We were lucky enough to run into Sterling AKA Poppa Cap. He has spent 22 years living and cruising aboard his boat the "We Don't Know". Join along as we boar...
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bo a baby
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you
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every good pirate has a guard dock
hey man
what if you
all right it was I think my mom I think
was a team effort team effort
I just leave my dad I think I was named
after my dad's best friend oh yeah hey
man Cho thank you
ha Manchus hey hi hi Mannie hey good
guard dog well we'll walk avoid the top
part cops giving me permission you guys
look at this baby this is your bohemian
check
it's a true Cruiser right here blue I
actually had had a good amount of coffee
already
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all right so we boarded captain
Sterling's boat
aka Papa cap and we're going to we're
gonna meet like I said the saltiest
pirate that I've come across so far and
without further ado I don't know why it
says salty I mean I took a bath this
morning to take the salt water off of me
and it's been a hell of a storm out here
look at my way out of the water
and everything in our system this last
couple days was soaked yeah oh yeah it's
been a the North leaves are blowing down
so tell us about this boat the boat the
boat a 1970 Corinthian which is a
poverty sine boat that was copied and
then fibreglass I took her out of the
junkyard a number of years ago I've been
traveling for 22 years took off one
month later acquired two children that
uh the mother's kind of gave up and I
took them with me sailed for eight years
with them so they grew up and went on
their own my son uh he's a chief of
police and now he has his own gym my
daughter is another character who's
lived throughout the islands and became
total pirate bless her soul but uh
anyhow talking about the boat she's been
sunk and lifted a number of times
through different storms or accidents
that's happened being rammed by ships or
other boats and just storms be an old
thing called oil canning when a boat
starts breathing and the more it starts
breathing the weaker it gets it's like
taking a can and been in it if you've
been at too many times what happened it
rips I'm taking on a rip in the Virgin
Islands and a storm where other boats
were sinking and ripped ten feet hole
into the side good thing about this boat
it's filled with foam couldn't sink
anyhow so you had water Oh three and a
half feet of water Eagle in the middle
of a storm still traveling six knots and
Coast Guard telling you to abandon ship
yeah and another steering blew away from
the wall no steering no steering head
your dear boy rope in gym
dear dancer though into the lagoon in
with Allen was st. croix Christiansted
st. for a gang Dolan overboard and
started putting a two-part epoxy along
the crack and later along got a lifted
repaired her took off on another trip
another adventurer of course there's
things uh cargo freighters that's hit me
and before coming here took on a whole
journey you all ins in the Mississippi
River and broader here picked her up in
fiberglass ER and we're going on another
adventure yeah Madge oh man he's gonna
probably film some he'll help y'all live
the adventure with filming and things
that will happen the lifestyle the ups
and downs
whether it's storming whether it's a
beautiful at times you'll be saying what
am i you hear me saying what am i doing
out here what would the hell what kind
of a creature would be out in storms on
this bad weather ralphing experiences in
life and going oh my god and then the
next day it's so pretty that you have a
fresh coconut and getting all the
electrolytes and fresh mighty mighty and
you're going I wouldn't give this up for
a million dollars it's the life can you
tell us a little bit about no autopilot
and how you've managers never dealt with
an old part of hell I have all of
autopilot I have what's called a worm
drive and it's it's it's almost ancient
the boats in nineteen seventy making it
a Aunty and the steering they put in
here back then was worm drive so it's a
it's not compatible to modern technology
of auto pod it's eight turns to the port
to starboard so I basically had to stay
at the wheel and
of made trips and it was from 36 to 48
to 50 hours still at the wheel it's by
myself steering a 40-foot boat rigged o
style no electronics no roller no roller
furling no winches to adjust say oh it's
all by weight pull up lock her down jump
to the stair and get back on course old
school which means hard on me
but less chances of breakdowns or things
going wrong even the anchor it's all
manual
I still go by hand over hand
no winches no nothing so I have to
decrease my weight getting older I've
had to decrease a hundred pound anchors
with chain and a little mud on gets up
to 130 140 150 pounds and it's hard to
pick it up by oneself so I'm down to a
55 acre and I had five anchors now I'm
down to three anchors which is a
downfall I told you wish you had more
anchors in a storm but I learned to duck
into mangroves mangroves are like spring
boards for our sailboat there it keeps
the boat from being damaged it's the
best place to be if you have them around
I went shallow-draft I like a shallow
draft boat there my boats now three and
a half feet of draft which I can get
