Salty Podcast #69 ⛵️ Sailing into Freedom: One Man's Journey to Boat Life

Austin embodies what he calls the "tropical freedom mindset" – a philosophy that's taken him from the digital nomad scenes of Costa Rica and Colombia to his current life aboard Cha-Cha, a lovingly restored 1965 Choilee Bermuda 30 catch rig sailboat. With refreshing candor, he admits he's still learning to sail, yet his plans to navigate south to Florida and the Bahamas reflect a courage that comes from calculated risk assessment rather than reckless abandonment.

What makes Austin's journey particularly fascinating is the remarkable transformation of Cha-Cha herself. Originally discovered after sitting neglected for eight years, the boat underwent a complete refit by Austin and his stepfather. From stripping and revarnishing brightwork to removing old teak decks, the process taught Austin invaluable lessons about boat construction and maintenance. Though he confesses he would "never take on a project like that again," the experience created an unbreakable bond between sailor and vessel.

The episode delves into the practical aspects of boat life that rarely make it into glossy Instagram posts – from the simplicity of 12-volt electrical systems to innovative remote work setups that allow Austin to maintain his digital career while afloat. His hammock-rigged living space and portable technology solutions demonstrate the ingenious adaptability required for successful liveaboard life. Austin's perspective on what he calls "voluntary discomfort" offers listeners a thoughtful counterpoint to modern convenience culture.

Beyond the technical aspects, Austin shares profound insights about fear management and risk assessment. His "por que no?" (why not?) philosophy challenges listeners to examine their own relationship with adventure and comfort. As he prepares for his journey south after hurricane season ends, Austin's tropical freedom vision – chasing salsa dancing events along the coast while working remotely – represents a lifestyle that's attainable without vast resources but rich in experience and personal growth.

Ready to reconsider what's possible in your own life? Austin's journey might just be the inspiration you need. Subscribe now to continue following stories of ordinary people creating extraordinary lives through courage, creativity, and a willingness to embrace the unknown.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meeting Austin and his boat Cha-Cha
• 9:03 From Costa Rica to boat life
• 16:57 Rebuilding a 1965 Choilee Bermuda 30
• 27:59 Embracing simplicity and technical solutions
• 45:05 Adventure plans and sailing fears
• 58:48 What makes boat life home
• 1:09:04 Working remotely and tropical freedom mindset
• 1:19:27 Voluntary discomfort and practical living

Transcript

Capn Tinsley: 0:04

Good morning. Today we're chatting with someone who's got that tropical freedom mindset in full swing. He's the voice and face behind at austintropicalfreedom on Instagram, living the boat life, working remotely and freaking it all out as he goes. His boat's name is Cha-Cha and we're going to hear the story behind that too. He's currently based on the East Coast and he's in the thick of boat projects while planning for warm water cruising, and we'll also hear about the time he spent in Costa Rica. We're digging into what it's going to take for him to leave the dock and head south. So grab your coffee or whatever's in your cup and let's dive in. But before we get underway, if you like these sailing stories, please consider liking and subscribing and sharing. It really helps grow the channel. I'm your host, captain Tinsley, of Sailing Vessel Salty Abandoned and Island Packet 320, and this is the Salty Podcast, episode 69. Please help me. Welcome, austin. Yeah, hey, we had a few technical difficulties, but we got through it. That's what we do here on the Salty Podcast.

Austin: 1:10

Am I able to share this anywhere? Can I share this? Yeah, go ahead. Where is it?

Capn Tinsley: 1:19

We're live on Instagram, but we're also live on Facebook, youtube and even X.

Austin: 1:27

I see us on Instagram. I'm not on X. I don't know if I can share it, but I may not be able to share us live. It's okay, I will tell my people that they either have to watch us maybe.

Capn Tinsley: 1:43

Well let me put up my channel on on youtube okay, youtube it's uh s it's at sv salty, abandoned yeah, at sv salty abandoned, I see. There's my YouTube channel and we are live.

Austin: 2:04

Oh, there, we are, okay so I can actually share this, I can copy this. So it's super impressive what we can do from a boat these days and I've been looking into Starlink because I think that that's my missing link to this whole situation and it's not very expensive. And what a lot of people that may be watching don't realize is how much power Starlink used to take up and now with the Starlink Mini, it almost takes up no power so you can run it all day because 7 and 8 amps we are live 7 and 8 amps on a 12-volt system, which is one of Cha-Cha's advantages is that she is very simple, which maybe we'll discuss.

Capn Tinsley: 2:55

Well, this is great. I love sharing this kind of information. Yeah, I had Starlink on my boat too, and I got it in 2022. And when I went on my trip in 2023, I was able to go places with no cell service and I'm a real estate agent, so I have to stay in touch, probably like you do and I was. I felt such freedom. It was awesome, and when I go to the Bahamas this fall, I'll be still continuing the podcast from the Bahamas.

Austin: 3:22

Heck. Yeah, and you know I mean for us that are supposed to be out adventuring, that's the lifestyle we've chosen. It's a safety device, being able to have updated information and weather information and keep in touch with people. So being able to be connected isn't just a luxury of being able to work remote, as I say. And yeah, I was a real estate agent. I've been a broker for a long time, but I don't really practice. But I did get to play a little bit in Costa Rica also, which is a whole nother experience, which a lot of that kind of brought me back to boat life.

Capn Tinsley: 4:00

So Okay, all right, what do you mean? You were doing real estate in Costa Rica.

Austin: 4:05

So okay, all right, what do you mean? You were doing real estate in Costa Rica. Yeah, I had gotten to be a team leader for one of the bigger brokerages there, but I kind of have learned that I guess the motto that I would say is make money in your own country and spend money elsewhere, getting involved. Getting involved in other countries, economic systems and how things work and brown bags and all of the things is like no, I'm, uh, I, I just it's not. It's not your own country. So you understand this country and, plus um, the dollar typically is stronger in a lot of, especially south and central american countries yeah, I've looked into like maybe buying property in some of these places, but it just seems so sketchy you never know can be, and that is one of the reasons that I um kind of took on this.

Austin: 4:54

I've always been more. Do you want to start? You want me to keep?

Capn Tinsley: 4:58

chatting. Do we have a schedule? You go ahead. I'll start questions, but you can go ahead and finish what you were saying, because it sounded interesting.

Austin: 5:05

Yeah, I just became a nomad, so I had lived in other places and kind of picked up. I can pretty much fit an entire computer and I'm a bit of a computer geek not not really a pirate so I have computers and devices and I learned that I could. Oh gosh, no, I've lost you.

Capn Tinsley: 5:29

No, you're still here, OK.

Austin: 5:31

OK, some kind of alarm keeps going off.

Capn Tinsley: 5:34

OK.

Austin: 5:35

No, the Instagram, the Instagram, my Instagram time limit.

Austin: 5:43

Already is going to. Well, I just reset it all the time. That's the problem these days. So, um, I became a nomad. I really liked the lifestyle of not having a year lease and I was living in Florida, where I'm from, and things had just gotten really expensive and they want, you know, seven, seven months down for a one year lease now and it was just getting expensive. No, I'm just kidding about that, but it's but three, three months down, uh, at some of those prices was starting to become a large chunk of change, just to kind of have out there and um, and and I, I, I had kind of explored RV life for a hot minute and then boat life came along and I was like that's great, I love my country, I'm blessed to be from this country. I do love living in other countries and I love to be nomadic. This country is not very good about being nomadic. Everything is one year lease or own, you know, and that's very difficult to, I don don't know, chase seasons, as I would say lately well, where are you right now?

Austin: 6:49

I am in myrtle beach, dirty myrtle dirty myrtle.

Capn Tinsley: 6:53

Okay, that was. Uh, that was my first question. Where on the east coast do you call home? These days? You're staying in a marina.

Austin: 6:59

I've seen the pictures yeah, I'm in a marina. We actually Cha-Cha was a full refit and on her way down to the tropics I had an engine problem and then we had snow and randomly my sister lived about three miles away, so I got to spend like six months with them and her kids and her husband here, and then they just moved. So now I'm kind of like, okay, it's time to go and and I I get to, you know, work a little bit here remotely, and then there's a I have fun salsa dancing here, and that's where Cha Cha got her name.

Capn Tinsley: 7:37

Okay, All right that that was another question. How did you come up with Cha Cha?

Austin: 7:42

I did see a video on instagram of you doing the chacha yeah, I do, I do, I enjoy uh latin dancing all the dances, the partner dances, but uh, my, my intro was to um salsa bachata, uh latin dancing from okay, so how long have you had cha-cha? How long have I what?

