About us






Who are we?











Monique is an Aussie chick, born and bred in the bush near a small country town in Queensland, Australia. She used to ride her pink bike on the dirt roads around her house after school and had matching pink streamers that made a whooshing noise when she went fast. She always rode down to the creek near her house and sometimes if she sat very quietly she would get to see platypuses playing together. She was a bit of a tomboy as a child, and is still a bit of a tomboy now. There was a period in between where she lived in a city and hung out at shopping malls and ate sushi and got her nails done and occasionally wore heels. But then she moved to New Zealand. She ditched the fake nails, was forced to pack up her summer dresses (what exactly is this summer you speak of?) and stopped caring about her hair. In Wellington, hair is in a permanent state of windswept madness anyway.


She has always had an adventurous nature and loved canoeing, abseiling, bush walking and swimming as a child. As she got older, she ditched all those wholesome activities and just kept finding new ways to hang upside down or go fast. Skiing was her favourite thing in the world for a very long time. Then six years ago she fell in love with aerial acrobatics (circus style) and used to train two or three days a week. Her trapeze has now found a home on the boat - in a perfect world she would get to play on it every day in exotic locations.  If she had a day free and had to choose between sailing, skiing and circus, she would struggle to make a decision. She also loves pole fitness, probably because it involves awesome drops and being upside down. She learned how to juggle when she was six and she loves to crochet.

As she gets older she is starting to become afraid of heights, but she climbs up to the top of the tissu (they're seriously high!) and jumps off a platform onto a swinging trapeze just to spite herself. She tried sailing after Garth convinced her it would be awesome, and as usual he was right. She has done a lot of sailing courses in an attempt to catch up with him, along with a lot of race training. She clocked close to 200 hours on the water in the year before she acquired her own boat. Not much compared to most, but a good start.

She has a degree in Journalism, although hasn't made much use of it yet. In her previous land-locked life she worked in bars, which allowed her to run away sailing when there was wind or to the mountain when there was snow. Now she's enjoying her life at sea, even though there's no snow to play on. Her life is kind of awesome.


Garth is from the town of Alexandra on the South Island of New Zealand. He is a crazy monkey, and has always been a crazy monkey. He loves skiing almost as much as Monique, or maybe more - something they have not been able to decide on. He doesn't wear shoes. He also loves kiting, possibly more than anybody has ever loved anything. If you turn your back or blink your eyes, he will scramble to the top of a tree and hang out for a while. Just because. He grew up in a very adventurous family, who are all equally as awesome as Garth. When he was younger, he regularly went windsurfing, rafting, water skiing, kayaking and mountain biking. He also sailed a lot as a child, mostly on dinghies, and took to keelboats very quickly. His code word for anything stupid, dangerous or scary is 'exciting.' When it's raining with strong winds, big swells and massive waves crashing over the boat, Garth will be standing at the helm or sitting on the side with his legs over, drenched from head to toe and grinning as the waves smack him in the face.

He works in IT, and his brain often works faster than his mouth or his feet. He can look at something and figure out how it works very quickly, which often amazes Monique. He built her a trapeze when she first moved to New Zealand, which is still going strong and continues to impress her.

They were both in the Scouts when we were younger, albeit in different countries. Since joining forces, they have merged their activities and now Garth hangs upside down on various circus apparatus's, while Monique has been known to attach a kite to herself and go flying across the beach or snow. They both love reading, hate sad movies and used to play a lot of computer games in a previous life.



Sailing. Because that's what this is all about, right? We planned on leaving New Zealand and taking about four years to sail around the world. We're not worried if we don't get all the way around, because the fun is in the journey right? We originally said that if we got somewhere foreign and ran out of money, we'd just sell the boat and come home. Now we have a boat, it IS home, and I don't see us leaving it somewhere unless (god forbid) it's at the bottom of the ocean. We love sailing and we want to see the world. We're not sick of our mundane lives - our lives are awesome. But they'd be more awesome if we could live them in a place where the world was constantly changing. We love each others company and don't plan on getting bored of each other, though the tiny space aboard Heartbeat can certainly be trying at times.

We don't care how long we spend away, and plan on working when we can. We want this adventure to be a section of our lives and not a just a holiday. We got married in January 2013 then left New Zealand in October that same year. We haven't looked back. We go to sleep to the sound of water lapping against the boat and with the stars twinkling above us.

So that's us. If you want to know how we met and how this all started, you can read a little bit about it here.

5 comments:

  1. Hey I found the train ticket in my pocket this morning with this website adress on and thought I would check it out and jm glad I did its awesome :-)
    Rusty.

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    1. Hey Holly! I'm sorry, I thought I replied to you. It was really awesome meeting you, I had a great night! Feels like a million years ago now. Hope life is treating you well :)

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  2. Hi guys, hope you are well and still enjoying the San Blas islands. I saw the photos of you and could hear your voices - bizarre!
    Thought I had a sale of Somnio, but it looks as though the purchaser has decided to forfeit his deposit and walk away! So currently unsure of what is going on. After all the work; new nav kit, all the latest Raymarine stuff, new batteries, replaced wiring through the mast etc, I'm not sure I still want to sell her! Might be catching up with you if I get to keep her.
    Keep us up to date with what you are all up to - though I guess you are spending far too much time enjoying yourselves to write here!!! Take care and fair winds.

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