Assorted Conversations

Ep. 44 - The Sailing Around the World Conversation with Alison Geischen

• Helen

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We talk with author and sailor Alison Geischen about leaving corporate life to circumnavigate the globe, the brutal realities that tested her resolve, and the moments of wonder that made it all worth it. From heavy‑weather training to hand‑steering 650 miles, the story blends grit, humor, and hard‑won wisdom.

• deciding to sell up and go in their fifties
• training for storms and safety with John Kretschmer
• seasonal route planning and why timelines fail
• joining an Atlantic rally and the first severe storm
• managing PTSD, fear, and finding mentors
• autopilot loss, steering repairs, and heaving to
• Chinese fishing nets, detours, and a tsunami alert
• COVID delays, Ireland base, and Azores highlights
• Mediterranean chaos, Gibraltar currents, naked anchoring
• budgeting shocks, bad yard work, and parts logistics
• writing two sailing books and building community
• where to follow: allisongieschen.com and sailmates.org

Alison's Links:

Author Page - Grab her first two books about her sailing adventures and check out what else she's written!

Sailmates.org - Follow along through her blog postings and pictures of the high seas adventures she and Dan are having!

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Credits

Music Credit: True Living by Patrick Moore

Royalty free music license purchased at soundotcom.com

SPEAKER_05:

Hey, thanks for tuning in this week. Just a reminder hit that subscribe or follow button wherever you downloaded this podcast so you don't miss any of the great episodes coming up. And also, if you enjoy the podcast, tell a friend about us. And now for this week's episode. Everyday people following their passions.

SPEAKER_02:

That's probably like like one of the highlights of my life so far. Just being able to be creative like that. Something I've always wanted.

SPEAKER_01:

And then I decided to get another hive, and that turned into a lot of hives. As long as I can do that, I want to be a good citizen. Help people out.

SPEAKER_05:

Putting themselves out there, taking chances, and navigating challenges along the way.

SPEAKER_04:

I I absolutely identified with having stage ride because, you know, anytime I went on stage, I just felt like I was having a heart attack.

SPEAKER_01:

Very first lap, very first practice session, I crashed, turned the car upside down, made a spectacle of myself, and I got back on that horse and started riding again.

SPEAKER_05:

As they pursue what makes them happy and brings them joy.

SPEAKER_00:

As long as people are having a good time and I have the opportunity to put smiles on people's faces. I I love what I do.

SPEAKER_03:

I have done things that I never thought I could do.

SPEAKER_00:

To have somebody tell me how real it looks and how you know from their actual memory. Because that's telling me I captured what I was trying to get.

SPEAKER_05:

Ever want to chuck corporate life and just take off across the globe? We've already spoken to Heather Markel, who does it on land. And this week, I get to speak with Alison Geishon, who along with her husband Dan, is circumnavigating the globe. That's right. They have their own sailboat and they are sailing around the world. And as you'll hear, they actually earn all of the unique and beautiful experiences that they encounter on this trip. It is a lot more work than at least I thought in the beginning. So take a listen to this week's episode, and I'll see you on the other side. This week's guest came to the mutual decision with her husband to leave corporate America and set sail around the world on their own sailboat. Their sailing journeys ignited a passion to write about their trips and earned her the nickname The Nautical Novelist. Coming to us live from New Cohiva Island in French Polynesia, I am so happy to welcome Alison Geishan to Astoric Conversations.

SPEAKER_03:

Hi, Alison. Hi, Helen. Thank you for having me. And I love talking about life at sea and the challenges we face.

SPEAKER_05:

So, how did you and when did you and your husband come to that decision of let's do this thing?

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, well, I grew up in upstate New York, 100-acre farm in the middle of the country with no water around me. And then my father got transferred through IBM to Charlotte, North Carolina. And I was very, it was the middle of the ninth grade, and I was horrified at moving down to this new place where people didn't like Southerners. And fortunately, there was a couple families transferred down there from our area that I knew. And one of them happened to be a sailor. And I got into si to competitive sailing with him on Lake Norman, and he took us with him on a family vacation to the Virgin Islands, and we chartered a sailboat and sailed around the Virgin Islands. And at that point, I was completely hooked. I'm like, this is the coolest thing in the world. How cool would it be to sail around the world someday?

SPEAKER_05:

So fast Yeah, at 15, you're thinking that.

SPEAKER_03:

So fast forward to my mom and dad retire, and they moved to Newburn, North Carolina, which is on Pamlico Sound, and my mom decided she was going to be the fastest woman skipper in the Pamlico Sound because it was a huge racing community. So she set out and began her captaining career, and there were no other women's woman captains. She was the only one. So then she says, Well, I guess I'll just have to be the fastest captain, period. So she started taking names and kicking buttons and winning all these regattas and fast forward to this really big regatta. And meanwhile, my cousin that was really close to worked up in Philadelphia. And I'm all the way down in Charlotte, but his dad lived in Newburn as well. And he worked with this handsome young engineer, preacher son, and three-time national dinghy champion. And he said to his buddy, Hey Dan, why don't you come on down to North Carolina and be a ringer on my Aunt Jerry's sailboat? So he said, Sure. So the two of them drove down and we met that weekend and we sailed and we scuba dived and we canoeed and we windsurfed and we had the most magical three-day weekend. And right before I left, we were sitting at a bar and we're having a goodbye beer. And he's, you know, we're talking about our lives. And he goes, you know, someday I want to sail around the world. I said, Me too. Let's get married. And it was a joke. Oh, so funny. But he flew me up to the Chesapeake two weekends later. And on the fourth day we were together, he goes, if I don't ask you to marry me, it's gonna be too late because somebody else is gonna do it. So will you marry me? And I said yes. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. So the fourth day we were fourth day, we we we got engaged unofficially.

SPEAKER_05:

Wow. Pretty quick. You just knew.

SPEAKER_03:

We knew. You just knew we absolutely knew.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, that's fantastic. So flash forward to actually doing this thing that you talked about when you first got engaged.

