I speak with Chris Jester. Chris has built a family business in Orange County that started with SailTime and has since evolved in to a small empire including a school, charter and other new additions. Have a listen to hear about what it's like to enjoy the treasures this area has to offer. Hint: Catalina is only a small part. Please download and subscribe.
I speak with Chris Jester. Chris has built a family business in Orange County that started with SailTime and has since evolved in to a small empire including a school, charter and other new additions. Have a listen to hear about what it's like to enjoy the treasures this area has to offer. Hint: Catalina is only a small part. Please download and subscribe.
Welcome to the experience sharing podcast. My name is George Bonelli, the founder of sale time, and one of the first to leverage technology and process to bring asset sharing to a larger audience. In the show, we'll explore the many facets of the sharing economy globally, starting in the marine industry, and then expanding further, stick around so you can learn from sharing economy leaders, innovators and practitioners, the ins and outs of the business, what's working and what's not. So you can apply it as a consumer or business owner or budding entrepreneur. Now let's get started. Hey, everyone, today we're joined by Chris Jester. Chris is the owner of sale time, Orange County. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Chris has been a sale time franchisee for over 15 years now and really understands the value of creating an ecosystem that serves many of the needs of his customers in his local community, which is Southern California, or the Orange County area. Chris has edited Sailing school a Charter Business is a yacht broker and is currently adding a brand new business to combat some of the challenges that the pandemic has brought to the table. Chris has an MBA from UC Irvine, and has used his education and street smarts to be one of the more successful sale time locations in the sale time network. So I've known Chris and Angela for quite a while and they are a great team. I'm always impressed with their ability to live life on their terms. And more than one occasion, they've managed to travel the world together for extensive periods of time. About four years ago, they actually returned with their kids in tow from a year long globe charting experience. So does that kind of a good summary, Chris?
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, it is. Thanks, George. Good to talk to you.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. Thanks for spending some time with us here today. Later on in the near the end. So you can be thinking about this. I'm going to ask you to share kind of a fun story from some of your travel adventures. So maybe something from traveling Croatia perhaps? Sure. Yeah, Croatia was great. Cool. Cool. So yeah. Let's just jump right in here, because that was a lot in terms of an intro. And there's a lot, a lot of things to unpack there and a lot of things that you're, I know we've kind of chatted beforehand, there's a lot of things you have going on seems like you're really busy these days, which is an interesting, dynamic or reality. So why don't we just take a second here, so everybody has context, when you talk about sale time, Orange County, or the OSI and the extent of the ecosystem you built. So our listeners have a good proper context.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, as you know, we started sale time in 2005. We started with one boat. And now we have about 18 boats. And basically, sail time allows, you know, us to create and manage a small group of partners that share sailing yacht, one of the partners in the group is the owner. We essentially act as their property manager and go out and find success. People that want to lease the yacht for one, two or three years. And that's actually worked very well for us in the last 15 plus years, because I think most people have found that chartering a boat isn't kind of what they wanted. The boats don't have the same amount of options that sail time boats have on them, and they're not as clean or well maintained. The other I think, really good idea that sail time originally came up came up with was to start with a new boat and only keep it in the fleet for five years. And that has been very helpful because boats get hard to maintain. And as your fleet grows, they get even harder to maintain a bunch of them. So that was a good, you know, idea on your part when you guys founded the company, and back in 2001, so thanks for doing that.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, you're welcome.
Unknown Speaker :Since we started the company, we found that we needed a sailing school that could train people to help high enough a level and because if one person in the group messed it up, it messed the boat up for everybody else. So we created our own sailing school called the Newport Beach sailing school and provided private instruction on the boats that the members are on. So they learn the document on that specific boat, they learned the electronics on that specific boat, they learned all the systems on that boat. But a lot of people came in having some sailing skills, but they didn't know all those kind of ownership aspects like all the systems so that was very helpful in creating our own sailing school. And then, during the downturn, we found that this is in the Great Recession 2008 2009 2010. We found that a lot of people just wanted to do like a one day here one day there. And since we had lost some of the members during that great recession, we had some open time and the nice hotels around here. And some of the people wanted to do just a day sale. And we thought, well, we don't want to do bear boat, the bear boat, the boats get trashed. And we didn't want to have to bear about our boats just to make revenue because it every dime we made in revenue, we'd probably lose in maintenance. So what we did is we went to a captain charter model, where people could just go out for a day sale with the Newport Beach sailing charters, which we've formed. And but there was one of our captains, which did two things. One, the captains weren't, didn't have as much work during the Great Recession. They needed some work. And so that helped us get more work for the captains. And it was it seemed to work out well all around, and that that business has grown to where we have what we call venture charters where a captain takes a group or a family to Catalina for a multi day trip like a three or four day trip to Catalina. We do a lot of day's sales. And before the pandemic we were doing a fair amount of corporate events as well where a company wanted to to incentivize they're they're kind of sales winners and we would do a group sale with a several boats and we do a race so that's what the Newport Beach sailing charters did.
