24 36.644′ N
023 13.143′ W

Put that in your favorite maps site to see where we are as I write this. Roughly 400 nautical miles southwest of the Canary Islands and 2,200nm from the Caribbean.

How did we get here? Well, about two years ago, Shay started talking about us getting on a boat to sail around the world. Or at least, spend more time on the water. We were living in Manhattan at the time, loving the greatest city on Earth and lots of time with our amazing friends. NY was a perfect hub for our travels. Easy to get to family, and direct flights to London to check in on SILO. But we are two water babies, and Manhattan is an island very out-of-touch with the ocean.

So Shay had the idea of moving to Miami. We had a lot of friends there. I used to live and work in Miami and love South Florida for its boat culture, weather, and proximity to the Bahamas and Caribbean. Shay rented us an apartment without even seeing it, and we put the NY apartment on the market. In 2024, we loaded up our beloved Hyundai Kona and drove the length of the East Coast to start our Miami adventure.

I didn’t expect to love it quite as much as I did. I’ve been a happy person my whole life, and I’ve enjoyed every place I’ve ever lived, but in Miami I found a level of joy and satisfaction I’ve never felt anywhere else. It wasn’t the city … it was the tribe. One of our best friends in Miami introduced us to a gentleman who quickly became one of our new favorite people. He had surrounded himself with bright, active, talented, fun folks who welcomed us with open arms. It was a side of Miami that you could easily never stumble upon, a group all about elevating each other and learning from one another. Miami was supposed to be a stopover on the way to a grand adventure, but what we found there was a forever home.

While these relationships were deepening, we were looking at boats. I spent hours going through reviews, YouTube walkthroughs, checking in with builders I knew personally, weighing all our options. Maybe we’d get a small power boat and just do week-long trips in the Bahamas and Keys and stay in Miami. Or get a trawler and do the New England / Florida circuit for a few years. Or a smaller catamaran and use it like a second home. We toured some of all of these, driving up to Fort Lauderdale and flying to the Bahamas and going to boat shows.

At first the Bali 5.8 was just another interesting YouTube review in a very wide span of browser tabs so tiny you might X one out by trying to click on it. The walkthrough was from NautiStyles, one of my favorite review couples on YouTube. There was a lot to like, but I knew the Bali mostly as a charter cat, what we in the trade used to call “plastic fantastic” in a very pejorative way. In fact, Shay and I had chartered a Bali 4.5 the previous summer in New England. It was a magical trip, but the boat was run down and not very impressive. Still, I showed Shay the video and she was intrigued. On our way south from Orlando one day, I realized we were going to drive right past hull #2 of this brand new model (the only Bali 5.8 in the States at the time), so I reached out and set up an appointment.

This was probably the 20th boat we’d stepped on since moving to Miami and beginning our search, and it was the first time I saw Shay light up with a “this is our future home” look. The things she loved were things I was skeptical about from my decades of living on and captaining yachts and my own boats. There was a massive flybridge high off the water, which looked like an insane place to perch while crossing oceans. There was a SOLID foredeck rather than the traditional trampolines that made a catamaran a catamaran. The boat had no real aft cockpit, just a narrow bench facing INWARD toward the salon. Instead, the rear wall of the boat opened up, exposing the salon to the outside air. Oh, and the hulls were crazy wide. The master stateroom had a king size bed you could WALK AROUND, which seemed absurd to me, who had been taught that narrow = pace on the water.

There were a few things that stood out to me, though. One was the stepped hull, which basically meant the boat was narrower in the water and then jutted out above the water, so all that volume wasn’t necessarily going to kill performance. Another thing I noticed was the way the windows down the length of the hull created a channel, rather than being a flat wall. Years of experience told me that this would act like stringers giving the hull more stiffness than you might expect. And the rigging above the deck seemed solid. It also checked one of my big boxes, which is the ability to carry a large tender, which serves as your car while cruising. Without a large tender, you lose the ability to go on most of your fun adventures away from the boat.

The most important thing was Shay’s excitement. Her instincts are rarely wrong. Every life decision she’s steered us toward has been one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. And something I learned while living in the Bahamas on my 27′ sloop is that any boat can be the right boat. You all end up in the same harbor watching the same sunset. The important thing is to get what you can afford and just go.

We put hull #26 on hold. And it was a good thing we did, because the boat’s Miami debut was a sensation, selling a few more hulls just over the show. Instead of getting a boat sometime in 2026, we would have our boat hit the water in July of 2025. Our NY apartment sold in February. We put the down payment on the boat immediately after. Our Miami apartment became a staging ground for the things we would need on the boat. The transition began.

The logistics between that decision in February to sailing across the Atlantic Ocean right now boggle my brain. I won’t bore you with all the details, but the yard period alone was something else. The Bali 5.8 is a factory boat. You can check a few items on a spreadsheet, but it is what it is. My previous catamaran, WAYFINDER, was a custom build, fitted out with everything I chose. Knowing what goes on most factory boats, we declined as many things as possible on the Bali in order to supply our own. So we had our own sails made from Ullman Sails. We had our air-conditioning put in by Termodinamica, a team out of Italy. Numerous upgrades were made by Canet Premium Services in France, right in the harbor where Balis are built. We basically took the brilliant bones of the base Bali 5.8 and kitted it out for a circumnavigation.

A brief aside for future boat owners: Before buying the Bali 5.8, Shay and I very nearly purchased an Xquisite 60 Super Solar instead. For me, the Xquisite 60 is the best-built cruising catamaran right at the edge of what a couple can handle on their own. The after-sales support is unmatched. The engineering is top-notch. I don’t think you can buy a better 60′ catamaran anywhere. However, all that comes at a price. The Xquisite was more than I could feel comfortable paying. For less money, we could get a Bali and make the changes that bridged the gap between the two. So that’s what we did.

We doubled the Bali’s battery bank. We doubled the solar panels with a custom arch that looks like it always belonged there, rather than something tacked on. We upgraded the headsail rigging to electric furlers, so putting sails in and out is a breeze. The navigation equipment got an upgrade, with larger screens at the helm. Dozens and dozens of little changes like this that really turned it into a different boat. We will upload a video soon-ish to walk you through our new home and a separate video just to detail all these changes.

It was a lot of work, but it was also fun! We became great friends with the folks doing the work. Noel, who built our flybridge table and TV lift would greet us with a big hug. Christopher, who did all the electrical upgrades, practically moved aboard with us. And Adrien at Canet Premium Services basically became family (even to the point that his kids’ crayon art hangs on our fridge). The boat I’m sailing on right now is unlike any other on the water.

The most surprising thing, considering all the weight we’ve added in upgrades, is that she’s fast! We are averaging 200nm a day, which any sailor will tell you is an absolute dream. Off our starboard side, a full moon is settling down toward the horizon. A river of golden light like a highway across the sea. The faint glow of a new day off our port side. This is the end of our second day on the crossing, with another twelve or so days to go. Our voyage on “LUNA” has begun. I can’t wait to introduce you all to her.