Captain Lee Rosbach from Below Deck & Can-Am Motorcycles Brand Ambassador - ADV Cannonball News

Taylor talks with Captain Lee Rosbach from Bravo's Below Deck reality television series. They talk motorcycles on beaches, Lee's Can-Am, and his many years starring in Below Deck as the yacht's Captain.  for 

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Transcript

Welcome to the ADV Cannonball podcast where we discuss all things on two wheels, the adventure bike cannonball, and other motorcycle related nonsense. Welcome to season two episode seven of the ADD Cannonball podcast. My name is Taylor Lawson, and I'm joined here this evening, my evening, with Aaron Pufal. Hey, Taylor. What's happening over there, man?

You know, we had we had, we had, what would it be in Fahrenheit? We had six degree weather today, which is really nice. I guess that makes it about near in 40, sneaking up on 40. Not quite riding season. But I just have to say that last Monday, had a great day skiing.

So if that's any indication whether winter is, is going away, I'm gonna have to go with the not yet. What's up with you? The forecast here is ice cold IPA, baby. It is snowing everywhere, and I have just given up thinking about motorcycling for another another few weeks. So down the hatch.

Nice, brother. I'm, I switched out of the IPA, and I'm with, a little, rum and coke this evening. Bravo. Well done. Alright.

So I guess a congratulations is an order for you because you have a successful interview with David Bednarski. He's the rally master of scooter cannonball, and, you had an interview with him. Is there any insight you can give about that? Yeah. He  really shows the similarities between the Scooter Cannonball and the ADV Cannonball.

And, I just love the fact that he was positive and open, and it just goes to show that the two wheeled community really isn't in their own corners. And it doesn't really matter, you know, what you're riding. Everyone's happy to share their stories and, help each other succeed. Yeah. It was really great.

Yeah. Nicely done. It's also really nice, and and I find that, I don't know if it's a motorsport thing or what, but ever since we I started doing these rallies, everybody I talk to is so supportive. And I just have to say that, you know, I I think about some of the emails we've had recently in the communications with, with other interviews that we've set up and other people who are who are content makers, and everyone is so supportive. And I'm like, man, if everybody was just this nice and normal business, wow.

How how great would that be? So your solution is everyone should have a motorcycle, I think, is what you're saying. Yeah. That's exactly right. And what I meant to say is that everybody should participate in the ADV cannonball.

Just saying. That's right. This is your gateway truck. This is this should gateway in. And then a natural extension of rallying is, I have upcoming it's, not in the can yet, but Bo Ernest is the official Cannonball record holder on a motorcycle.

And, he's agreed to do an interview, and we mailed him some equipment. And, we're looking forward to that. He's got a great story. He modified a I think it's a FJ, FJR, and he put auxiliary fuel tank on it. He's got laser jamming equipment on there.

He's got radars. He's got multiple phones, and, he's got some aftermarket lighting. So, it's gonna be great to talk to him about about building that bike, his, his record setting ride across the country, and everything that goes with it. So I'm really looking forward to that as well. That's really cool.

How did you get in touch with him? I was doing some research for my attempt, and I just wanted to know who had the record. And then I saw his bike with his fuel tank on it, and I'm like, well, that's exactly what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put a fuel tank. And I thought about just reaching out for some advice. I'm like, well, why don't I get some advice and put it on tape so I can share I can share that experience with, everyone?

Yeah. That's a great idea. And, also, you know, just in case you forget it for later, you can review it. Are you saying that I have I have old man brain? That is not true.

I'm offended. I'm sorry. What are we doing? Heavy if the shoe fits. Right.

Exactly. Alright. Let's see here. And I you just put some more data points. You gave us more information about, LA and routing in that area.

Can you can you give us more details on that? Yeah. So you, you're nice enough to book book some flights all the way from Sweden to the to the Cannonball. So I said, well, if you're coming all the way out there, we need to do some riding after the rally. And I thought to myself, well, if everyone else is going through this effort of going across the country, many of the riders are East Coast based.

And, having lived on East Coast most of my life, it it really is special, the riding that's over in the LA area. It's actually, like, hallowed ground. There's there's so many there's so many riding routes and riding destinations. So what I did was I took a couple of days, and I went through all my old GPX files, and I posted on our schedule page for the twenty twenty five ADV cannonball, all of my favorite GPX loop routes or horseshoe routes, and some important destinations like Neptune's Net, The Rock Shop, Josie's Hideout. So you can spend two or three full days there in LA area after the cannonball and really enjoy some riding there.

And I encourage everyone who's gonna be there for the awards banquet, schedule a couple days. It's so important, the riding out there. So yeah. So that's, that's what I got posted up there for the for the cannonballers. Very cool.

Very cool. Yeah. That should be fun. And I'm looking forward to doing some riding out there as well, so thanks very much for, for that opportunity. Yeah.

That'll be great. And as far as, I was just thinking about in in when I'm communicating with you, I've got my my Sena 50 s, and it seems like that's no longer the new kid on the block. Yeah. So I've always had some complaints about the senate that I have, and they have solved all of them, or they've promised to solve all of them. I don't have one, but I'm looking forward to when mine finally dies to replace it.