Unknown Speaker :That's cool Do you thinking about in terms of Airbnb and things like that because you talked about property manager earlier but how do you promote those do you promote on like Airbnb experiences? I'm sure I'm sure that's one of many different ways but what do you would take
Unknown Speaker :promotion you Airbnb experiences, I did notice the percentage that they wanted was very high. And so we kind of stayed against stayed away from that. We networked with all the concierge is from the local large hotels, like Pelican Hill resort, Marriott, and places like that, and just paid a smaller commission to the concierge is
Unknown Speaker :how has that worked out? It's worked out very well. earlier. I'd mentioned that you know, you're busy and you Got a new business that you're reading in to kind of combat the current COVID pandemic realities? What impacts has COVID-19 had on your business? And what are some of the changes you are making as a result?
Unknown Speaker :Sure. One of the things that I realized during this kind of March in April period was it we actually had the opposite effect that we had during the Great Recession. During the Great Recession, we had less owners and members, but the sailing school and sailing charter seemed to take off versus with the pandemic. The sale time members found social distancing on their boat with just their family was a great way to get out of the house and stop being so cooped up. So actually sale time during the March and April and May period has stayed very strong. But our sailing school and our captain Charter Business fell about 82%. And so that those two business units had grown to be about 40% of our revenues. And so we were quite worried about what we're going to do, how long was this going to last? Where we're going to be down, you know, 82% in both of those business units for the rest of the year. And so we started thinking about what we had done in the past. And you always hear companies, there's three things you can do during a recessionary period, you can reduce spending, and you could increase marketing or you can make a pivot. And the last time we pivoted, which was adding the sailing school and the sailing charter, and I kind of felt pivoting during this period was probably the right thing to do as well. And that pivot came in the form of a company wanting to get out of their Duffy business that hadn't given much of thought that was actually the the Irvine company that randomly At the marina division, they wanted to get out and just focusing focus on their slips. And so they sold us therefore Duffy boats and we felt that the Duffy business was going to be a good one because one Same thing with sail time where they could social distance on the Duffy boat, just with their family. It was a much lower price point just $100 an hour and they take it out for two hours and they could sail by themselves they don't need a captain. And so we felt that the Duffy business rentals which we called Pacific Electric boat rentals with our website rent electric boats calm would be a nice replacement for that loss of revenue from the sailing school on sailing charter.
Unknown Speaker :When you take a second just to kind of enlighten folks that might not be aware of what a GFI boat is just going to expand on that a bit.
Unknown Speaker :Sure. And Duffy boat is a small electric boat about 20 feet long that is sailed in a harbor and it's It's not something you can take out of the harbor. It's really literally a floating cocktail cruise. They can fit about 10 people on the boat. It's super easy to drive, anybody can drive it and it's just a ton of fun. And in Newport Harbor, you have beautiful homes that line the whole harbor. And it's kind of like a howdy neighbor type of feel, versus some of the other marinas along our coasts which are big parking lots with you know, thousands of boats like Dana Point. Or Long Beach. Newport Beach is much more of a neighborhood feel where you don't have huge marinas with thousands of boats in them. You just have boats behind people's houses with the houses that are lining almost the whole harbor.
Unknown Speaker :You're literally putting around the harbor,
Unknown Speaker :no sound, you know, no fumes, just quiet peaceful. You know, having a glass of wine.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I kind of when I when you were describing it, I was thinking it's kind of like literally a Floating living room, you can actually I think, close and close them too. So if you have some, whether it's missing or something like that you can actually close it in a little bit and keep yourself,
Unknown Speaker :you know, they have windows and you raise up and down, right.
Unknown Speaker :So I'm curious, what makes cell time Orange County unique.