Capn Tinsley: 8:04

Have you had cha-cha your boat?

Austin: 8:06

We bought cha-cha actually two years ago 24 months ago pretty much today, august 1st or 6th and then the guy came down and we exchanged the cash and it was not a lot of cash but she needed a lot of work and she was a full refit that sat on the hard for eight years before we got her, so she hadn't been used at all for eight years. When we got her there was water in the boat up to your ankles or up to your knees and she went through a full refit by Skipper Scott, my stepdad, and that's what he loves to do is bring old boats back to life and all of the bright work was all stripped and re-varnished the windows and an entire a lot of work had been done.

Austin: 8:57

Oh yeah, decks were pulled up. There was teak decks before, so we pulled up all the older teak decks so so it's no longer called a leaky teaky and that's just real work is just pulling those. And then he grinded them off. It was very impressive. I would have never taken on a project like that. I would never take on a project like that again and I would advise against anyone taking on a project like that had really good bones, had never been messed with before, so it was all very original. It just was old. It was just old. So you know, my ladder looks brand new. I don't know if you can see the woodwork in the background, but yes, it had to be sanded down a million times and varnished, but for the most part, all of the the teak uh really came back to to life, uh, beautifully this is a 1965.

Capn Tinsley: 9:57

How do you say it choi?

Austin: 9:59

choi lee. Bermuda 30 she's a catch catch rig, which means I have uh, I have a mast right in the middle of my cockpit. She's a tiller and she's a Hirschhoff edition, and I believe Jimmy Buffett had choilies.

Capn Tinsley: 10:16

Wow, okay, yeah, I, this was. This is new to me, but I'm not an expert on all boats, so, um, this I, I love. I love to hear about older boats too, um, because I think they made them pretty good back there, didn't they?

Austin: 10:30

this is uh, yes, she's. She was one of the first boats that went from wood into fiberglass okay she has a really thick haul.

Austin: 10:39

They didn't know how strong fiberglass was going to be back then, so they were testing. So they overbuilt boats like this. This boat, a 30-foot boat of 11 000 pounds, was the weekend luxury cruiser for a family of four. Let me tell you I live on here by myself. I could not really reall it was a weekend thing, an different. But we didn't foot yachts. She's consider yacht from my understandi, but also it's seaworthyne something. Maybe you can bit because people say, oh, she's so little, how is she a yacht? But a yacht isn't a term of size. A yacht is a term of uh, features.

Capn Tinsley: 11:32

I guess I would say and I think you said in your live that it's a full keel. Did you say that?

Austin: 11:38

it's a full keel and a uh, exterior hung rudder because it is a tiller. So full keel makes it much, they say safer yeah. Safer in case you do hit something or if you've ever grounded before. It's one big piece. And then the hung rudder also, I think, makes it safer because I don't just have a little thin rudder hanging out the back of my boat.

Capn Tinsley: 12:08

Interesting, okay, okay. So let's see what. Okay, so you mentioned how you got kind of got pulled in, but let's just say what pulled you into the lifestyle and was there a moment that made you say, yep, I'm doing this?

Austin: 12:30

doing this. So we I had lived out of the country for multiple years Costa Rica, costa Rica. I spent time in Nicaragua and I had spent time in Colombia and I and I and I really just enjoyed living out of a small bag with my laptop and kind of just going where it was in Costa Rica. You know, in these other countries I say I live my life in 90 day increments, because that's how long your passport is good for. Yeah, every 90 days you typically have to leave one of these countries. Sometimes you can't go back, sometimes you can go back in 12 months, sometimes you can go back in one hour.

Austin: 12:57

So I had decided that I didn't want to like rent anything, but I wanted to be here. You know, I I had realized that my connections were starting to suffer a little bit. And back here, yes, okay, and part of what makes me me is my, is my amazing network of people that I can call or be a part of and enjoy their company. So I wanted to do rv life. But florida, which is where I'm, which is where Cha-Cha's headed, is really not conducive for RV life. It's expensive.

Austin: 13:31

I have a camper van as well, so yeah, yeah, it's expensive, it's hot, yeah, and and, and I don't like being cold, so I wasn't interested in really leaving Florida to go live. Right, I like Florida. Florida kind of is my, is definitely my home. So something happened.

Austin: 13:53

My mom actually already lived on a sailboat. She she has gotten remarried to a real life pirate who has lived on sailboats for a long time, and so I was comfortable with the boat life and how it worked when you live in the marina versus on the hook, versus sailing. And we saw the boat on one of the I think we're having pizza. They may or may not have been on a plant based gummy, but at any at any point I said, hey, what do you think about boat life and my I originally was going to just going to look into like a cheaper trawler and and something little that maybe I could trailer, just kind of like something I could hang my hammock in, like I I kind of I really enjoy, you know, basically living in a hammock of some sort. I have a hammock that hangs through here.

Capn Tinsley: 14:45

Really, yeah, yeah, I just bought one for my trip this fall and I'm wondering where I'm going to put it. I'd like to put it in the cockpit.

Austin: 14:54

No, Heck, yeah, you should put one everywhere. I mean, this is so mine, and there's my V-Birth back there, Don't look. And then this kind of hangs right here. Is that where you sleep, Just like this Plenty of times I do. And then I have a lap desk and I have my computer that can pull out in front of me and, yeah, I can sleep. I have slept many, many. I have probably spent eight or 12 months total sleeping in a hammock in the last probably six years. When you're traveling and you're staying in hostels, the beds aren't always comfortable. So what I learned? If I could figure out a way to hang my own hammock? And in Costa Rica everyone lives in hammocks. So once you get used to. I mean, there's two ways to sleep in a hammock, one of which is at a little bit of an angle and that keeps you from becoming like a banana. The other is to keep it really tight and put like a pillow under your back and under your legs and under your head?

Capn Tinsley: 15:53

Yeah, I was going to say does it cause a backache?

Austin: 15:55

No, no, Once you had. No, no, no, I have no, you know what. And it's super convenient and you can visit people and just pop up your hammock, bring your pillow. So, cha-cha, I had these put in here so that she is hammock friendly. And there's my little. That's 30 feet of my boat, right here and I have a beautiful V-Bird and a head.

Capn Tinsley: 16:23

What did you create? Did you create something special for your workstation, for your computer? Did? You where it pulls out, or something you said yeah, so I don't know.

Austin: 16:34

Let's see, everything is a mess. But right here I really love, I love doing like a standing desk. So I have a, I have a lap desk basically here that kind of goes like this and that it's actually you're, you're on it, but this pops into here, so that gives me that, and then I have a. These are, everyone needs one of these. But nobody wants to see my computer side. They want to see my boat. Well, I want to see it.

Capn Tinsley: 17:01

Well, a lot of people work from from the boat. So, I'm always in me. I'll be doing that when I go. You know I'm always working on my boat too, so you get all kinds of devices.

Austin: 17:11

I have a keyboard, and then this is the best. This is an extra monitor, right, and this thing is super light, and what's really nice about this is that you don't have to plug it into the wall. So while I was traveling, I didn't like setting up all of my stuff in places. Sometimes I'm traveling in places where I don't want to stand out and I don't want to look like a.

Capn Tinsley: 17:33

Uh, you got a bunch of expensive stuff in your.

Austin: 17:35

I mean I guess a nice way of saying it a rich gringo, right Like? I don't want to. Actually, it's funny Cause I've always I actually feel safer in in these other countries than a lot of times I feel in my own country. But you know, there's poverty in certain places and having all of this stuff set up kind of makes you look like a target. So I wanted to figure out a way that I could put it in my little bag. Nobody, nobody, would know what it is, and so I can pop up. I also help people do with AI, I work with AI, I work, work with. I do some life coaching and I do some um tech stuff. So I'm boat.

Capn Tinsley: 18:10

Life has allowed you to stay tech savvy yeah, I, I do a lot of with ai as well, and I saw that video that you did about who out there is using video editing. Did you ever figure it out? Did anybody answer?

Austin: 18:29

Yeah, man, I have so much going on in my little head. The ADHD is not good for my completion of tasks, and that's one of the things that I learned while traveling is the work isn't the hard part, it's the staying focused and getting on some sort of a routine that makes this work remote thing.

Capn Tinsley: 18:56

You can definitely use AI for that to keep up with your tasks, and which I've been doing, because I've got a whole checklist to complete before I leave in October to get into the country I have cats. I have cats and I'm put that checklist for the cats. The checklist for the cats is longer. That's so funny.

