“On our first date, I told him I was finishing college and going to sail around the world.”
“On our first date, as soon as we met, I told him I had one year left until I graduated and that when I finished my degree, I was going to sail around the world.” Things were clear from the start: Agustina Moscaliuk and Thomas Stieglitz were born in Argentina in very close towns, on the banks of a river without banks, but they only met in 2019 when their paths crossed one night in a bar that almost sealed the pact for this way of life.
Love, chance, and the water, however, took them a little further from the Río de la Plata: today they sail a few miles further north, in the United States, with their sloop-rigged sailboat Bohemia, built in 1984 by Catalina Yachts in Woodhills, California, to the design of Frank Butler, conceived as a “Coastal Cruiser” and designed primarily for coastal cruising and ocean cruising.
Between naps and the babbling of Tahi, their first child—a little boy with intense blue eyes, just over two months old—and Kite (their dog), they chatted about their projects and plans, now a brand-new family of three. “Right now we’re anchored in Beaufort, North Carolina. We left Miami a week ago, on two 350-mile voyages with a stopover in Fernandina Beach, Florida. We’re heading to Newport, upstate New York, to work for a couple of months in that region. It’ll be about 1,200 miles in total,” Thomas begins about this first journey after the baby’s birth.
How did you relate to water from childhood? And how did you get started in sailing?
—(Thomas) I was born in San Isidro, and Agus grew up between San Fernando and Benavídez (three towns north of Buenos Aires). As a child, I used to frequent an island in the Tigre Delta that my grandparents owned on the Carapachay River, and I began to relate to the water. As I grew up, I continued kitesurfing, began flying as a pilot, and gradually got into sailing as well. I bought an H20, which was my first boat (a small sailboat designed to sail the Río de la Plata). A few months later, I met Agus, and we started sailing together.
—(Agustina) I grew up in San Fernando, then moved to Benavídez, in the midst of a family connected to sailing, but who never owned a boat. When I met Thomas, he told me about the H20 and that he wanted to sail the world. One of my first gifts was a travel log. I had already backpacked, and my idea was to continue, but it had never occurred to me to do so from a boat. When I started sailing with him, I fell in love with that life, with the moments we shared. Everything was new for both of us: the first crossing to Uruguay, getting to know Colonia, then a summer where we spent almost two months on board, exploring Riachuelo, Carmelo, and Conchillas (on the coast of Uruguay). Unconsciously, with the stove and the sleeping bag, I think we decided on that life together.
What happened when they returned to Buenos Aires?
—(Agustina) Thomas was finishing his Architecture degree at the University of Buenos Aires, and I was continuing my studies in Fine Arts.
—(Thomas) When we graduated, I was hired to work in the United States for a few months. I took advantage of the opportunity and bought a boat, a Catalina 36, which we sailed from Florida to Australia. We had that boat for over two years: we also crossed the Pacific, and it took us from being sailors of the Río de la Plata to daring voyages in other latitudes and seas.
They then went from an H20 to a 36-footer without stops!
—(Agustina) In the United States, this is an affordable, comfortable, normal boat; it’s not a huge barge. It was good for us because it was a leap into living. We walked in standing up, had our own room, kitchen, it was a mini-apartment. We liked the idea of living together but also being comfortable. We weren’t going to choose a sailboat where we’d have to crouch down all the time.
—(Thomas) We moved to the United States with that boat, started living aboard, worked in different jobs, and when we could (after the pandemic in 2021), we went to the Caribbean where we sailed through the Florida Keys, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. We spent some time in Puerto Rico to protect ourselves from hurricane season, prepared the boat, and arrived in Panama, where we stayed for a couple of months to cross the Pacific.
How was that change in navigations?
—(Agustina) At that time, we had a desire to be parents: one of the main driving forces was that we had to cross the Pacific before getting pregnant. We set off, did everything necessary to get the boat in good condition, and finally, on that same sailboat, we reached Australia. We also learned a lot along the way.
How did you get to this new sailboat?
—(Agustina) We sold the first boat in Australia. After the crossing, I was a little exhausted and wanted to stop. He had some pending aviation work to do.
—(Thomas) Yes, I was working as a bartender and a kitesurfing instructor. I wanted to do something more in my field. An acquaintance offered us a job, and we had the opportunity to sell the boat in Australia (because it’s a very strong market), and we went back to living in an apartment. I worked for an aviation company for a few months…
—(Agustina) It was a claustrophobic moment (laughs). I think we realized we wanted to live on a boat and sail. We were just traveling to Buenos Aires. My dad had bought a sailboat, and when we got on the boat after several months, my mom saw our faces back on the water and said, “You’re smiling, full of life, you look happy.” That led us to buy another boat, and we started campaigning to get a Bavaria 46, which has several cabins to invite friends and family, but basically, to live while traveling.
What precautions do you take when sailing oceans?
—(Thomas) I think when you go out to travel the world, everything is dictated by the general weather: hurricane season affects a fairly large geographic area like the Caribbean, and it’s always ideal to be sheltered during those months. It’s five or six months a year, starting right now in April and May. Anyway, we spent a season in Puerto Rico, with the previous ship, in a very sheltered location, and it was hurricane season. But we took precautions in that regard. As for routes, it’s always ideal to go with the wind and the tides; during the Atlantic crossing, this season is the best. Whenever we make these long voyages, we always make sure the general weather is conducive to the route we want to take.