And they are saying that the big one is that you can update the firmware via the app via Bluetooth connection. So instead of having to do that crazy thing that you had to do to update the firmware, which is really important, by the way, because I had some bad experiences. So the last firmware update, when I would connect to my bike, the bike volume was a %, and then my comms volume was whatever I set it at. So I had to stop connecting to my bike for a while. So anyways, that's the one big improvement is that you can just update the firmware when the Sena is connected to your phone.

That was a that was a great big one. And then I'll just go through the other ones quickly because not everyone's a geek. But the unit can detach from your helmet by a magnet mount, so that's great. The unit has a forward facing flashlight. It comes standard with the wheel operation for the volume, and that's for folks that don't have a BMW with a a magic wheel.

And the intercom system between the bikes has a a bunch of improvements. One of them is they have a new mesh three point o, which has a longer range and is self healing. So that's that's great. And another major improvement is when the SENA is connected to your to your phone via Bluetooth, they have something called wave intercom. Now I haven't tested it, but the theory is that it uses the cellular network when you're beyond the mesh network's radio, limit.

It uses the cellular net network to chat. So theoretically, you could even chat with someone who's riding in another part of the world. So that's really cool. I'm not sure how how it'll work, but, but that feature is there, and I'm pretty excited to to get my hands on a on a new '60 s one of these days. You know, I was just thinking about that.

Wouldn't it be cool to try to get one of the techs from Senna to interview one of the techs from Senna Yeah. On this on this podcast? If I if I had one in my hand to to to either complain that it doesn't work or pat them on the back and say, that's really awesome that you've solved all these pet peeves that I've always had. Yeah. Maybe we should just call them and say, we'd like to have one that you can do that and then invite them onto the podcast with.

Well, listen. We're only the number two podcast, so I don't I'm not sure if if if we have that ability quite yet, but we're working hard to be to be number one. You know, it's funny you mentioned that because I was doing some studies. Yeah. Yeah.

I was I was doing a little bit of statistical research, you know, like I like to do. Mhmm. And, and I was looking at for the the, the stats on adventure motorcycle podcast. And since we did, v day with v j, it was a it was a massive, massive hit in India. And do you know what position we are in the adventure motorcycle podcast realm in India?

Come on. Tell me number one. Baby, we are number one. Number one in India. Just like I think there's some bands from the eighties that were number one in India.

That's awesome. Yeah. It could be. You never know. Alright.

And let me get to this. I had an opportunity to speak with an old friend of mine, and that is captain Lee Rossback. He spent more than three decades circling the globe as a mega yacht captain. And now I know a lot of you are gonna be like, we already know where this is going because they've heard some of these podcasts and know our background. So he was born in landlocked Saginaw, Michigan.

He was a onetime Wendy's manager, and he had never even seen the ocean until moving to the Turks And Caicos with his bride, Mary Ann, who is really, really sweet and also a great cook. And they ran a restaurant down there when he was in his mid thirties. So, as you'll hear in the podcast, it the running the restaurant wasn't as lucrative as he had had anticipated, and he ended up taking a job. He he answered a ad to, to do a no experience necessary delivery on a sailboat. So at the age of 35, after he found that passion, he got his first captain's license, and he left the restaurant business, and he went and found his passion of yachting.

Since then, the running against the tide author has commanded more than a dozen superyachts. The stud of the sea, quote, unquote, is known for running ships with his no nonsense attitude and his salty one liners. He is he is really he's fun. You can also get a bunch of, swag from the things that he said. It's really quite quite we we'll, we'll post that in the show notes.

He's the season captain of the helm of the bravo series below deck since 02/2013 premiere, and he ran that up until season eleven. And he has now just wrapped up the first news of his new TV program, Deadly Waters, which is airing on Oxygen and streams on Peacock. He is also an ambassador for Can Am motorcycles, which is something that we really got into in this particular podcast, and we talked to him about whether or not he might consider doing the ADV cannonball with us. So that is the interview coming now. Nice.

And, you forgot to mention that he was your neighbor and friend, and that's why you're able to get the interview. Yeah. We cover that in the, we cover that in the beginning. He is really, he's nice. He remembers the old times.

That was fun. So and he's, he hasn't lost his humility. That's great. So let's, go ahead and roll that interview. Registration is now open to the public for the next ADV cannonball rally.

All riders on any motorcycle are welcome to join the adventure. Whether you're looking for an exciting and highly organized coast to coast ride with a group of like minded riders or a friendly competition for cannonball glory, it doesn't matter. Everyone can participate. Head over to cannonball.com to secure your rally starting position today. Now, back to the podcast, Katharine Lee Ross back.

Welcome to adventure cannonball podcast. Thanks very much for taking time to join us and chat with us today. Thank you for having me. I love it. Yeah.

