my dinghy. Like things I roll is like a basketball, you know, you, just it's like I think as humans we're just not like, it just doesn't compute sometimes that something is that big and it's floating. You know, that's bigger than my boat.

Saskia: 39:48

The big whales are 60 feet like yeah, I hear some stories about people you know running into, running into them, or yeah, yeah, it's definitely not something that I would like to do ever, but we, we, yeah, we, we found, we found that during whale season, we much preferred to sail during the day than overnight. It just, yeah, it's just, it's a bit disconcerting, you know, just knowing, um, and especially because there's a very distinct whale season, so it was easier for us to just choose to sail during the day and not do too many overnights um, that makes sense.

Capn Tinsley: 40:31

And I I heard, I heard that video that you posted where you were underwater and you heard you said what happens if you're underwater and you hear this sound and I was like what is that?

Saskia: 40:43

Yeah, that was the day after it had rained it had rained so hard the next day, sorry, the previous day and then we went out and the water you know the top couple meters of water was really murky.

Saskia: 40:55

But we had seen it go so we knew it was nearby and we jumped in and as it was making the sounds, as we were, you know, it's like sort of hereish, and we were swimming, you could feel where it was by, where it was like the reverberations were hitting you and then we, and then it stopped for a minute and then we felt it and it was just right underneath us. Just you could feel it was coming out right in your chest and my sternum was, like you could, like my eyeballs were vibrating. This thing was so loud, but it's just, it's not being aggressive, it's just, um, talking to other whales far away and so just sort of it just really slowly came up out of the water, you know, out of the depths and to where we could see it, and just sort of. And they look at you, they know that you're there and you can see that they're processing that.

Capn Tinsley: 41:41

You're there, um, and then big old eyeball looking at you.

Saskia: 41:48

Yeah, I just look at you like I'm so small. It's funny. A bunch of family and friends and everyone, everyone. We didn't tell anyone of family and friends and everyone, everyone. We didn't tell anyone to do this, but everyone. When they just pause and look at you, every single person just waves at them. There's just some sort of human response, like hi.

Capn Tinsley: 42:04

I'm here, I'm not trying to hurt you. So Alex from Mississippi says have you been around whale sharks? And I don't know my sharks. So what kind of sharks were those? I mean, what kind of whales were?

Saskia: 42:16

those they were. These were humpback whales. I actually haven't even ever seen a whale shark. My husband has a couple of times and he it's the highlight of his diving life Swimming with whale sharks. Yeah, but I have not been so lucky okay, all right.

Capn Tinsley: 42:35

So is that in that area of the world?

Saskia: 42:38

I don't um, I think whale sharks can sort of be in most areas of the world. Uh, there are areas where they're more common. Um, when we were living in the keys, actually there was one down spotted down near the dry tortugas, uh, while we were there but we didn't get to see it. But yeah, I think they can be in most places. Just there's just areas where they're a bit more concentrated at certain times of the year.

Capn Tinsley: 43:02

Okay, so Alex says we do have them here in the. I'm on the Gulf of Mexico, I'm in Alabama, right next to Mississippi. So, okay, good to know. I need to know that about my own area. Okay, so you went to, let's, let's bring it know, I need to know that about my own area. Okay, so you went to, um, let's, let's bring it up. I'm trying. So, uh, okay, so you're here, and then where? And then were you up?

Saskia: 43:30

here or we're in. We're in both of those bays. They're both really beautiful bays Opunahu and then the other one is Cooks Bay. They're deep as the other bays here are. There's little towns. That's right next to Papiete, tahiti. Papiete is the city on Tahiti which is the capital of French Polynesia. It's quite nearby um and so there's, you know, there's a lot, a fair bit, happening in in moran yeah, that's a really nice um and yeah then.

Saskia: 44:09

So if you just go to the left, if you see hapiti all the way to the left, it's like h-a apostrophe, a-p-i-t-i down a different island is it no, no?

Saskia: 44:20

it's just a really, really beautiful. It's one of our favorite places. We've been here and so that's um, yeah, that's like a really famous surf break. It's like a mini um chapel, like the where the olympics was last year. Oh, we were there during the olympics. That's not where the Olympics was last year. We were anchored there during the Olympics. That's not where the Olympics was held, but we were anchored there during the Olympics, right in here. Yeah, see where the really light blue water is. The dark blue is super deep, but yeah, down there, yeah, oh.

Saskia: 44:50

I think, if you scroll across, you can see a catamaran just to the right there. Yeah, I think you can see a catamaran just to the right. Yeah, I think you can see a couple boats there. Yeah, so one of my favorite ways to anchor you just anchor in super shallow water and hang back in the deep.

Capn Tinsley: 45:08

It's so special, yeah, okay so how long were you here?

