Couple returns after 14 years at sea

KINGSTON — It’s an idea that has had no small amount of romanticizing: cutting free of one’s mooring lines (both literal and figurative) and setting sail into the sunset, following the wind wherever it blows.

The dream of selling everything, quitting one’s job and sailing the world isn’t an uncommon one among weekend sailors, but all too often this dream remains just a dream.

Not for Leslie Linkkila and Philip DiNuovo, who recently returned to the Port of Kingston Marina following a 14-year journey which took them all over the Pacific and into Southeast Asia aboard their 33-foot cutter, Carina. All told, the husband and wife sailed more than 41,000 nautical miles, collecting countless stories, friends and adventures along the way.

It was on Aug. 13, 2003 that Carina left her homeport of Kingston bound for Neah Bay. Though it would become only the first part of a long journey, Linkkila and DiNuovo’s initial departure came after no small amount of planning, research and preparation.

“It’s a long process,” DiNuovo said. “Do you want to cast off your lines? It’s difficult to actually take the step and quit your job.

“One of the pivotal things that happened was my boss died at age 52, then my best friend died of leukemia at age 52. We just kinda looked at each other and said, ‘We’re not getting any younger, and there’s no guarantee that tomorrow we’re going to be here. So if we’re going to do this, we might as well just do it now,’ ” DiNuovo said.

Prior to their journey, DiNuovo worked as a banker and Linkkila — who has a master’s degree in microbiology — worked in the field of laboratory research tools. The strain of frequent travel and 14-hour work days had begun to wear on the two and the call of adventure became louder.

“I did a lot of traveling. If I never got on another airplane, that would be fine. I’d just as soon travel at four knots under sail,” Linkkila laughed.

After the company Linkkila worked for was sold in December 2002, the two decided that they would set sail the following summer after DiNuovo finished a one-year commitment to his employer.

While DiNuovo worked toward his departure, Linkkila began preparing. “My job was to get rid of our stuff,” she said.

In addition to getting rid of their worldly possessions, Linkkila also learned how to operate a radio modem so they would have access to email while underway.

When, at last, the day had arrived that DiNuovo was free from his job, the pair immediately moved to their new home on the water.

“He had a going-away party [at work] and he put his briefcase in the attic and we moved aboard and we left the next day,” Linkkila said.

Their departure from Kingston was mostly unceremonious, but this was by design. A superstition had taken hold of them, Linkkila said. Believing that if they were to have a farewell party the next day would be met with engine troubles or some other malfunction which would inevitably delay their departure, they instead chose to just leave.

“We didn’t notify a lot of our friends that, ‘This is going to be the day’ and a lot of people frankly thought, ‘Oh, they’re not going to do it,’ ” DiNuovo said.

“I remember calling my mom and dad and saying, ‘We’ve done it! We actually did it,’ ” Linkkila said.

Linkkila and DiNuovo brought a guest along with them. Their cat, Jake, accompanied the two for most of their journey.

From Neah Bay, the couple sailed Carina to San Diego, California; it was their introduction to offshore sailing.

“Basically, it was the very first time we would be sailing offshore,” DiNuovo recalled. “We had never sailed in big seas, so we had to cope with that.”

Linkkila added, “That was the main issue on that trip — not so much wind, but large seas.”

Linkkila also discovered that she needed to find new ways of checking weather reports during the crossing.

“We were used to depending on the NOAA weather [channel] and adjusting to offshore weather,” she said. “Even though we had the radio modem and I [had] studied, we didn’t know all the weather resources that were available to us.”

She added, “Twenty knots of wind in the Puget Sound is not a big issue, but 20 knots of wind in 20-foot seas is.”

After arriving in San Diego, Carina would have to wait out the hurricane season before she would be able to get another taste of the open ocean. When she set sail again, it was for Ensenada, then on to Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta and later El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua. The pair also spent years sailing in southeast Asia, and many an idyllic, secluded island saw the outline of Carina anchored off its shores.

The purpose of their journey soon became less about sailing and more about interacting withthe native people and immersing themselves in the cultures of their new friends.

“No matter where we went, all 14 years, we found that just about anywhere you go, people are just people,” DiNuovo said. “They’re basically good, they’re just like you and me — they want to raise their kids, they want their kids to have a better life than they have. I don’t see how you can be a racist and travel around the world … You find out people are just people, fundamentally the same.”

During their travels, DiNuovo and Linkkila worked to help the people they met. In El Salvador, they raised funds and worked with other sailors to build a school in a rural community. In Panama, they negotiated long-distance with the Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island to build a computer room for a school. Later, while sailing in southeast Asia, they worked to provide a small community in Papua New Guinea with handheld GPS units, which the islanders would use to navigate to the nearest hospital — some 200 miles away by sea.

On Sept. 14, 2017, after 14 years and 32 days traveling the world, Carina rounded the breakwater at the Port of Kingston Marina once again. Remembering their return, DiNuovo recalled the words of a friend shortly before Carina set sail in 2003. The friend had circumnavigated the globe.

“They said, ‘You’re going to be completely different people when you get back. You’re not going to think the same,’ ” DiNuovo said. “They were right.”

Linkkila said, “We sacrificed our careers for what was a much more rewarding thing. You can work and make a lot of money and accumulate a lot of stuff. We don’t own any stuff anymore. We own very little stuff.”

Carina is tied to the dock in Kingston for now, but DiNuovo indicated another adventure could be looming.

“There’s nothing stopping us from leaving again,” he said. “Ensenada is only 12 days away.”

— Nick Twietmeyer is a reporter for Kitsap News Group. Contact him at ntwietmeyer@soundpublishing.com.

Philip DiNuovo and Leslie Linkkila recently returned to the Port of Kingston Marina after sailing their 33-foot sailboat “Carina” around the world. Photo courtesy of Philip DiNuovo and Leslie Linkkila