We looking forward to it. Yeah. And I have to say in transparency, we had a we had a chat the other day. So, we have, we've cleared some things up, some things we can and can't talk about. We've gotten some some ground rules laid out.

And, from from pretty much you're like, sky's the limit, baby. Let's go. You didn't realize I was such a tech wizard, did you? I, I take full responsibility. Alright.

In in in Jesus Christ. Is this guy's got his shoes tied or what? Yeah. Alright. In in transparency, I just wanna say that you and I have known each other since the early two thousands when we're both captains based out of Fort Lauderdale.

Just for the record, you still are a captain based out of Fort Lauderdale. And, we are also still am. You still am. And, and we also lived a few a few blocks from one another. We did.

That was, we drove. We didn't have to. We could have walked. But Fort Lauderdale, of course. Now I was, you were one of the few friends and that's not a term that I throw around loosely at all, but you were one of the very few friends that I considered myself fortunate to have and it was, I don't know when you have somebody that you can call friend, it's a, to me, it just gives you some kind of a comforting feeling.

Yeah. There's a lot of trust there and that's, that's absolutely mutual. So thanks very much. Thanks for saying that. No.

That's, that's how I felt. And you know me. Yeah. Oh, and by the end of this interview, everybody else will know you as well. He didn't know you before.

Yeah. But there's a, there's a time stamp that really stands out for me is when you and your lovely wife, Maryann, had us over for dinner. I was with my wife. I was with my eldest son. He was five at that time.

And my youngest was still sporting that baby in the bucket look. Now just for just for reference sake, that five year old will soon be 20. God. You're getting old. Yeah.

I know I'm getting old. I'm catching you, brother. I'm catching you. I haven't aged a bit, but you're getting old. I know it's clear.

I, it's obvious. Thanks for, thanks for pointing that out. So right before we moved to Sweden in 2013, we saw one another at one of my favorite pubs in Fort Lauderdale. I thought you were, I thought you were so totally insane. And you still think that endearingly endearingly, but I just like sweetie.

And here we are, Here we are. I'm looking outside. 72 degrees. Blue water in the pool. It's two degrees.

I'm just missing the 70, Lee. And I can't believe, Taylor, you can't do this. And she did. Yeah. Here we are.

So at Tap forty two, it was like I think we're moving, like, that following weekend. It was like one of the last hurrahs. And I said, Lee, I haven't I haven't seen you for a little while. What have you been up to? And you said, I'm sworn to secrecy.

And I said, come on. It's us. You can tell me. He goes, no. I'm serious.

I I can't. I'm sworn to secrecy. And then you said, but, Taylor, when it's time for you to know what I've been doing, you will absolutely understand why I couldn't tell you, and you will know at that time. And, and then since that was 02/2013, it was also when you did the first season of below deck in 02/2013. So, yes, I knew that took, it was supposed to come out in 2012.

And the reason it didn't was because they, I wasn't supposed to be the captain, their loss. They didn't, I didn't, I didn't do a screen test. I didn't send in a video. I wanted to stay as far away from this project as I possibly could. They just happened to be chartering my boat.

Not my own boat that I own, but they were chartering my owner's boat. And, the captain that they had hired, he'd come out of a, maritime college. So he had a 1,600 ton, 3,000, plenty of paperwork. Yeah. But he hadn't driven anything up to anything bigger than sixty, sixty five feet.

Yeah. He just on the training boats. We're gonna we're gonna slap him, you know, behind the helm of, 65 foot, just under 500 tons. The insurance company, after they finished laughing, said, no, we're not gonna do that. Meaning they weren't gonna take him.

We're we're not gonna well, if you wanna use him, we have no problem with that, but you're gonna be self insured. We will not insure him because he doesn't have any verifiable experience. And, you know, our exposure would just be more than our underwriters are willing to handle. Mhmm. So that's when they said, well, I guess we'll use the old guy.

I have to say that you weren't that old at that time. I was 62 at the time. You were? Okay. Yeah.

And I thought, Jesus, most people are, like, thinking about getting retired, you know, moving off into the sunset, figuring out what they wanna do in their next life. Yeah. And I'm starting a new goddamn career for Christ's sake. What's wrong with this picture? Or or what's right with this picture?

And I didn't want anything to do with it. They said they'd shoot around me and they asked my boss. He said, well, how does how does captain Lee feel about being on television? Mhmm. And, you know, good owners, good boats, as you know well from experience, are hard to find.

Yeah. And even after you find them, they're harder to keep. Yeah. True. And so I said to him I said I looked at him and he just gave me, you know, one of those looks.

Oh, yeah. And I said, I feel just fine about being on TV. That's I got no problem with it whatsoever. Hated the thought. So we went ahead and we filmed the first season, got it in a can, shipped it up to New York, and the executive producer decided that they would shoot around me and, you know, not use me any more than they absolutely had to.

So we've got I think we had ten ten episodes that year. Yeah. They sent it up to New York and New York goes, well, where's captain Lee? And she said, well, I'm I made a on the spot in the field decision to, to shoot around him and and to not utilize him and and cut out everything that he was in. And it was one of those, like, pretty woman mistakes.

