Becoming a Dive Master fourteen days before my fiftieth birthday and following my passion for the ocean, I am living my dream of owning a phinisi liveaboard in Indonesia. A phinisi is a traditional Indonesian two-masted sailing vessel whose design is said to have been copied from the Dutch pinnace vessels which were used in the area by the Dutch East Indies Company around 1600. Phinisis are still being built to this day by the Konjos tribesmen on the beaches of South Sulawesi. So it was on 15th February 2012 and following 400 years of tradition; The Carpe Diem Phinisi began to become the beautiful vessel that you see today. Join me as my vessel becomes operational in 2017 and we go on the adventure of a lifetime.
By sheer coincidence, this story starts twenty years ago in 1997, when I had just become an expatriate in Dubai and decided to learn to dive. It was new, interesting, the water was warm, and I obtained my PADI Open Water certification.