into a ditch and get into the mangos and
tie down but not all islands have places
to hide and duck into so you have to run
and get into a place I'll find a place
where you can do that so father how
about sharing the amount of miles that
use bump when I first started out I once
guy down in dominican republic he says
now I'm on 40,000 mouths well ten years
later I'm up to 42,000 mile
sorry 42,000 nautical mile and it's not
the same like you driving across country
saying oh I made 2,000 mouths when you
make 25 miles on a boat that's a whole
date compared to what a half an hour by
car yeah that's a whole day of traveling
by boat say it and maybe they didn't
hear you 42,000 nautical nautical miles
yeah under your boat it's it's it's a
few mouths a sailors died along the way
by sometimes pissing over the side of
his boat and not holding on right right
when a wave comes about he dies by
drowning because nobody else around so
there's things like that and I just lost
a friend you know honest I NAT you that
would I try to find easy routes what
what Jenna rush for anyhow so I pick
routes that are cheaper there's no
chores in here I could show you but I
jumped from island to island
one day hops one day whoops sorry
Manchus yeah yes my baby she's uh no
she's not yeah let's talk about mansion
she looks she knows she's not a dingo
she's what's called the Louisiana State
dog um she's a Catahoula cur
the Spaniards brought him over back in
1415 herds to dominate Louisiana and
there were later interbred with inbred
with the gray wolf which is I think it's
200 of them still in existence in
Louisiana we're going into Miami and
make it that red cross from Miami here
tonight
early morning into a little place Bimini
I'm sure everybody's heard about Bimini
and we're gonna check in to Bimini and
from there on we're going to make a dive
on a sunken ship out there between
Bimini and honeymoon island and we're
gonna get our supply of electrolytes by
taking on as much coconut as we can load
onto a boat and do some lobster diving
and and fishing or whatever and then
we're gonna move on to Andros where
Captain Morgan hideout was that I'll
show you where he used to hide the room
out in a cave and from there on every
islands an adventure if we had more time
we could go into places like the Blue
Hole in Andros which is on the southern
part and there's some underwater caves
that they just found national
Geographics found with ancient skulls of
man's we have double births of sleeping
quarters and plenty of guest room has a
V berth in the front as well or can we
go check it take it out if yo if you
want yeah yeah no excuse America this is
uh this is oh this is a real life though
yeah this is the real deal this is
yeah it's ancient but fully operational
this thing this thing this thing can get
get where it needs to go trying to bring
on as much water because the territory
will be going into armor and the other
hurricane hit them twice the water pumps
are out they have no water so we're
gonna stack up with water it's handy can
we go check that storage room you can go
ahead and slowly stock you're not
hopping up on water of dog food storage
room here
drinking water as we can water that's
the worm drive okay worm drag steering
everybody this is where you've said yeah
three straight days yeah so it is
possible because I'm obviously really
looking for autopilot right now but it
doesn't sound like it's necessary since
I met pop a cap I think I'm still going
to try to install a little pilot however
yeah he's opened my mind to the
possibility that hey it's possible to
lock a rope down some people go like
this never put a rope over like this
over another rope okay lock so what you
do is you look at your last your last
run and you go opposite and then in to
where this is parallel with this and it
locks it will never go nowhere because I
also lock mine down that way you know
there's a lot of people that may not
know this okay so people are curious as
to where Medina showed up from how did
she get here so we're going to share the
story so I was in Cuba with a friend of
mine
shall I do one is once again finally
there are two of us from the Netherlands
I flew Mexico and I only had one week to
get so my idea was to sail out of Cuba
direction wasn't that important
so we came to Marina one day
anyway Verena yeah
first both the first people actually on
any boat that is over the boat was Tony
and Jared doing laundry do you maybe
know if there is anybody any captain
looking for a potential crew and they
say they happen to know
the very next day we moved in and we had
a chance to so the last time that we saw
marina she was sailing to Mexico isla
mujeres with father from Turkey and then
that was it Mac you guys left before did
we we said goodbye then
yeah we saw you guys yeah well you wait
Medina said she was gonna be in Key West
soon that's kind of where we were at
with things I said well the boats still
here you can definitely come and there's
a place to stay while you're in Key West
yeah Wow I still wasn't Russia and
nothing happening
curious about how when a boat is going
and yeah we can honestly say there were
no plans from day one no idea if she was
gonna be here for a day and take off the
next
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baby baby oh baby a baby
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these are the tales of Bob