Austin: 19:17

My sister's in Montana and she was going to. They were going to Banff to go camping and she's like I'm like, oh, you bring in the dog. And she's like, of course, the dog's like a kid. And I was like, oh, it was like you need to make sure that you can get them in and out of the country, because you know you don't realize how much you have to deal with when you start trying to get into countries and how long can you be there and what do I need? What do you need?

Capn Tinsley: 19:37

and pets are no joke right, yeah, and so luckily bahamas is not one of those where you have to do. You know, like what am I thinking? Quarantine.

Austin: 19:50

Yeah, that's a no-go for me, so yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 19:54

But there is a bunch of things you have to do and I've completed all the ones that I can at this point.

Austin: 20:00

Hold on, I'm going to put my hammock up for us. Are we done doing my boat tour?

Capn Tinsley: 20:03

I have one of those. I'm not sure where I would put it in my boat. That's my trouble, that I that's. That's like a chair, right? Oh nice, that is nice right oh, very nice I've been uh, you should sell these products. Okay, let's do it.

Austin: 20:26

Well, and that is one of the things that I absolutely love about boat life is how one, how practical it is. Oh, there you guys are again Helen, I'm going to ignore you guys for the uh okay, one of which is just how practical it is. Um, and I can get in, I can expand a little bit more, but what you learn in two and four weeks on a boat is like equivalent to two years of university, and I don't say that jokingly, because you start dealing with winds and tides and safety and knots and power usage and corrosion and water management water management, propane safety, like the amount of practicality, because you know people like, oh, aren't you scared, Right?

Austin: 21:15

Well, first of all, I haven't really sailed a lot Like I've lived on a boat, but I really wouldn't know how to get cha-cha anywhere.

Capn Tinsley: 21:25

I mean I love, I love your honesty.

Austin: 21:27

I love it. I have some plans, I have people. This is I'm leveraging people at this point to uh, do I need to bring you closer? Are you okay? Can I? Are we?

Capn Tinsley: 21:39

good, that's good, yeah, just yeah, bring your head up a little bit bring my head up a little bit yeah, yeah, if you move your phone or whatever, um, so, yeah, that. No, I've interviewed a lot of people who same thing they they do all the stuff that you're doing and then they set off and they're pretty new at sailing, um, but there's plenty of people that do that, you know, and especially if you're reaching out asking for for help like you're doing, and there's books and there's YouTubes and there's, you know, we've been sailing.

Austin: 22:10

We've been sailing around the world way longer than we've been driving and flying, you know, I think that one of the things that I learned while traveling is how much fear the average person has.

Austin: 22:22

Fear the average person has and you know, the amount of fear is just so not, it's not even real. Right, like, be respectful, and I'm sure that there's going to be times when I am absolutely scared to death while floating out somewhere and I've been scared to death before but a lot of the fear that people have is very unfounded. I don't know if that I don't think that's the right word, but it's not it's in their own heads. And I think that when people think about water and the ocean not that mother nature can't be fierce, but I think that they it it's like there's like sea monsters everywhere, just like taking people down and you know, um, and I guess I guess like it doesn't. I think that the. I think that the saying is like 80 of all boats have never been three miles from their own marina and 90 of all boats have never been three, three miles offshore. Something like almost nobody is actually out doing this. What, uh, you've done or we're doing?

Capn Tinsley: 23:36

I wish I had a dollar for every time somebody asked me if I'm scared and I go of what I mean. I respect it, you know. You know there's a risk involved, but it's just worth it people are scarier.

Austin: 23:51

You know, I and and people are like. People are like aren't you scared traveling in other countries? And I'm like, actually, when someone comes up to me in another country, I know what they want. They want my cell phone, they want my wallet. They probably want whatever jewelry I have which I don't really wear jewelry anymore, and they want my backpack here. They want my wallet. They probably want whatever jewelry I have which I don't really wear jewelry anymore and they want my backpack here. I don't know what people want. People are just mad. They're just doing weird things. People have. So you know at least the elements you like, know what, why they're doing it here. You just have a bunch of people doing weird, weird things. I feel like it's more dangerous here than it is, you know, out there. But that's just me now.

Capn Tinsley: 24:33

Well, it's like it's not the days of Christopher Columbus. We have GPS, we have Starlink. We have so many ways to ask for help if we're out there and something happens, so CTO, yes, ways to ask for help if we're out there and something happens, so sito, yes, and towboat us. I have both when I'm traveling, because they're not all equal everywhere right you might get in an area where sito is better than towboat us or the reverse.

Austin: 24:58

So they're so inexpensive, I just get them and and, and part of um cha-cha's allure is her simplicity, and one of the things that my scott was hell-bent on me learning was how to deal with the boat, at least the things that need to be fixed. Yeah and yes, seto is great, but if you don't know how to turn wrenches at all on an older diesel, it ruins the fun quickly if you overcomplicate things, right? So ChaCha has a 12-volt system, meaning that I have a big battery bank and I have a starter battery. Other than that, everything else is run on 12 volts.

Austin: 25:45

All of my other things are done on propane my grill, my stove is propane and the ability nowadays, with LED and lithium ion, to run a 12-volt system, plus being able to get enough juice either from a solar panel or from your battery kind of charging, trickle, charging, over and over is it has literally changed the game. Because what used to cost, you know, $1,500 in batteries and 700 pounds, and the weirdness of charging all these deep cell batteries, lithium has made it like, okay, recharging all these deep cell batteries, lithium has made it like okay, affordable, powerful, easy to charge, not, not heavy. You know, I mean we got to deal with balancing of the boats when you put you know 800 pounds on batteries. It's like you know so well how much solar, do you have?

Austin: 26:42

oh, I don't even really use the solar. I need to actually deal with solar. My, my, I have about and I'm about once you're away from the dock, right, I will when I'm away from the dock and I will all. And I'm also able to charge very quickly off of my um engine. Oh yeah, so in an hour or two of my engine I can charge uh, you know my battery pretty good.

Capn Tinsley: 27:06

Well, a good way to test that is just to unplug everything right there at the slip, turn everything on, see how long it lasts.

Austin: 27:13

Yeah, right, and my goal here in the next 24 to 48 hours is to get Cha-Cha out of the slip. Okay, into the intercoastal and anchor and anchor Okay, slip okay in into the intercoastal and anchor and anchor.

Austin: 27:29

Okay, and I want to anchor for a couple of days, and I because cha-cha's next goal is to be in in anchor, like she's supposed to circumnavigate the tip of florida. She is supposed to go over to the bahamas. This is in the next 12 months, okay, and she is supposed to go over to the bahamas. This is in the next 12 months. Okay, and she is supposed to go over to the bahamas. So as soon as hurricane season ends, which is probably, uh, end of october, cha-cha heads south.

Capn Tinsley: 27:54

Okay, good that's when I'm I'm heading south around the first of october. I'm right in the. I'm in gulf shores, orange beach, alabama, so this, this area gets hit, but it's a big old target here. So I'm gonna leave like the first of october, and unless there's a hurricane barreling down on us and I'm gonna I want to be in the bahamas in november.

Capn Tinsley: 28:15

Uh, okay, I'm going to stay for at least a month there okay it'll be like a three-month trip, so I'll take about a month getting down there just taking my time, spend about a month over there and then take my time on the way back.

Austin: 28:27

So maybe we'll run into each other for sure, I'm from the fort lauderdale palm beach area, so I I am blessed to have lots of friends who actually decided to work instead of be an adventurer, and and they, a lot of them, have houses that Cha-Cha can get to.

Capn Tinsley: 28:48

Nice.

Austin: 28:49

Yeah, so Cha-Cha's plan is to do a combination of anchoring and visiting friends and family. Sweet Kind of in that. Tampa, fort Lauderdale, stewart, miami is kind of like a You're going to come over to the West Coast, I can come over to the West Coast, I, I can come over to the west coast. I do like the uh salsa dancing over on the west coast. Um, it seems like the east coast is probably more comfortable for me, just because that's really where I'm from, um, and and I want to anchor out at peanut island and I want to hang out in lake boca and I want to go down a little bit to key biscayne and then that's an easy trip over to the bahamas, which then opens up.

Capn Tinsley: 29:34

That's why I have to do, that's why I have to do my last minute um cat stuff, um, because there's there's some things you have to do 48 hours within the time you're going to be in the bahamas for your cats. So that'll be my staging area and my last minute provisioning and things on the list.

Austin: 29:51

Yeah, yeah.

