I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and spent my childhood travelling the world – South Africa, England, Iran and Australia – due to my father having a successful career as a Chartered Accountant and using his skills and knowledge to work and travel to various places around the globe.
This grounding gave me the courage and determination to explore opportunities in life and follow my dreams and aspirations to have a successful life.
In 1996 I had the opportunity to join HM Bark Endeavour – (Captain Cook’s replica ship built in Perth, Western Australia) on her maiden world voyage to the United Kingdom.
I joined the ship in Port Elizabeth on 22 December 1996 and spent the most incredible Christmas and Boxing Day at sea sailing down the South African coast, around Cape Point and into Cape Town.
I then made the decision to leave South Africa and start travelling the world, so I headed to the United Kingdom in 1997 to follow my dreams and become qualified to work in the yachting industry.
I joined the Royal Navy in 1998 (with the intention of travelling the world) and completed basic training at HMS Raleigh in Cornwall, before deciding to move to Cowes in the Isle of Wight to complete a Professional Skippers Training Course.
On completion of this training I started work in the Ionian Islands, Greece as a Flotilla Skipper for the largest holiday yacht charter company in the world. This involved leading a flotilla of 12 client yachts around these Greek Islands for a fortnight at a time. What can I say, but WOW what a job – hard work but very rewarding!
Little did I know at the time, but I met a girl (Alison) from Wales in June 1999 on Meganisi Island – who was to eventually become my wife and change my life for ever.
Having left Greece and starting a “normal” life back in the United Kingdon I commenced a career in Accountancy working for respected Accountancy practices in Shropshire and South Wales before setting up my own successful accountancy business called Better Bookkeeping.
We were joined in our family by our two children in 2006 and 2007 and I started to look for another way of running a successful business and enable me to work from home (or wherever in the world) and juggle the committments young children bring, yet would enable our family to have a better quality of life without the long hours and travelling I was doing.
BetterInternetBiz was that business and we haven’t looked back!
Oh and we still spend many enjoyable days staying at our caravan in Wisemans Bridge and sailing out of Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, West Wales………
