Us

Well, that's us. Lauren, Nathan and Calypso in the background, somewhere in Portugal.

Lauren
I can't say sailing has always been a hobby of mine. I think I was about 11 when my parents bought a boat - a Sonata. We spent weekends sailing on the Solent and heading to the Isle of Wight. I never really wanted to spend long periods on board, preffering to spend my spare time seeing friends and playing video games.

Through a mutual acquaintance, I met Nathan who happened to be keeping Calypso at the same place my parents kept our boat. He always told me that he wanted to sail around the world but I didn't take much notice...until he asked if I wanted to come along. I always wanted to travel and I felt this was the opportunity being handed to me on a plate. Was I worried about my lack of experience? No, can't say I was. Nathan's enthusiasm rubbed off on me.

Now I'm loving living on a boat much more than I thought I would, meeting lots of diffferent people and travelling like I always wanted to.



Nathan
I kind of fell into sailing, somewhat accidentally. Coming from suburban Adelaide (Australia) where sailing isn't really a popular past time, I joined a friend on his boat buying trip to Florida and when he climbed aboard what I thought was a perfect boat, then told me it wasn't right for him, I grabbed the chance and bought it. It's worth mentioning at this point that other than a single Hobie 16 experience as a teenager, this was the first sailboat I'd ever been on. Ever. She was an O'day 34, I was a complete newbie to sailing, but boy did we have a great time cruising the Keys and the Caribbean for a winter, and that was pretty much me hooked.

I came back to London in the summer of '09, sold the O'day and decided if I was going to do this cruising thing seriously, I needed a bigger boat. And hey, why not take on a project boat to make it my own? See The Bellissima Years for more info but there's a reason I've gone prematurely grey. All jokes aside, five years of hard work, doing the 9-5 during the week and spending every weekend rebuilding a boat, finally paid off in the summer of 2015 and I'm stoked we're now underway.

The plan for me is really to just head west - back to the Caribbean and eventually go all the way around....