Meet the “crew” of ZERO on a sunny morning in Kihei

1/13/16. Seemingly last few days before the sail away

1/7/16

A few weeks ago we posted a few photos of a “pleasure” boat anchored off Charlie Young Beach (CYB), which had attracted a lot of beach-goer attention as an item of interest. SEE https://gokihei.org/alternative-transportation/recurring-visitor-again-appears-off-charlie-young-beach Then this week, via the coconut wireless, we were contacted by the boat owner, Christian, offering to come ashore to talk story before they sailed off. We felt, while it might be interpreted as a bit beyond our mission/vision statement, in the spirit of aloha and community interest and curiously, it was worthy to do so.

We spent about a hour this morning with this very impressive, cordial , young, adventurous couple from Germany, who showed that visitors can bring Hawaiian values like aloha and pono to our shores through their character and demeanor. We were able to ascertain some answers to questions and suppositions we heard expresses at CYB.

So the vessel is named Zero, and the owners are Rebecca and Christian, who spent years of the lives working, saving and planning an adventure of a lifetime to go sailing on an unscheduled journey as “seagoing vagabonds on a shoestring.”. They left their respective occupations as an architect and office administrator and traveled from Germany to Mexico, where they purchased a older well used vessel with their savings, intending to insure it was made seaworthy by their own skilled labor and then began a timeless voyage across the Pacific to Hawaii with a crew on three (including Christian’s brother, who took an extend vacation to participate.) They exist frugally on a budget of $1K per month total, and earn a meager sustenance through self made videos of their adventures.

Check them out at WWW.SY-ZERO.DE AND ChriBecca@SY-ZERO.de for lots of detailed information about the ketch and the couple’s adventures, and perhaps offer a “tip” or two to help them continue this adventure, as the say, “spend us a drink.”

As they had already spent months here in the summer of 2015, and returned this winter, we inquired why the choose to anchor at this location, as their floating home can be located wherever they reasonably choose.. Christian quickly offered its all the wonderful people they met in Kihei, which we too well understand.

So now if you have more question and would like to contact them directly you can via the internet, and tell them you found the information at www.gokihei.org

They will be sailing off soon for ports near (Big Island) and FAR (Alaska and down the west coast of No America to Mexico) but our inclination is they will be back in Kihei another day for many of the same reasons we choose to live here.

Aloha Rebecca and Christian with this apropos quotation: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” –Mark Twain

A hui hou