Capn Tinsley: 29:52

It's. It's a great place to do that, Um, but if you need any information on the West coast of Florida or the keys, I'm your woman.

Austin: 30:01

Awesome, and, and and. Do you anchor out a majority of this or are you anchoring out all the time, are you?

Capn Tinsley: 30:09

I will be when I get to the Keys. I do, I am, I do like a marina. I'm not going to lie, but I am going to try to anchor more. I do have some good anchorage spots, if you want to know, in on the West Coast, ok, pelican Bay is an awesome one on the West coast, okay, pelican Bay is an awesome one, um. But but I chose, I chose to leave in October because of the weather for my cats. I can't take them out in July and make them sit in a hot boat with no air running, so that's why I did choose to lose leave at a time where it won't be hot.

Capn Tinsley: 30:43

If I'm anchoring for them, I can handle it, but not, I didn't want to do that to the cats, so yeah, so I'm going to, I'm going to try, I'm going to try not to get that credit card out.

Austin: 30:55

Man, I'll tell you what and and if you look into the, the I don't know if you've looked into the safe, safe Harbor, marina membership and what you get. I should, because a lot of them are bought by a lot of them are bought and when you become a member, you get to stay at marinas for multiple days for free okay, how much is the membership?

Capn Tinsley: 31:16

this is, I don't I.

Austin: 31:17

I don't know if it's a, I don't know if you have to rent a slip for a month and then you get access, but I can tell you. I don't know if you want to post post this for everybody, but if you get three days at all the marinas over and over and over again for free, it's a killer deal for people who are it is bouncing around yes, yes, so I I will definitely look into that and post it um on all my social media.

Capn Tinsley: 31:43

That's good information. Thank you for that. All right, let's see what we got um tell us what makes. What makes cha-cha feel like home.

Austin: 31:56

I think you'll have a good answer for this cha-cha feels like home because I learned so much about her in the process you've grown, I learned so much about her in the process. You've grown Cha-Cha made you grow, yeah, and I learned so much about boats with her and how to and I'm still so green Like, honestly, like I, this is not. I would never have taken on a project like this.

Capn Tinsley: 32:23

Well, you're here now.

Austin: 32:24

Absolutely not Cha-Cha. Cha-cha just you're here now. Absolutely not Cha-cha. I just learned to respect bright work and solid construction. I grew up in new homes. My dad builds houses, so I grew up in newer construction. So taking something that's old and older and vintage and bringing her back to life is something that I had never been a part of. So that was a huge learning curve breaking brass, screws and bolts and nuts and all of it. It was just I actually got banned. I got kicked, kicked off the project for uh months where I was. My stepdad just wanted to do it on his own.

Capn Tinsley: 33:14

He said you got to go yeah.

Austin: 33:17

I actually said you have to go and it was heated. It was heated. I said you know, boat, boatyard, boatyard is no joke. Uh, it's stressful. I've got I grew up on a construction site and and a boatyard conversation is way more intense. Yeah, it's smaller spaces, it's hotter, it's older, it's just just salt water, it's corrosion, it's just a lot more. So, um, I mean, a boat can take a boat can take a year, two years, three years to do a refit. You know people listen and say, oh, cha-cha took 12 months to redo. That is like record time to take a boat and fully refit. It is on a limited budget with, with you know, one or one or two people that I was impressed. Well, I compared to building a house. You know you build a house in 12 months, so to redo a 30-foot boat doesn't seem like a lot, but it is a lot different crews for a house.

Austin: 34:21

Right, you got these experts coming in to do this and these experts coming in to do that and you have machines.

Austin: 34:27

We used almost no tools like to fix this boat. I use a bag of what looks like something geppetto would need. You know, pinocchio's dad. The things that I fix this boat with look like pinocchio's dad stuff, whereas in my other life with my dad, it's like Tim the tool man, taylor, where we're just got drills and air compressors and I wasn't even allowed to bring a power tool. I wasn't allowed to use any power tools on this whole boat because the second I touched something, I stripped a screw or I broke a bowl, and he was like yo, you, everything is done by hand. I broke a bowl and he was like yo, you, everything is done by hand, everything is done. You know, jet, yeah, you're not working on a car.

Capn Tinsley: 35:11

You're not taking tires off of a car with a big old zoo, zoo, no, what? So I saw the video where you unseized your engine.

Austin: 35:22

Okay, yes.

Capn Tinsley: 35:22

So so what do you have left to do before you feel comfortable taking off, after you do your shakedown in the icw?

Austin: 35:32

nothing, you're all done. Yeah, she runs, you know. So I, we, we rebuilt the injector pump so as we were coming down we were getting fuel in the oil. I am not a mechanic, I am not a diesel anything. I took a course by um the guy that writes all the electrical stuff. Uh, he's the thick book. Everyone knows him. Um the thick book. Uh, the boater mechanic book. Hold on, it's right here his name. I think he's like from Nigel Calder.

Austin: 36:06

Okay, nigel Calder is the man of all men when it comes to boat mechanics. Well, nigel Calder teamed up with a younger guy and they did a video series on diesel understandings what you can touch, what you can't touch, what you can mess with. I need this book diesel understandings what you can touch, what you can't touch, what you can mess with. You need the, the book. The book isn't as good as the online course, okay, the online course.

Austin: 36:33

I need the online course. So this is the book, the book, the book. The book is for uh, electronics. He's the. He's the go-to guy for boat electronics. Okay, but the course, the course. If you just look up Nigel Calder, I think it's like be boating amazing. I think it's like $195 and it gave me the ability to phone a friend intelligently. A lot of my boat repairs were me literally, virtually with someone, whether it's my dad or my stepdad, or I had another buddy, or I even have a cousin who is fairly handy and he works on fast trucks, but I so I was literally you know, it was lifelines phone of friends. I don't really know how to do this. Hey, buddy, do you know how to do this? So in the end, the engine is great and the main problem was that the first injector was stuck open.

Capn Tinsley: 37:37

Oh, I had that before. That's where fuel goes into the oil. Yes, well, I don't know if that's.

Austin: 37:43

I don't know if that's why fuel goes into the oil, or I had a leaky injector pump, um, but either way, the injector pump was rebuilt, so the engine is is it's a Kubota engine, so it's a tractor engine. So it's simple. I've now know what I'm looking at on it and hopefully I don't. Uh, you know, you want to be able to fix stuff when you get to the Bahamas.

Capn Tinsley: 38:15

You don't want to have to have a whole list of things to order because you can't get things there. So I've got a friend that helped me come up with a spare parts list and I'll be ordering all that and taking everything with me.

Austin: 38:29

Yeah, redundancy is key on these boats. For your navigation, redundancy is key and for your engine redundancy is key. You know your water as well. You got to be able to get your water out. So you know you're. You become really, hopefully, self-sufficient, which I think is is think is always very cool to be able to do so, being able to get in there and turn wrenches just a little bit.

Capn Tinsley: 38:53

Well, I'm going to sign up for this class. Did you say Nigel Calder?

Austin: 38:57

Yeah, nigel Calder's online diesel mechanic course.

Austin: 39:02

Phenomenal he goes through three different engines a small engine, a big engine and he goes through three different engines a small engine, a big engine and he goes through all the different things how do you change an oil, how do you check the alternator, how do you, I mean? And and then he goes over. He's like all of these things you can mess with yourself. These are the three pieces that if you have a problem you need to go have someone else mess with it, because it deals with timing and it deals with different uh stuff like that. So I went from not knowing how to do any of this stuff to I would say I'm like 70. I still I've never really done any, any fiberglass work, um, but as far as, like the engine and the electronics and the water, I've I've I've been fairly hands-on to be able to know how to do this. I see boat life as as a lifestyle for me for a while.

Capn Tinsley: 39:54

I don't, you know, I don't see myself did you take a class for electronics also, did he have one of those?

Austin: 40:00

I did not, because I only have a 12-volt system one. I really can't shock myself. Yeah, two, I'm really only running little fans and LEDs and a couple of cigarette lighters throughout the boat that I've hooked up With lithium. It's when you run a. So I run an AC unit. And if I'm running my AC unit I'm literally just plugging it right into a 30-amp plug that comes off of my pedestal and then from there I charge my battery. So other than that, I pretty much power my laptop. I mean, what else is there? You have to charge your devices.

Capn Tinsley: 40:47

What else is that? You have your you know your devices, the things that suck my power, but I have them on board anyway. But I have lots of two very large lithium batteries and I have two large solar panels, the Keurig coffee maker and the microwave, which I use the coffee maker way more than the microwave- my sister says we're not allowed to have a microwave, so we got rid of the microwave, like uh, a long time ago, so we don't do microwaves.