SPEAKER_03:

So we got married on the country club lawn one year later. His dad was a minister, so he did the wedding ceremony on the lawn of the country club. And the funny part is Dan's parents fell in love with this community and they end up ended up buying a piece of property next door to my parents' house, and they built a house. So my parents and my in-laws were next door neighbors for 30 years.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh wow. So they got around.

SPEAKER_03:

They were best friends, yep. So but Dan's job was in back up in Pennsylvania, so we bought a piece of land in New Jersey, right over the bridge from Philadelphia, and we and I had horses, so we built a horse farm, and then I started having babies. So for 25 years, we couldn't think about selling around the world because we had to raise our kids and we had this horse farm. So when our last son got married, he said, This is it, we're gonna make a five-year plan in five years. We're selling everything and we're doing it, and that's exactly what happened.

SPEAKER_05:

I love it. I love it. Now, how if you if you don't mind me asking, you know, uh you don't have to divulge age, but at what point in your life were you were you at? Was was retirement around the corner, or were you like mid-career and just knew you didn't need to keep going on?

SPEAKER_03:

We still had a few more years to go to be retired. We were in our 50s and early 50s. So it was basically quitting our jobs and taking a risk that you know we would be able to afford to do this. It just we sold everything we had, but we had to buy a boat that was, you know,$160,000 and and the market went way down. So we sold our house and got like a half of what we thought we would get for it. So we knew we would be we would struggle, but we just made the decision and said we're doing it no matter what. So we we took us a long time to find the boat that we wanted, and but we finally did, and we had like down to the to the last hour of being able to get a loan to pay for because everybody turned us down, and finally, with like one hour left before the the contract ran out and somebody else was ready to buy that boat, somebody said yes, we'll give you the loan. So it was like down to the last hour, and we really knew it was meant to be because that was definitely divine intervention on that.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, absolutely. I know having the boat is probably a big priority to getting this whole endeavor off the ground, but what were some of the other safeguards or other things that you had to take into consideration to even begin taking that first journey?

SPEAKER_03:

I guess education was the first and foremost important thing, staying safe. Fortunately, my husband was a merchant marine and he had crossed oceans on ships, so he had all the navigational skills, the the skills to repair things that break, which is the common theme in our lives. And on top of that, we traveled around the country and we went to all these different boat shows. They have these huge boat shows in different big cities around the country, and we would go to them and listen to all the sailing seminars and the people who had already been out there doing blue water cruising. They always have a people there talking about their experience and giving advice. And so we were down in Miami and we went to the Miami boat show because there was a boat down there also that we wanted to look at, possibly to buy, and we listened to a seminar by a man named John Kretschmer, and he had written five sailing books, was a professional speaker at these sail sailboat shows, and he was doing storm stories, like how to safely sail through a storm, which was my biggest fear. And at the end of his presentation, I was totally blown away by his knowledge and how he faces things. He goes, and I do have a heavy weather training passage where you actually come out, you're on my boat, and we do a thousand miles in the trade winds and heavy wind and big waves, and this thousand mile passage will prepare you for life at sea. So my husband who had crossed you know oceans already, it wasn't a big deal, but for me, I needed to know that I could do this. So I signed up for this heavy weather training passage, and at the very last moment, somebody dropped out and he offered to let Dan come for half price because he just wanted to fill that spot. So Dan actually got to come with me too. So the two of us were one of our two of six students, and we did a thousand miles through the Caribbean, and at the end of that passage, John Kretschmer said, You two are gonna be fine. You did fantastic, you are ready. And he's the one that helped us pick the brand of boat that he thought we would do best with. So we felt very prepared.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, good. That that was like my first concern. My second concern would be how did you map things out? How did you figure out where you were gonna go? It's not like you can turn left at the corner store when you're out in the ocean. So tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_03:

There are very specific routes to take at very specific times of year. So people don't traditionally just go out and cross an ocean. Usually it's during a certain season, and there are the same popular places that all sailors eventually go to. You see the same people in ports all over the world, and it's kind of like a mass migration. So we we uh we took the typical start from the east coast and crossed to the Caribbean, and then the Caribbean to the Bermuda, Bermuda to the Azores, Azores to Europe, and that began our circumnavigation. But my husband, being the meticulous person that he is, planned and and mapped everything out down to the day, week, and hour, and that all just got thrown out the window. Like nothing that we planned to be at, we have ever arrived when he thought we would. Like there's just not even close, not even in the same year, not just in like weeks, months. We're talking years.

SPEAKER_05:

Why why is that? I and I I'm guessing there's a lot of things that happen unexpectedly.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, our very first crossing where we to cross the Atlantic is a big jump. We joined what's called a rally. Rallies get all the people together on sailboats that want to cross an ocean and they do it as a group because they've got a weather router that tells you yes, this is a good time to go. They do like a week-long boat check to make sure you have the right safety equipment. They do little courses and seminars and check everything. So when you cross, you're part of a community that kind of has a safety net because you're crossing together, so to speak.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

So we signed up we signed up for this.

SPEAKER_03:

Was my choice. Dan did not want to do it. He's like, Oh, I just want to go, I'm ready. I'm like, yeah, but I'm not. So I I need this for me, please. And he's he's okay, I'll do it for you. Well, we went through all the the motions and paid, uh, was it very expensive to be in them. It's not cheap. You know, several thousand dollars. And the days set out for us to to to leave the east coast and get to the Virgin Islands, which was our destination. And he heard a noise in the propeller because we had to start off motoring to get across the Gulf Stream because the weather wasn't good and we had to get south before we could proceed across. And he's like, I don't want to cross the ocean knowing that our engine, there might be something wrong. So we diverted back towards Wilmington, North Carolina, and the rest, everybody else crossed, you know, set off without us. So unfortunately, it took us ten days to get this. We actually had to have the boat pulled out of the water and and inspected because we had divers, we had mechanics, everybody came and couldn't find anything. I'm like, well, that's scary because we know there's a noise. So we actually had that boat lifted out of the water and inspected by the other people. Nobody could find anything wrong. So we put the boat back in the water, and then all of a sudden the weather router was who was still working with us because we were part of the rally, said, Okay, you got 24 hours to get across the Gulf Stream because the Gulf Stream, you know, is this big like river that goes along the east coast and it can get really choppy and and very dangerous. So we quickly, you know, prepared ourselves, headed off across the Gulf Stream, we got across safely. But then all of a sudden, the dawn of the next day came, and I was on watch at like just as the sun was rising and the wind was howling, it was like 30 knots, and all of a sudden I see this giant wave coming towards me, and I'm like, oh my god. And the boat goes up and it rises right over and goes over that wave. I'm like, wait a minute, that doesn't feel any different than you know the last hour I've been up here, and I realized the waves are really that big, I just couldn't see them. So I'm pounding my foot on the floor to wake him up in the cabin underneath me. I'm like, Dan, you gotta come up here, you gotta come up here. And he comes up here, he's like, What's wrong? I'm like, these waves are huge. He goes, Yeah, but we're finding. I said, I can't do this. I I can't do this. So Dan takes the helm, and I don't know if you've seen the movie The Perfect Storm, where you have like one system in common. Well, that's what was happening to us. We were getting crunched between two storm systems. So within the middle of the day, we had 20-foot waves crashing on the bow of our boat, and they're crashing so hard that they ripped the dinghy off our deck and took the handrails it was attached to, ripped them out of the deck, and launched it through our lifeline. So now our boat is damaged and the dinghy is smacking against the side, threatening to take our mast off because it was hitting the shrouds. And Dan had to, you know, put the safety gear on and go up on these 20-foot waves and cut the dinghy free with a knife. And I watched that dinghy float off over those waves, and I knew if he fell in, he would disappear in a second. There would be no hope of getting him back. Like I would just, I was like, I'm just jumping in with you if you go over, honey, because I'm not staying on this boat by myself. So it was terrifying. And then because of that, now the whole the screw holes in the deck, the water was running through the panels of the boat into the cabin. So it was like raining in the cabin, and our computers and our T little TV we have up on the wall, everything, all our computer stuff got water and damaged and and broke, and so we lost a solar panel, we lost a windsurfing, we lost all our scuba gear, we we had$14,000 worth of damage, and we had to turn around and go back.

SPEAKER_05:

So that was a hell of a first journey.

SPEAKER_03:

It was a hell of a first journey. And we ended back, we did 800 miles, 800 mile loop, and ended up maybe 20 miles south of where we left Wilmington. Like we didn't even get anywhere for our first 800 miles and and had all this damage now to repair. So we filed an insurance claim, we licked our wounds, and we headed off from there. But unfortunately, I developed a little PTSD. So as we started our sailing adventure again, every time it started getting rougher than was predicted, and the ways started, I just went into panic attack. Like I had I was hyperventilated, I'd cry, I'd be like, Oh my god, I can't handle this. Dan's like, You're gonna be fine, you're gonna be fine. So, fast forward, we finally make it to the Virgin Islands, and the crossing was really traumatic for me. And every morning I was gonna wake up and this is the morning I'm gonna tell Dan I can't do this anymore. I can't, I'm just too scared. The anxiety is too bad, I can't do this. So we pull into a harbor with a hundred boats. It was in St. Martin, giant harbor, and there's boats everywhere. And we drop our anchor, and Dan looks on our little AIS system, which has the names of all the boats around you, because everybody has this little you know AIS system which identifies your boat. And guess who is three boats away? John Kretschmer, the man we did our heavy weather training pass just three boats away. So we call him on the radio, John. It's Dan and Allison, we have our boat, we're sailing. And he goes, Well, come on over for happy hour. So we go over to his boat and we're sitting there having happy hour. And so finally, John turns and looks at me, and says, So, Allison, how's it going? And I just like, John, it's it's going terrible. We're in this really big squirrel, and it was just awful. And he starts laughing. And I go like, Excuse me? And he goes, Do you know how lucky you are with this big grin on his face? And I'm like, No. He said, Do you know how many people get the crap kicked out of him? You know what the first thing they do is they go to shore, sell their boat, and never sail again. He goes, Your boat did fine, your husband did fine, you are still out here, and that's probably never gonna happen to you again. He goes, You got this, and he was the only person in the world that could have looked at me and told me that and that I would have believed him. And I just took this big sigh, this big breath. I just let it all go. And I'm not gonna say I haven't had tense moments since then, but that man got me across halfway around the world. If he hadn't been there that day, I probably would have quit.

SPEAKER_05:

Wow. Oh, what it so it was it was somebody's faith in you that just reassured you that you were still in the right spot.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, he knew. I mean, he he had crossed, he's crossed the ocean over 30 times oceans over 21 times, I think, to that point. And I know he's done several more since then. He was a delivery boat captain, he's been on every brand of ship and sailed across every ocean multiple times. And I just respect him so much that I knew if he told me that, he was telling me the truth. And he was like literally the only person in the world that I would have believed.

SPEAKER_05:

Right, right. It a lot of the guests that that I talk to, you know, about their specific passions, there's always mentors, there's always a community behind them that they can turn to if they have second thoughts, if they get stuck on something, if they need to get unstuck and and move to the next step, or maybe even a take a step to the side or a step back to reassess before they can move forward. So again, same same situation with you guys, and it's so cool, it's so great that you have that with him.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, and he that's fantastic. Yeah, so our very first book called called Riding the Ways of Reality, Tales of Turmoil and Triumph, is all about that that part of our journey.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, oh, that's awesome. So that that's one of the two books you've written about your sailing journeys.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, the second one will be coming out in a matter of days.

SPEAKER_05:

Yay. So by the time this airs, it'll be out. Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

And so the first book is about the first, I want to say, three years of the journey, and the second one is about the next couple of years, and it involves our our trip into the Mediterranean, which was absolutely magical and chaotic. I guess the only way to describe it.