Saskia: 45:13

We were there. I think we just jumped around a couple times um. We spent three months in total in morea, but we would spend a. You could only really go there in settled conditions at this place, so we would go between um, between here and the and the bays, and then back, and then one of the other bays and um, when the surf was good and the conditions were right to sail around, we'd come back. But if it gets too windy, because the mountains are very big in moraya, so the wind really it really whips down. They had a storm here the other day that was supposed to be just um, I think it was supposed to be 20, 25 to 30 knots of wind and with the mountains the way that this sort of pulls the wind and pulls it down, they ended up having 60 knot gusts.

Capn Tinsley: 45:59

So oh, oh wow, a lot more than forecast and you were on the boat in that, not?

Saskia: 46:07

not there. No, thank, I'm really glad I wasn't, but we had friends that were there. Um, okay, we were. We were over in the tumotus, which is where I was when you contacted me, and those little little atolls, and then we just have just sailed back to papiete, to tahiti, which is where we are now in the capital city. I'm like I'm right next to let me get there am I, on the right island uh, I don't have your screen right now.

Saskia: 46:35

Oh, sorry, that's okay, yep, so that whole thing is Tahiti the big one, and then you'll see Papiete up the north of the island. Yep, so that's the capital of French Polynesia. Oh, yeah, yeah, so that's the capital of French Polynesia.

Capn Tinsley: 46:56

It's a big.

Saskia: 46:57

Oh yeah, yeah, Lots going on there, uh-huh, and so that, just um, you can see Papiete market at the very South of the other bottom of your screen, yes, and then there's a Marina just next to that. That's the Marina that I'm in right now.

Capn Tinsley: 47:13

And this is it. Oh, wow, Okay. So how hard is it to check in to? Where did you check in first?

Saskia: 47:24

To French Polynesia. Actually, you can check in in some of the islands they have it's like it's called the Gendarmerie. It's a local police and so you can. You just go in to the office there and you know you have all of your forms and they have to fill out a little form online as well and if you've done that, you can go in and they give you sort of a preliminary check-in. Um, but it's it. You used to have to come to tahiti to fully check in, but now, because of we have such access to being online, um, if you do the forms online and then go to the gendarmerie in the small town, then you're all checked in and um, it has some hoops to jump through beforehand, but it's really it's been. It was one of the easier countries for us and I'm kind of hoops so you have to have already got your visa to french polynesia.

Saskia: 48:26

So if you're not, you know, a european citizen, um, then you, which you know much of the world's not, then you have to have gone and gotten your visa at the french, at a french embassy, before you even come to, before you even leave to get to french polynesia. So what most people do when they're leaving from panama is go to the french embassy in panama and you apply for a a visa. Usually people do a long stay visa, which is a year long visa, and that has to be approved before you can even leave Panama. So it has to be approved. You go in to the office, you get the stamp in your passport and then you can leave to sail. So, and that can take up to six weeks from applying to actually getting the visa.

Capn Tinsley: 49:12

So you make yourself comfortable.

Saskia: 49:15

Yeah, yeah, and that's one thing I think catches a lot of people up when they're getting ready to leave. Last year we spoke to dozens of people who were ready to leave and just went to the embassy to get their visa and then found out they had to wait another month or six weeks before they could even leave panama that's good that we covered it here on the salty podcast.

Capn Tinsley: 49:33

You got to. If you're, if you're going to French Polynesia from Panama and you're, you need to be patient.

Saskia: 49:40

Yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 49:41

Yeah.

Saskia: 49:42

Yeah, so and like you've got to book an appointment and then you know that you've sometimes got to wait wait a couple of weeks for an appointment, so a lot of people missed. You know, good, really great weather windows, or you know, with delayed, especially if you only have one season in the Pacific, if you're making your way to New Zealand or Australia for cyclone season, six or eight weeks is a long time to lose.

Capn Tinsley: 50:08

And just sitting in an anchorage, what's?

Saskia: 50:11

the best time to go across um generally except you know the general like normal time is somewhere from like march to june. Uh, lots of people leave. We left at the end of february um, we know lots of people that left in january. We also know people that left far later in the year, especially from mexico. People come down later, uh, but generally like march april, may, I think is probably is definitely the most common time um to leave, but there are rallies that leave at that time as well. So sometimes if you leave in march, it can.

Saskia: 50:46

You can be in these remote places with like 40, 50 other people yeah, big group, which is lovely to be social, but sometimes I think those big groups coming in it's's like hang on, hang on. I'm sailed here to be, you know, everyone thinks that they need to be, you know, on another island and suddenly there's 150 sailors on that island.

Capn Tinsley: 51:06

So yeah, Everybody wants to get together and have events and stuff. It's just like, oh no, I want to experience this just with my husband.