Documentary video of the crossing of the Pacific
What devices do you have on the sailboat?
—(Thomas) We don’t have a wind indicator, for example, because it broke right after we bought the boat and I never fixed it. That doesn’t mean I don’t check the forecasts and use all the necessary elements for safe navigation. An app like Windy now uses the most advanced forecasts, and it doesn’t cost anything to check and see what’s happening. Now, interpreting all of that is the most important thing: you have to know if there’s a headwind or tailwind, where the wind is coming from. If I’m in the Northern Hemisphere, I also use the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website, which also reports the buoys. There’s a constant loop on the VHF that also informs you of the forecast. It’s important because we also sail without Starlink (we have it, but it’s always off) and because we like that disconnection.
For now, since we travel four or five days at most, that weather forecast is very accurate. If we make longer crossings, we use pilot charts, which tell us what’s going to happen that season. One of the things we set out to do this year was to change the rigging, the rudder, the wind vane, and the AIS system, which is important for the number of miles we want to sail.
What courses did you take to navigate this type of sailboat?
—(Agustina) I didn’t do anything. Life itself (laughs). Thomy taught me things; the truth is, he explains things very well. I learned: I was never passionate about sailing or that I dared to go sailing alone and raise the sails. I tell him that this life is with him, and if not, I don’t know if I’d continue with my story. I love the sea, and I love it, but I never studied or took sailing courses. The rest is love for this life, nature, and the confidence that sailing with Thomas gives me.
And how do you organize your daily routine on a trip?
—(Thomas) It happens to me a lot: sometimes I say to him, ‘Drop me a halyard,’ and he’s like, ‘Where is it?’ I was actually pushing the boat, because it was stuck on a sandbank, in the middle of rain, lightning, a storm, and… Now, it’s true that I sail more alone, and Agus takes care of the baby. On weekends when we sail a 70-footer, everything is electric and has buttons.
—(Agustina) Yes, that happened more in the beginning, when we started sailing together. He spoke to me in terms I didn’t understand, and I didn’t know what he was asking… It’s a different language. But I learned over time and as I went. One of the first storms we had on the H20, he said to me, ‘Give me the handle!’ And I didn’t know that was for the windlasses. Now I’m up for anything and I know a few more names, but since Tahi is on the night watches, I stay with the baby and he steers alone.
What changed with the arrival of the baby?
—(Agustina) The routine hasn’t changed that much: he’s still small and sleeps a lot. He’s a very calm baby. We never doubted whether Tahi would adapt to this life on the boat or how he would react. I think he knew where he was going to be born, and we’re the parents he chose. We also take turns caring for him. I still meditate or do yoga in the morning, I write, I paint—the whole process continues, although the time is shorter because there’s more to do. We use our free time to edit; we’re about to launch a podcast, so we accommodate playtime, sleeptime, or if he’s calm, always in his own time. For us, it’s a dream to be able to give him this life so close to nature.
—(Thomas) I think before, during watch duty, we were more flexible and organized ourselves with alternating three- or four-hour shifts. Only in bad weather would I be in charge, but we decided between us when to change them. Now, suddenly, I’m doing them alone. But well, all this started as an experiment, it solidified and consolidated with this boat, it’s our way of life and we chose it that way.
And you still paint?
—(Agustina) Yes, I also published a children’s picture book. It’s called Guidance from the Ocean and the Moon and you can get it on Amazon. It’s about the experiences we had on the boat, right after we moved, and what those leaps of faith into this new life were like. I illustrated them with animals from the land and sea. We also have illustrations published on the website, and I’m working on a new book, which is still in progress. But yes, art is always present in painting.
What are the next plans?
—(Thomas) We’ll be in Newport until October of this year because we sail a Hylas 70 on weekends. After that, we’ll probably take it to Miami, and in November or December we’ll continue with them. Later, when Tahi is a little bigger, we’d love to go to Central America with the Bohemia, to be in Panama in January or February. The destination would be to see the entire Caribbean, cross the canal again, and reach Baja California. The ideal would be to spend the entire season on the US coast and then cross the Pacific to Polynesia or continue up to California and Hawaii. If you have a boat that’s seaworthy, the doors to the world open…
What happened to the first travel log that Agustina gave you?
—(Thomas) We still have that log: we wrote about our first trip together, and we were just getting to know each other. I went backpacking in Asia and used it too. Now it’s in Argentina, at Agus’s mom’s house, safely tucked away, in a drawer with the important “stuff.”
Links:
El viaje de Bohemia (web page): https://www.elviajedebohemia.com/
El viaje de Bohemia (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/elviajedebohemia/?hl=es
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2AuCJkzZMnfaO9upz-S4tA
Book “Guidance from the Ocean and the Moon”: https://a.co/d/0lumUiA
From “Navegantes Oceánicos” we thank Agus and Thomas for sharing their experiences and adventures with our readers in this exciting interview. We offer our sincere congratulations on the birth of their baby, and we wish them good luck and fair winds in the future.
