About Us

 We are a family business that is passionate about sharing the natural beauty of the central coast with our guests. We moved here in 2007, arriving in our sailboat / home after 7 months of traveling from the US Virgin Islands via the Panama Canal and along the coast of Central America. We fell in love with the beauty of  San Luis Obispo County and for the first time in our lives put down some roots to stay.

 

Jennifer is a professor at Cal Poly State University teaching chemistry and helps in more ways than I could list here, she is the behind the scenes problem solver. Sierra is my daughter and the head of the I.T. department. She is also a big inspiration as to why it is so important for people to get out and enjoy the outdoors.

 

Then myself, Mark, I will be your naturalist / captain on what we hope will be a wonderful boating experience. I am USCG licenced master of ships both sail and steam to 100 gross tons. In my lifetime I have taken over 20,000 guests on one type of maritime voyage or another. My experience with boating has a bit of variety. I started off at 18 working extensively as a white water rafting / kayaking guide on some the worlds wildest and most remote rivers. Guiding trips in the USA, Canada, Alaska, Africa, Costa Rica, Peru and Chile. Highlights were rafting as a stuntman on "The River Wild" and representing the USA at the 1995 White Water World Championships where team USA earned a silver medal. After 20 years of paddling I became interested in sailing and traveling by boat to experience more of the world which lead to captaining some very interesting research expeditions.

 

For the 3 years before starting this business I ran the Science Under Sail program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Working daily with the Aquariums top naturalists I learned a great deal about the Central Coast and its unique marine environment. If you join us for a tour I would greatly enjoy the opportunity to share some of this information with you and your family.

 

We pride ourselves on running safe and educational boating tours and have taken over 13,000 guests out into the waters of San Luis Bay without a single injury or incident of any kind. We are the only tour boat company to have been in continuous operation here in Avila Beach since 2012.