Saskia: 51:21

It's great fun to be able to experience these places with other cruises and meet people from all around the world, at all different ages and stages, on different boats. You meet people and make such great friends with people that you probably wouldn't meet them and make friends with them Otherwise, um, unless you're out of nowhere together.

Capn Tinsley: 51:39

Goose has a question.

Saskia: 51:42

Do you like? Um like put up some money? Did I lose internet? Um like put up money in case you go? Oh, am I still live? Are we are?

Capn Tinsley: 52:03

we back hold on, let me get my microphone working again oh, a repatriation bond, I think that is.

Saskia: 52:14

I don think so. We didn't have to put up money, but you OK, sorry about that, that's OK.

Saskia: 52:24

You do have to have either a flight out or a long stay visa. So you and then you have to have what you have to have like health insurance for the time you're here, and I think that's it. I think the way out of getting I you, there's lots of, there's a few ways out of paying that bond, and I think one of them is putting down, uh sorry, saying that you have a flight out. And then I think there's one other way, but I can't remember exactly what it is. Maybe it's just if you only have you either have that's right, you either have a short stay visa or you have to have a flight out okay, return airfare in case you overstay your visa yeah, I think the return airfare is a funny one.

Saskia: 53:11

It's like I I sailed in on my own boat. Why do you need me to fly out on a plane? Um, it was really made by someone who understands boats and sailing. But have your. Um, yeah, you have to have a. A flight out doesn't actually matter where it's to, it doesn't have to be home, it doesn't have to be, it's just a flight out which is really. French Polynesia, french Polynesia. Yeah, it's like do you want me to leave my boat here alone, like, no, no, yeah, but it doesn't make sense.

Capn Tinsley: 53:41

And what does that run? What you know like to the closest, um well, there's a few ways that most people do it.

Saskia: 53:48

Either, um, you book a flight. You just have to have a flight booked. You don't have to actually take it.

Capn Tinsley: 53:54

I don't know how bad right online you gotta. Hopefully you can cancel it.

Saskia: 53:58

I mean, lots of there's. It's not the only country that does that and there's lots of services now where you pay like a 10 or 15 fee and they book you a flight, give you a ticket, issue you a ticket. You really are booking a flight, but they manage the cancellation on their end.

Capn Tinsley: 54:16

So they you basically pay them 10 or 15 dollars to book you a flight and then it will be cancelled and that's all you'll pay is 10 or 15 dollars there's something similar in the bahamas that I've seen, like if someone is flying from here to get on a boat, that can be problematic, because they think why are you, do you not have a return flight? Well, I'm leaving on a boat, so sometimes you have to book that. You got to trick them with that too. It seems like a racket, doesn't it?

Saskia: 54:43

you're like I'm trying to do the right thing here and they will sort of want you to. You know, do it a bit cheeky, but I think that's.

Saskia: 54:49

That's one of the hardest things to lie yeah, that's one of the toughest things about cruising, I think, is that I think prior to the internet, everyone was a bit more accepting. Prior to cruising with the internet, everyone was a bit more accepting of. You know, you don't always have the most updated regulations, or or your, you know it takes a while for regulations to come into play, or there was a bit more leniency, whereas now that there's everyone has internet, everyone also expects you to always have. You know, like, well, we made this regulation last week and you should know about it, and you're like yeah, how expectations are higher now that you need to know what you're doing yeah, and I mean, like we do so much research, but also you can't constantly be checking for everywhere.

Saskia: 55:36

You go all the all the time for any tiny little update. So it is a bit, and I mean, as long as you, if someone, you know, if someone, if you're told of some sort of new thing, I think you just have to remember, like, this isn't my country, I'm visiting here and I, you know, you have to accept it with grace and and know that you know I'm, I've sailed to this place to visit it. It's not, you know, I'm not from here, it's not my home.

Capn Tinsley: 55:56

So you know, I don't need to change everything.

Saskia: 56:04

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You can just experience it and that's all good, you can take it with grace, but it's one of the hardest things is just always being outside that box. You know you never fit. I'm here as a tourist in and out. I'm here on a cruise ship in and out. You know I'm here, I'm here on a charter boat in and out. You're like no, I'm here with my home and I'm gonna stay a while, but not too long, and then I'm gonna move on. And you know, whether it's like with food or or buying fuel, or even just you know um plugs for your phone and and shore power plugs, and I mean and saying that we haven't really been to a dock in like a year other than this one. So that's so cool. Yeah, it's a tricky. It's a tricky part of cruising, but also kind of what makes it fun and interesting yeah, and the people have been pretty.

Capn Tinsley: 56:46

You have good experience with that, yeah yeah, yeah, definitely.