Austin: 41:11

And then I have a propane stove that I run off of a little one pound tank, because when we started looking into propane lockers and running all of that stuff it started becoming complicated and expensive. So I I run a, I have a little propane tanks in their little locker and then I refill them off of a bigger tank that is put somewhere, so that. So that's how I run my grill and and I heat up water. I run, I have my water in my tanks, but then I run my water in my tank through a filter, straw or a Brita, and this actually runs into another bag. And maybe it's not that good, maybe it's not that healthy, but I've been drinking water from other countries and out of their faucet, for you know a long time.

Capn Tinsley: 42:03

Wow, okay, yeah.

Austin: 42:04

And so that's how I filter, and then this, and then this goes into a storage bag, and that storage bag goes into a little battery powered um, a little battery powered water pump, and this, uh, basically hooks in, and that is how I do my drinking water and I say okay, whatever other water I want and uh, yeah, it may not last for 20 years on a sailboat, but with the couple year warranty from amazon, you know what you uh and and a lot of this stuff is just prototypes.

Austin: 42:41

What do I need? What do I don't need? How can I try these different ideas? And uh, yeah, I definitely don't have, I don't have a keurig and I definitely don't have a microwave there's. I have like 12 feet. My cha-cha is much of the bigger cockpit than probably a saloon oh right, the cockpit's bigger. Let's see, I'll turn you around. Don't judge my.

Capn Tinsley: 43:08

No, no, no, yeah, wow, that's a big cockpit.

Austin: 43:15

And then I have my. Let's see what else I can show you guys. I don't know. Can you see up there?

Capn Tinsley: 43:21

Yeah.

Austin: 43:22

Okay, oh, and all these cushions and all the the canvas that you see we sewed ourselves, wow, um, all this canvas work, I, I sewed it. Oh yeah, we learned to sew canvas as a family for the most part. And uh, let's see if you can see a little more. There you go, uh, navigation table, all my books.

Austin: 43:48

It's a very simple it's a very simple life. Let's put me pretty right down, um, but we live in a time and a place where you can have you know technology pretty quickly starlink with the new starlink mini.

Capn Tinsley: 44:03

You're talking yeah, so you're, you're gonna be buying that 50 bucks a month.

Austin: 44:07

Yeah, you're talking 50 bucks a month for 50 gigs, which is kind of a lot for me. I run a lot of things out of a cloud server another geeky side of things, uh, and then, um, yeah, I think starlink. I see starlink in my future. Right now I'm mainly in the inner intercoastal and where I'm going to be anchoring out I'm still going to have cell phone service. So cell phone service to a hotspot solves, like most of my, most of my problems. I want to, I want to get more into coaching, just helping people. You know, live a best, live a better life, maybe go through transit transitions in midlife, midlife. So I do a voice, a voice note coaching, where we kind of interact. It records voice notes and then we can chat that way. So it's not high on internet. I don't need to be able to do video, which is very difficult. Stable video is just tricky in general for remote work, for remote work All right.

Capn Tinsley: 45:10

So how do you like working on the boat?

Austin: 45:15

I love working on the boat.

Capn Tinsley: 45:17

No I mean not like working on the boat, but like doing your job, your regular job on the boat.

Austin: 45:23

It's awesome. I have a lot of natural sunlight. Um, I have a couple different setups. I stand, I sit, I can lay on my hammock, I can work outside. I really enjoy. I've kind of always worked remote. I've been working remote for a long time yeah, me too.

Capn Tinsley: 45:39

So john hoffman said guy is a true pirate, love the boat.

Austin: 45:43

Go, cha-cha go cha-cha, yes, so now I gotta learn to sail cha-cha and get her to florida. And then now, do you have any?

Capn Tinsley: 45:56

friends? You have any friends that are sailors that can go out with you and kind of show you a few things? I do, I do, I do, I do.

Austin: 46:03

I do, I have a, we have a. There's a lot of people that have been willing to step up and help. Really right now I just uh, the next day or so my goal is to get her in and out of the slip a couple of times.

Capn Tinsley: 46:17

Yeah, that's the most stressful con that it. But you know what? The only way to learn is just to leave the doc and you will get good at it. I've been uh to the keys and back every year, uh since like 2016, and I've been in every situation with the cross, cross, uh, wind and and the tide and and the only way to learn it is to just do it.

Capn Tinsley: 46:41

I feel like I could do anything now just from being really yes and the, and the first time I went down to the Keys and back, I felt like I really learned the boat. That's when you really learn it, because I've took all the courses. But until you're out there and nobody's with you because you don't need chatting in your ear when you're doing it you're just like, okay, I'm going to gonna do this, let me try that, and through that I really learned a lot.

Austin: 47:07

So once you leave the dock, it's really gonna be helpful and and right now I'm just prepping to make sure you know people don't realize that one little wake, the whole boat tilts and everything goes off. Yeah, you know like we have to like secure everything before we leave, because just one little wake tilts that boat and next thing you know your whole living room and everything you own and all your books are sitting in the middle of your boat, which is in the middle of your house.

Capn Tinsley: 47:38

You definitely have to prep everything kind of secure everything.

Austin: 47:41

Yeah, and then living at anchor. You know, depending on where you are, when a boat comes by, it's going to rock. So there's all these things that I'm prepping that hopefully, uh, for cha-cha's two-year anniversary. Um, she gets to sleep out at anchor for a little bit and then from there, that's just the start of, I would say, 24 months of strong adventuring. I would say 12 months out and about on the hook and then potentially down into the Caribbean for the 12 months after that.

Austin: 48:13

And then what you know, I can't imagine staying with a little 30-foot boat. It's small, it's great, and part of the things that doesn't scare me is that I'm not trying to learn how to sail a million different kinds of boats. I'm trying to learn to sail one boat. So it's much easier to learn something that is yours, that isn't changing, right? Like I don't want to necessarily be a captain or any of those things. I need to learn this little 30 foot boat that is manageable for a solo sailor, plus one plus two, right? Like the beauty of cha-cha is that I don't need crew. Yes, at first to learn how to do this, but for the most part it's like hey, I can move this boat by myself when you start getting into these bigger boats you start needing more people and more crew and all of these things. So, um, simple, and and and get gone is kind of the goal. My mom's boat is a is a west sail older west sail 42 and it's big yeah, you probably.

Austin: 49:20

She probably doesn't leave the dock too often it's four times the amount of weight you know it's. It's a lot. So cha-cha is like the day sailor, that's like a liveaboard, not a big home. That is that, yeah, that boat takes a lot to do. Cha-cha supposed to be able to just boom, knock, knock down some stuff and go, and that's why I have a 320, a 32 foot um.

Capn Tinsley: 49:48

It's big enough to have somebody on board with me, but it's small. It's it's small enough and I could probably do a 35 or 38 by myself, no problem, but I just figured a 320. I will day sail, you know, because it gets so big. You don't even want to take it out. That's too much trouble. I don't. Nobody, nobody's gonna want to come sail with me. You know, that kind of stuff I wanted it where. If nobody's available, I'm okay, just taking it out myself and and through that, you know, just solo sailing all the way south and back. You just become so good at it, you know I get compliments from like old guys from like old guys go.

Capn Tinsley: 50:26

I love the way you handled your boat. You know they didn't have to say that I was like. Well, thank you so it's.

Austin: 50:34

It's an art, it's an art, it's an art. It's a lot going on you, they make it look so easy, but there's so much going on underneath the tides, the winds, that all of it, oh man yeah, it's a lot more than just parking a car and when things go wrong it's a lot of weight.

Austin: 50:55

You know you got, you got a lot, and a lot of people do things all differently so you never know how people are doing it. No, I would see this boat lasting. You know I have some nieces and nephews that they're going to be getting older soon, so this is the kind of perfect boat for all of us to do. I could see myself a little bit more on like something 37 foot at some point. You know 24, 24 months down the line.

Capn Tinsley: 51:20

Okay, so there's another, a bigger boat in your future. Probably I would assume.

Austin: 51:24

So I want to go and do the Caribbean, maybe even end up over in Panama, I don't know. You know, they say the rumor is that you can spend the rest of your life in the Caribbean and never get bored. Now, that's cool, you know, and that's my backyard, that's our backyard, for us Floridians, you know it's a.

Capn Tinsley: 51:46

OK, so I've got some rapid fire questions for you.

