I was in the corporate world for many years before becoming a Software Developer. I married my beautiful bride Jules 29 years ago and have 4 wonderful children.
We are musicians, surfers, sailors, divers, and have always been heavily involved in non-profit work. I was vice president of the Parrot Head Club, a non-profit created around the music and lifestyle of the late Jimmy Buffet.
In 2020 I was humbled to receive the award of “Philanthropist of the Year” from a local non-profit group in Florida and to this day it is one of my most treasured awards.
2020 also brought the news that I had stage 4 metastatic cancer of unknown origin.
I was given a 5% chance of survival.
The doctors offered to give me the same treatment they use for advanced lung cancer, saying it would work no matter where the cancer originated.
The treatment was 3 months of Chemo followed by immunotherapy (which I was on for 2 years). I also had radiation treatment on one lung.
The doctors kept telling us they were surprised at how well I was doing and our friends and family were surprised that I was pushing myself trying to stay active throughout my treatments despite being very sick and weak.
We credit my success to my being active. Although I am not in remission, my cancer is considered stable and has been for the past year.
In 2022 I had become very depressed from the toll treatments had had, both physically and financially. I had stopped being active and didn’t know how, or if I could keep pushing forward.
Jules said I had lost my “purpose in life” and needed to find a new one, in fact, she pushed me to find that purpose, to keep fighting.
I decided to dedicate my life advocating for other cancer patients.
So with my experience on the water, prior non-profit work, and knowledge that remaining active through my treatments was a large part of me still being here we created SV Kaya.
Our mission is to inspire and assist other cancer patients to push forward and remain active as part of their healing process.
This has become “my purpose” and we are dedicated to not only inspire others but to donate our time and our boat at no cost to other cancer patients or anyone dealing with a terminal illness.
Our goal is to take this message and mission around the world by circumnavigating the globe by sailboat and assisting others along the way.
We have a 1979, 28’ sailboat named Kaya that we completely gutted and have been doing a full refit on for the past year.
We chose the name Kaya because it is derived from the ancient medicine practice of Kayachikitsa, where Kaya means body and chikitsa means treatment. Kaya provides the energy for all bodily activities and is the fire within that fights disease.
 |
|
I gotta have my coffee in the morning, with Cuban coffee being my favorite, however, I also like to enjoy a good cup of tea in the evenings to relax.
We like to live simply so our travel bag consists of shorts, flip flops, tanks, and tee’s, as for food we like to live sustainably as much as possible so fresh caught seafood, fruits, veggies, coffee, tea, water, and basic hygienic needs.
Since we try to be minimalists and believe in sustainability, clean oceans, a clean environment, and minimal maintenance on the boat, a composting toilet was always a goal we had planned for the boat.
And we couldn’t be happier with the Cuddy.
Removing our old head (toilet), holding tank, macerator, and plumbing and replacing it with a composting toilet was the best thing we did on the boat.
It minimizes our maintenance needs which frees up our time, eliminates odors you always get from a traditional toilet system, and is just easier all the way around in functionality.
My beautiful wife and children keep me going and my wife is the inspiration and the person who keeps me fighting and pushing forward every day.
It’s also the stories I hear and conversations I have with other cancer patients, hearing their stories and struggles and wanting to help them in any way I can. Hearing other's stories makes one realize that everybody has a battle they are fighting and it makes your problems nearly disappear when in service to others, especially those who may be worse off than you are. These are the things that drive me.
