FeatherStream shipped to Bora Bora
Bryan + Jen are an ordinary couple living a “not so ordinary life”.
Accompanied by their faithful companion Karma the wonder dog, they have embarked on a remarkable journey. Over the past seven years, they have embraced a nomadic lifestyle dedicated entirely to the pursuit of happiness and adventure.
Their extraordinary adventure began with what they initially envisioned would be a couple of years sabbatical – taking time out for themselves, driving a 1967 VW bus through Mexico and Central America. However, since then, they have converted their garage into a tiny home and upgraded their trusty VW bus to a 4×4 Sprintervan.
But the adventures didn’t stop there in 2018 they decided to step off dry land and bought a Bali 4.0 catamaran and headed off towards the Florida Keys. Having never owned a boat before, they are first to admit that this would be a big learning curve.
Life aboard the aptly named Karma has been seen Bryan and Jen face many ups and downs. From exploring beautiful remote beaches to swimming with turtles and stingrays in stunning, crystal clear waters of the Caribbean.
Having made it all the way to the small island group that is French Polynesia, back in May they were faced with one of their biggest challenges. A freak storm lashed the boat for several hours, flooding the bilge and damaging both saildrives.
Ben takes up the story…
“For the record… the very idea of pulling our engine apart on our own, much less doing it out here with no backup is daunting to say the least (we are VERY outside of our skill set and and above our pay grade) – but at this point we have literally no other option.”
“We’ve spent the last few days calling service centers and mechanics around the globe according to timeline for advice/thoughts and while opinions vary greatly – most tell us they believe the problem is in the lower/horizontal shaft of our saildrive, which cannot or should not be accessed in the water and that there is nothing we can do.”
“Whilst waiting for the new saildrives to be shipped out, Ben took time out to carry out some other repairs, this time to the rudder and the two props – and that’s where we came in…”
“When you need a break from working inside the engine compartment… you get to spend some time working under it.
Since we were waiting on saildrive parts, we ordered one new prop to make sure that if there was damage to the other two, at least we’d be able to limp out of here on one and then send the others back for repairs once we reach civilization.
Worth noting, that while we obviously can’t speak to what happens under power, we have been crazy impressed with how well these props held up to the storm (to numerous crunches into rocks and bommies when the waves plunged our stern down into them repeatedly at full throttle – enough to shear both our saildrive shafts, obviously).”
“Best we can tell (despite being a VERY complex piece of machinery), one prop has no damage at all other than scratches -in fact the blades still spin from forward to reverse with only one finger as smoothly as the new one we just installed (swipe for video).
The other prop took on more damage and has badly bent blades, but to our amazement also still functions/spins freely! “
“Those of you who have followed us for a while know we have a firm stance on taking sponsors and ads (we don’t – so that we can tell the truth) and absolutely nothing was given to or asked of us here… we just 100% recommend these @darglow_featherstream props.”
“To date they are the best money we ever spent on the boat; not so much the durability but the fact that they completely transformed/improved the sailing performance of Karma.”
“Also, before the comments come in (because I know they will)… yes, we KNOW the bottom needs to be cleaned. We’ve been a bit busy over here. #priorities”
Follow the Dangerz Adventures
We like to think that we have played a small part in helping Ben + Jen continue on their adventures. You can clearly see why they are known as the Dangerz. We wish them all the luck in the rest of their travels.
You can follow their adventures online:-
- Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/followthedangerz
- Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/thedangerz/
- Blog – https://www.thedangerz.com/
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