Delos?

Wait, what?

What year is this?

The Myers-Regulinski family and Delos in New Zealand, 2005.

It’s 2026.

You probably know that Stephan and I were the first owners of Sailing Vessel Delos. In 2000 we commissioned her in France, then cruised more than 50,000 miles, raising three kids aboard her. She was the first boat I ever captained alone—eight thousand miles from New Zealand to Bellingham—and the first I ever loved.

There’s been a lot of water under the keel since we bought Delos, a long, complicated sad story with a happy ending.

Grab some hydration. I’ll try to be quick.

In 2008, we sold Delos to Brian Trautman. Letting her go wrecked me emotionally. Three years later we bought an identical SuperMaramu 2000 named Hanalei.

For the next ten years Hanalei adventured in Cuba, Central and South America as I honed captain skills and generally misbehaved.

svdelos.com

Under Brian and crew’s stewardship, Delos became SV Delos, like she’d been granted a degree. She roamed the Indian and Atlantic oceans as Brian and Kazza followed their own cruising bliss. They more than followed their bliss; they created and shared a sometimes magical world. They might have misbehaved some, too. Or maybe that was Brian’s brother, Brady.

As svdelos.com, they documented their little-known-at-the-time sailing and cruising lifestyle. Over more than five hundred YouTube episodes, they shared their adventures and lived their philosophy: present, curious, and living every moment to the fullest. Their videos made them and SV Delos famous* influencers.

*That does NOT make us famous. We’re more Delos-adjacent. Think Beatles-drummer-who-left-the-band-before-they-hit-it-big, only much less well-known.

Hanalei, Panama, 2021-2024. Doesn’t she look just like her sister?

Delos Calling

The story may have started when Brian called Stephan in Panama after the fire.

Wait, what fire?

Which boat?

What year is this?

It’s 2021.

While Hanalei was all alone at a Panama marina, a bolt of lightning exploded near the dock. Millions of volts surged through shore power and shorted a fan in the salon; the sparks ignited a fire that destroyed her interior. Smoke snaked through the cabins and disintegrated textiles. Salon. Galley. Nav station. All gone.

My next-to-the-last blog post was pretty bleak, mostly photos of our burned out boat. Even the text was still in shock and despair.

At least we had insurance. Stephan went to Panama to assess damage and think about Hanalei’s restoration. The adjustor said he totaled the boat. It was only a matter of time before we'd be sailing again. We waited for our settlement like a John Frum cargo cult.

Brian understood the Chief Engineer’s shock and grief the way only another cruiser could imagine. They got to talking like cruisers do, about their boats and spare parts and cruising plans ideas and landed on a mutual desire to sail the Inside Passage to Alaska.

Wouldn’t it be cool, Brian said offhandedly, if we sailed down the Inside Passage to Bellingham and sold Delos back to you?

Completing a dream voyage was one thing. Watching it go up in smoke was different. We already had a boat we loved, even if her salon looked like the inside of a discarded barbecue. The problem was no money to fix her yet.

A sweet gesture, Stephan thought, even if it was an imaginary event many years down the road.

Yeah, cool.

It Always Gets Worse

Frankly, it was all emotionally overwhelming… and that was before the three-year-long insurance debacle.

Betraying both our trust and our premium, the company refused to pay a cent. They even sued us, claiming Hanalei hadn't been seaworthy, leaving us no choice but to fight.

I admit it’s been a lousy couple of years. No one knew what would become of Hanalei. Our marriage went into free fall. I was so depressed it felt like swimming through mud. I missed the boat, missed the ocean, missed our life at sea. Writing made no sense. Sometimes living didn’t, either.

Moving On

It took a lot of time and help to come to terms with our loss. We completed couples therapy. We dealt with PTSD through trauma therapy. The Chief Engineer did parent-y therapy stuff with our grownup children.

The universe contributed a stunning lawyer, a genius therapist, good drugs and a lucky break. The only setback came from SCOTUS (yes, that one).

By 2024, we’d been paying marina fees for three years and were still waiting for insurance resolution. We worried about what would happen to Hanalei.

Ügur, Hanalei’s new owner, Panama, 2024.

A stroke of luck brought us the perfect buyer, someone who had lost his own Amel months earlier. We knew immediately that Hanalei was meant for Ügur. There was no question that he’d give her the love that she deserved. He sailed her all the way to Turkey, burned out as she was, then rebuilt her. Good boat.

In the end, insurance paid us less than half of Hanalei’s agreed hull value. After lawyers and marina fees, we had enough to buy a good-sized camper van. Determined to move on, we gave up the idea of cruising again.

The story isn’t over yet, but that was the worst part. Are you sipping?

Once I recovered my mental health, we crewed for friends. We chartered a boat. We told ourselves we weren’t too old to forge a new dream, some meaningful context to wrap around our lives.