SPEAKER_05:

I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued with both of them. How many uh trips have you taken together, or is it just one continuous trip? Do you do you ever get to go home for a break?

SPEAKER_03:

It is one continuous trip. It's a circumnavigation, so we have a route planned out to go all the way around the world. And I would say we're pretty close to halfway. Our next two places after the French Polynesians will be New Zealand and then Australia, and that will be uh, you know, definitely halfway. But depending on the year, we fly back because I have five grandchildren. I told my kids before we left, I'm like, if you have a baby, I don't care how far away we are, we will put our boat in a harbor and I will fly home to help you the first month. You know, yeah. Darn if they didn't have three kids, four kids. I'm like, you guys are doing this on purpose. Like, really? Because one my daughter lives in California, I have a son in PA and a son in New Jersey, and they they like alternate. Okay, well, you have one this year, and then you they they keep making us come back because of our promise.

SPEAKER_05:

So oh, so funny. So one continuous trip. Have you completed one rotation?

SPEAKER_03:

No, we're only halfway around the world at this point.

unknown:

Wow.

SPEAKER_05:

And how many years? Like five, six, eight. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

But to be fair, we did get stuck in Ireland for two years because of COVID. We weren't allowed to if we left the harbor, we would not have been allowed to go into any harbor in Europe because they shut it down to all maritime traffic.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh wow, I didn't even think of that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that was crazy.

SPEAKER_05:

So you were in Ireland for two years? We were.

SPEAKER_03:

We were our boats stayed in the same we we did get a brief period where we sailed up to the Isles of Scotland, which was really cool. But other than that, it was two years there.

SPEAKER_05:

Out of the the half of the world that you you've sailed through, what are some of the memorable places or people that you met on your on your voyages?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, you can combine people and places to one very specific location. It's called the Azores, and it's a little island off of Portugal, about 800 miles off the coast of Portugal, and it was magical. It the people there were magical, the islands, each one is unique, and each one has its own feel and cultural cultural differences, and it was definitely one of our favorite places.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, great. Any any places on your wish list that are coming up in the second half?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, we are in the Marquesas and getting to Tahiti and Bora Bora. We we are flying home for the holidays. My mom is 95. So God bless her. She is my inspiration, and I have to fly home and see her when I can. And so when we get back, we will get to Tahiti and Bora Bora. And I'm really excited about New Zealand. I've just been reading a lot and seeing a lot about New Zealand, and I really can't wait for New Zealand. I'm actually going to do a horseback riding trip when we get there as well.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, that's great. Oh, that's great. You owned horses all my life.

SPEAKER_03:

Until we sold the farm, I never was I never did not have a horse with me. Like even I took him to college with me and found a little farm next to my college and said, Hey, can you keep my horse? I'll give your daughter riding lessons, you know. So I I didn't go anywhere without my horses. And I gave one to my that's awesome. I gave one to Dan as a wedding present. And he's like, What do I do with it? I gave him a ch a horse and a pair of chaps. This is your wedding gift, honey. And he's like, What do I do with this? I'm like, Well, you ride it. And he goes, Well, this is boring. I took him on trail rides and stuff because yeah, this is not floating my boat. Well, then and he loved ice hockey, that was his other passion. I said, Well, you gotta try polo. It's like ice hockey on horseback. He got a stick, he got a ball, you got teammates. Well, he fell in love and became a phenom and he played polo for 25 years.

SPEAKER_05:

Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

And he's really good.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, that's I I worked, I worked for a horse racing and breeding company here in Boston right out of college. And a lot of the sales guys were polo players from the north shore of Boston.

SPEAKER_06:

So very cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. And get to go to the horse sales and up to Saratoga for race week or race month.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Basically the month of August. So I'm glad you're able to incorporate your love of horses when you get to New Zealand.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, I'm very excited about that.

SPEAKER_05:

That'll be that'll be great. So out of all of these trips that you've taken, I'm sure you've got a million stories.

SPEAKER_03:

Unfortunately.

SPEAKER_05:

That first one about meeting up with John in in St. Martin was fantastic. Any any funny stories, things that happened that shouldn't have that didn't cause any harm or any pain.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes. The number one that comes to mind was when we were in the Mediterranean. And we are part of an organization called the Ocean Cruising Club. And they have port officers all over the world. So if you need something, you can always go to your, you know, port officer and say, Hey, I'm in your country. Can you help me out? I need to know this, or I need to get this. So you fly a little flag that shows you're a member of the OCC. It's a little fish on a yellow pennant and says, I don't think it says OC. I think the fish is the symbol. So when you get to a new country or a new port and somebody from an is also an OCC member, it's very common for them to come up and introduce themselves, and then you hang out and you make a new friend. So we were in Minorca, which is one of the islands in the middle of the Mediterranean, and Dan and I had decided to take the paddle board to shore. So instead of our dinghy. So the ingy the dinghy was still left to the to the back of the boat, and we paddled board to shore. And we're there on shore and we look and we see a dinghy pull up to our boat and they're knocking. And usually if the dinghy's there, the person's on board. And then the people left. And I said, Oh, you know what, Dan, that has to be an OCC member. And they came to introduce themselves. So when we paddled back to the boat, I said, Dan, you go aboard. I'm gonna go look around and see if I can see a boat with an OCC flag. So sure enough, about 10 boats down, there's the OCC flag. And I paddle down there, and just as I'm getting to the stern of the boat, this woman steps out on the stern and she is totally naked, not a stitch of clothing on. And she jumps into the water, and I'm like, Do I keep going up or do I turn around and pretend I just am out for a paddle board? I'm like, no, she's in the water. This should be fine. So I paddle over there and I say, Hi, I saw you were at our boat. We're we were at the shore and I explained the whole thing. And I said, It's really nice to meet you. Where are you from? And she's from England. And so we're chatting and she's treading water, and I'm still there at the stern of the boat. Well, then her husband comes out and he steps down onto the platform. Now his midsection is about three feet away from my face, and I'm like struggling to stay on the paddleboard, and I'm like, oh god, oh god, I'm gonna fall off, I'm gonna fall off, you know. And he's just standing there, proud as a peacock, and he's you know, chatting to me, and I'm like all shades of red at this point, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_05:

I didn't even plan.