Saskia: 56:52

Um, most people, I think in when you're in a big city, people are always a bit more likely to just have their blinders on and go about their business. But the second you get out and you know you speak to people in small towns or these, these isolated anchorages. Um, people are just people and they're just happy to get to know someone new and have a chat and share a bit about their life and learn a bit about yours and all those things and um, yeah, I'm actually really excited for our next sort of season. As we, as we go on, we've got some cool stuff planned with, um, some of the some of the local people in the cook islands in particular. But just yeah, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 57:34

so let's talk about what your next step is.

Saskia: 57:37

Yeah so in the next few weeks well, in the next week really we're going to be leaving from here, from Papeete, and headed east, so we're going to do a couple of jumps through other islands in French Polynesia, like Bora Bora and, yeah, a little, just a little further north, right here Up north of that one. Yeah, if you zoom out a little, bit.

Capn Tinsley: 58:07

I saw it, I saw it here somewhere. Here it is.

Saskia: 58:10

Bora Bora, malpidi. We'll do a few stops there. Here it is Bora Bora, malpiti. We'll do a few stops there. And then, um, you'll probably have to zoom out and type it. The type the next one's in cause. They're very small. So if you zoom all the way out, um, like, yeah, way out, there's going to be Atataki, so it's to the east of that. It's like one of these or one of these.

Capn Tinsley: 58:36

Yeah, it's further east, it's still another like 400 miles east of those, yeah.

Saskia: 58:41

So then, yeah that, yeah, that's it this. I think it's just there that our I don't know how to say that word- arutanga arutanga? Yeah, I think that's it. Is that atutaki? Yeah, that's atutaki. That's the capital of the cook islands. So that's where we need to check in, to the cook islands okay, that's cook islands.

Saskia: 58:58

Okay, looks like there's a little strip here there is an airstrip there, yeah, yeah, and there's a tiny little pass. You see it just there on the left of your screen. This is it. Yeah, that's a pass. We've got to take our boat through that.

Capn Tinsley: 59:12

Oh my gosh, I know.

Saskia: 59:13

I'm super keen on it, you can get a boat through there. Huh yeah, apparently it's like three meters deep, but you can see it's obviously the tide's moving, right then.

Capn Tinsley: 59:25

Yeah.

Saskia: 59:26

Wow, they're so boring.

Capn Tinsley: 59:29

Alex has a question Do you take most of your food with you or is it readily available for reasonable?

Saskia: 59:35

Yeah, Alex has a question Do you take most of your food with you or is it readily available for reasonable? Yeah, this is, I mean we. This is sort of a personal thing, I guess, but for us we absolutely take most of our food with us. When we left Panama, we had enough provisions for what we hoped to be a year of cruising. So we had enough rice, pasta, beans, you know, dried fruit, dried fruit, nuts, all of those types of things, and then we would just supplement with fresh fish that we caught and you know, some stuff from the markets along the way.

Saskia: 1:00:06

Look, you know, just like local produce, whatever was like in season, um, because we found that exponentially reduces your food cost, like amazingly so um, and we've, we've done that. When we first left um the states, we, what we did it? We were provisioned for six months and then when we left the states again, we did nine, nine months, and then when we left panama, we did a year provision for a year, and it's now been a year and we've used not everything but a lot um, and so now we've just done another stock up, because otherwise food here is food in in papiete is like 200, 250 us dollars for like a grocery bag of food.

Capn Tinsley: 1:00:46

It's just oh we'll eat away last year too, so quick?

Saskia: 1:00:51

yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah it's. You know it's all different prices, you know, but, um, it's just so expensive, uh, it's so expensive on a cruising budget in particular. So, yeah, we have my, like, my little spreadsheet online on buzzer, you know, computer with. You know, like, the amount of rice per person per day times 1.5 and rice and beans and, um, you know, quinoa and all of those things, and I don't always get all of them, depending on where we are, it's not always available, but I always go through it whenever I'm provisioning, as a reminder of things to look to remember, to get, you know, olive oil vinegar. Um, who's the cook? It goes between us. Actually, my husband loves to cook and he's a very good cook, so he does cook a fair bit, probably 60 of the time, and then I cook, yeah, I cook the rest. Um, maybe maybe it's 50, 50, but probably he, probably.

Capn Tinsley: 1:01:50

well, it's got to be tough planning meals for when you take on a couple of more people, I mean your food budget is double.

Saskia: 1:01:58

Well, yes, it has been doubled, but then we also do it like per person, so it's sort of part of the crew. The way we advertised it was like you can stay on our boat and sail around, we'll pay for fuel, um, and obviously food.

