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Ryan Weepers and Brittni Moffat's love story began almost two decades ago when teenager Ryan left Australia to stay with Brittni’s family in Canada so he could play ice hockey there. Ryan had met Brittni’s brother at a junior world ice hockey championship a couple of years earlier, and they became good friends.
“I had a crush on him before I even met him,” said Brittni. “My mom made a photo album of the tournament. I remember flicking through the photos, and I spotted Ryan and thought he was so cute. Ryan didn’t know I existed until he walked through the door of our house, but it’s safe to say he began crushing on me soon after arrival.”
Managing a relationship with Brittni in Canada and Ryan in Australia was complicated. Each moved to the other’s country for a couple of years at a time, until 2013 when Brittni finally relocated to be with Ryan in Australia. Neither of them had experience sailing, but they had grown up with motorboats. They planned a five-year, around the world sail, because they wanted to travel internationally and bring their German Shepard named Jackson along.
They sold their house in Australia, then bought and worked on a 2008 Beneteau Oceanis 46, with the goal of sailing the world. The sailboat uses lithium batteries, and everything on it runs off electricity garnered from solar panels.
They bought their sailboat in Europe and began their trip in Malta in 2019, just as COVID was starting to spread across Europe. In their home countries, stray animals were not an issue, but they quickly learned that many countries did not have the infrastructure to take care of stray dogs and cats. So, saving newborn animals became their mission.
For two sailors with little experience, the couple learned fast. At the five-year mark, the ship called Sunday has sailed over 30,000 nautical miles and visited 20+ countries in the Mediterranean, northern Africa and the Caribbean. To date, they have rescued more than 75 puppies and kittens.
Early on they tried to work with American rescue organizations, but the requirements were complicated and did not fit with what they wanted to do. So, they focused on countries that did not have enough or any rescue organizations where cats and dogs were abandoned or killed in the streets.
On a hike in Kotor, Montenegro, they found a tiny kitten in a ravine, his eyes glued shut with infection. The brown and white tiger striped baby whom they named Finn responded well to food and medical care, fell in love with the dog Jackson and decided that the boat was his jungle gym. They kept him.
They explored Italy, Greece, Albania and other countries that had no infrastructure to take care of baby animals. So, they turned the boat’s extra cabin into a bottle-feeding operation, because it has its own bathroom. At about eight weeks, or when the animals begin chewing, the couple finds them foster or permanent homes.
“People think I am crazy,” Brittni said. “But we are these animals’ first chance at a new life. They don’t have anywhere to go, and fostering can be the difference between life and death, so we work it out. Sometimes I cannot say no, and it puts a lot of pressure on us.”
When Brittni and Ryan started their journey, they created a vlog (blog done in video format) called Sailing Sunday that can be found on YouTube. It has now posted hundreds of episodes, charting their adventures from Europe to North Africa to the Caribbean. The weekly story of where they are and how they got there has close to 40,000 followers including many from animal rescues around the world who work with them or want to.
The couple’s love story is featured in the vlogs on special occasions. The most romantic episode was when Ryan proposed to Brittni. They sailed to a private island in the Abacos, which are located 193 miles east of Miami.
One afternoon, they headed to a tiny, deserted island called Spoil Cay where they spent the day swimming and playing with Jackson. At one point, Brittni was eager to get back to the boat, but Ryan called her back to where he stood in the sand. As she came toward him, he knelt in the sand, Jackson as witness, held out a ring and asked her to be his bride.
The vlogs are refreshingly honest stories about every aspect of sailing the world including how they met, improvements to their boat, animals they saved and what they find at each place they visit. Their work is supported by sponsors, private donations, local animal rescue organizations, veterinarians and other animal lovers. They can be found on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and other social media sites.
Some of the rescues have made their way into the boating community. After 2.5 years in Europe and a visit to Tunisia where stray animals had little infrastructure to support them, Ryan and Brittni sailed to the Caribbean.
In St. Maarten, they teamed up with a highly regarded rescue organization. SXM Paws, which rehomes animals abandoned in the Caribbean to the United States and Canada. During the months that they were on the island, they fostered 22 puppies and rehomed 18 of them.
Next, they moved on to one of the Grenadine Islands, Carriacou, which is part of Grenada. The Carriacou Animal Hospital has an all-volunteer clinic where vets come for three months at a time from all over to service the entire island. For example, a mother dog had given birth to two puppies under a building. She was poisoned, then hit by a car. They could not save her but did find two puppies whom they named Oliver and Poppy and nursed them back to health.
The sailing community has adopted some of the rescues. A tiny three-to-four-week-old black puppy covered in ticks and abandoned in a box with his four siblings on a local road in Carriacou is now a pampered boat dog. A kitten they found dying on a beach in St. Martin, with its umbilical cord still attached, is now living on a sailboat sailing from port to port and eating a diet of lobster and fresh fish.
At one point in our conversation Brittni explained that she gets seasick and has tried different ways to manage it including patches, pills, home remedies and tips she picked up along the way. When sailing through storms she is often sick. So, the couple’s next adventure will be on land in Canada.
There is another reason for living in Canada. Their big news, which they announced on the vlog, is that they are having a baby this fall. Brittni returned to Canada, in part because she could not find a sea sickness medication that is safe to take during her pregnancy.
Ryan said they plan to continue supporting the rescues that they have built relationships with, volunteering when they can in places they visit and possibly going back to bottle feeding when the time is right. “I can see our baby being smothered in puppy and kitten kisses in the future.”
“I’m absolutely terrified and so excited to have a human baby,” said Brittni. “But even right now, I would love to have a foster dog or cat. I don’t mind sleeplessness. After all we are used to doing shift sleeps with the rescues.”
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