He also took several trips to Europe, discovering a passion for exploring his father’s ancestral land in the Basque Country in northern Spain. And he drove a camper van around Australia and Indonesia. But the boat was his greatest pleasure. “I want my life to be simple and there’s nothing simpler than being on a sailboat,” she said. “You treat the boat well and it treats you well. That’s all.
Before the pandemic, the Roaming Rose docked in Turks and Caicos. Due to travel restrictions, she was stuck there for nearly two years. When he was allowed to return to the boat in 2022, she took her girlfriend, Jayden Davila, with her for a three-month sail around the Caribbean. They docked in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.
“John is a pretty peaceful person in general,” Davila said. “But there’s another level of peace and happiness for him when he’s on the boat. Even when there are problems – and something always goes wrong – he likes to deal with them. When things calm down, he sometimes randomly picks up his guitar and starts playing. It’s a really nice existence for him out there.
Jaso still lives mainly in St. Petersburg, where he manages some investment properties. But he rarely stays in one place for long. This winter he snowboarded in Colorado and Wyoming. By spring he will be back on the boat.
“When you sail, you go back to something primitive,” he said. “You’re moving away from the material world, from this concrete, electronic world. And you’re coming back to this sense of wonder. It’s the same feeling you get when you hold a newborn baby, look into his eyes, and feel the world disappear around you.
“Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we all come from the same place. When you’re out there on the water, you remember that.
