ABOUT US
Rafael
Raf, also known as Spear It Raff, grew up in the small towns of Auburndale and Winter Haven, Florida, located about an hour south of Orlando. He was a little lake rat, running around with a fishing pole in his hands before he knew proper "ish" grammar. At the age of 7, he would show up to his second-grade class via bicycle, smelling like bass from his early solo missions around the lake. When Raff was 12, he dug up his father's old 12ft aluminum Jon Boat out of his Grandmothers garden and restored it beyond its former glory (Foreshadowing). The bass soon stood zero chance as he would no longer have to trespass on people's property to find his honey holes!
A few years passed and Raf found himself as the Quarterback of Lake Region High School and was soon recruited to play football at Jacksonville University! By his sophomore year, he was next in line to become the starting QB but always had dreams of playing for a larger College so he packed his bags and transferred to the University of Central Florida to hopefully become a Knight! Out of 100 athletes to try out only 14 made the team and he was one of them! He played at UCF for another year and a half, working his way up to 2nd string quarterback, before realizing that football was no longer his passion. He graduated college with a bachelor's degree in business, only to become a handyman teaching himself all of the different trades, job by job, through personal experience and many mistakes. After 5 years of breaking even and doing countless amount of jobs as favors for friends, he found himself with a contractor's license and a very high reputation for remodeling high-end kitchens and bathrooms.
You're probably wondering where the dream of sailing the world came in... Rewind to his sophomore year of college in 2010, Raff went on a trip to The Bahamas with a good friend.
They were staying on a fishing boat when two sail catamarans zipped past going 10knots. He realized that this was the type of adventure he was looking for, and the best part was, the wind is free, right? He had a brilliant idea to start a YouTube channel to try and fund the expedition but had no clue that there were so many people already doing this! He didn't bother to research anything about sailing, just began to work and save, knowing he'd figure out the basics later on...
Fast forward back to the spring of 2020, after 10 years of swinging his hammer and saving money, he convinced his good friend Ben to partner up and go 50/50 on a sailboat. With a combined "Zero Sailing Experience" they managed to get a loan and bought the first Catamaran they looked at together, a 39' Leopard! As proud new owners, they immediately motored a mile offshore and spent a few hours staring at pulleys and clutches, and pulling on ropes until the boat started to SAIL! They spent a few months in Key West pimping out their new boat then set sail into the Bahamas on Sept. 9th which was the height of hurricane season which only proves how green and naive they were.
Raf has always been one to jump out of the plane before learning how to use the parachute and as you will soon see he will never change. The two friends set out into the Caribbean, dodging hurricanes, rebuilding engines, shooting massive fish, going head to head with numerous sharks, and Raf even had a 6-month battle with ciguatera fish poising! On February 14th, 2021 the boys sailed up to a little island in the Exumas called Georgetown, where it turned out, they were destined to be. Like a couple of barbarians who hadn't seen people in months, they dingyed over to the sandy beach bar called "Chat n Chill", and met a group of young sailors that became a HUGE chapter in the next part of their journey. Among them was Sascha, and very slowly the stars began to align!
Sascha
Sascha grew up in southeastern Michigan spending a lot of time outdoors. Her parents built a marina and campground when Sascha was five where she and her sisters would spend countless hours in the forest building teepees and make-shift tree houses. They would also collect all sorts of snakes, frogs, and other critters, just like any other typical barbie loving girl. She swam competitively from the time she was five and was a part of the local sailing team on Lake Erie as a summer hobby.
During the winter her family had a sailboat in Tampa, Florida that they would sail down the west coast to the Florida Keys, even sailed a couple of times to Cuba. This spiked her interest in sailing and it always felt so natural to be on the open ocean. Some of you may know the boat 'The Far Side' from Sascha and her sister Nathalie's YouTube channel 'Sailing The Far Side'.
Sascha received a scholarship to swim for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where she studied and received her Bachelor's degree in Animal Sciences Pre-Vet. Her dream to sail around the world came during her freshman year when she was looking at maps while home for a holiday break and thought, why not sail around the world! At the time her dads boat was sitting at the dock more than it was getting out on the ocean, so for the next 6 years, during school breaks, Sascha, Nathalie, and their dad worked on getting the boat in better shape to take her to the Caribbean. During the first season out, winter/spring of 2020, Covid struck a month into the trip and a few months later they sailed back to the states. The following year Sascha set out with her sister Nathalie for their second season, and two months later, ran into the 'Spear It Animal' guys. They buddy-boated along with 2 other boats, for the next 7 months together all the way down to the Dominican Republic and back to the states where a lot would change.
Sascha and Raff
After buddy boating around the Caribbean for 7 months together, 'Spear It Animal' and 'The Far Side' headed back to the states. Raff's friend Ben, who he bought the Catamaran with, decided he wanted to get back to land life to pursue his passion for real estate investing, so they put their boat up for sale. Immediately Raff began the search for his next boat and after flying all over the Caribbean looking at sailboats, a 50' Beneteau Cyclades popped up right in his home state, Florida. This opened the doors for Raff and Sascha's relationship to go to the next level. Within a week after the boat was paid for Sascha and Raff drove up to St. Augustine, Florida to sail the boat down to Fort Lauderdale, 3 days straight, 52 hours total, hand steering, on what they would later discover to be a sinking sailboat. Amidst all of the chaos, they quickly realized that they were a match made of gold, a true Power Couple!
The projects started, the boat slowly began to float more than it sank, and that is where we'll stop because you will have to watch the rest of their story on their YouTube Channel! They filmed the ENTIRE refit of the boat and managed to fix it up in record speed, so that they could get back to the glory days of Buddy Boating, Bikinis, spearfishing, beach cookouts, and all of the other amazing benefits that come with cruising the world on your floating home!!! So click the link below to binge watch their episodes and catch up to the present time where they post their weekly adventures! It's never a dull moment aboard the Spear it Animal!
