Sailing Doodles Podcast

How dangerous is it really to sail around the world? Are pirates something sailors should actually worry about? While sailing through Indonesia, we stopped at a tiny, remote atoll hundreds of miles from civilization. Just as we were preparing to leave, a wooden boat carrying six men headed straight toward us. With only me and two women aboard, we had no idea what they wanted. What happened next wa...

I was one of the very first pilots hired by Flydubai back in 2009, and I was there for the airline's very first passenger flight. But after a little over a year flying the Boeing 737 for them, I decided to leave. Following the recent shocking incident involving a Flydubai first officer, I'm sharing my firsthand experience working for the airline, the problems I saw with management and scheduling,...

Before YouTube, I spent four years living in Nigeria and flying a Gulfstream III all over Africa for a wealthy businessman. In this episode, I tell some of my favorite stories from that time — living in Maiduguri and Abuja, dealing with police bribes, flying across Africa, mechanical problems in the middle of nowhere, bird strikes, armed guards, and some very unusual passengers and destinations. I...

It probably looks like my 56-foot CT56 is falling apart, but there’s more to the story. After sitting on the hard unattended for over a year, I’m compressing a year’s worth of maintenance into just a few weeks. In this episode, I break down what’s gone wrong, what I’ve fixed, what still needs to be done, and why I’ve decided it’s time to sell Nauti Dogs. I’m ready for something different — a small...

Before Sailing Doodles, I spent years flying Gulfstream private jets around the world, and for about six to eight months I was one of the primary copilots flying Aerosmith on tour. Most nights we'd watch the show, leave halfway through to get the jet ready, then fly the band to their next city as soon as they came off stage. But one night, flying Aerosmith home to Boston, I noticed something stran...

In this episode I’m answering your questions about what’s happening with my electric catamaran, whether I’m keeping it, selling it, or moving back to diesel.

Back in 2004, I was a young Gulfstream III copilot flying celebrities around the world—and one of our regular passengers was Snoop Dogg. On one particular trip, our company was bringing Snoop and his entourage home from Brazil. I joined the trip in Brownsville, Texas, where the airplane had to clear U.S. Customs and Immigration before continuing on to California. Customs knew who was coming, and t...

What is it actually like to own a superyacht? I sit down with my friend Bob, who has owned yachts ranging from 65 feet all the way up to 165 feet, to get an inside look at the reality of superyacht ownership. We talk about what these boats really cost to buy and operate, hiring and managing crew, maintenance, scheduling, fuel, marinas, itineraries, and all the logistics that come with owning a yac...

I’m recording this episode from the roof of my RV in the middle of Black Rock City at Burning Man 2026. Burning Man has grown from a small gathering on a San Francisco beach into a temporary city of more than 70,000 people in the Nevada desert. But after decades of explosive growth, something is changing. Tickets that once sold out almost instantly are now easier to get. The average Burner is gett...

In this episode, I sit down with Gabriel, whose list of adventures is almost hard to believe. Most recently, he completed the legendary Northwest Passage aboard a 48-foot steel-hull trawler, navigating some of the most remote and challenging waters on Earth. But that’s only one chapter of his story. He has also circumnavigated the globe on a 48-foot sailboat, climbed Mount Everest, completed the S...

I’ve spent years living and traveling on boats, but lately I’ve been back on the road in the RV — and it got me thinking: which lifestyle is actually better? In this podcast, I compare RV life vs boat life from someone who has lived both. We talk about the cost, maintenance, freedom, comfort, travel, adventure, social life, living with dogs, and all the little things that make each lifestyle amazi...

For most of human history, people who felt trapped by their circumstances could leave everything behind and head toward a new frontier. They could escape their social class, family reputation, past failures, or limited opportunities and try to build something entirely new. But do those kinds of fresh starts still exist? In this episode, I explore why starting over may be harder today than it was f...

In this Ask Me Anything podcast, I answer some of the questions patrons and viewers have been asking most. I start with Nika—whether she’ll be joining me again, how we got along, and what might be next. I also share the scariest experience I’ve ever had at sea: the night my old boat nearly caught fire and sank near Cape Hatteras. I included clips from the original video and explain what happened f...