Saskia: 1:02:16

And then we set like a a budget, like a certain amount of money per person per day, and then we pull that together and use that as a kitty to get provisions here, especially for fresh food and stuff like that um yeah, otherwise it would just yeah, double your double break the bank, yeah completely um, but yeah, stocking up when you can, especially when, when you're in cheap places, like when we're in the states, we go to costco and just you know, just to stock up as much as we could.

Capn Tinsley: 1:02:45

We did big shops and then in panama was the cheapest food we've ever seen anywhere in the world and we just wow, okay, so stock up in panama, okay, this is where you get your your french polynesia uh visa, or whatever it is you said, and you got to stock up on your food absolutely, and alcohol as well, any alcohol that you have.

Saskia: 1:03:08

Anyone with alcohol and you wanted to do it in french polynesia, bring it with you. It is prohibitively expensive, prohibitively, prohibitively expensive, yeah, but they also don't mind how much you check in with, so you can bring in as much as you want to.

Capn Tinsley: 1:03:25

Do you have to grease the palm there? Do you have to say, well, really, no, it's very French.

Saskia: 1:03:31

Polynesian. Nobody's going like this, absolutely not. I think it's because they're part of the military here to be a gendarmerie and it's a very esteemed position in the community and it absolutely well. That hasn't been our experience, at least at all. Yeah, everyone's been very it's definitely in other countries it's felt a little different.

Saskia: 1:03:56

Yeah, yeah, it was, it was. It's been really nice. It's been a very um. Sometimes they're a little bit, uh, you know a little bit that. You know I mean it's it's a French country that is sometimes a little bit like you definitely try to speak French, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 1:04:12

Okay, yeah, I saw that in St Martin In the Caribbean. Yeah, the French side, the French side, I say with love yes, yes, yes, yeah. Yeah, it was a little different than, say, mexico, where you know we're, we're giving the dive instructors all this cash, you know, and they're like they're taking it. My friend Dana, I'll go ahead and say this we were in st Mark oh, I think I lost you again there not cool, I think I lost you again there.

Capn Tinsley: 1:05:02

Oh, good job. Are we back? My friend said after we had been in saint martin on the french side. She said these people don't know how to take our mighty dollar like the the guys in Mexico do. I mean, they're just nice to us and we're just giving them money. You know, they didn't seem really interested in yeah, no.

Saskia: 1:05:46

I mean, you know it's, yeah, it's just so. I think it's a bit of a different attitude, but it's been very, very above board, so to speak. In French Polynesia, other countries, it's been a little different. We refused to pay the non-official, you know, the non-receipted payment in Panama and it took us six weeks to get our cruising permit there, which was fine, we weren't in a rush, so it was all good.

Saskia: 1:06:16

But then other places it's just like there's just sort of ways that you can make things go better for you and and with officials, and we found that to be the best way to do.

Saskia: 1:06:24

It is just like always dress nicely when you go into offices and if that, if it's a country where they come onto your boat, always have a cold drink for whoever the official is, because they're in a full uniform and boots and hot and sweaty. And if you can say like, hey, would you like a Coca Cola or Sprite or something you know Coca Cola is pretty universal Everyone's like, oh, I'd love a cold drink. And then I think it goes to show like you're friendly and prepared and thoughtful and you're not, you know. You know you're're not just being rude and I think also everyone is in a better mood if you have a nice cold drink when you're hot. So there's lots of different ways that we've found um, I mean, not in some places, like you, absolutely, bribes are essential to get through a place, but we've found the best way is to, just like always be really presentable and really kind and happy and happy to wait, not be in a rush.

Capn Tinsley: 1:07:14

That's that's interesting um to to be always presentable. So not in a bathing suit, not, yeah, like when we.

Saskia: 1:07:27

So when, like when, like when you go into an office, if you have to do anything official, you know if you have to check into a country or you have to extend a visa or you have to do anything official, you know if you have to check into a country or you have to extend a visa, or you have to, even, like, if you have to go into a post office to get, like, a paid post stamp or something like that We've found we get just, you get treated a lot better if you're. You know, like my husband always makes sure he wears like a collared shirt and long pants, and I always wear something where, like, my shoulders and my knees are covered and my hair's I've had a shower and my hair's, you know, pulled back, or at least you know not. I don't look like I just this is great advice.

Capn Tinsley: 1:08:06

You can hear it right here on the Salty Podcast. That's great. That's great info. That's the kind of stuff people need to know.

Saskia: 1:08:11

You know, yeah, well we've I mean, we've spoken to lots of people where they were. They were really grumpy with how they were treated at a certain office and they were like they said they were really treated disrespectfully and we were like no, we were like, oh, we had a completely different experience.

Capn Tinsley: 1:08:25

What were you?