Mhmm. Huge mistake. Big mistake. They had the footage, but they didn't have it woven into the story. Okay.

So New York says, tough shit. We've got too much invested in this right now. I mean, Christ, we got over a million dollars in the boat. Mhmm. We're, you know, we're finishing this project.

So they sent it back to her and they said, do it again. So they shot it a second, another exact same thing again? They didn't shoot it the second time, but they had to re edit it. Okay. Which means they had to create a whole new storyline because I wasn't in anything.

Wow. Now we're gonna put another person in there, and we're gonna make it work. So which and they had this huge advertising budget. I mean, they were gonna you know, those, gray line tours that they have in New York with the double decker buses and stuff? Yeah.

They were gonna put our photographs all over the side of these buses and stuff and just have this big rollout, big party. All that went down the tube because they had to, they had to re edit it and redo everything. So it took an extra seven, eight months. Okay. And everybody kept going, where's season one?

You guys really didn't do anything. Okay. And now it's it's coming out. It's coming out. And then Well, we figured I asked the executive producer, one of the ones that was friendly, and I said, what's a good number if you would like to be asked back for season two?

And she goes, well, if you, you know, depending on who they have you following, if you're following a good lead in, you know, that could make a difference. And she said seven seven hundred and fifty thousand viewers would would probably get you another ad bat. I said, alright. So we did the premiere and the overnights came in at a 500,000. Wow.

Just blew the doors off of it. And for nine years, our numbers never went down. So we were off to the races and I had a new crew. I had a new career. At sixty two, started off with a new one.

At sixty two. And see, and then it didn't even dawn on me that I was 62 and doing a new career. It was just like, I actually found it to be fun. Yeah. I learned a lot, you know, from from a technical aspect of, you know, how TV is made and things you can do, things you can't do.

Just little stuff that that the public probably isn't aware of, and they go like, no. I never thought about that, but that makes sense. And so, that's why it didn't come out until 02/2013. Got it. So it was delayed on that.

So that's why you were sworn to secrecy there. Yeah. So that's I guess when most people talk to you, they wanna talk to you about, below deck, and they wanna talk to you about your book, Running Against the Tide, and also your most recent program, Oxygen, which is, I'm sorry. Your most recent program, The Deadly Waters, which is on Oxygen and also streaming on Peacock. I wanna talk to you a bit about your interest in two and also based on your latest interest and and your interest in the Turks And Caicos, Three wheeled motorcycles.

So let me ask you. What was do you recall what it was that really sparked your first interest and made you think, I think motorcycles might be the way to go for me? Accidental. Tell us about it. I would I I had owned a motorcycle before we moved down to the islands for I mean, when I go, I go all in.

That's pretty obviously. First year I had my scooter, I put 20,000 miles on it, 19 and change. I was that idiot. I was working at the steel mills, riding this motorcycle to work in the wintertime. You ever try to find a snow tire for a motorcycle?

Yeah. They're all over. I live in Sweden, Lee. Yeah. So it was just But it but in in Saginaw, Michigan, that wasn't a popular thing back then.

Well, actually I was, I was in La Porte, Indiana. That was, that was where the high concentration of steel mills were Gary, Indiana. Okay. You know, that area. And, it was, it was an experience.

And then, of course, my timing being everything that it is Yeah. So exquisite. The bottom fell out of the manufacturing market. Cars weren't selling. We were big.

Our particular town was big on, then Alice Chalmers plant there. So they were big on farm implements and that sort of thing. Well, that tanked. And then the steel industry, Japan came in and, caused us a bunch of grief with the trade wars on that. My apprenticeship that I worked so hard to get was maybe worth the amount of cost to produce it on the piece of paper.

I needed a new job, but back then everybody had two jobs. Okay. You always had two jobs. You couldn't make it on one job. But if I recall the steel industry paid quite well, depending on what job you had.

Paid very well. You know, I can remember late late seventies. I think I made $61,000 that year counting overtime. Wow. And for the late seventies, '70 '8, that was like it's crazy money.

So I remember you were telling me one time that you went into, to cash your weekly paycheck. That's when I was hanging high steel. I made more money hanging high steel than I did in, in the, steel industry. Okay. And the manufacturing end of it.

And I took a paycheck in to get a cash because we moved a lot. So you didn't have, like, an address you could put on a checkbook. Yeah. Anything like that. So we didn't have a checkbook and everything was cash.

And, the woman looked at the check and she just, her eyes got really big. And she said, where did you find yourself a job that pays you this much money every month? That's only for one week. Nice. Very nice.

And she and she just fell over. She it's like she was talking to a, whatever, but god had just walked into the room. So was it, so after you spent some time driving around the colder parts of the world, you recognized that cold wasn't your thing, And then you what what took you down to the Turks and Caicos? A friend of mine had flown down to Grand Cayman, and he had his own plane, but he had to stop and fuel up. He stops in the Turks and Caicos and fuels up, and they spend a day or so there and having a good time, what's not to enjoy?

