A closed subway station and a dead phone led her to meet her future husband

(CNN) — For Sarah Richard, 33, most of her life revolves around diving. As the founder of Girls that Scuba, considered the largest diving community for women in the world, she traveled non-stop to organize dive trips and events before the pandemic.
It was not uncommon for Richard to spend a few weeks in Jordan, then Egypt, then fly to Mexico, Micronesia, the Maldives, or Indonesia to immerse divers in the magic of the underwater world. As for her love life, the dive master envisioned herself meeting a dive instructor or perhaps someone in the travel world with a similarly nomadic lifestyle. Ultimately, she was focused on her mission to empower women in the male-dominated diving industry. In fact, nothing could make it fail, not even the pandemic, but Richard was wrong about one thing. The love of her life would not be an instructor she met on a cruise ship in Raja Ampat or at a resort on Socorro Island. He would be a passionate asparagus grower from the South West of England. Disconnected from the world It all started with a mid-December visit to his hometown of Hastings, on the south coast of England, for Christmas 2018. After living and diving in Mexico for four months, Richard was in town for a few months. days and had a schedule full of Christmas events. One morning, she took the train to London for the day and reconnect with friends she had met while she was living in Hong Kong a few years earlier. “I don’t usually go to London…ever,” Richard remembers. “It was the first time in a few years.” After spending the day with her friends, Richard had to return to Hastings, about 90 minutes southeast by train, for a party at 9 p.m. But when he got to the subway station, it was closed for repairs. He rushed to take an Uber to London Bridge station in central London, hoping to catch the next train, but missed it due to heavy traffic. Richard stayed at the station for an hour. By then, his phone battery had died and she was unable to notify his friends in Hastings. “Finally, I got on the train, which was headed out of London, and I’m so excited to get to the party. But then, half an hour later, an announcement says that the train has to stop because it broke down and everyone he has to get off. And I was like, really?…” His long night of traffic problems continued, and he had to drive all the way back to London and sit on the platform once again for 90 minutes. This time, he was waiting for the last train of the night. “Because my phone wasn’t working, I had no way to entertain myself on the train,” he recalls. “I said to myself, ‘What would you do if you were on a train in another country? You would just talk to someone.'” And that’s when Joel Gostling came in and sat down. Love on the tracks “When Joel got on the train, I was like… ‘Hi’.” The pair hit it off instantly, chatting all the way to Hastings. He made a good first impression on me: “A real English guy”, down to earth and easy to talk to, says Richard. “He had his own asparagus field, which is unusual, and he really likes being outdoors. He immediately gave me the impression that he’s not materialistic,” he recalls, adding that he didn’t over-romanticize his nomadic lifestyle. . “Joel thought all my travels and places I’ve been are great, but he also thought the life he’s built with his farm is great, too, and it is.” Gostling grew up in a town called Dalwood, in the Devon region of south-west England, where his primary school had 30 children, and he felt at home on a farm, in the countryside or hanging out in a local pub. . After working at a renowned farm restaurant and cookery school, River Cottage, in Devon, Gostling converted one of his parents’ fields into an asparagus farm in 2015 and sold the hand-picked asparagus to restaurants in the region. Toward the end of the trip, Gostling asked Richard for her number, but she didn’t know it. She had just exchanged a Mexican SIM card for a British number and her phone battery was dead. “I didn’t really know my number, but I wanted him to be able to reach me. So I said, ‘This is going to sound cocky, but if you Google ‘Sarah Richard,’ you can find me on Instagram and find my email.'” Gostling had every intention of contacting her. “She was interesting, beautiful, mysterious, attractive. I was surprised at how well we hit it off right away, and I knew I couldn’t leave the train without asking to see her again,” she recalls. In the end, Richard managed to get back to Hastings, to fly to Finland the next day and spend Christmas with his brother and his family. He expected to hear from Gostling, but he brushed it off. After all, Richard had a full schedule ahead of him, with plans to go back and forth between Mexico and the Middle East on dive trips. Long-distance romance Gostling did not hesitate to look for Richard on the Internet. An email later, their relationship began to take shape. They began to keep in touch remotely, with Richard stopping in the UK between trips for two or three weeks. “I was very focused on getting on my way. I told her, ‘If you want to come, come with me on the trip, but I’m not going to get sidetracked,'” she says. “My travel schedule was really intense. And he knew right away that that was my lifestyle. And that’s what it was always going to be.” The dynamic worked well for them. They both focused on what they were most passionate about, while valuing their time together. In 2019, Richard and Gostling moved in together, deepening their connection. “I realized that