SPEAKER_03:

So then he jumps into the water. I'm like, whew, that's you know, so I stayed there and talked to him. They were very talkative for like another 15 minutes, and then like, all right, I gotta go. It's night meet meeting you and everything. They're going, Well, we're leaving in the morning, and you know, I'm sure we'll catch up somewhere. Because, like I said, there's only so many harbors on these islands. Anywhere you go, there's a limited number of places you can bring your boat, and you see the same people over and over again. So, fast forward to a couple of days later, we had pulled into a harbor and anchored in. It was a really crowded harbor. It was beautiful, it was like something out of a storybook, so everybody liked to go there. And then all of a sudden, we see a boat coming in, and sure enough, it's our friends. And there he is, up on the bow of the boat, getting ready to deploy the anchor, and he is stark naked again. And I'm like, Oh, look away, dude. Look away. And you know, and sure enough, they come in the anger, like, you know, three boats away from us and put I'm like, There are things that can get caught when you're putting down an anchor chain. The last thing you want to do is being stark naked, anchoring, like, put some shorts on, buddy.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, well, uh, I guess to each his own. My first thought was, I hope he was wearing sunblock.

SPEAKER_03:

He had a full body tan. It was, yeah. But very tan for an Englishman.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, yeah. That's cool. Now, yeah, we were talking uh before we started recording, and you give you gave me a fact that I I was blown away by. Uh a lot of people want to sail around the world. A lot of people make plans to do it, but only a small percentage of people actually do. How small was that percentage?

SPEAKER_03:

Only 10% of the people who buy boats to sail around the world actually get on and do it, actually cast off those dock lines. And I'm not saying they sell their boats or they don't sail locally, but only 10% actually make the commitment to circumnavigate.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. That's gonna make you and your husband, again, uh probably another pat on the back for both of you and some really good reinforcements. Enforcement that you're doing something you love and you're doing something you want to do, but it it you're battling all of all of the difficult things that go along with the beauty of these trips and the experiences you get to have.

SPEAKER_03:

It's we have now been in, I think it's five different countries for three months or more waiting for boat parts. So in five different countries, we've been delayed at least three months waiting for boat parts.

SPEAKER_05:

Wow. And you're waiting you're waiting for boat parts right now.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, we are. We are, but they're hopefully here on this island today.

SPEAKER_05:

Fingers crossed, fingers crossed, besides that storm, or you know, the initial your initial voyage, the 800 miles and went nowhere. Besides that, any other tough situations or situations that kind of brought about a lesson, whether it was in the moment or if it was later on, you know, when you're self-reflecting later.

unknown:

Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm not sure that I have the positive lessons from that yet, but it was definitely challenging, and some of my worst fears came true. So which my mother keeps telling me, Allison, you manifest I said mom, it was so terrible, and all my worst fears came true. Well, honey, you're manifesting that. You keep thinking they're your worst fears, and they're gonna come true, they're gonna be your worst fears. So I gotta listen to my 95-year-old mother and stop you know obsessing about things and just take every day as it comes. But we 650 miles out from arriving in the Marquesas, it was dead at night, and we're sailing along, and all of a sudden our boat just lurched. It just like felt like it stopped dead in the water. Now we're in you know 25 knots of wind and nine to ten foot seas, so it was it was some vigorous sailing. And our autopilot went off. Now our autopilot is our lifeline because to hand steer a boat this heavy is really difficult, especially in big seas. So the autopilot does that job. And if you are gonna hand steer, you're gonna want, you know, several people on a boat, like four to five.

SPEAKER_05:

And it's just you and your husband, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Right, just the two of us. So we did something called heaving two, where you can turn the boat into the wind and then backwind one of the sails, so the boat stays pointed into the wind and it eases the motion of the boat. And then all the boat does is float and it stays locked facing into the wind. And the boat just kind of rides over the waves, you know, more gently, and the sound of the wind goes away, and it it it gives you a breather. So you you can always do that in an emergency. So my husband said, Well, look, we don't know what's going on, we don't know why the autopilots were, let's just heave two. So we hove two, and we both got a couple hours' sleep. And when the morning light came, still like 10 foot C's, and I didn't want him to go over the boat to look to see what was wrong with the rudder and the autopilot, see if there was something stuck on a rubber. So he took the GoPro and put it on the boat hook and put it under the water to see the bottom of the boat, and sure enough, there was nothing stuck on the rudder, but there were like scratch marks on like something had been. So we had passed a Chinese fishing fleet, these Chinese fleets come and just ravage the oceans. They put out 60 miles of net and they kill all the dolphins and the sea turtles and everything else, and they capture big loads of fish, and they have special boats just to process and boats to freeze it, and the other boats for the putting out the nets and the crews, and they're like, you know, ten boats in a fleet, and we had just had an ordeal with one of them, and I think they well, I know they cut away parts of the net when they get tangled, and sailboats get them caught on their rudders. So I'm pretty sure that we had caught a piece of net off the Chinese fishing fleet, but because we were hove to that the washing machine effect that whatever was tangled came off. But when we set sail again and turned turned on our autopilot, it didn't work again. So we had a backup autopilot, because you know, you always want to have a backup, and we had just had the motor for our old system repaired in Panama where we left from, and Anza's okay, we have a backup. Well, he put the motor in, and that motor that we paid to have repaired, the guy didn't repair it. So it didn't work. So now we have no autopilot and 650 miles to go. So but that wasn't the worst of it. So I could only hand steer for maybe 30 minutes at a time because it was so difficult physically for this wheel and to keep this boat because it's the moment I got the boat like not straight going down the waves and turned sideways too much, the wave would hit us broadside, the entire boat would, you know, would get knocked over, and it was scary. He could do three hours, I could do 30 minutes, and then we would have to heave two every night so we could get some sleep. So it slowed down our whole passage because we weren't going anywhere all night long. But what happened when we hit whatever we hit, it also loosened our steering cable. So all of a sudden, as my husband is steering, it starts making funny noises and he says, Oh my god, we're about to lose our steering. Well, we didn't have an autopilot. If we lost our steering, we would have to abandon ship. I mean, we would be have to call it, you know, for May Day and have Nat Sea Rescue. So it was really scary. And we hove two again, and Dan had to take the entire pedestal, the steering column off the boat and travel through the wire, the cables through the boat, all the mattresses off the queen size bed in the back, and all the boards out, and then nine, ten foot twelve. He had to go in there and trace the route of the steering cable back to the gears that goes around, and sure enough, it was loosened. The two of us had to wedge ourselves into this little tiny compartment with tools and getting everything tightened up, then put everything back together. Took us a whole day, but he fixed the steering and we're under our way again. So losing the steer and losing the steering and losing the autopilot were my top two fears, and we had both of those happen. So for 650 miles, we made our way, and one morning we woke up, and a Chinese fishing fleet between when we went to bed and when we woke up had put 60 miles of net between us and where we needed to go. And we're hand steering at this point, so we had to steer 30 miles out of our way and go around their nets to get. So by the time we finally spotted land, and you know, here my dream, you know, my number one bucket list item place, we're arriving there. We've been out to sea for a month, and we finally see land, and I felt nothing, like no joy, no, I was just so numb. I'm like, Dan, I don't feel I have nothing, I have nothing, and he goes, It's okay, I kind of feel the same way, but it's gonna be better, we're gonna be fine. We got through it, we made it, and so we pull in- You're probably still in shock. I think it, I think I was, yeah, I had a little adrenal fatigue going on or something. But so we get into the harbor, we drop anchor, you know, for the first time we're we're finally safe, settled in the harbor, and we sleep that night like dead people, just exhausted. And the next day, somebody comes up and knocks on our boat, and he goes, You have to leave the harbor. And we're like, What? There's a tsunami coming. All the boats have to leave the harbor. So it was that tsunami, you know, a couple months back. And we're like, This is ridiculous. If we're a boat, we float. Goes, no, all the water ran out last tsunami, so you've got to leave the harbor. So here we are with no autopilot, and a dozen other boats, and they go, You can't even stay in the harbor outside the harbor where you anchor. You have to go out to sea. So we're still exhausted from our trip, and we had to go out there and hand steer all night because all these boats were floating around in different directions, nobody knows where to go. Right. Everybody else had autopilot, so they could just like you know hit a course and relax, and we had to like sit there at the helm night the day after we arrived in French Polynesia. So it was like a little slap in the face, like, yeah, here let me just throw this at you too.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. Oh I can't I can't imagine what that must have felt like. Like uh being on the verge of having to abandon ship.

SPEAKER_03:

It was it was definitely uh challenging, but like you said about the learning process, we've almost sunk twice, so we've gotten the sinking out of the way, we survived that, we've survived no autopilot, we survived potential loss of steering. So all my fears now are you know, I should be good with everything at this point. You're good, I'm good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, you know what to do next time if it happens again. But it probably won't. It probably won't.

SPEAKER_03:

As John Cretchmer says, you know, if you go through it and survive it once, you're probably really good to go, yes.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. Wow, I can't imagine. I just can't imagine. How how big is your boat? I neglected to ask you. What's the what's the setup?

SPEAKER_03:

It is 40 feet, 43 feet long and 13 feet wide, and we have a beautiful little cockpit that's we can enclose with either eisenlass or screw or like netting. So even when we're sailing out in the middle of the ocean, I kind of feel safe and secure in my little cockpit. It's not like open to the ocean. And then down below, I've got a beautiful little galley cooking area and our dining room satee table. It can also be turned into a bed if you put the table down so we can have people sleep there. And then in the aft, we have a center cockpit boat because because one of my demands, I said, if I'm gonna sail around the world, I need a big bed. I need to sleep well. So with the center cockpit, it allows the entire aft of the boat to be a nice big bedroom. So I have a queen-sized bed and my own little bathroom and shower. And then the center of the boat is the galley and the settee and the table, and then forward is a little double bed and a bathroom all the way up front. So when we have guests, they have their own little double bed and bathroom.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, nice. Now, do you have guests often?

SPEAKER_03:

Not often, but we do have them. Yes, we're we are uh Dan's cousin and his wife are actually going to meet us in Tahiti the week after we get back, and they will spend a week on our boat.

SPEAKER_05:

Your next trip to Bora Bora, I'll meet you.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. Date.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, that's great. I you you I want to kind of jump back to the the last situation. When you're going from harbor to harbor and when you're traveling, how do you know who to go to when you need help, when you need a boat repair, when you need some guidance on, I don't know, direction. How do you know who to who to contact, who to reach out to?

SPEAKER_03:

So everything, every place we go has been pre-researched. So we know when we go to any country, which harbors are going to be available for sailboats. We know if they're gonna have a marina, we know if they're gonna have a park store, we know if they're gonna have fuel, we know if they're gonna have drinking water. Those are our requirements. Is water well, we have a water maker, but right now our water maker is one of those broken parts. So we have to find potable water, and there is no potable water in this harbor we're in currently. So we have friends that are here, and we go fill up our water jugs every day for our drinking water, and then we take a bath in the non-potable water on shore. We go take a shower there. So, but every harbor we know ahead of time. Is there a place we can buy parts? Is there a place to get fuel? Is because some of these islands have no civilization. There's just, you know, a couple huts with some natives there. So that would be an island that we want to be well provisioned for and have everything working before we go there. We know that Tahiti is someplace we can get most anything we need. Either it's gonna be on the island or it's fairly easy to ship to. So we know where we're going, we know what's gonna be there, and we know what resources will be there when we get there.

