“Attitude: The difference between ordeal and adventure”
Bob Bitchin
Welcome to our website, where we hope to share stories of our adventures, although some may seem to be ordeals! We will strive to paint an honest picture of our experiences, sharing the fabulous as well as the formidable. Both, and everything between, shape us as we sail closer to the end of our voyage, though, God willing, we’ll have years more to journal. Our photography may give you insights to the beauty we see and allow you to travel with us vicariously.
Agape
Agape (ah gah pay) is a 2007 Dolphin 460 sailing catamaran. We are her second owners, the first being Anibale (Ni, pronounced Nee) and Krissy Orsi, hailing from Stockton CA. They purchased her new from the builder in Brazil, named her Finalmente (meaning “finally” in Italian) and Ni sailed her to the Mediterranean where they enjoyed sailing for 13 years. We purchased her in September of 2020 and re-named her Agape.
The name comes from Greek, and is one of 8 words related to love. They are described here.
Since Agape carries the connotation of “unconditional love”, know that we chose the name (Deb’s inspiration) for its aspirational sense, not that we can live to God’s standard. We also appreciate how “Agape” illustrates the importance of understanding the original language relative to the Bible and our faith. In the English translation, some important meanings are lost, and the difference between “agape” and “philos” is a great example. In the Gospel of John when Jesus restores Peter, the words are both translated as “love” (John 21:15-18). In reality the meanings are vastly different!
Jesus asks, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you ‘agape’ (love unconditionally) Me, more than these?” Peter replies, “Yes, Lord; You know that I ‘phileo’ (love as a close friend or brother) You.” – “Feed my lambs.” A second time Jesus asks, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you ‘agape’ (love unconditionally) Me?”, and Peter replies, “Yes, Lord; You know that I ‘phileo’ (love as a close friend or brother) You.” “Tend My sheep.” The third time Jesus asks “Simon, son of Jonah, do you ‘phileo’ (love as a close friend or brother) Me?”. Here we see the shift from ‘agape’ to ‘phileo’. The verse continues, “Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you ‘phileo’ Me?” >>maybe overkill defining phileo every time it shows up >>jesus refs capitalized makes blocky text flow, is this a bible thing >>visual separation of quotes with italics or otherwise?
How much we miss when we replace the two different words with one! Knowing the Greek, we can understand how Peter cannot bring himself to claim that he loves Jesus unconditionally, especially in light of his 3 denials. Yet it cuts Peter to the soul when Jesus acknowledges his short-coming, asking if Peter loves him with brotherly love. The name has deep meaning for us, and we find it an excellent way to open dialogue with people we meet on our way. But let’s be clear, neither of us, like the Apostle Peter, is capable of giving this unconditioned love. It’s aspirational, as we are works in progress. Thank God, He’s not done with us yet!
How we came to be sailors
Both of us had some experience with sailing in our early lives. Deb taught Girl Scouts in Clear Lake and sailed with friends in the Gulf of Mexico. I dabbled a bit while in the Marine Corps, though not much. On a week-long vacation to St. John in the USVI, Deb expressed an interest in living on an island. I thought about our time there and realized that we had covered almost every bit of the coast line already and decided I would definitely get bored, being stuck on a small bit of land. The idea of sailing from island to island began to take root in my mind.
Sadly, it was tragedy that brought me to act on the desire to sail. Deb’s son, Sean, was shot down while flying a Blackhawk in Iraq; he and 11 others aboard were killed despite his efforts to bring the craft down safely. We were right in the midst of moving to Dublin, CA when we learned of his death. We took sailing lessons as a means of managing our grief. I worked through enough courses and qualifications to sail our club’s boats in the San Francisco Bay and the nearby coast. We later did a bareboat charter in British Virgin Islands, just across from St. John, where the seed of a sailing life first sprouted.
I poured myself into research and determined that a catamaran would suit my plans best. I read everything I could find, subscribed to many sailing magazines, and attended boat shows and took seminars to increase my knowledge, though it wasn’t accompanied by the tactile practice and development of seamanship, much of which only comes from experience on the water.
I had expansive dreams of circumnavigating over a period of years. Deb’s dreams were more constrained, excluding those long passages over the vast oceans. The company at which I worked was acquired, and suddenly we had the financial means to actually do it. We looked at a number of boats and made offers on a few, though none ever came to contract. Deb became reticent to commit to the sailing life, and I was stuck in an early retirement, with an unfulfilled dream.