having someone who is the complete opposite of me is actually what I wanted. So I can keep doing my thing and then come back and I like having something different to talk about,” says Richard. “Actually, the only thing that changed was that he was there to pick me up at the airport. It was really nice because each time he had a different sign with a different phrase.” Gostling didn’t care either, and all the while she was cooking up a plan to show Richard how much she meant to him. “When you know, you know,” she adds. A surprise proposal On December 15, 2019, exactly one year after they met on the train, Gostling orchestrated a surprise proposal. Richard’s best friend, Lucy, invited her to go see the “Lion King” musical in London. “In the same [trayecto]On the same platform, Joel got off the train, got down on one knee and proposed to me.” All the while, Gostling says it was totally “stressful.” It took a lot of time and effort to coordinate: “I started planning it on October 6th and I asked for marriage on December 15. It took me that long.” After getting engaged, Richard continued to travel while Gostling focused on his farm. In early 2020, Richard turned his ambitions to Jordan, where he hoped to establish a Girls that Scuba branch in the Middle East. moved to Jordan and began to establish their lives there. Gostling planned to work remotely, returning to England during the harvest season. They were there just four days before the country went into lockdown due to the covid-19 pandemic.” The UK embassy arranged the flights, and we ended up getting a flight home, but it cost like £3,000 (about $3,920),” laments Richard. It also meant that Richard could no longer organize his diving trips. ” When travel stopped completely, most of my income disappeared, because it comes from taking people to trips and events. So Joel had no income [porque trabajaba en el sector restaurantero]. I had no income. It was horrible.” The ultimate test Teaming up with chef Andy Tyrell, Joel Gostling opened Soulshine in May 2021.
Credit: Rob Coombe With no apartment and no income, they had to move in with Gostling’s parents in Devon. For Gostling, the move home turned out to be a blessing. Chef Andy Tyrell, whom Joel had worked with at River Cottage, invited him to join him in setting up a pop-up kitchen. They called it Goose & Badger, and although they faced closures several times, they managed to gain a large following for their multi-course menus and delicious burgers. Such was the success that in May 2021 Gostling and Tyrell opened a restaurant in Bridport called Soulshine, specializing in seasonal and farm-fresh dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. As Richard’s nomadic life came to an abrupt halt, she found dive sites along the coast of England and continued to build her online community. “It was such a fortuitous encounter, and even though there have been some tough times, we’re both so sure we’re with the person we’re supposed to be with. That makes everything so much better, even in these tough times,” he says. Gostling couldn’t agree more. “Even after spending all that time together, I still like him,” she jokes. “It was a good test, really…we found we could get through anything.” ‘Everything else is a bonus’ The couple, seen here in the Gostling asparagus field, hosted a small 12-person outdoor ceremony and then a larger celebration in September 2021.
Credit: Rob Coombe The couple had initially hoped to hold a 200-person wedding in June 2020 in Gostling’s parents’ garden, but that plan was scrapped due to the pandemic. Instead, they had a small outdoor ceremony for 12 people and postponed a larger celebration until September 2021. “Basically, we were able to get married twice and have two parties…it turned out really nice!” says Richard, who is now uses the name Sarah Gostling. After the wedding in September, Richard picked up right where he left off and has been flying around the world ever since. “It’s like riding a bike. It feels so natural to ride again,” he says. “It’s also been amazing to see other people get back into the ocean and realize this is what connects our community. [de buceo]And it’s just beautiful.” The couple also took a delayed honeymoon, spending three weeks in Lapland, Finland, where Richard’s brother and his family live, and Turkey. The newlyweds stayed in an igloo with a sauna, They rode a reindeer sleigh and tried snowboarding for the first time, they traded the snowy landscapes for the sun and the fantastic dinners in Istanbul, and then finished off the honeymoon in magical Cappadocia, among cone-shaped rock formations and hotels. “Instead of wedding gifts, we had a honeymoon fund that all of our friends and family contributed to, so it’s very special that we’ve been able to go to these places thanks to what our friends and family,” Richard says. Looking back, Richard says it feels like they’re on the “other side” of the pandemic. They’ve found a rental house, Gostling’s restaurant is thriving, and Ric’s dive community is thriving. hard received a new wave of momentum. So far this year, Richard has already organized two Girls that Scuba trips: the first in the Galapagos, followed by another in the Red Sea. “Come to think of it, it’s only been three years. But in those three years, we managed to get through a global pandemic, he lost his job, I lost all my income, we had to move back in with his parents at age 30,” Richard says. “We’ve been through a lot. It makes us think all we need is each other, and that’s it. Everything else is a bonus.”