Austin: 51:49

Okay.

Capn Tinsley: 51:51

Coffee setup on the boat. This is very important to me. What's your?

Austin: 51:55

coffee setup. Coffee setup is. I have a little tea kettle. Okay, did you boil your water? I boil my water Instant coffee. No, no, yeah. Okay, did you boil your water? I boil my water instant coffee. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, I uh. You know what I? I hated dealing with the coffee grinds afterwards. Um, you know my, my plumbing is weird. Depending on which way the boat is sitting depends on how well all my drains work.

Capn Tinsley: 52:25

I just uh well, if you like it, if you like it, that's all that counts, as long as you're looking forward to it in the morning when you wake up, that's all you know I.

Austin: 52:34

I drink coffee the same reason I drink alcohol. I drink it. I drink it for the buzz. Yeah, you know I. I don't drink it for the taste.

Capn Tinsley: 52:42

Um, I drink it all day.

Austin: 52:44

Oh yeah, no in costa we would wake up and then we would have this, like I don't drink it for the taste, I do, I drink it all day. Oh yeah, no, in Costa we would wake up and then we would have this like filter it looked like a sock and we would do the thing and we would drip it and all of that. And when I'm there and when I'm with people who are coffee enthusiasts great, I drink my coffee black.

Capn Tinsley: 53:02

Me too, coffee, black and um, honestly, that's just. I'm looking for a little power, a power usage with my keurig, because the coffee just comes out, perfect, you know, and it's just so. I don't drink, so the coffee is, like, really important to me yeah, pulling hot, hot water anything heated is a huge power draw.

Austin: 53:24

So hot water is. I would rather take a high shower than have a hot cup of coffee for sure, everybody's got their, everybody's got their. I would much rather warm up water and pour it into like some colder water and have a warmer shower than worry about a cured coffee. No, I'm cool than worry about a cured coffee. No, I'm cool, and I'll even have mushroom coffee if I'm really feeling it. Where is my mushroom coffee?

Capn Tinsley: 53:52

Mushroom coffee.

Austin: 53:53

Yeah, mushroom coffee.

Capn Tinsley: 53:55

Did I ask?

Austin: 53:58

Plant medicine, yeah, no, there's also. First of all, besides the psychedelic side of mushrooms, there's all. First of all, besides the psychedelic side of mushrooms, there's all sorts of um health benefits to turkey tail and all of these different mushrooms. Um, and I'm not against the psychedelic side. I do think that there's lots of healing principles with psychedelics. But um, the as far as the coffee is concerned's no, uh, there's no okay, I might have to try it, who knows?

Capn Tinsley: 54:28

yeah, you may like it so this might be a guess of yours. You may you haven't done this yet. Morning sale like sunrise sale or sunset sale there's two.

Austin: 54:42

I found two things in life that are super fascinating at night. Can I? Can I push us a little bit further than just sunset? This is all about you, that don't need you to be drinking heavily.

Capn Tinsley: 55:03

Okay, okay, all right.

Austin: 55:10

Latin dancing or dancing, you can dance all hours of the night and plenty of the people don't drink at all and plenty of them don't drink that much. And sailing at night, sailing at night is, to me, is super spectacular. When you've done it, I've done it. Yes, we've said I've sailed, we've said I've sailed, I've sailed with my, my mom and my, uh, my, stepdad, scott. So I've, I, we've, I've spent probably three weeks.

Austin: 55:33

We, we did the whole East coast up and down, um on, on, uh, a low head, um, no, sailing it when the boat is calm and people are calming down and the boat gets going and it's a whoosh, whoosh and it's like I say, sailing is like riding a bronco but a train, right, it's like this, like, and when you pick a star and you aim for that star and it's just you and you're like, oh man, yeah, not, not just me, but you and the boat, whoever's on the boat, right, I've never done this at night yet. I don't know how to, I don't know what I'm doing. This is all, this is all talk. But I've done a lot of things that I didn't know what I was doing and it all worked itself out.

Austin: 56:25

So I think I think a lot of the things that make things dangerous is like the unneeded stress that you just people put themselves under. I think if you handle things like calm and with your this, and that you're eliminating problems Like try not to have too many bad ideas going at once, Well, when you're doing something like this that you're not familiar with might have a little bit of danger.

Capn Tinsley: 56:47

There's the endorphins kick in and the adrenaline kicks in, and a lot of us need that.

Austin: 56:55

Yeah, and I think that adventure sports, which is what I would kind of put this in the category, as is forced meditation. So riding a motorcycle learn to ride a motorcycle, amazing. Paragliding is another one where you're in the sky. This is another one of those things where it's like you need to be paying attention, and I believe that calming our nervous system and meditating, and even if it's just stillness, is so important to us that when you find things that force you to be in that state, right, like you just don't have room to mess up, there's you, you need to be focused, and I think that it's forced meditation and it's so good for the mind and the body to put yourselves in the situation where it's like all right, I need to be calm, I need to keep my wits without me, I need to stay sober. You know it gives you a reason to focus.

Capn Tinsley: 57:56

Well, I think that's a lot of. You'll see a lot of older people in their later years still sailing. I think it keeps people young, it keeps the mind to keep physical. It's physical um, and you know you don't see any decrepit people on a sailboat I think you stay younger in better shape by doing it at least not sailing maybe in the marinas you. That's true, okay, so favorite onboard meal Quesadillas, Nice, Easy.

Austin: 58:31

Okay, you know you're limited. You know part of this, this. This is, in stoicism, we would call it voluntary discomfort going without shoes for a month, not using ac all the time. So boat life to me is like glorified camping. I don't. This is not like my normal luxury life when I'm right in in the holidays and I'm visiting my more bougie friends or you know um.

Capn Tinsley: 59:02

So to me, what did you call it? Again Forced. What did you call it?

Austin: 59:07

Voluntary discomfort.

Capn Tinsley: 59:09

Yeah, that's it. That's, that's true.

Austin: 59:13

And we don't deal with voluntary discomfort. Well, in this country we're used to instant gratification what we want, how we want it, Cold, AC Shoot In our cars. We each have our own AC dials. Oh, climate control little environment. The kids in the back of my sister's car can control their own AC. I was like, are you kidding me? That's great.

Capn Tinsley: 59:33

Each watching their own devices. Yeah, the whole day.

Austin: 59:37

I don't know if they get that luxury. Yeah, they're on a short leash, as they should be.

Capn Tinsley: 59:44

One tool you can't live without. On ChaCha.

Austin: 59:49

Wi-Fi Internet.

Capn Tinsley: 59:52

Okay.

Austin: 59:52

Yeah, yeah, I don't know if I would want to do this fully alone. You know I don't watch TV, but I do watch a lot of YouTubes and I'm very connected. Yeah, and then next is hot water. I really am not a fan of the non-hot water systems, so I'm dealing with what can I do regarding propane and or some sort of a solar setup so that I can rinse off. Unlike most pirates, I prefer not to climb in bed without having rinsed off, which is like well, I use.

Capn Tinsley: 1:00:30

Uh, I take I have hot water, I have a hot water heater, but I I. Years ago I was on facebook and somebody was talking about the, the wipes and the hair, the dry hair wash. So I use the wipes, yeah.

Austin: 1:00:46

Dry shampoo.

Capn Tinsley: 1:00:47

Yes and um the wipes. You come out just as clean, you save a lot of water and at the end of a long, 10 hour sale you don't feel like traipsing up or going in your shower, so I can just become very clean, Um, so that I use a lot of those, the wipes.

Austin: 1:01:08

And I'm looking forward to being in water. That's like jump in a bowl, right. Like I, my goal is to be at anchor and be rinsing off throughout the day and you know to where. It's not like. You built up this like all day sitting in an office vibe. I don't really, I don't really have that vibe that much anymore. It doesn't work with what I'm going for.

Capn Tinsley: 1:01:33

Yeah, I don't want an office vibe either. I work at home or on the boat or in my van, so it's nice to have that luxury. It really is.

Austin: 1:01:44

So my goal is to get cha-Cha in the intercoastal. Spend the next two or three months by yourself Anchoring in and out. This I don't need to do by my no. Nothing I need to do by myself, I know. No, no, right now I'm cool having a wingman, or at least someone that can hold the fender If something goes sideways. Someone who knows how to put a line on a cleat, someone knows not to put their foot in between the boat and the dock, right, like. These are things that, like you don't.

Capn Tinsley: 1:02:16

They're not practical, but they are very important, you know you don't think about these things when you, when you go to anchor out, are you going to be by yourself? Are you going to have somebody with you?

