Kristen grew up in Missoula, Montana—about as far from saltwater as you can get. Her first big adventure took her to New York, where she traded mountain views for the trading floor and worked as a stockbroker. But Wall Street wasn't where her story was meant to stay.

Eventually, the ocean won.

Kristen headed south to Fort Lauderdale and launched a career in the yachting industry. She earned her USCG 100-ton Master's License and worked aboard yachts up to 188 feet as a captain, mate, chef, and chief stewardess. Her years on the water eventually led her ashore, where she was hired to oversee the buildout and become General Manager of Yacht Haven Grande, a megayacht marina in St. Thomas, USVI.

Bill took a completely different route to island life.

His first love was aviation. He started working at an airport at just 11 years old, eventually becoming a private pilot with a glider rating and spending years working in aviation maintenance. Then one day, he decided it was time for something completely different.

With two duffel bags and a one-way ticket, Bill headed to St. Thomas. His plan was pretty straightforward: become a captain, sail the Caribbean during the winter, spend the summers sailing Greece, and see where life took him.

He never made it to Greece.

Instead, he met Kristen—the woman running the marina where his new Caribbean life was beginning—and the adventure became theirs.

Between them, Bill and Kristen spent nearly two decades living and working in the islands. Kristen divided 18 years between St. Maarten and St. Thomas, while Bill called St. Thomas home for the better part of a decade.

Eventually, they left the Caribbean, but apparently no one told them that leaving the islands was supposed to mean settling down.

They moved to San Diego to be near their twin niece and nephew, then crossed the country to Amelia Island, Florida, where they bought a house and managed a marina. The house didn't exactly anchor them. Before long, they were packing again—this time for Virginia, where they managed two more marinas.

From there, the marina life kept them moving: Miami Beach, Beaufort, North Carolina, Pickwick, Tennessee, Nashville, Tennessee, and Rogers, Arkansas. Contract assignments added even more stops to the map, including Ocean City, New Jersey; Key West and Marco Island, Florida; and plenty of miles in between.

Along the way, they've logged more than 35,000 combined miles at sea and another 10,000+ miles in the RV.

In 2022, they finally gave up pretending they were going to stay put and embraced full-time RV living. Now home isn't defined by an address. Sometimes there's a marina outside the window. Sometimes it's a campground, a mountain, a lake, or a stretch of highway leading somewhere they haven't been yet.

And that's where Exploring Pirates comes from.

It's the story of two people who never quite figured out how to stay in one place—and eventually realized they didn't want to.

It's about life on the water and life on the road. Boats and RVs. Marinas and campgrounds. Long passages, long drives, unexpected detours, and figuring out what's around the next bend.