We were struggling to find direction and purpose, when fate intervened. A colleague from work had taken the role of CEO at a private equity held firm and asked me to re-enter the work force for a few years. The opportunity looked good and I thought I would be there 2 or 3 years until the company had its own equity event. After a year or so, I came to the place where I let the dream go. I believed Deb was never going to be ready, and I needed to move past it. After 4 years, we were thinking of retiring again, and purchased a diesel-pusher RV in preparation for “land yachting”. Fate had another twist in store.
Two weeks after purchasing the RV, I was asked to move to Europe to open the company’s first international offices. I protested and suggested the company give the opportunity to some promising youngster, but the request was that I take the role. We went on an exploratory trip to Prague, liked what we saw, and decided to accept. We moved in January of 2018 with the expectation that the position would be for 2 years. There were delays and errors by the attorneys with our visas, there was COVID, and there was a change of leadership. We loved our time, loved the opportunity to explore the Czech countryside, but regretted that we were unable to travel throughout Europe as we had planned. My role was ending and the transition plan was laid. Initially we were ready to purchase another RV and reinstate the land-yacht plans, but Deb was unsatisfied, feeling as though we were leaving Europe “unfinished”. One morning, at our favorite breakfast spot, she said something like, “what if we sailed?”. After rising from the floor, I nonchalantly said, “well, it might work”. At least that’s the version I’ll claim here.
Finding a floating home
With the advantage of knowing what kind of boat I wanted, and having found all of the sites on the internet where catamarans are listed, I began searching for something suitable in the Mediterranean. Early in the process I came across a Dolphin 460, Finalmente, for sale in Sicily. She looked to be in pristine condition, with nearly everything on my check list already in place. This model wouldn’t be my first preference, but it would make my top 10 list. The problem with the list is that 6-7 would only be available as new builds, and the time from order to delivery would be more than a year.
Another challenge was financial; we had invested our savings into a fund that had a two year commitment and we were only 1 year into it. We thought we were going to be able to withdraw the funds with only a small penalty of 1-2% based on conversations with the manager, but when the official paperwork arrived, it was 7%!! A bridge loan option was explored, but we found that our banks would only make loans for boats that were to be returned to US waters within 90 days. When it looked as though this was becoming insurmountable, Deb asked a wealthy friend who readily volunteered to loan us the funds which we would repay with the interest the money was currently earning.
That issue behind us, the problem became finding a boat. The Dolphin was under contract. Another Dolphin in Tunisia looked awful in comparison, being priced closely to Finalmente, but poorly equipped and, from the photos, poorly maintained. We chased other models and even considered a boat in the Caribbean, ready to pay a fair amount to have it shipped to the Med. When I emailed to make an offer…the boat had just gone under contract! We looked at another boat in Italy and even made an offer that was refused; on closer examination, the boat was missing a lot of necessary equipment for cruising, and was frankly over-priced. We let that one go, and later we found how fortunate we were, as those boats have very poor sailing characteristics, and are renown for poor quality.
At his juncture, I had exhausted all of the listings I could find. Nothing looked possible. We braced ourselves and prepared to return to the land-yacht option. I was about to start the search for the RV when I decided to give the search one more go. Lo and behold, there was the Dolphin 460, Finalmente again. I contacted the broker and he confirmed she was on the market. The prior offer had fallen through when the buyer flew from the West Coast to Amsterdam and was questioned at the Customs entry. “Where are you going?” “I’m going to Sicily to survey, sea trial, and buy a sailboat.” “OK, are you a citizen of the EU?”. “No.” “Do you have residence, or a visa?”. “No.” “So do you understand that you cannot enter the EU because of COVID restrictions? You’re leaving on the first flight back to the USA!”
His misfortune was our good fortune. As possessors of a Czech residency visa, we were allowed to travel freely in the EU (the lock-down between countries had ended early that year). We made an offer, put down a deposit, flew to Sicily, met the owners, had the boat surveyed, and agreed on the purchase. To make it even sweeter, the owners hoped to finish their last season on the boat and we weren’t in a position to take over the boat until the end of the season…win/win. Moreover, the owners agreed to sail her to the north Adriatic where it would be easier for us to move our belongings from Prague. And even better, they volunteered to sail with us from there to Marina di Ragusa, where we would be spending our first winter aboard!
Finally (Finalmente) we had a boat to be our home. And she was to be now known as Agape.