Owning a brand-new hybrid-electric yacht has been exciting—but it has also come with a much steeper learning curve than expected. In this podcast, I give an honest update on my first few weeks aboard the Island Spirit 525e. I walk through the technical issues we’ve experienced so far, including repeated generator faults, problems within the drive-battery system, charging limitations, and some of t...

I’m back with the second half of my patron Q&A, and this time we’re talking about what kind of boat I should buy for my next adventure. Would a diesel Sea Ray-style express cruiser work for Florida, the Keys, the Bahamas, and potentially farther into the Caribbean? Or would I be better off with a trawler, a traditional motor yacht, or something designed for longer-range cruising? I discuss the...

A few weeks ago I shared an idea that I thought could completely change the way people experience luxury sailing. Then I asked for your feedback. Hundreds of comments later—and one incredibly detailed blog from a viewer—I realized I had made some major mistakes. In this episode I explain what I got wrong, why the original model probably wouldn't work, and the new direction I'm considering. We dive...

In this patron Q&A podcast, I answer some of the most common—and most interesting—questions viewers have been asking. I talk about what happened with recent crew members, how I find people to join the boat, the couple who were supposed to launch a Sailing Doodles spin-off channel, whether I’m in a relationship, my changing thoughts about Thailand, plans for the new catamaran, the Mediterranean...

What if there was a better way to own a luxury yacht? I've been working on a business idea that I honestly can't decide is brilliant... or completely crazy. Imagine having access to a $1.4 million sailing catamaran that cruises the Mediterranean, Caribbean, Thailand and beyond, without having to buy the whole boat yourself. In this episode I walk through the concept, the numbers, the challenges, a...

In this episode, I talk through a big realization about the future of Sailing Doodles: because of location, weather, and cruising seasons, I may only be able to film on my new catamaran about four months a year. That creates a real problem. If I want to keep making consistent boat content, I may need a second boat. So I’m thinking about buying a smaller motor yacht to keep in Florida and use for c...

Most people have a dream. Maybe it’s sailing around the world, building a cabin in the mountains, starting a farm, opening a business, moving overseas, or just walking away from a life that looks successful on paper but doesn’t actually make you happy. But most people never do it. Not because the dream is impossible, but because they keep waiting until they’re ready. In this episode, I talk about...

In this episode, I’m answering your questions from Patreon, YouTube members, and the Sailing Doodles app. We start with the big one: my recent health scare, the blood clots and thrombosis, whether it could be connected to my past stroke, how medical care has been overseas, and what recovery might look like from here. Then we get into the questions everyone always wants answered: What’s going on wi...

After a big health scare, I’ve had to ask myself some hard questions about the future of Sailing Doodles. I just bought my dream yacht, but now I’m dealing with blood clots and thrombosis in major abdominal veins, and I still don’t have all the answers about what caused it or what the long-term prognosis looks like. For a while, there was even concern it could be cancer, which thankfully seems to...

In this episode, I talk about the medical issue that suddenly interrupted my life and my plans for Sailing Doodles. It started with abdominal pain that I thought might be something minor, but after hospital visits, scans, and more tests, doctors found inflammation around my pancreas and blood clots in the portal vein. For a short time, there was a real fear that it could be pancreatic cancer, whic...

After years of delays, setbacks, and finally taking delivery of my new Island Spirit 525e… I’ve run into another problem. Because of Thailand’s import and customs rules, I now have to sail the boat roughly 72 hours to Malaysia, clear customs, and then sail all the way back to Thailand just so the yacht can legally return as a tourist vessel. It’s expensive, time consuming, exhausting… and honestly...

After years of planning, delays, factory visits, and a whole lot of frustration, my new Island Spirit 525e electric catamaran is finally in the water — and sailing. In this episode, I talk through the last few crazy weeks of the build: inspecting the boat at the factory, the Buddhist blessing ceremony, the nerve-racking truck move to the marina, launching the yacht, and finally taking her out for...