Yeah. The prettiest beaches I've ever seen in my life, white as sand, beautiful water, and he comes back and he says, they've got a restaurant down there for lease. He said, you should go down and take a look at it. And of course, I my second job, like I said, everybody had two jobs. Yeah.

My second job was tenant bar at the local country club. Okay. Which qualified me as an expert. Of course it did. So I flew down, came back, told Maryann about it.

And I said, this is where we wanna go. And she's like, what do you mean we? Yeah. Well, I mean, I got five kids. You had you already had five kids then.

Yeah. So we wasn't exactly in the picture. So we were seven. So we ended up, loaded everything up in the store in a container, had it taken driven down to the Port Of Miami, put on a ship. We flew down there.

Totally. Have you ever read the book Don't Stop the Carnival by Herman Wouk? Oh, it's a great one about Saint Thomas. Great, great book. And it was about, you know, about a guy in New York that, just wanted to get away, had a mild heart attack, and island living was the life for him.

Name was Norman Paperman. Norman Paperman. And away he went. Well, I was the quintessential Norman Paperman. Alright.

I had no clue. Buy water, and then everybody that works in the government is a relative of somebody else that works in the government. So, like, if you wanted to hire somebody, I thought, you know, I can import all the help I need. Right. Come work in paradise.

This is easy. Well, no, you can't because you have to have work permit and your work permit stage that it's only good if they have full employment on the island. Okay. Now it doesn't make any difference if there's a job there and nobody on the island wants it, regardless of the fact that they don't want it. You can't have it.

Okay. Because it's possible that somebody else could want it. Maybe probably not a snowball's chance in hell of anybody taking that job, but they're not giving it away to anybody else. Period. So how did you get down there and get it sorted?

Well, I had, I had to become an, a manager, so you have to invest a certain amount of money, which damn near broke us, but we did it and we managed to stay in business. I mean, I didn't realize that when you hired bartenders and cooks and stuff like that, and they were Islanders that they didn't call it stealing. They called it teefing T E E F I N G teething. Teething. And, that's just the way things ran down there.

You're if you're a bartender, you made what you got paid. You made your tips plus whatever you could steal. Okay. So, you know, I'm looking at the end of the night and my bartender, his tip jar is like, it's got more money in his tip jar than I've gotten the till. Right.

Cause he's giving away your liquor and getting paid for it and putting the money in his pocket. Yeah. And if you try to fire somebody, oh, sure you can fire them, but you gotta pay them. You have to keep paying them for ninety days, full salary. Plus you got to pay the guy that you hired to take his place.

And he also is going to steal from you. I was used to having like a water bill, but not one that approached 5 figures every month. Right. So like in in the, don't stop the carnival, did you have to fly get down when the water boat went by on the Mondays or it was something like that? He had to start a fire on the bus.

You you actually called and they would send a tanker truck out and fill up your system. Okay. And the, three years that we lived there, never took a hot shower. Your electricity bill was more than your rent Mhmm. To put your kids in school, private school.

Yeah. Yeah. They they really had an aversion to, shall we say, the middle class stature. Right. So when you were when you were down there, at some point, we talked about you had a three wheel motorcycle, which I'm trying to get my head around the the x I can't really make out what kind of a machine that was.

It seems like it was maybe you could talk a bit about that. I know that was, like, one of your modes. Kinda homemade. Yeah. But it didn't look like it.

Looked like it might have been made from a, you know, a new start up company that was somebody said, I got an idea. And, you know, they sat around in their backyard with their buddy drinking beer, and they came up and they built one. Alright. It had what now would be called the springer front end because the, the front forks were extended out forward. Yeah.

And you had two rear wheels on the back, chain driven, of course. Nice. Not real stable. They would flip over, and they had these big round banana tires on it. K.

That they were just like they looked like donuts. Alright. Like like you brought them on the beach kind of thing. Well, yeah. Well, we didn't really have any roads to speak of.

We had a a place that when we used to go to our go home, you'd have to drive over what they called Oowah Hill. K. And the reason they called it Oowah Hill is because every time they bring tourists over, and the only way to get down to Turtle Cove where we lived was you had to go over Oowah Hill and everybody without fail. There are no exceptions to this rule. Yeah.

You'd reach the top of that hill and they would see this 10 different shades of blue, aqua blue in the water where the reef would change colors. And, they had a there was a little island in the middle of the cove that was owned by Doc Withy. And he had a little ferry where he'd put his truck on it and then ferry it across with all of his supplies and stuff. Alright. Like a cable like a hand John cable kinda ferry?

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. And his I remember things were so expensive. He used to get shelf milk and a carton of that.

It's like $8 for a half gallon. When you say shelf milk, you mean, like, in a tetra pack, a a container? It'll last you two months. Alright. Because it need to because you dispensed it with an eye dropper.

That's how valuable it was. Yeah. I bet. A a rum and coke was the coke cost you more than the rum. So when you got poured a drink at a bar and you order rum and coke, the glass, you would fill it that much up with rum.

