You’ll see it when you believe it – By Josje and Brady

With our bank accounts running low on board Delos, Brady and I would go over and over our options of some possible next steps. Brady would be lying up in the V berth, staying positive with a smile and I’d squeeze in next to him, curling my knees to my chest “Sooo if we fly to Fort Lauderdale to find work together on super yachts, we’d seriously be broke by the time we got there right”. Brady would curl his mouth into a look of ‘mmhmmm’. “But what if we fly to New Zealand? That way we can visit your family and it would be the perfect time to find work in Auckland just before all the yachts start heading up north”. Not a bad idea! Turns out flights were more expensive to fly into Auckland than all the way to Florida. Shit, back to square one. But we did like the idea of heading back to New Zealand and somehow from that tiny moment, all things fell into place. With a little idea, a mere thought, we manifested what now seems a little too good to be true.

After eight incredible months, we had experienced and learnt so much. Travelling back up the East Coast of Australia, hitting a burst of culture and epic diving through Raja Ampat in Indonesia and being blown away with how amazing the Philippines were; we definitely dove deep into the pool of adventure travel. Unsure of our next move, we looked into work in the Philippines. We loved the little surf town of General Luna on Siargao Island, so while Brady walked around all the dive shops, I popped into a few resorts and we asked around for work. With nothing really popping up, we tried our luck again in Panglao Island, just south of Bohol. It was the same deal but nothing felt quite right, plus only making $5 a day was not the best way to save for sailing again. In the mean time, we turned our attention back to another option we had talked about a lot; the super yacht industry.

Brady’s been in the yachting industry for a while now; having recently worked on some sweet boats back in Florida earlier in 2013 and had gained some good knowledge. This industry is perfect because you make great money and accommodation and food are all taken care of. As for me, although 2 and a half years and 14000 miles was hard earned, I only had Delos under my belt and we knew the chances of us getting work together on the same yacht would be pretty slim. But we had glammed up our CV’s back in Davao and signed up for all the big crew agencies. Liking the idea of visualizing and the possibilities of manifesting your dreams, my little thought came out on paper. I found a scrap piece of paper lying in the saloon and decided to draw a little sailing ketch with two stick figures, of course being Brady and I, with some smiling faces, the sun shining, some whale and fish in the sea and a few money symbols floating in the sky. For some reason, I wrote down January 20^th up in the corner, hoping this would be that date we would find work. Not really knowing what to do with it, I stuck it up on the mirror in the bathroom, knowing we would see it every day.

A few weeks later, Brady shows me a message from our friend Luke. “Hey bro we may be looking for delivery crew mid January, if you wanna send through your CV’s I’ll pass them on to the capt.” The yacht would leave Borneo and sail about 5,000 miles to Auckland, New Zealand. Boom, that was it. We knew this was meant for us before we even replied to the first message! Funnily enough, it is a 115 foot sailing ketch and even more crazy the date it was scheduled to leave Borneo was January 24^th. We continued to tell ourselves we had the job. No questions, no hesitations, no buts. We actually convinced ourselves we were doing the delivery and only 5 weeks after that little drawing, we got the phone call from the Captain asking us when we could fly in. I couldn’t believe it, what an amazing opportunity this was. We would be arriving into Auckland just like we had originally planned and we would get paid to sail there. Too cool!

In a mixing pot of emotions, we were super stoked and excited for our next journey ahead and also so sad to be leaving Delos. In the middle of this was also excitement for Brian and Karin to continue sailing just the two of them for a while which will be SO special. We have all learnt a lot from ourselves and from each other this season, and we’re so happy we’re all following our own paths, with a bit of a push and nudge in the right direction from each other. It turned out that little piece of paper really did work! And don’t worry when our pockets are full of coins and cigars, we’ll be heading straight back to that beautiful floating oasis where ever she will be. See you soon Delos, we love you!!!