Water is life for Lana Belle and Kris Moa, and it's also love.

The couple met, got engaged, got married and even honeymooned on the water.

As dreamy as it sounds, it actually started out with plain old manual labor. The couple met when they were helping a mutual friend scrape paint off the underside of his boat, "It's Magic." It was an appropriate name.

Lana Belle lived in Vancouver, B.C., and after they met, Lana started coming down to visit Kris in Whatcom County, and the two realized how much they had in common, including their childhood view.

"From Victoria, B.C., where Lana grew up, you can see Mount Baker quite well on clear days, so we both grew up looking at the same mountain," Kris says.

They also shared a passion for sailing, and Kris was happy to find out, a dream to one day live aboard a sailboat while working and traveling the world.

"My cousin told me I would just have to settle for having a woman in every port, as no woman my age was going to drop everything and go off on this crazy adventure," Kris jokes. "Shortly after that I met Lana."

Only a few weeks after they met, the couple knew marriage was in the cards. Kris rented a rowboat for the two of them on Vancouver's Deer Lake, and once he had rowed across, he pulled out a bottle of champagne he had hidden in his backpack and proposed.

The two married on a sailboat July 27, 2011, just off shore from Boulevard Park.

"Sailing was a theme from the beginning," Lana Belle says. "And since Kris was living on a sailboat at the time we got married, it seemed natural to get married on the boat."

There were nine people in all on the boat: Kris's adult children and daughter-in-law, two grandkids, the owner of the boat, a pastor and the couple. Kris remembered the fresh breeze as they said their vows on the boat's deck, guests looking on from the cockpit. Afterward, they shared champagne, sparkling cider and a cheesecake that said "Lana & Kris 4 Ever."

"We are both quite unconventional, so neither of us were overly concerned about the details of the ceremony," Lana Belle says. "It was short and simple."

The couple spent a week after the wedding sailing around the San Juans for a simple honeymoon on the sea. Two weeks later, they started their globetrotting adventure and moved to Hong Kong, where Kris is working for an executive search firm and Lana Belle is getting her master of education degree at Hong Kong University.

"We've been on our honeymoon in Hong Kong for over a year now," Lana Belle says.

Reach ZOE FRALEY at zoe.fraley@bellinghamherald.com or call 756-2803. Visit her School Days blog at blogs.bellinghamherald.com/schools or get updates on Twitter at twitter.com/BhamSchools.