After graduating from college and getting married in 2001, we moved from Texas to Seattle lured by the mountains, the water and everything that a big city has to offer.  Shortly after we moved there, our good friends, the Arthur’s, bought a 28’ motorboat and we spent a good part of the next few summers out exploring the Puget Sound, San Juan Islands and the Gulf Islands in British Columbia.  Some of our fondest memories come from those boat trips, and we very quickly learned to love being out on the water. 

In early 2005, we traveled to Peru to hike the Inca Trail and found we enjoyed traveling abroad, meeting people from around the world and learning about their different cultures.  While in Peru, we met some people who were traveling the world in a year, and they had discovered some economical ways to do it.  This was very interesting to us, and we decided we wanted to do a lot more traveling abroad - two weeks a year was not going to cut it.  Over the next few months, we explored different ways of doing some extended travel and learned that it was possible for two people to sail a relatively small boat across oceans.  This seemed like an affordable alternative since we would be living on the boat and with our love for being on the water, it seemed like the perfect match. 

Unfortunately, we did not know how to sail or anything about sailboats.  We started preparing by taking sailing lessons on 14’ dinghies on Lake Washington.  After we completed the beginner class, we bought our first boat, an older 30’ Islander cabin cruiser.  We spent the weekends taking her out on the lake and the Puget Sound, learning how to sail a larger boat and figuring out how to use all of the equipment.  We also took classes on basic keel boat sailing, navigation and cruising.  We had a great time for a year cruising around the protected waters of the Puget Sound, but we needed a different boat for going offshore. 

We did lots of research on sailboats and decided we wanted a heavy displacement full keel classic style boat, and found a Hans Christian 34’ that was in our price range.  The boat was in really bad shape, but we knew she was the right boat as soon as we stepped aboard.  Over the next four years we spent countless hours working on Saviah and outfitting her for offshore sailing.   In July 2010, we quit our jobs, rented out our house, said goodbye to friends and family and headed down the coast.