Unknown Speaker :I mean, I think that we have all of the offerings where we can take somebody from not knowing much knowledge, put them through the sailing school, then give them a try before they buy with sail time, so they can lease a boat for one, two or three years. And during that period, since we have every size beneteau and we have a lagoon catamarans people can get a really excellent try before you buy, I want to try a beneteau 35.1 or I want to move a few months later and try 38.1 or 41.1 or the 46.1. So you're really getting all of the brand new benefits. at your disposal over that one, two or three year lease, and then we can go and offer them a boat if they're interested in making a purchase after that. So you really have soup to nuts, you know?
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. It's a and this is your this is your family business for you, right?
Unknown Speaker :Absolutely. Um, my wife and I have run the business together, and I've owned it together the whole, you know, 15 plus years. And actually, with the start of the Duffy business, my son is who's 15 now is one of the doc boys. So he's loving it.
Unknown Speaker :That's cool. Yeah, so you started to allude to and mention some of the different models but what does your fleet look like once you elaborate on that some?
Unknown Speaker :So our fleet is a fleet of new boats. So we have a 2018 beneteau 35.1. We have three beneteau 38 point ones, 117 and 219. We have three beneteau 4141 point one, we have two of those that are 2019. And we have a 17 to 41. We have to beneteau 45. And we also that are vintage 15 and 17. And then we have the awesome beneteau 46.1, which is a 2019. And then we have a lagoon, for 50 new catamaran that I'm actually bringing into the fleet on at July 1, which will be a new lagoon 450 with the flybridge, which that's the probably the most awesome boat. And then we also have a lagoon 400 and then we are our oldest boat in our fleet is 133 that is almost about to timeout.
Unknown Speaker :So what does that mean timeout.
Unknown Speaker :So one of the brilliance of sail time was bring new boats in and keep them in the fleet for about five years and then take them out in the fleet. This one the owner kept in for five years and then didn't want to take it out. So we said If you refresh the boat, you can leave it in for two more years. By refresh, we meant get new sales, new cockpit cushions, redo some electronics, you know, make sure that teak is all perfect. That's what we mean by refresh. And so he's in that kind of two year extension process right now.
Unknown Speaker :Cool, smart. That's a win win for everybody. I
Unknown Speaker :think the biggest question that owners have is what am I going to do after the five year period. So with our base, we give them three options. One is they can just take the boat out of the fleet will take the members off of it, and they enjoy it as their own boat. A lot of people we know buy it kind of near near retirement, but they need to buy the boat while they're working so they can get the large section 179 tax write off. The second thing that people can do is they were a broker, we can sell the boat for them. So that's the second option. The third option is they can To refresh the boat and keep it in the fleet for two more years.
Unknown Speaker :Cool, cool. You just mentioned section 179. So why don't you just spend a minute on that? So it's clear what that is?
Unknown Speaker :Sure. Section 179 is a small business accelerated depreciation, it's an incentive buy in our tax code, to basically incentivize small businesses to invest in their business for capital equipment. For example, trucks for a trucking company servers for a computer company or hosting company or a boat if you're if you have a boating business. So that that allows this year, you can take up to a million dollars and reduce your tax burden with that. So
Unknown Speaker :yeah, so that's a pretty important piece of accounting knowledge that a business owner should be aware of and clearly should consult their accountant for such
Unknown Speaker :detail. You have to materially participate in the business that way means you need to spend significant time and treat it like a business. But if you work with your accountant and make sure that you do treat the boat boating business like a real business, then you should not have a problem.
Unknown Speaker :Cool. Yeah, that sounds really interesting. I'm sure that makes makes for a big part of the conversation for a lot of folks. Yep. So do any or many of your members come from places outside of your immediate local area?