Yeah. Put in a couple of ice cubes because water's at a premium, and then splash a little Coke on top of it, and that was it. Nice. That reminds me, I know you spent some time in, was it Yost was it Yost Van Dyke or Foxy's Foxy's was? Yeah.

And I remember I went in there. And for the listeners, so it was a setup where you go in there with your charter guests. You write the boat name. It's just like a, you know, a school notebook, one of these marble these black and white marble notebooks. And you write the name of the boat, and then underneath it, they would just have a tally.

So you go you just put a strike, and then every you know? And when you get to five, you put a line through it, and they charge you $5 for for each strike. And that would be it, and you leave a tip and you go. And I remember charter guests were like, I'm really gonna get over on them, and I'm gonna fill this cup all the way up with rum and put a splash of Coke in there. And the bar people are just laughing because the Coke is the expensive part, not the rum.

That's exactly what you're saying. You Americans really got over on us. It was like, you pots. Yeah. Let let me turn to, one of the I believe this was on film, and you can correct me.

One second. One thing about riding that three wheeled trike. Oh, tell me. We had Turtle Cove, which was the only marina in town Yeah. Around the whole island to speak of.

And then you had, residential place called Grace Bay, which had the most pristine beach and water I have ever seen anywhere in the world and I'm still traveling. Nice. And we would ride the trike down to Grace Bay. Maybe you'd see somebody, but more often than not, you wouldn't see anybody. I mean, damn sure you wouldn't see any tracks in the sand.

Yeah. Just like nobody ever lived there. You were, like, seeing things that hadn't been seen by the human eye forever. And we'd stop halfway down, take our clothes off, and go jump in the water, swim for an hour, and get back out, kind of dry off Yeah. Or or lay in the sun until we were sort of dry, Get back on the bike and keep going.

But it was one of the yeah. It was just one of those ideal situations where you didn't care if somebody walked up or not. They didn't care. They didn't care. More often than not, they they were and it might be the only people you see all day.

Yeah. This was in the mid eighties and there might've been in high season. Might've been 5,000 people on the island maybe. And it was like the wild, wild west. Let me talk about the motorcycles of the sea.

People people sometimes call them jet skis. Now I know you've got some experience with some jet skis that may or may not have gotten off the leash that were in supposedly in the control of some charter guests. To me, if you're running jet ski, you're off the leash anyhow. Well, there's that. Yeah.

Something's wrong with you. Yeah. Fair enough. So you had a jet ski that a charter guest had, and, they didn't put their they didn't put the, the kill switch attachment, the lanyard. They didn't secure it to themselves.

No, they didn't. They were out there full blast. Might have been a little alcohol involved in that. Maybe. Maybe.

They both fall off. And of course, you know, the throttle is supposed to shut itself down, but it doesn't, it's still wide open. And I'm watching through I'm on the aft deck and I'm watching through the binoculars and I'm just going shit. Now I gotta go out and get these two idiots before they get killed. And there's no directional on this jet ski.

It's gonna go where it wants to go. Right. And it's going very fast. So I grabbed the mate, the tender, which I think was like a 34, 30 six foot contender. I tell them, I said, let's get these.

Now there's a couple of words I threw in there that these let's get these charter guests. Those are the words you're looking for. Yeah. Charter guests. That's what I was looking for.

Let's get them out of the water and safe. And then we'll go see if we can't, for lack of a better term, wrangle this jet ski. Yeah. We get him out of the water and Charlie, Charlie Waters, he started to say something and I went, no. Nothing.

Not a word. I don't wanna hear anything out of your mouth. There's nothing you can say that's going to help me feel any, anything but animosity towards you right now. And I told him, and I said, I said, now let's go track down this jet ski and it's flying. And we were fortunate we had a contender, which was a pretty fast boat at that time, twin three hundreds on it, so we could get up to sixty, sixty five if we had to.

Nice. And so we're chasing it down. Then I said, now when we get close, I said, You ever been out west? And he goes, Nope. I said, Well, this is going to be a little like bulldogging.

I said, You're going to have to get the boat really, really close. In fact, you're probably going to be touching the jet ski. I said, and once you make contact with the jet ski, do not break off unless you're going to run ashore. And if you do have to break off, let the jet ski go and let it run ashore and get totaled out. I don't care.

Right. So he gets he gets it up next to it, and he said, you ready? And said, well, not really. There's other ways I'd rather spend the afternoon than doing this. But he gets up and he bumps into it, and it doesn't really maintain the contact I want.

Kinda bounces off. Yeah. And then he eases in a little bit slower and a little bit slower and he finally makes contact and he's, you know, Siamese twins. Yeah. I jump off and get on the ski, get it stopped, and, felt very grateful that I had, survived that experience.

I'd say that's a bit like a I'd say if nothing else, you know, that does make you a badassly. Well, it would it definitely gets your heart pumping. Yeah. I'd say. And Charlie used to like he used to like to lay awake at night and think of shit that he could do to mess with the crew.