SPEAKER_05:

What's the budget for repairs and provisions and and things like that?

SPEAKER_03:

That's the hard part. We never expect these expensive repairs. And for instance, when we were in Panama, we went through the Panama Panama Canal, which was an amazing adventure. Like that was and my grandfather was in the military protecting the Panama Canal, so I had some family history, uh, you know, yeah with that as well. But we crossed through the canal and went to a marina to have some repairs done. And one of the things we had done was the four stay, which is a fixed cable that goes from the top of the mast down to the very bow of the boat, and there's a sail on there called our our stay sail, and it's you have a main sail, and then we have two auxiliary sails up front. Well, that cable had to be replaced because it was as old as a boat, it's 30 years old. And normally Dan would do the job himself because he can repair anything, but he had a bunch of other stuff to do, so he said, you know what, I'm just gonna go ahead and pay a man to do it for us. It should cost around$3,500. Well, this guy charged us$7,000 to do it, which was way beyond what we had budgeted, which was, you know, kind of a big slap in the face. But we're like, all right, you know, it needs to be done. I've got all this other stuff to do. So the man put the new cable on, he had a whole crew of workers because they had to hoist people up the mast and put bring the cables up and attach them and do all this kind of stuff. And so fast forward to we're heading off to cross the Pacific, and all of a sudden, our sail has a huge rip in it, our stay sail up front, and Dan's like, I don't have any idea what's going on. Well, the guy did not put what's called Loctite in the screws going all the way up this new four stay, and all the 40 40 some screws, and he didn't put Loctite in the screws were falling out. So now it ripped our sail, and we had an emergency, and our and our engine was making having some problems too. So we actually had to make an emergency landing in the Galapagos Islands, and we had wanted to go there, but it was so expensive, it was four thousand dollars just to anchor your boat there with all the permits and the fees. So now it's a bucket list item. We're like, oh, we really because we just spent$7,000 on the fourth day, we're like, you know, we we have limited funds, we can't do this. So every country has a maritime law that they cannot turn away a boat in distress, including the Galapagos. So we had to, in the middle of the night, turn left and head into the harbor, and at three in the morning we dropped anchor, and they're like, okay, we gotta get our engine fixed, and we've got to get this, figure out what's going on with the stay sail. So that's when Dan, we had to actually hire people to come and help us get the sail down because it's torn and all these pieces are now loose because all the screws fell out, and then we had to find the screws to replace them, and they didn't really have the right size anywhere. So Dan had to modify every single screw, like cut the end off of all 40 screws, and then get pulled up the vass and go and put the lock tight on and put all this. So, you know, that's an example where even if you pay a lot of money to fix something, you're not even sure that it's gonna be it's it's fixed. In the engine problem that I referenced, we had our engine repaired in Panama before we left, and we paid a lot of money for them to take out something called a turbocharger. So Dan was really like, What is going on with our engine? We just had this fixed. So when he took the turbocharger out to look at a different part, he found they had left a rag stuffed inside the turbocharger, which now broke all the seals in on the engine. So now we're having these residual problems from the work we paid to have done. We now had to order a whole new turbocharger, which is on that ship coming in. So again, thousands of dollars where we didn't expect. So you can't have a budget, you can't because you're not going to you just never know. You never know. So being that we're not wealthy and we're very poor, we have parents who are helping us out and you know helping us afford some of these pieces and parts, and then I just pray that my books sell.

SPEAKER_05:

So well, let's let's move on to talk about your books. You've written two books, you've got one coming out, one is already out. Let's talk about that first one.

SPEAKER_03:

So Rotting the Waves of Reality, Tales of Turmoil and Triumph is the whole process from the day we met on the whole John Kretschmer trip, the setting out, and the adventures up until we up until we we set off for the Mediterranean. That's up till that point. And then our second book is through the the amazing adventures into the Mediterranean and all those countries. And we landed in Africa a couple times and coming through the Straits of Gibraltar, which is a really challenging uh stretch of water to sail through because it's got this really ripping current that goes through. It's 40 miles between Africa and the point of Spain that feeds into the Mediterranean Ocean. It's the Atlantic meeting this big you know channel. So the water rushes through from the Atlantic, and then when the tide changes, it rushes out of the med and back into the Atlantic, and it causes waves and chaos, and just it's it's terrifying. We we went through safely and we came back, and again, we had another huge breakage coming out. Our our boom fell down on our deck. We lost our entire boom that you know attaches to the mast and bottom to sail up, and we had another emergency. So our second book covers starting there and going to the Canary Islands, and then we were getting ready to cross the Atlantic again. Actually, it didn't start there. I'm sorry, it starts back going into the Med, but it continues with that breakage, going to the Canary Islands, and then setting off to cross the Atlantic back to the Caribbean, and our autopilot went. Now, this was our old autopilot, so we had to make a crash landing in in Cape Verde, where we got the brand new autopilot put in, and then we successfully crossed the Atlantic back to the Caribbean. So it was our brand new autopilot that only been used maybe five, six months that the Chinese fishing net destroyed.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, let's help you sell some books. Now, you also, besides the books, and you also have children's books and books about horses, right?

SPEAKER_03:

I I have uh every genre fiction, nonfiction, children, adult, adult. My mo the one I'm really excited about is the one I released a few months ago called The Seven, because it combines horses and humans, and this the seven humans are from different places on the planet, all around the world, and they're picked from this pool of manatee to decide the fate of the human race. And every person and their location has a special tie somewhere in my life. So I either knew the person or the location, and I researched this book intensively. So every location, every occupation, I go into the histories of the cultures where that person comes from. It's I just learned so much writing it. It just it's incredible. So in it, it has, you know, a horseback rider, it has a sailor, it has an olive grower, it has uh a man from South America who is a gaucho, and it just has these really intriguing characters that you fall in love with and you learn so much about where they're from and their histories and their cultures.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, so neat.