Unknown Speaker :Oh, yeah, we definitely do. We have one of our guys who is a member for a long time named Roger trivet. He was a member and but he lived in, you know, Park City, Utah. And but he always had a dream of owning a boat. And a couple years ago, he bought a beneteau 38.1 and put it in our fleet and he just flies in. But we also have members from all over Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Texas, even so There you go Josh.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah if you think about that, it's it's a pretty unique reality that you having a boat and using it even once a month makes sense for so many people and being able to come into town maybe they have family there whatever. Coming to Southern California for a couple of days a long weekend something but also having the ability to get out on the boat on the water there sail to Catalina for one of those days. That's just a wonderful way to spend some time on the water.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, if you really think about it, there's a lot of people that own boats that live out of state. But you know, when a storm comes up, they don't really know what's going on with their boat in the Marina. They don't have enough people to check on everybody's boats so we're really the feed on the street for the owner that's out of town to make sure their boats fine when when a storm comes up. And check the Dodger check the sales, check the dock lines, you know, make sure everything's good to go.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, we have there's actually plenty of stories In the sale time network around storms rolling in coastal areas, hurricanes, that owners did not have to lift a finger were those that are running the bases like yourself in the network are handling all of the the details and issues and concerns associated with making the decisions pulling the boat out, putting the boat on the hard, it battening it down, you're tying it off correctly, you know, all the things you would need to do. And then interestingly enough, one of the things with a story like that I forget which hurricane with a hurricane hit the East Coast. And a large swaths of East Coast and so, you know, we have bases in Baltimore, we have bases in Virginia Beach, we're based in Florida. And it just so happens that in each different area, they dealt with it differently. Some decided to leave the boats in the water some decided to pull the boats out and put them on the hard. And it turns out that those in the places where we pull boats out those that live boats in the water got a lot of damage. Those that left the boats in the water, the boats that were on the hard, were damaged more. So it's like the local knowledge kind of won out with regards to how to manage your local fleet. So that was a really interesting piece of insight that I had come away with in terms of how important it is to be able to apply that local knowledge to how you're managing your your particular business.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, yeah, it's all about local knowledge. Luckily, we don't have to deal with hurricanes.
Unknown Speaker :Yes, but that is a that is a definitely an improvement. So how have you and you meant mentioned before you know, the sailing school and the sailing school being a major source of leads and whatnot, but have you integrated your school any more than that, or how tightly is the school coupled with your shared asset model or models?
Unknown Speaker :I mean, it's we allow when we first started sale time, the sailing school was only for sale time. Members. But we found that there was a lot of people that wanted to just take sailing lessons and they weren't ready to join sales times. And that's why we, during the recession, Great Recession, we took the sailing school public and rebranded it. And it's, it's coupled. And it but it is still separate. So people can join the sailing to the sailing classes, and they don't have to join sail time.
Unknown Speaker :Got it? So, again, some of these questions, hopefully, there's not much redundancy, but I wanted to talk a little bit about the shared model and what's working well, in this current environment. I know you mentioned earlier some things about COVID. But I know there's some international travel and travel concerns around that. So what's working well,
Unknown Speaker :we actually we have seen an uptick in in business because people have called us and said, Hey, you know, my trip got canceled. I was planning to go to it. Croatia are planning to do a trip to Europe. And they decided to do more what we call an adventure charter or join sail time the money they were going to spend on that international trip they've put towards a boat here, which is actually surprisingly helped us during this period. We were a little bit worried in March and April that it was going to be different but may is definitely proven that this is actually helping boating businesses and I hear rv sales are through the roof as well. So and from talking to the beneteau dealer that I work with in the lagoon dealership that we we work with as well. The boat sales have been very strong during this period least starting from May May March and April was dead everywhere but may has come back and June is both come back very strong.
Unknown Speaker :That's good. Glad to hear. So what initially attracted you to the shared asset model itself, I'm offered And has that held up over time.
Unknown Speaker :So the shared asset model makes so much sense. For boats. If you look around the Marina, even on summer days, 90% of the boats are still sitting in the slip. And so whether you use a boat or you don't use a boat, the boat requires maintenance. And whether you use it or not, there's always going to be the slip fee there. There's always gonna be the maintenance payment, there's always going to be insurance payment. So on a, an asset that depreciates that requires maintenance, whether you use it or not, it just makes sense to share it. I think the insurance industry found that the average boat owner only uses about I don't know two or three times a month. So if you have 27 days that the boats sitting around, why wouldn't you share it if you have to pay for everything anyway. So it really doesn't take away from an owner if he's sharing his boat.
Unknown Speaker :I think the professional management is an important component to that. The fact that you can have someone who knows what they're doing taking care of it and ensuring that your asset is being maintained to the best state possible is a big component to that which makes having to deal with all the difference there is definitely work around managing that member base clearly. So their professional management is is a huge component from the owners point of view.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, that's what I noticed as well. When we initially were thinking about starting the business, we went out and talk to a lot of, you know, boat owners, and they said, I wouldn't share my boat. I had a partner before and he never wanted to do any work. And whenever I wanted to upgrade something like sales or you know, parts on the boat, you know, my partner didn't want to do it. So I don't think partners will work. But we've proven with by putting a manager in the middle of this and just having one owner and the rest Least sees that the partnership really does work because you have one owner, and the other people are lease ease. So you really don't have that kind of argument between, you know, you know, true fractional owners on the boat like you like you do with sale times model is different.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, no. So there is there's literally those, like you say those leases really have no ownership interest in that asset. They're just getting the benefit of the use of the asset. They're getting the experience so they can take those experiences away. And like I said, Your leases are 123 years so I can join sail time Orange County for a year. And if eight months later, I'm like, I'm not using this. I'm not really into sailing as much as I thought I was. I can let that expire and I'm out and I don't have to worry about having to sell a boat or deal with an ongoing cost are correct.
