ABOUT ME
Hi, my name is Anthony Garcia (left), and that is my brother, Michael (right). We've decided we both want to make this dream of sailing the world a reality, and so he has graciously agreed to be my first mate on our future adventure.
A little about me, I was born in Miami, Florida to my loving parents, Monica and Antonio Garcia. I don't remember that part of my childhood much, but my parents, siblings, and I moved to Atlanta, Georgia when I was about 7 where I finished high school. I had aspirations to join the military, so I moved to Charleston, South Carolina at age 17 to attend The Citadel, South Carolina's only military college. Though I finished all four years, one year in and several surf sessions later I knew that the military lifestyle was not for me.
My last few months at The Citadel were filled with uncertainty of the future, and on a whim after graduation I joined one of my fellow classmates on a month-long backpacking trip through Southeast Asia. I had traveled overseas before, but the freedom and adventure that came with traveling on a shoestring with no agenda was a life-changing experience. I returned a different man, hungry for adventure and thirsty for new experiences.
I traveled a bit more to Mexico, Nicaragua, and Colombia but ultimately the societal pressure of settling down and establishing a career pulled me into law school. I attended the Charleston School of Law at age 22, but remained restless and a wanderlust at heart. Then, in my second year, I made a trip to Colorado for a friend's wedding, and I fell in love. I knew immediately that Colorado was where I wanted to be: summiting mountains in the summer, snowboarding down them in the winter, countless opportunities for weekend fun when I wasn't working. I rearranged all my plans to make Colorado happen, and in December 2015, the day after I graduated law school I packed up my things and U-Hauled it 31 hours to Denver, Colorado with two of my best friends:
My other best friend, Andrew Bissada, couldn't make the trip and also didn't fit in the U-Haul.
Adam Dintelman (left); Bruce Bailey (middle); Me (right)
We arrived in Denver in the middle of a blizzard, something "Southerners" don't know much about. Thinking back on the difficulty of that day, it was a perfect foreshadowing for 2016. When my friends of 8 years left, I was totally alone, no friends, no family, no connections. Ultimately I found a job as a copy center clerk while I studied in the evenings for the Bar Exam. The Exam came and went, and two months later I received word I passed.
After three years of professional school and many more years of planning I was finally an attorney. I found a job at a boutique firm, and now I work from sun up to sun down. When I'm not working I attend Taxation classes in the evening, and I have very little time for myself and for personal growth. I've never been fond of the idea of living an "average" life, but it seemed that is where I was headed. Then, the idea of sailing the world sunk its teeth into me. This is how that idea became a reality.