About Us
Hi! We're Two Plus Crew: Chris, Shiela, and our three children, Maya, Cyra, and Andre. We're a digital nomad family from Miami. Hey, that rhymes.
Chris: In early 2015 I started watching videos about the lives of full-time sailboat travelers (called liveaboards) like SV Delos, Sailing La Vagabonde, and White Spot Pirates. I watched their stories develop and how they seem to be unencumbered by possessions, houses, or other traditional markers of happiness and prosperity. Shiela and I made an active decision to change our circumstance to try and find happiness and freedom in an unconventional way: getting rid of all the things which anchor us to one place all our lives and instead travel full-time, working remotely along the way.
By late 2019 we sold nearly everything we had accumulated from our roughly 37 years of land life: Our business, our house, and one of our cars. For 2020 we planned a short stay in the National Capital Region of Philippines before we were to return to the US to find our boat and start sailing.
As it turns out, we've had to shelter-in-place in Philippines since March 2020 on account of the Coronavirus pandemic. While it's disappointing how the pandemic displaced our plans, we've seized the opportunity to learn to live with far fewer things, and a great deal less space, than we have in the past: our apartment is a mere 27 square meters, or 290 square feet – or just 1/10 of the space we had in our house in Florida!
Looking forward, we plan to get vaccinated along with most of the rest of the world, then return to the US and find our sailing home once it's safe to travel again.
About The Two
Chris is a native Floridian and Shiela is from Pangasinan, Philippines. They were both born and raised in their respective birthplaces. Chris joined the military in 2002 and shortly followed on to Alaska. Chris and Shiela met in 2005 while he was on assignment in the Philippines. Shiela came to the US in 2006.
Chris separated from the military in 2007 and joined a small automotive interiors company which subsequently closed during the 2009 financial crisis. That same year, they opened a hair salon in Weston, Florida. In 2012 Chris used his military education benefits to earn his Commercial Pilot certificate and FAA Flight Instructor certificate and started flying as a contract pilot.
In 2016 Chris and Shiela sold their salon, then in 2017 sold their house. In 2018 and 2019 they had a series of yard sales to dispose of most of their remaining possessions.
About Chris
I am the coolest nerd you'll ever meet. I ride motorcycles, fly airplanes, skydive, go camping, and love to drive. I love computers and networking; I program a little in Python. Radio communication fascinates me, so naturally I have my Ham radio license.
I often try to do too much at once and alternately cycle between trying to organize my thoughts and life around mental frameworks I create, and wanting to do absolutely nothing. I want to revolutionize the world, and not in a naive way.
I've lived in Florida, Georgia, Alaska, Oklahoma, California, Kuwait, Philippines, and Niger. I've visited Colombia, France, London, Italy, Austria (beer land), Australia (kangaroo land), Mexico, and Germany. And I'm not done visiting and living in places yet. I want to see more. Much more. My favorite place so far, though, is Philippines.
I love drinking cold milk and trying new coffees. I unapologetically love plain white rice. Pineapple is an acceptable topping for pizza, and that's a hill I'm willing to die on.
About Shiela
I'm still writing mine!