Saskia: 1:08:25

wearing. Yeah, I think I was like, well, I just was wearing my boardies and they made me put a shirt on and it's like you're basically going into it. You know you are going into a government office there. You're not just. You know you're not just going into the local fishing store. It's, and I know it's. It doesn't come easy to us cruises, because we're we're always in a, in a swimsuit, or you know, I I live in a sarong and um, but just to do those little things that show that you really are like respecting the country you're going into or the person's position, because a lot of these people, um, especially if you're in a small, a small town or a small village or or something like that, like it's a very respected position because it's one of, often one of the few, government positions or the or a few you know, um continuous paid positions as well, so that it's a you're speaking to, you know, a respected person and and I think it pays to to dress like you. You know that.

Capn Tinsley: 1:09:21

To show them. That's great advice. That'll make a clip from this podcast. I do clips and that's that's a great clip right there, because that that's the kind of stuff people need to know. Um, so there's there's a lot of people that watch my channel and my podcast that are dreaming like. There's a lot of people that watch my channel and my podcast that are dreaming Like. There's a lot of veterans that that'll watch and maybe not not live, but in the replay, but there's also a lot of new people. How did you, how did you make this happen? As far as you know a budget and did you?

Saskia: 1:09:50

do a you're saving.

Capn Tinsley: 1:09:51

And then you, or did you earn it as?

Saskia: 1:09:53

you go yeah, we, I mean really a bit of both. So we, we had this dream and we decided, like this is what we want to do, and so we just save, save, save, save, save, save, save every penny. And what really worked for us was working out what we thought, what we guesstimated cruising would cost per day for us on our boat, with our life style, and what did you come up with.

Saskia: 1:10:20

At the time we came up with $50 a day, like not necessarily $50 every day, but $50 a day over the course of the month or the year, which is less than it costs. That is less than it does cost, um. But I mean that also depends on your boat, you know, and how much. How much you need um, you know how much um repairs you need and how much love your boat needs to keep going and where you're cruising as well. So we just came up with that number, um, and what. It wasn't really important that it was wrong or right, but that number helped us think. Every time that we had something that was, say, a hundred dollars, we were like is that thing that's a hundred dollars worth two days cruising to us, um, you know, and that sort of allowed us to make it something that seemed like such a distant reality actually this is like a meal in certain places oh, absolutely, absolutely.

Saskia: 1:11:16

It's in key west, like things are expensive, and so, um, that's sort of how we imagine, how we conceptualized saving to go cruising, because it was such a far-fetched dream for us when we first said like, oh, you can go cruising, um. And then we, we saved. We ran our boat as a charter business for three years. We bought our boat out of charter so it was a lot cheaper than a similar boat that hadn't been chartered. And then we chartered it for three years and we ran two other boats as Airbnbs, so in the Keys, at the marina, um, and so people would stay on those and that was just 100 like kitty money, like, I mean, the profit from that was 100 kitty money. And then, um, and then when we sold those yeah, yeah, freedom chips, as we call them. So that was sort of how we got out. Our little nest egg was just by chartering.

Saskia: 1:12:20

And for those three years or COVID was the beginning of it and then the second two years really we just did not have a single day off. We worked literally 16 hours a day every day. We just didn't have a break. But because every time that we got know like, oh, hey, we want to go on this charter. We were pretty tired but we'd look at it and be like, oh well, that's. You know, that's a week cruising in one afternoon and a sunset sail. So, whatever it was you know, I can't remember the exact like you know, we came to know like, oh well, a sunset sail is worth this much cruising time and this is worth that much, and so it sounds like you both were equally motivated oh, it was like it was all nearly all we thought about and, um, it wasn't just those two years that we were planning on cruising, but that was that was.

Saskia: 1:13:07

That was, you know, the, the final push to be able to, to save, to actually to go um, and we were, and I think the other thing is like the amount of stuff we said no to because we wanted to. We knew what we wanted to say yes to, which was cruising. So we just like, yeah, so often someone you know say like do you want to go out or do you want to, you know, do this or do that? And we just knew what we wanted to spend our money on. And obviously, every like things come up like life is expensive and there's things you can't say no to spending money on. But every time that we could and it wasn't something we really wanted, you know, wasn't even if we really wanted to do it, but it didn't lead us to going cruising we had to say no and there was a lot of sacrifices.

Saskia: 1:13:49

But, um, now, like when we set off and since we've set off, we've just been so glad time and time again that we were like so one-tracked, like we had our blinders on. There was so many amazing things we could have done, but we just knew we wanted to go cruising and we were just like dead ahead to it. So that's how we, how we actually left to go cruising and since then, um, I will go home, we'll go home wherever home. We have a home, home in the states, with my husband's family, and home in america sorry, home in australia with mine, um, but we have done um one stint of nine months, we say we went when we're in panama. We went back to the states and saved, um, saved up every penny again, worked for nine months, saved it up to go to cross the truck, to cross the pacific and was your boat, just was it on a mooring ball or something.