SPEAKER_03:

And every breed of horse, so there's seven different breeds of horses represented, and so I give a little bit about the breeds of the and the histories of the horses, and then on my author website, AllisonGeeshin.com, I have a story behind the story. So every character and every horse, you can go in and learn about how I knew them, why I wrote about them, and about the history of that breed.

SPEAKER_05:

I think I'm gonna pick that one up as soon as we get off this call.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I think you will love it. I haven't met anybody yet that has not loved it. In fact, one lady was next to Panama. Uh I just got the shipment of books by accident to my boat. I wanted them shipped to the US and they shipped it to Panama, so I had to pay$70 to pick my books up. And I'm like, why would you do that? But anyway, so this woman next door said, Oh, you just you wrote a book. I'm like, yes. And she goes, Well, I have to buy one. So she read it and she loved it so much. She was so blown away by it. She's part of an international school in Europe that teaches English. So I, since I was a teacher, I wrote a teacher's manual to go with it. So she took my book and the teacher's manual to try to introduce into the curriculum in these schools in Europe.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, that is so fantastic. And you and you did this writing in between manual steering, dodging, dodging tsunami waves.

SPEAKER_03:

Boat park breakages, yes. I I get my writing in. I do.

SPEAKER_05:

Wow. How about have you considered? And I don't know if you've had even had time to take pictures, but you were doing and seeing things and experiencing things that not a lot of people get to experience. Have you been taking photos? And would you consider maybe even doing a photo book of the journal?

SPEAKER_03:

I'm an avid photographer. In fact, I took photography in college. So my blog posts always have my photos. And on my Facebook page and my Instagram page, I do photos almost daily. And I do little videos, I do video clips.

SPEAKER_05:

Where can I send folks interested in buying your books, learning more about your books, and following your travels?

SPEAKER_03:

So to find my author website, it's very easy. It's just allisongeon.com, A-L-I-S-O-N, G-I-E S-C-H E N dot com. Yep. And then my blog is sailmates, like soulmates, but salemates. S-A-I-L-M-A-T-E-S. And it is.org because it was free and it wasn't taken. I couldn't afford the dot com. So sailmates.org and allisongeon.com, and they can find links to all of my books, or if they do a search on my name on Amazon, my author, Allison Geeshin, as an author, I think all of my books are on there. Okay. But they can find the links directly on my author webpage.

SPEAKER_05:

I'll make sure to include the links in the show notes.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, Allison, one last question. What's next after you complete your trip around the world? Are you going to take a break or are you going to continue and do it again to see how things have changed?

SPEAKER_03:

We have no idea. When I say we have zero plans, like there's just not even an inkling. We don't even know if we're going to survive this trip. So there's really no use in planning. We have three requirements. We're still alive, we're still in love, and we're still afloat. And as long as we have those three things, we're going to go until we get around the world, and then when we get there, we'll probably end up in California. That's where our daughter lives, coast on California, up near Sonoma, Napa, Napa Valley area. We'll decide then. Do we want to live on our boat and just hang out? I would love to start a sail repair shop because I have a sail, an actual I have a sewing machine on my boat, and I make beautiful handmade sail bags with the material I get from all over the world. And I fix our sails. And all of our friends, when we're in a harbor and they have a sail rip, they bring it to my boat and we lay it out and I fix it for them. And I think I could open a shop and do that if I ever wanted to. And it comes to some time if we need to finish and I need to have a job. That's probably what I'll do.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. Oh, so cool. I cannot thank you enough for all the time that you've shared with us tonight. It is so cool to see you in the cockpit of the boat. I grabbed a screenshot so I could share it on our Facebook page. Uh again, I you're living a dream, I'm sure a lot of people have, or it is a it is a version of a dream people have to travel the world, and you're actually doing it, and you're you're you're beating all the odds. I mean, you're actually earning every beautiful photo, every memorable experience by going through what it takes to actually sell around the world. And I just I think it's an amazing story, and I cannot thank you enough for sharing.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you for having me. And I have to say, my favorite part of this whole thing is waking up and looking outside of these beautiful harbors and saying, Today I live here because where our home is, and it's just an incredible feeling to know that you know the world is my backyard, and it's it's incredible, it's worth every moment.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. Oh, so great, so great. Well, I am gonna keep in touch. We're gonna I'm gonna follow your block to make sure you guys are doing okay. And I'll I'll drop a line every once in a while and stay in touch with us. We'd love to hear the progress.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, well, feel free to have me back anytime.

SPEAKER_05:

All right, Alison. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you, Helen.

SPEAKER_05:

Allison and Dan are on quite the journey. I I was enraptured with all of her stories. And I was really struck by, even though this is something she identified that she wanted to do at the mere age of 15 years old, years later she's doing it, and it's not what she thought it would be initially. Just like with me going into this conversation, I thought, oh great, they're sailing around the world. Thought about weather, but figure you have to have some sort of a background or a basis for being able to do something like this and navigating difficult times. I had no idea the amount of difficulties that could potentially exist. And I really admire the fact that in spite of her fears and the the time that she wanted to turn back and say, I can't do this, she's lean and pushed through those challenges. And with every challenge they've had, they've they've found a way to overcome it, and are that much more accomplished because of it. And I just think that's a great lesson that if any of us are starting anything for the first time or doing anything, when it gets difficult, certainly work your way through the difficulties, but don't lose sight of the end goal. Keep your eyes on the prize because navigating those difficulties a lot of times can certainly make up for a lot of the beautiful experiences that you have on the other side of those challenges. So that's this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed. Just a reminder if you enjoy the podcast, help me grow the podcast. Tell a friend if you've got a friend interested in a specific hobby or just like podcasts in general. Turn them on to a sort of assorted conversations because it will really help me grow the podcast and help others discover the podcast. So that's it for this week. I hope you enjoyed. I can't wait to get back at it, and I'll see it too.

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Helen

Host