Austin: 1:02:27

Mostly by myself Okay.

Capn Tinsley: 1:02:30

You know, maybe I think that's very therapeutic?

Austin: 1:02:32

Yeah, I guess for sure. I say the boat is good for, like, weekend warriors. It's not. I'm not looking to move someone on to cha-cha yet, like that's not. There's no mermaids right now that are um full-time, full-time um cha-cha's like a one and a halfer, like she's. She's just small, she's cute, but she's meant for adventure, you know. So when you're having adventures you can have three or four people, but just sitting at anchor I don't think that you want to have like lots of people living, you know.

Capn Tinsley: 1:03:06

On this, okay, um dream anchorage still gotta learn it.

Austin: 1:03:16

Palm beach. Palm beach area is so beautiful.

Capn Tinsley: 1:03:20

Yeah, they just made some new laws about anchoring and I would like to interview somebody who knows more about it.

Austin: 1:03:26

They they, they, they didn't. Really it didn't work. Uh, you, you had the two laws where you had to register in florida, but then you also had the law where you weren't allowed to be too close to a port. I don't believe that that the anchorage in palm beach was affected by that. From what, what I know, from what I heard, the distance didn't go through.

Capn Tinsley: 1:03:50

Okay. So what about in the intercoastal? People do that they travel in the intercoastal and they anchor out somewhere.

Austin: 1:03:57

Yeah, all of that is still okay. There's a couple of places in Miami that you're not allowed to anchor. And then the other issue was permits. But the permit is very easy to get. It's done online and it's supposed to. I don't think it's supposed to cost any money. So if you do overstay your two week window which were the two main things people were worried about If you're two weeks in a particular area, what happens? And you miss your weather window? And can we still anchor close to the ports?

Capn Tinsley: 1:04:27

I don't believe that the ports traveling through florida is that permit good for anywhere in florida from what I understand, it's like a florida fishing permit yes, now they're like the bahamas cruising permit or something yes, yes, yes.

Austin: 1:04:42

So I wouldn't worry about it as much as people. I'd be more worried about the new Bahamas rules than I would be about the Anchorage rules in Florida.

Capn Tinsley: 1:04:52

I've been seeing that people were saying it's 800 or 700 or something, which won't stop me. I know it was like. I remember it was like. I've been over there on my boat I had my former boat and it seemed like it was like 150 or something and now it's gone up.

Austin: 1:05:09

Well, you have to pay for the anchorage and you may have to pay for the fishing. So there's other licenses that you didn't have to get before, but now that they're required, and for us who are going to go and spend a month, a week a year in the Bahamas, it's worth it. The people that I heard were most upset were people like jet skis that wanting to do day trips, or people that do day trips and they want to go over once a year for three days. And now it's $900 because you need you know, each person needs a fishing license now, and so it can get expensive now, whereas it used to be $200. Now it can be in the $900. Well, that's a. That's a for a three-day trip. That's kind of a lot for us. Where we can go, where we can go back and forth and go for three days and come back and go back. It's not as uh to us, it's kind of like rent, you know.

Capn Tinsley: 1:05:58

Right, right, uh, let's see Most underrated piece of sailing advice. You heard, heard, you've heard that you've been given most under. Say it again underrated piece of sailing advice. It could be about the boat, it could be about sailing, could be anything like you found so invaluable just do it, go.

Austin: 1:06:33

Yeah, it's. The boat's never gonna be right. You're never gonna be right, nothing's ever. There was a book that I read when I first was deciding to do this, and I don't know if it's called go simple, go, simple and go.

Capn Tinsley: 1:06:46

I can look it up I've read byob bring your, and it talked a lot about that are you still able to see me real quick, I just lost you.

Austin: 1:06:58

Okay, hold on one second. I'm just gonna look real quick for the name of this boat. Now there is a million boats, there is a million books that you know the purdys and the slocums and all these other people but there was one that was really just like nothing's gonna be right. Get a 20-foot boat and go and I heard.

Capn Tinsley: 1:07:17

I heard it go small. Go now, that's the name of the book. Oh, really, there's a book name, yeah yeah look at it, I think it's called.

Austin: 1:07:27

It could be, and that's the name of the book and I, and when I was, I would say, out of this whole thing since I decided to do this, I've only woken up once or twice in like a nightmare, ish, vibe, and then like, oh my God, I don't know. I don't know how to do any of this. This is real. This is the real deal. Like this is not, like that's what stops people. This is the real deal.

Capn Tinsley: 1:08:00

Yeah, is it that you're a small percentage of the people that actually do it? I?

Austin: 1:08:04

mean I've done a couple of things. One thing I did is I rode a little motorcycle across Costa Rica. I rode into Nicaragua and traveled all around. So I put myself in situations where I am by myself and I have put myself in situations where I learned to ride a motorcycle, I learned to paraglide, I learned to do these things, where at least I know, I know how to learn and I know how to calm my nerves okay.

Capn Tinsley: 1:08:27

And.

Austin: 1:08:27

I think that that's a huge thing that has to happen for any of these advanced sports where it's like, okay, you can die, like you can die People. You can or get hurt, lose a hand, lose a limb, lose you know all of these things. I do think that it's nature and your boat, and if you take care of your boat, off that engine.

Austin: 1:08:58

It's like wow and if you take care of your boat, the the adage is you take care of your boat shall take care of you right? So if you can eliminate you the obvious dangers, one of the things that a fact that no one really respects is that, like I think, it's like 80 to 90% of all injuries on boats are fuel related boat issues. If you look up the I think it was from the naval in Great Britain If you look up the major culprit of most boat injuries and fatalities, it deals with a lack of power when you need power due to a fuel engine problem.

Capn Tinsley: 1:09:52

So the boat will stop and you run into something? Is that what you're saying?

Austin: 1:09:56

Yeah, you get caught in a situation where you don't know how.

Austin: 1:10:00

yes, exactly, exactly, so it's not necessarily yeah, you're not getting demasted, You're not getting a hole in the boat that's sinking the boat. You're not running into something when you're aware of what's going on, right. So most real problems that cause real, real, real problems is an engine related, typically fuel related problem. And just like riding a motorcycle, when I first started learning to ride a motorcycle, I was like, all right, how many people die doing this? Right, like, what are my percentages? It was like 49 of all people are on crotch rockets. They're 23 to 33 years old okay, well, I'm not 23 anymore, right, and I'm not, and I don't like crotch rockets, okay, where I have an ego and I'm trying to go fast and little streets. The other are people like 49 are people in uh with alcohol in their system that have never taken a motorcycle course before.

Austin: 1:11:06

Okay, so you've been studying these stats. Well, I like to know, you know, I like to know my dangers, my risk. Like I'm a risk analysis, I have a finance degree. Like I look at numbers, I understand I'm a geek, I look at percentages, right, like my little HB10B calculator was one of my favorite like devices of all times with a geeky calculator. So when you eliminate alcohol and when you eliminate these things, you're starting to reduce the risk.

Austin: 1:11:38

Sure, you know, and then by having redundancy and by having life jackets and by having flares, and by having CTO, and by having a call plan and I having a map, a map, a chart as well, a chart as well as your, you know, electronical devices, we it starts to become a manageable risk.

Capn Tinsley: 1:12:05

Yeah, you start to reduce the risk. It's like you take all the risks, you, you, you, you get all the stuff to reduce the risk and then there's still a risk. But that's what. You take all the risks, you get all the stuff to reduce the risk and then there's still a risk. But that's part of the excitement.

Austin: 1:12:18

And when I asked my paraglide friend before I got into paragliding, I asked my instructor she's crazy, she's awesome, but she's crazy. And I said are you trying to die? Like, are you looking to die? Before I really knew her. She's like no, I have two kids Like I love my life, like this to me. And they'll all tell you they feel safer in the sky than they feel on the highway. Now they're from a lot of them are from Medellin, so the highways are crazy, but but they said that they felt safer in the sky than they did on the highway.

Austin: 1:12:55

And I was like, oh, my goodness, okay, like I need to look at life a little different. And one of the things that I had to do when I first moved to costa rica was I started using the term por que no, and it's not even correct spanish, but it means why not? Why not? Right, and it's just funny because they started calling me Por que no.