Unknown Speaker :Right. Like unlike unlike true fractional ownership, you'd have to worry about selling your share, which is probably more difficult than selling a whole boat in general, like, yeah.
Unknown Speaker :And having the other parties that are involved in it, approve who you're selling it to. It's just it's really you know, rife with all kinds of interesting challenges. So yeah,
Unknown Speaker :yeah, I would definitely say that the sale time fractional model is a much better model than true fractional ownership.
Unknown Speaker :So have you found that the core sharing model that you started at the beginning is best served by having this ecosystem around it supporting it?
Unknown Speaker :Do you mean by the sailing school and sailing charter? And yes, how do they interact? Do you get a lot of movement from charter customers to members and members to charter and school and all that so how does that think having a sailing school is imperative for a sailing for a sail time base, that is now our number one source of leads for sale time? Is the sailing school. You know, it used to be boat shows when we had four boat shows around here. But the number of boat shows is down. And this year we really haven't had any boat shows because of COVID. So that number of leads that would normally come from a boat show or boat shows has drastically gone down. And so I would say a sailing school is almost imperative to a sail time base. So you have the three functions, you have the sail sailing school, you have sale time lease, and then you have ownership. And they all have they all work together.
Unknown Speaker :I can I can see how they can play off each other pretty well. So as an early entrant in the sharing economy, like you said back in 2005, what major shifts Have you seen just in the last couple of years,
Unknown Speaker :there's a couple shifts. I've seen a lot more acceptance and having to explain the last a lot of people have actually come and say I've been thinking about the sharing, you know, sale time for years and Now I'm ready to do it. Versus, you know, 2000 567 it was we needed to explain it from the ground up. And it took, it was a very long sales cycle. And it was basically reinventing or inventing the wheel versus 2020. People get it, they understand the sharing model, they understand the benefits of leasing, you know, an expensive depreciating asset and are willing to pay for it. So that's, that's the change I've seen.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, clearly, the the sharing economy has benefited from lots of the huge brands out there bringing sharing of all the other types of assets to the masses, cars, homes, clothes, all those all the things and, you know, expect in the future. In this podcast, we'll be addressing many of those different verticals. So I wanted to kind of move to your particular region and the industry in your region. So How has the industry reacted to shared asset sailing or you do a lot of competition in the area with the likes of get my boat or freedom Boat Club
Unknown Speaker :you know get my boat and is kind of like a more of a partner to our sailing Charter Business you know they send us leads for Captain charters so that's that's what get my boat and other the companies like get my boat do. We don't do power boats and so freedom Boat Club hasn't really been a competitor to us directly. Of course it's an alternative somebody could always choose a powerboat over a sailboat. And obviously there in our marketplace when we started there was four bareboat charter clubs. And now it's down to two bareboat charter clubs. So and we don't there are some you know, kind of fractional ownership of power boats and there's a Little onesie twosie guys that are trying to do kind of a, you know, kind of a fractional deal or, you know, fractional ownership deal. So that's what we've seen in the marketplace. So cool. There's a lot of people just renting boats with a captain, kind of legally or illegally where they just say we're going to take, you know, there may be a captain, they're taking some people out on their old boat, and for an inexpensive price and, and putting it up on the internet, kind of, you know, trying to do a little kind of cheap deal. We said we've seen that.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I mean, it's not new that people with boats are always looking for ways to defray some of the costs because they are expensive to own and operate. We know that. Yeah. Yeah. So generationally across your different businesses and over time, what you know, the last several years, do you see any interesting insights around different generations, boomers, Gen X, millennials.
Unknown Speaker :Well, I mean, how our I would say the average person that joins sail time has an interest in it has always been an empty nester for us. And that really hasn't changed. So it's a couples, you know, their kids have left went off to college. And they're really looking for something to do now that their kids have gone now that they're not taking their kids to soccer practice a couple days a week and watching soccer games. And so that's that still remains our number one demographic for for sale time.