He was that charter guest. He was thinking things up. And finally the, executive producers came down and said, Charlie, just enjoy your vacation. Stop trying to be a TV producer. Number one, you're not any good at it.

Number two, you're gonna get somebody killed. Got it. So you think he did that intentionally? Oh, I know he did. Oh, okay.

Alright. I hadn't picked that up. Oh, yeah. Very deliberate. And he did a lot of things that were deliberate.

He inserted himself into the galley because the food wasn't coming out quick enough. Mhmm. So him and his buddies were gonna go in and help prepare a five star meal for him and his buddies. Yeah. Good.

I just went in and I said, Charlie. He goes, Yeah, Cap. I said, they, it's either that, or if I can find one on this island, you'll be eating McDonald's. Did they leave? Yeah.

But it was we're just trying to help. We figured they could use some help because things were running a little late. And that's when they, executive producer came down and said, Charlie, you gotta stop trying to be a TV producer. Yeah. He's the guy he chartered a couple of times.

Didn't he see the charter guest who came back several times? Yeah. He came back three times, before I managed to piss him off where he didn't come back a fourth time. All right. Well, good.

Good job. Well, well done, sir. Well done. Oh my god. It was so bad.

So, I wanna bring back in so I see that you're wearing a Can Am shirt, and I also know that you're a Can Am ambassador. So my question to you, how is it that you came to be a Can Am ambassador, and what does that mean? They didn't want me because I my youthful exuberance. They wanted you for your? Insanity.

Okay. Well, they they picked they found the right guy then. I was I was willing to do just about anything. To be quite honest, I I was probably a little more than naive, so I didn't I didn't know what to charge. And so I was probably way under charging my my value and which they were happy about.

But the way that I always looked at that is a good deal is only a good deal if both parties are happy. Yeah. Then it's a good deal. Now, when we finally came to our first deal, they gave me a brand new bike to drive around for a couple of years, no charge. All I had to do was pay for the insurance.

No, I didn't even have to pay for the insurance. I just had to pay for gas. So far, it sounds like a pretty sweet deal. That was it. And then there was a chunk of cash that went along with it.

They gave me what they, you know, what my deliverables were gonna be, how many posts I had to make on my social media. Mhmm. And I thought, well, hell, this is alright. I said, write the contract up, and let's let's do it. Get it done.

Yeah. Well, tell me what you do when you're out riding with the bike. Anything I want. Yeah. Where do you like to go?

What what's, what's a weekend cruise look like for you? A nice daytime cruise is you start out and you go down to, Highway 27 off of 595. Sure. You remember that. Yeah.

And stop at a truck stop there. It's called, cafe twenty seven and it's a combination truck stop and bike stop. Now, 27 is that's a tollway, right? 27 is a tollway or close to it. 27 is just a North South highway.

Yeah. Four two lanes going north, two lanes going south. And it just for our listeners, so 595 runs west out of Fort Lauderdale, like, right out of the port and runs out of East and west. East and west. And then this is the intersection which runs north and south, and that's I guess you're out in the Everglades there.

Right? You're as pretty isolated as you can get. Yeah. It's not the kind of place you wanna have to break down because they got some big mosquitoes out there. And even bigger alligators.

Yeah. They'll carry your ass off. Yeah. You ride down there and on a given Thursday through Sunday, there'll be a couple of hundred motorcycles there. Wow.

And they'll have live music, food, couple of bars. All the bikes are backed in. It looks like a, like a scene at a roadhouse. Nice. So this podcast is called ADV cannonball podcast, and it's basically the purpose of this is to drive conversation around this and to educate those who are doing it.

And I know that we've talked about it in our in our other chats. So my question to you is on your amazing Can Am machine that you have, would you consider doing this Kitty Hawk, North Carolina out to Redondo Beach at the October, ADD cannonball? Yeah. I mean, you had me at cannonball. Yeah.

I figured as much. Well, cause I was, I keep thinking about the, the race. They used to have a Cannonball run. It's exactly. Exactly.

Made a movie about it with, Burt Reynolds, Jerry Rafferty. I would be in for that. Yeah. The, it's interesting. They they made the cannonball because just as you said, they they used to be a race.

Right? It used to be a re it used to be a race. And now, they've made it so that Still still could be. You never know. Yeah.

I mean, there but it's actually a rally. Right? It's a rally so that there's ways you can you can win by you can win a rally by going and taking you can get extra points by going to certain places which are off the beaten trail. And, Aaron not like cross the finish line first? No.

Well, I have to say you do get points for being first, but you can also get points for going and doing the extra the extra so let's say you're going from a to b, but you can go a to b, and then there's sort of halfway between. There's a jaunt off to c where you can pick up extra points for going through that area. And it's just Are there are there, like, rules? There are rules. There's actually, yeah, they're there.

I know. I know. I'm asking you because if there's, if there's rules, that means they're there to be broken. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, as that's I'm sorry. I'm just like, uh-huh. There's rules. There's rules. Yeah.

