About Us
The Early Days
In the late 1980s, when we were much younger, we left the comfort of our home town and sailed the east coast of Australia from the Macleay River to the Whitsunday Islands.
Reepicheep was our first vessel, a 26’ Searle with bilge keels. The shallow draft and twin keels meant that we could explore more places and beach the boat for maintenance or pleasure. Three months cruising the coast was an amazing time in our lives. With nothing but a few charts and a compass, we headed off on an amazing adventure.
After running out of money in Mackay, we started to look for work and secured jobs in the tourist village of Airlie Beach, with the intent to top up the kitty and continue up the coast to Hinchenbrook Island. The Whitsundays has a way of getting under your skin and we never made that northern run.
Take Two
After a couple of years, we added a couple of training wheels and moved to the dark side. ‘Troika’ our first multihull became part of the family in 1990 and we lived onboard for a while until our family grew further with our two children, Haley and Damon. 10 years of sailing and exploring the Whitsundays and Great Barrier Reef on Troika resulted in a lot of memorable weekends and holidays until the turn of the millennium.
Work, business and raising children took over for a while and we were boatless for some time. Eventually we threw everything we could into a dream and made it a reality. Drumbeat was launched on Valentine’s day 2006 and two years of living on board and sailing the Pacific began. Home schooling, humanitarian work and exploring the nations of the Pacific became the essence of our world. We returned and put the kids through their final years of school and then university but now with them embarking on their own journeys, the Pacific Islands are calling once again.
Drumbeat, the call of distant shores…