Unknown Speaker :That's interesting, because there's a lot you hear lots of stories of young families getting out, you know, getting out together and whatnot. But it's interesting that that your primary audiences empty nester, which clearly makes sense, but it's just interesting to hear that distinction.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, that mean that's it's very strongly skewed into that. I mean, but I also think, I mean, I have kids that are still in grade school that are still playing soccer that are still in Very busy. And I understand it's you're running around every weekend taking your kid to soccer tournaments, and you're driving them to practice in the evening, and you just don't have time for a boat. From what from what I've seen as as a parent. And so I can see, you know, and I look forward to that point where I actually have more diamond. And actually COVID has actually been pretty nice since I haven't been going to soccer games every weekend. And I've been able to actually get out there and vote and do some camping with with the kids where normally we would just be running around the soccer tournaments.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, good. We could definitely hear plenty of stories about people being very thankful for this particular quarantine time and their ability to reconnect with family and spend more time with kids and other parts of their families. And so it's interesting, there's lots of challenges with what's going on now. But there's also plenty of silver linings if you just stop for a minute and get a sense and take stock of what's going on around you. So it's pretty cool. As we're pushing up against the typical length of time, I like to keep these episodes. So what I like to do as we wrap up is get a story of a memorable travel or sailing experience that you can share because I like to let people think about sailing lifestyle and whatnot through, through, you know, the vision they hear when people tell their stories. So do you have anything you think you mentioned earlier, you might have something from Croatia to talk about.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I can talk about crash but actually wanted to take a minute to talk about, you know, Southern California. You know, it's funny, because a lot of people think, oh, there's not really many places to go in Southern California besides just cruising the coast, but we actually have seven islands right off our coast that people visit, but rarely, I mean, most people day sail out of their harbor and then they, you know, go back to their Harbor, but everybody knows about going to Catalina which is tons of fun and you've done it as well. You know, the front side, the back side. Two Harbors, but we actually have Santa Barbara island which is a really cool speck of an island off the west end of Catalina about four hours from Catalina that I've gone to lots of times. We have sinkler many Island, which is about four hours from the Avalon side of Catalina, which is is cool if you have to look at what times to go but there's a really cool code called pyramid Cove on that kind of south eastern side. And then we have all the Channel Islands which is actually the whole reason that I got interested in joining the business with the four islands up off the Channel Islands National Park, which is kind of like the Galapagos of California with painted cave that you can actually it's such a large cave, you can drive a sailboat into it with a mast up and you take a kayak back about a fuse feels like a quarter mile with sea lions all barking around and totally loud and and it's such an interesting island which is Santa Cruz. islands we have one side which is battered by waves and has all these really interesting caves, the northwestern side. And then the south eastern side has these cool sandy beaches with Kobes as well. And I just think that Southern California sailing and especially islands outside of Catalina, are very, very interesting. And that's all reason I actually got into sale time and actually found, you know, the sale time to sell time business was because I was I was thinking, there must be some opportunity with the islands off our coast and voting in the Channel Islands because they're the least used National Park. And so when you get on these islands and you're hiking around, it's kind of like you have the island to yourself. I mean, I've been on Santa Barbara island where the only people on the island were literally the people that I came on my boat with. And the same thing has happened with San Miguel, and it's like, this is my island. You know, I'm ready to plant the flag and it was so exciting. to cruise these islands and be the only people on them. So I think that people should really think about Southern California as a destination, especially during COVID period where people aren't going international right now.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. And I
Unknown Speaker :have to agree because honestly, Aaron and I, one of the more memorable sales that we've ever taken was the sale coming back from Catalina with you. And remember, that was just we set basically a downwind run sale, and just sailed all the way back without a run and had dolphins, three four dolphins with us for hours just diving off the front of the boat and stuff like that. And yeah, that's definitely one of the top three five sales for me and my experience. So Well, Chris, thanks again for your time today. I appreciate you spending some time with us giving us some insights and sharing your views. Have this shared asset model and shared asset economy that we're, we're dealing with. And thanks again for your time. Have a great rest of your day.
Unknown Speaker :Thanks, George, you too.
Unknown Speaker :Thanks for spending time with me today. And before we wrap up, please remember to subscribe to the experience sharing podcast and leave a review at rate this podcast.com slash shared experiences. Lastly, if there's anything I can do to help you in any way from a business point of view, please be sure to visit Patrice iam.com, that's pa te r ic iun.com and feel free to reach out thanks