Saskia: 1:14:41

It was we. It was in a marina in um, on the caribbean side, in bocas del toro, um, a marina called red frog marina. So it was um, and we had some friends there as well, so they were looking, looking, sort of looking at it, making sure it was all good. And that was hard, not being on the boat for nine months and just dreaming of it. But we did the same thing, we. We said okay, like every time, every day we get work is another, you know, another couple of days cruising, and it was just like, just down, go for it, um. And then last year I went back to Australia and I did um eight weeks of like a sort of temp job where I was just working like 80 hours a week and just what kind of job did you work, I mean, um, well, I'm on a boat.

Saskia: 1:15:30

No, actually, it's completely unrelated. I'm a paramedic and so, okay, I don't usually work with patients though, because I'm on a boat, but I do. I now do like clinical governance, so I at the time I was a really amazing opportunity for me to be able to, um, yeah, keep it all, keep it all going and also get to go back to Australia and see my family and welcome my nephew into the world, which was amazing. So, yeah, I just I just worked, worked, worked, and then it's easier to work that hard when you know why you're working that hard. I think it's easier to work that hard when you know why you're working that hard.

Saskia: 1:16:15

I think, and I understand, I'm also incredibly lucky to be able to have had that experience, to know what I'm going back to, to work for and work towards. But, yeah, it's been a combination of working really hard before we went, making lots of sacrifices while we're cruising. There's lots of things. We say no to cruising because we just it's just not in our budget, um, but it allows us to keep sailing, so it's. And the other thing is the things that we love is like an empty beach, um, you know, and amazing ocean life, and like a blue sky, so the things we like to do aren't particularly expensive.

Saskia: 1:16:52

Right, Once you get there like when we were in the two mo twos it was. You know, we just posted up on an uninhabited atoll and, like there is no shop for 150 miles around me, like there is no way to spend a cent. So even though we'd we'd just been in a city where we'd spent a fair bit of money, we just went out and we literally didn't spend a single cent for I think it was like nearly nearly seven weeks, six and a half weeks before we sent spent a single dollar and um, just putting yourself in places like this one it's, um, it's.

Saskia: 1:17:30

I mean, it's just like it's what you find fun. You know, like we, that's what we dreamed of is just these open, open beaches. And, um, I mean, we're sort of yeah, you're still sort of spending the money because you've had to have bought the food or whatever it is and had the boat and everything to get there, but you're not. You don't see your cruising kitty going down in that time, and that's the thing we love, love being out there anyway. But it's also really nice to be like we're doing this and it's not actually right now costing me money to be here. So it's cool to to be able to have that experience, and there's places you can do that everywhere. We did that in the Bahamas as well. Um, there's lots of islands you can go to and just if you're stocked up, you know, you can just post up if that's what you like doing sitting on a beach and swimming in the ocean and chatting with other cruisers, like Georgetown.

Capn Tinsley: 1:18:20

Oh yeah, I mean until hurricane season.

Saskia: 1:18:25

Yes, yeah, we loved Georgetown Chat and chill. It's like, oh, what a spot.

Capn Tinsley: 1:18:30

Everybody talks about it. I haven't been yet, I haven't taken my boat there yet. But so what is next after? Are you flying home?

Saskia: 1:18:39

are you going to be like, um well, we'll say end of your season yeah, so we're about to, um, uh, cyclone season is about to end here in the pacific, um, in the next couple weeks really, and it's wrapping up, you know and so we will set sail westward now and we'll go to the Cook Islands, probably stop in Nui, tonga, and then from Tonga I'm actually flying back to Australia to do some more work for about another six weeks.

Saskia: 1:19:12

Top up the cruising kitty and then my husband and our that's why we decided to get some crew in will sail just on to Fiji, and then I'll fly back and meet my husband in Fiji, and then that'll be maybe like July this year, and then between July and November, we'll sail down back towards Australia. So we'll sail through Fiji and Vanuatu, maybe stop in New Caledonia, and then, um, sail back, sail to Australia. I say back. We haven't didn't start in Australia, but sail to Australia. Um, and the plan is well, we're not super sure, but I think that we will definitely take um good breather, a good break in Australia. We'll probably, you know, put some, some roots down for a little while. Maybe, I don't know maybe live on land for a little bit.

Capn Tinsley: 1:20:03

But not sell the boat right.

Saskia: 1:20:06

If we can, we would love to not sell the boat. We would love to keep her so we can keep cruising on her, even if it's just a season, at a time or something. Yeah, we need to get. We need to get back to work. Yeah, you know, life calls.