I work around those. So, And and I can I can deal with them? Yeah. So here's the the interesting part is that, we talked about whether or not your your bike would be able to do that. And the truth is that when I talked to Aaron about it, he's like, Taylor.

He said a Prius with bald tires can get to these extra points. So your machine is well capable of achieving any of these. So, yes, you, sir, would be welcome to go for it. So it sounds like you've had a lot of amazing experiences since since I last saw you in person. The the TV shows That's true.

The, you have done, you have done so much. And, and as you went to the Emmy's fantastic, got nominated twice for Emmy's, lost both times, went to the Emmy's as a presenter to give away the trophies, Nice. Which was pretty cool. Yeah. A lot of, a lot of doors had been opened that people only think about or dream about that.

How cool would it be to be able to do something like that? And then when you get to do it, you know, I got to throw out the first pitch at a Marlins game with my grandson. What a memory for him. Yeah. And it was, just a lot of stuff like that.

Those doors aren't open to everybody. Yeah. It's true. And then when you take time sometimes to grab yourself a cocktail and sit back by the pool and nobody else is there and it's kinda quiet and you just reflect on how fortunate, you know, your life has been all through no fault of your own. And you don't know you don't know why it happened.

You don't know how long it'll keep going, but it sure does feel good. Yeah. That's nice. It's nice to, it's nice to have the opportunity to chat with you about that as well. And, I just wanna say that's the offer is still open for you.

If you wanna have one more really fun adventure, you can join us in the fight join us in the cannonball driving across the country. I'm I'm given that some serious consideration. I'm gonna talk to, Jonathan, my sponsor. I did talk to Aaron, and Aaron said we would have to have a, I know you don't like the word celebrity, so I'll say, a captain. We'd have to have an award for the, the captain, the TV captain.

We gotta give a I gotta give me something here. You know? If you don't let me use a celebrity, you gotta have something. But we're gonna have to have an award specifically for you. I suppose we could think of something silly.

We'll think of something fun. And on that, sir, I think that is a fantastic note to say. It has been a pleasure to catch up with you, and, and I look forward to the next time we have a chance to meet face to face. Anytime anytime at all, Taylor. It's, I've always enjoyed our conversations, and every time we have one, it leaves me looking forward to the next one.

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That was great, Taylor. Thanks for doing that. He's a he's a fun dude, and, boy, I wish someone would give me a a motorcycle of any kind, to, to ride around and post pictures. That's a really great deal he's got there. Yeah.

I think I think it's a pretty good mutually beneficial relationship there in the sense that, you know, he is he is the he is the market segment that they are appealing to. And, yeah, and he's he's he's I think I think it's a win win for both of them, so I think that's fantastic. And, yes, I do comment on that in there. I'm like, hey. You know?

You know, it's a good gig if you can get it. Yes, sir. And, anyway, it was it was nice to, to catch up with him and talk about old times and also talk about some of the fun experiences that he's had in the, in the yachting since the time that I last saw him, which was in 02/2013, we saw face to face. Yeah. That was that was a little while ago, but we're not gonna talk about our age.

No. We will not. Indeed not. Okay. And, and with that, I believe you got some Cannonball news to share with us.

Yeah. We'll go through it quick because that that was a that was a great interview. So we still have one GSA for rent. If anyone is interested in that for the Cannonball, please let me know. Motorcycle shipping spots, there's one spot open to the start and four spots open at the end of the rally to get you home.

And let's talk about some sign ups. We got Hunter Ray. He's from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and he's on a brand new f 900 GSA, which is a sweet ride. Actually, we follow him. He's yeah.

He runs the ADV Vet, group, and they're actually running a a rally in Florida right now, actually. Nice guy. And, Eric Eric Malley is from Traverse City, Michigan, and he's on the best bike, which is obviously a twelve fifty GSA, and I'll save the rest of the I'll save the rest of the, the new entries for another podcast. You're not, you're not biased about that, r twelve fifty GSA, are you? No.

It's it's just simply the best bike, and I think everyone is just out of it. Alright. And if anybody wants to contribute to the ADV Kennel playlist, please email. The information can be found in the show notes and Yeah. And that's it.

It's, podcast@adbcannonball.com. Please follow us on all the socials at @adbcannonball. And that's all I got, Taylor. Anything on your end? That is it.

Thank you thank you all very much for tuning in. Alright. Thanks, Taylor, and roll the outro. Thanks for listening to the ADV Cannonball podcast. Please give us a five star review on your preferred podcast platform.

That really helps us with the algorithm gods. All hail the algorithm gods. You can buy us a coffee on buymecoffee.com/advcannonball. Or directly help save this sinking ship for the price of a pint @patreon.comslashadvcannonball. Follow us on all the socials with the handle at adv cannonball.

If you'd like to send us a question or comment for the air, or if you are a musical artist and want your royalty free music played on our podcast, or if you'd like to contact us for advertising opportunities, email us at podcast@advcannonball.com. Thanks for listening. And remember, don't be an ADV weenie. Keep your right hand cranked and your feet on the banks.