Eight months ago, I took a wild chance and flew 3 nights to East Africa to look at a 60ft cataraman, motivated by an idea for a world schooling expedition.

Guess what? Our maiden voyage aboard on that new boat in the Seychelles is in less than two months, yowwzaa!! Hard to believe it is happening.

The Green Coco Sailing community rallied like a tidal wave of interest, with over 90 families signed up as investors in the voyage, helping us purchase the boat.

Last several months we’ve been keeping our “heads just barely afloat” with our transition: creating the new educational program for the expedition, a video series in the works, and you know, just figure out how to sail through East Africa safely with kids…

Throughout it, we’ve been hosting a packed schedule here in French Poly, and managing some massive pivots to deal with unforeseen issues… all while getting our existing 46ft cat Selaví ready to sell.

This has been an epic endeavor, as we neglected her for several months while launching our new program. Yeah, that ties in with my New Years intention for following intuition and doing what lights us up with the now and future in mind 😉 Lots of lessons learned the hard way.

After too many marathon work sessions, our catamaran Selaví is back in great shape, with all the surveys green-lighted. Feels like a miracle!

We’re ready for this monumental leap. Our girls are almost 4. They said they are “ready to say good bye and move onto the new boat.”

Selling our floating home, moving our life across the world to Seychelles, and starting a partnership program to expand our co-op with Selaví is next in our list.

Huge credit is due: If it wasn’t for our co-op members and families — their willingness to help, be incredily flexible, and supportive in so many ways — we wouldn’t be in as great a position as we are now. We aren’t anything without all the loved ones that shine around us!

here’s a little sampling of all the people visiting us the last few months that have helped keep our spark alive — from people visiting for 2 hrs for quick layovers, to others doing a 3 week cruise, the smiles have kept us going.

Sarah Fretwell & Jamie came for a quick visit. They went to the Marquesas festival, we were supposed to be there too! that was one of our big pivots. Sarah is a professional videographer who does amazing storytelling around renewable energy and humanitarian aid.

Bill Barclay & Cathy & sister + friends had a super memorable 3 week cruise of the Societies. This was our 3rd trip together here in French Poly — always super fun, they have great stories to share, Bill used to work for GreenPeace and Rainforest Alliance for years.

Ian Weedman did our rigging inspections and rig work to prep Selavi for sale, over new years, while enjoying sailing to Moorea 🙂 he’s an owner of the renown Brion Toss Yacht Riggers shop in Port Townsend, big blessing to have someone so experienced watching over our rig!

Frank Hurd came by for a short visit after his fisheries project with Nature Conservancy in Rangiroa was finished. We had just arrived in Moorea, after a bumpy 16 hour upwind bash from huahine in 20-30kts. Nothing broke, incredible! It was great to get in the ocean for a quick surf together with Frank and reset my stress levels.

Chelsea came with Elric for Xmas, we last spent time with them at burning man; in fact Elric is a founder of the Heart Collective. It was a sweet holiday visit along with Sabby’s mom.

We’ve also had new guests coming aboard that really embrace the co-op spirit, like Lia & Nathan who brought their 8 month old son; and Alisa who brought her two kids. Hosting awesome people has re-affirmed our confidence and vision in the next expedition plan, where we plan to host lots of families and adventurous couples along the way.

Couldn’t have done this without our awesome onboard teachers Libby & Zoe. The girls have been thriving under their care and gentle instruction. And our life has become much more sane :) They’ve both been aboard as they’re overlapping during this transition period, Zoe is coming with us to Seychelles to help with the move.

On a final note: my dad Bob, his friend Hans, and Lauren came to help me sail the boat to Marquesas back in October – and then we pivoted big time and went west to Tahiti. This was a crazy time and needs to be discussed again. The boat was in need of major repairs and Hans in particular gave me a gigantic assistance as we single handedly rebuilt the engine /cylinder head.

We’re super appreciative of everyone coming to help us navigate Selavi and Green Coco through this transition. It helps re-energize us to keep this going: thank you!!

Excited to share 2024 with you all.

See next year’s schedule here: www.greencococharters.com/#schedule