Capn Tinsley: 1:20:23

Oh, you don't see this going on for the next 20 years.

Saskia: 1:20:27

I really hope, if we can. I would love to be able to keep the boat and be able to do a season in Vanuatu, a season on the Great Barrier Reef, a season in Fiji. I would love to keep the boat and be able to do a season in Vanuatu, a season on the Great Barrier Reef, a season in Fiji. I would love to keep doing that Absolutely. I hope that we're able to. Just, I mean, we always say like that's the plan. You just never know how the plan's going to change. But I don't have a huge interest in sailing either around South Africa or through the Red Sea. They're not like, it's not calling to me and I know that they're both tough sales, so I'm not like dying to get that around the world tick, even as amazing as it is. And you know the people that do it are phenomenal. They are.

Saskia: 1:21:09

It's just not calling my name, so I don't need to punish myself.

Capn Tinsley: 1:21:14

Yeah, no, no, I don't. I have no interest in the lower 40s yeah, I like the feeling that warm temperatures exactly exactly, yeah, so.

Saskia: 1:21:26

I think we'll stay. I really hope we can stay sailing.

Capn Tinsley: 1:21:29

Um well, we'll check back with you, um, you know, after you've maybe gotten to Australia and and see what, if anything's come to mind. And is there children in the future? Are they going to be little boat babies?

Saskia: 1:21:43

Yeah, I mean maybe I mean if we're, if we're lucky and that happens for us, that would be super cool, but probably not on a boat. I mean, I love family, boat families, families. I think it's so amazing when people do that well.

Capn Tinsley: 1:22:00

The kids are so much well adjusted you don't want to stick them in schools and they just get ruined we're actually staying with a friend at the moment because they're she's just at hospital this morning.

Saskia: 1:22:12

That's why I was a little late sliding in.

Saskia: 1:22:15

She's having a baby yep, she just had it. This morning she had her third baby boy. Congratulations, yeah, they're um, they're an amazing family and they have been sailing for the last, I think, four years as well. Okay, and then the kids, um, um, have started school in the marquesas. That first island group is where they went to school for the first time. They're a french family, so they speak french, which is helpful. And, um, yeah, the the first one was was born, I think, in france, and then the second one in one of the caribbean islands, and then this third one is here. So, like international family, super cool kids on a boat, um, but it it's just, uh, I think for us it would probably be not.

Capn Tinsley: 1:23:00

Should I interview them? Should I interview them?

Saskia: 1:23:02

Oh, I bet she would love that, yeah, so. So the mama their boat's called mama Beluga. Um, I'm sure she would be into that. She's super, she's got a super. I just love that whole dynamic of raising kids on a boat and it just seemed to be better people yeah, yeah, you go to georgetown and you see these, these communities of boat kids just being the coolest kids and they're planning hikes together and they're on the radio and they have amazing radio etiquette and they can, you know they can chat like you know, normal people.

Capn Tinsley: 1:23:33

They're on the radio and they have amazing radio etiquette and they can, you know they can chat like you know, normal people they're like kids used to be right like back in the day when, like when I grew up in the 70s and 80s, you went out and you, like you know, you played, you went out and socialized yeah, they know how to play.

Saskia: 1:23:52

I think they know they just you just have to be able to entertain yourself on a boat, and so they just do it. You know. They just figure out how to entertain themselves I love it.

Capn Tinsley: 1:24:01

Yeah, they're driving dinghies around. I just think it's awesome, okay, well, I I want to touch base back with you, you know, when you get back home and see how it all, see what the plan is at that point and, uh, thank you so much for coming on and telling us. You might have some people following you, because there's a lot of people that want to do what you're doing.

Saskia: 1:24:24

Yeah, I will be less ambiguous about where I am and what I'm doing.

Capn Tinsley: 1:24:29

Give us a clue, okay.

Saskia: 1:24:34

I'm trying to be a bit better about posting Well.

Capn Tinsley: 1:24:37

I mean, I understand you, maybe you want to be ambiguous sometimes because of safety, but I thought maybe that was it.

Saskia: 1:24:45

A little bit, but mostly I just originally started posting for family and friends, so I yeah, but yeah, no, I'm trying to get a little bit better because, also, it is like we're in such amazing places and we're so grateful and so lucky to be able to be seeing them. I want to be able to share them as well.

Capn Tinsley: 1:25:02

It's amazing. You're an inspiration. Well, thank you. I want to make sure I say your name right, saskia.

Saskia: 1:25:08

Yes.

Capn Tinsley: 1:25:09

Yay, I'm Tinsley. We both have kind of different names. But thank you so much and I will touch base back with you and hopefully have you on here again. I like it when people come on my repeat people. Again thank you, and I always end in the same way Thank you, and Salty Abandoned out Out.