Chris grew up on British Columbia’s west coast messing about in small boats, eating ridiculous amounts of Dungeness crab and toying with wolf eels, sea cucumbers and giant Pacific octopi. He’s a rescue diver and former crew member of the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue unit in Sidney, BC. When he’s not on MOKEN or exploring our water world, Chris works as an aviation engineer and consultant.

Sandra met Chris on a scuba trip to Egmont in 1999 after returning to BC from a year of diving in New Zealand and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Also a rescue diver and former crew member of the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue, she’s a communications specialist by profession and dreams about one day writing a book. Blogging should be good practice!

Nukaat is the newest member of the family, rescued from almost certain starvation by Cat’s Cradle Animal Rescue. A totally laid back guy, he made himself part of the family in about eight hours and loves hanging out in paper bags, lounging about in shoe boxes or sprawling out full length and belly up on the sofa. When he was a landlubber, Nukaat liked to chase bugs, bunnies and birds. Now on MOKEN, Nukaat’s world has shrunk a little as he hasn’t quite mustered up the courage to explore life on deck beyond the cockpit. So many new sights, sounds and smells! For now, he’s content to eat, sleep and explore all the nooks and crannies on board.

Update #1 (Nov 2012): Nukaat now ventures beyond the cockpit and likes to peek through the scuppers to watch people walk by. He still mostly sticks close to his humans although he has been eying the dock more and you can see the wheels turning as he calculates the distance for his escape.

Update #2 (Jan 2013): Evening dock explorations are now a regular occurance and all the dock boys keep an eye out for him. They call out “Ming, ming, ming” or “Miew, miew, miew” to try and get his attention. And they all say he is very fat. Compared to the little Filipino cats, he is gigantic!

Update #3 (Sept 2013): Nukaat doesn’t like cruising too much yet. Partly because of the noise of the engine and partly because of the motion of the ocean. Although he did have fun one night when we were anchored off Busuanga in Northern Palawan. A flock of small birds was flitting about the deck of the boat chasing flying ants and Nukaat was madly scrambling fore and aft trying desperately to catch himself a birdie. Luckily he didn’t go sailing overboard in chase. However, he did go for a swim in the marina water about two months ago, much to his dismay. He doesn’t spend nearly as much time outside as he used to. Unless one of us accompanies him.

Update #4 (Nov 2015): Nukaat has an arch rival. Earlier this year a large ketch arrived on our dock with a young cat on board named Wawa. He’s super friendly and loves to make the rounds on all the boats…and all around the yacht club for that matter. I think he wants to make friends but so far Nukaat is not impressed. Especially when Wawa comes on board MOKEN, at times right inside the pilothouse. Needless to say the catcalling is intense. Just the other week they had a confrontation on the dock and Nukaat ended up going for yet another swim. Poor puss.

Update #5 (April 2017): Nukaat has a new favourite toy. He can’t help himself from chasing it or pouncing on it or chewing it whenever his handlers bring it out to play. Sometimes he even attacks it when they are busy with other things. What is this magical, irresistible cat magnet? A simple tie wrap. Who knew!?!

Update#6 (December 2019): It seems life in the tropics was getting to be a bit much for Nukaat, so we flew him back to Canada earlier this year and he is now enjoying his first cold winter in nearly eight years. We are sure missing his energy on MOKEN.