Austin: 1:13:15

Whenever anyone was like Austin, you want to go do something, I was like no, I know that as a US citizen, I'm supposed to say no, I'm supposed to say that is scary and I am not doing that. But as I started introducing other cultures and adventure sports and these people who are like, literally, they're Red Bull athletes. And I started seeing how they acted and reacted and I was like, oh man, I've been making things way scarier than they need to be. So as I started embracing Porche, no, and I started saying, why not not before I would start with no, it completely changed my life and there was a lot of times where I did not feel comfortable, you know, but you just kind of sit with it.

Austin: 1:14:04

And you have to trust other people. You know we don't trust anybody. Everybody wants to drive their own car, everybody wants to push their own shopping cart. When you get yourself into position one, you don't speak the language, so you're kind of like don't kill me, please. Okay, let's go and and and you get into the vibe where it's like all right, like these people aren't all dead. You know, how do you die? How does, how does it? You know people think that a sailboat goes in the intercoastal and it flips over and it's like no, you realize like you realize, I have an entire weight of the car sitting underneath my boat.

Austin: 1:14:43

Like for this boat to flip over, it would that helps there's way more things you got to worry about than the boat you know flipping over in calm seas right. You have a better chance of getting sick from the water that's in the water tank. Or you know what is the gas that my propane puts off? It puts off, I think, whatever One of them puts off like a chemical that you you shouldn't be breathing, so you have we have. Those are more risky than you know.

Capn Tinsley: 1:15:16

The boat flipping over and everybody um, you should have one of those. Uh, one of those the sensors yeah well um so one last question, last question, we've been on over an hour. One last question. If you had to sum up the current life chapter in one word or two or three, what would it be? What's this current chapter you're in?

Austin: 1:15:46

I always. I revert back to a theme called tropical freedom yeah, then your name.

Austin: 1:15:52

Yeah, and I really. Cha-cha's goal is to chase salsa and Latin dance events all up and down the East Coast, nice, and anchor out and go do three-day dance events, work from the computer and allow other people to try this adventure. You know this is something that nobody is doing so to be able to take my friends and family and new people on this adventure. You know that's what happened to me. People took me on adventures, people inspired me. So my goal is to help people see that. You know, tropical freedom isn't, isn't, isn't, isn't too far away and you don't need a lot of money to do this. Like, yes, you need money, but compared to other lifestyle choices that are happening in Florida, it is so expensive right now. This is easy.

Austin: 1:16:45

This is like I call it, glorified camping, but it's kind of like it's glorified RV life and and and I got and I picked this over rv life.

Capn Tinsley: 1:16:56

There was a guy I interviewed in key west. He said if you feel like you're camping, you don't have your boat set up right yeah, right he's got everything, you know.

Capn Tinsley: 1:17:05

But I, I agree, uh, and even like crossing the gulf of mexico, you have to really want to be out there, because it gets uncomfortable sometimes and it's like no, I'm here for the, you know. So you have to really want to do it. You have to want to be here to go through the uncomfortable times, but I think you'll be a great you probably already are a life coach and getting people to do stuff like this that it does cause, but there's so much, there's so much sense of achievement in it, wouldn't you say?

Austin: 1:17:41

Yes, and so much of this is, you know, the life coaching side of things. It's like mindset Facing fears. Where do a lot of those fears come from? Where do? And, honestly, once you dig into, like oh, this fear is from the movie Jaws, like we have to unpack you know, like that's just not real.

Capn Tinsley: 1:17:58

That changed everything. That move 1974, was it Changed everything?

Austin: 1:18:12

thoughts do create. So when I, when I first visited Costa Rica, I went on a 10 day trip and I wrote in my journal I'll be living here next year and I just would imagine sleeping and waking up in Costa Rica and I kind of do that. So you know, doing stuff like this is facing fears, mindset, and then and then what, what, what resources do you have? And as a, as a coach, resources do you have and as a coach like I, just help guide you to kind of do what you want, make the change, reinvent yourself. You know it's time. I'm midlife, I'm 40 something young forties.

Austin: 1:18:45

I'm young forties, but you know I can do this. For I met a guy he's 88 and he was at the Marina and I said what are you doing here? He said I heard my family talking about putting me in a home, so I went out and bought a boat. I hadn't sailed in 25 years and so I went out and bought a boat.

Capn Tinsley: 1:19:04

I should interview him. You should interview him.

Austin: 1:19:07

Mr Frank and I said what are you going to do now? He says I'm going to find crew and they're going to get us to the Bahamas. And I'm going to have a little crew and his boat is bigger. I think he has like a 44 foot boat. So he's looking for crew and he says I'm, I'm, I'm not going into a home. He says so, um, now I can't remember. I think he may have just gotten rid of his sailboat and changed to something a little more liveaboard, which is more like a Grand Bank style bigger trawler. So I think, and I think, that my mom's going to end up doing that. If you're not sailing, there's no point of really living on a sailboat.

Capn Tinsley: 1:19:40

A lot of sailors end up moving to that like a trawler.

Austin: 1:19:45

And now that we have Cha-Cha to sail and to learn and to teach you know the kids and all of that I think that there's no need to have a bigger sailboat when you can live on something and the space in a trawler is just like huge. It's like going to a mansion, yeah, it's like a one bedroom, condo or something.

Capn Tinsley: 1:20:03

But the book that I read before I bought my boat, byob Caribbean Island Hopping. It talked about don't get anything bigger than you need, because everything, the expenses all go up dock fees, sales, bottom jobs, everything's more expensive and it just it doesn't. It goes up in bigger increments than your boat. It's you probably, since you're a finance major, you understand, yes, you'll understand what I'm saying, but it's so. I'm'm a believer.

Austin: 1:20:31

Not getting anything bigger than you actually need anything and and and, a hundred percent and and cha-cha's, she fits in little slips. She has three and a half foot draft, meaning I can go in like I think it's like 97 of all the water in the world so you know your stats cha-cha the world.

Austin: 1:20:51

Yeah right. And the other thing that is learn. You're going to have to learn a lot of things about the boat, but pick something that you can kind of barter a little bit. And for us, like we learned canvas, so for me, learning how to sew canvas.

Capn Tinsley: 1:21:04

That'll help you in the Bahamas.

Austin: 1:21:07

And shade is so important. Oh, being able to adjust shade and keep. The elements are brutal the wind, the salt, the sun. You know this, but the sun just destroys everything. So if you can protect your stuff, it makes it a lot easier. Protect your dinghy, make some chat for your dinghy.

Capn Tinsley: 1:21:28

Well, I was thinking you were meant when you, which you're not supposed to do. But well, bartering, I'm sure is okay. Bartering while you're in the Caribbean, have something to do to trade with. You know a skill to barter with, and that's definitely like if somebody cuts hair, or is a decent mechanic, they can always earn, earn a living, even though you're not kind of supposed to. But you know what I mean.

Austin: 1:21:55

Right, right, right and just helping people. You know sewing this matter and I use my little hand stitcher now, which was great. I'm glad I learned how to use that. It's just so freaking practical, this whole boat thing I love it.

Austin: 1:22:12

It just makes so much logical sense that so many of the world on land is just. It just doesn't make. Everything is so over complicated. You can't fix things yourself. You just. This is like the more you get, the more macgyver you can be, the better off of a, of a boat lifer you're going to enjoy definitely.

Capn Tinsley: 1:22:32

Definitely the more you can do yourself, but that's great. Okay, so we've been on over an hour or so. Thank you so much. I want to catch up with you. This won't be the last time we talked and I'll probably see you, hopefully down South right.

Austin: 1:22:46

Yeah, let's do it Now. If anybody wants to do any kind of coaching or follow up or ask questions, I've got a couple really cool ways that I work with people, both for ai but also just life transition repositioning people reach you, should they just try to reach you on on your. Yeah, on my instagram is great, or on my Facebook. I don't know if we're on Facebook, but it's Austin R None.

Capn Tinsley: 1:23:15

I looked for you on there. I couldn't find you.

Austin: 1:23:18

Okay, I'll find you. I was posting this stuff on there.

Capn Tinsley: 1:23:21

So his Instagram handle is at AustinTropicalFreedom. It's right there below his name. If anybody's looking for some AI help with your business or some life coaching, this guy is great. I mean, he's so positive, you're so positive.

Austin: 1:23:37

Being honest, my highs match my lows. Life is not all shining Life is not all shining, but getting the right people around you, working through it, figuring out where it's coming from and then living an adventure. Live a great story right, Live a great story. That's kind of the motto that I'm focusing on now.

Capn Tinsley: 1:23:59

Great to meet you, Austin. This was awesome.

Austin: 1:24:02

You're awesome, kat, have a great day, all right, salty Abandon Music.