Our friend Kathryn was a great role model. Hadn’t she moved to Ghana when she was seventy? Didn’t Anansi Education, the NGO she founded, educate more than 800 students in the past twenty years? Now in her nineties, wasn’t she helping them build a dormitory and a school?

I helped out at Anansi in Ghana, got malaria, and discovered I loved teaching.

[You can help, too. Send something to Anansi via PayPal.]

The Chief Engineer’s Plan Idea

The Chief Engineer rolled back the cuffs of his shirt, unbuttoned his top button, and combed his hair to look all charming and European. Then he leaned in, all casual-like. Think Michael Caine in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. “To celebrate your 70th birthday, let's take a trip to Paris."

Who could say no to a spiffed-up sailor?

My Big Birthday, My Rules.

“I don’t want to go to Paris. I want to go back to Ghana.” That wasn’t strictly accurate. I wanted us to go to Ghana. While we were on the continent we could tack on Morocco and maybe Namibia. Why was travel so much easier on a boat? “I want you to come to Ghana with me. We could teach and help with the building project.”

Stephan knows from forty years together that one thing can lead to another totally different thing at breathtaking speed. He got out in front of that like a Galapagos Sea Lion when you step on his beach. “I don’t want to end up moving there.”

Christine and Stephan Anansi students — Stephan and Christine with Anansi students, M’peasem, Ghana, 2025.

Delos Calling. Again.

That’s how we ended up in Ghana in February, 2025, kicking around the idea of living there part-time.

I wasn’t kicking very hard. I had malaria again, this time with a typhoid fever chaser. If my world view included signs or omens from the universe, I might have guessed that Ghana was a no.

[You can still donate to Anansi Education. The kids thank you.]

In my fevered state a cryptic text from Brian arrived. Lots of changes here.

Over speaker phone, he said he and Kazza and Sierra were living in Australia, building a new aluminum catamaran called Delos 2.0.

My eyes welled up, but that could be macular degeneration. “And Delos?”

They planned to move SV Delos from French Polynesia to Fiji, then sell her. The question was where.

My question was who would buy her? Someone who wanted bragging rights? Someone who loved her but had no time to sail? Dreamers who left her on the hard for years until they got around to cruising?

What would she become? A maritime attraction? A charter boat? My busy mind cranked out worse and worse scenarios.

I might have felt a little jealous.

Did we have any interest in buying Delos?

Then came Brian’s nonchalant bombshell. Did we have any interest in buying Delos?

The Earth shook, meaning I burst into heaving, choking tears. It must have been the fever.

We weren’t looking for a boat, but that boat? The one where our family spent the five happiest years of our lives? I haven’t been young and foolish for a while, but I couldn’t forget my first love.

Like I said, my world view didn’t include time-stamped offers from the universe. If it did, they’d come with enough strings attached to knot a monkey’s fist. But trauma therapy had cracked my heart open to feel both deep pain and deep joy. My brain had shed old trauma synapses: it was rebuilding differently as Christine 2.0

Christine 2.0 had a growing appreciation for forces beyond her control. Why was this happening now, while we were seeking something meaningful to take the place of cruising?

Christine 2.0 also wanted a word, which is seldom easy. She didn’t represent the mind. She was all heart and gut. Why not listen to what she had to say?

Let’s think about it.

We told Brian we’d think about it.

For the next few months I tried not to think. Every time I did I cried. Christine 2.0 would not stop poking me.

The Chief Engineer watched my turmoil uneasily, wondering whether he’d seen this movie before. He said, “Ghana or Delos. I cannot do both.”

Next Question?

Brian texted from Tonga. Did we have any questions?

Stephan and I looked at cruising opportunities differently. Where I saw global destinations, he saw hours in the engine room. Where I saw connection with local culture, he saw problems finding parts. Where I saw perfect days at sea, he saw a cockpit strewn with repair projects. His questions would be technical.

Still not thinking, I typed mine. How would we raise the money?

Where did that come from?

Christine 2.0 said something had been left unfinished, something I couldn’t think my way out of. I had to listen to my gut.

A Zoom call clinched it for me. Watching the family so at home and comfortable made me homesick, reminded me how good life felt on Delos. I told them about my weird gut reaction, how it wasn’t playing nice with my good sense.

Brian got it. If you're serious, why not come to Fiji and see her?

Okay, universe. Enough hints, already. I had to see Delos again.

Stephan needed closure, too. He only agreed to go to Fiji to sail Delos again, not to buy a boat.

He said.

Me? Whatever I said, my limbic system knew the truth. The sobbing tipped me off.

Sorry this story is taking so long. I’ll be back soon with another installment. Meanwhile, take care out there.

Fair winds,

Xine

[PS It’s not too late to donate to Anansi Education!]