“Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen…yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.”
Bradley Whitford
Two ships…that met in the night was my first blog post in April of 2014. Since that post, I have been journaling the story of our adventure. 6 years have passed. I’ve told the stories of every detail of making this decision, selling our farm and all our possessions, buying a boat, and casting off the dock lines to begin our circumnavigation.
I have enjoyed describing the joys, the struggles, and even our misadventures. I have always loved writing. Blogging has been a wonderful way to record this journey. Then, 2020 arrived. It was so devastating it even killed my desire to write, hence my last blog post being from October of 2020. For over 18 months, our boat has been in Ireland, and our dream of sailing around the world tied to the dock with her.
When we first began conceiving our sailing plans, we often talked about everything that could go wrong. We know people whose boats have sunk, those who have had to give up their dreams of sailing for health reasons, and even unfortunate souls who were lost at sea. We listed our journey being delayed by repairs, hostile harbors, storms, illness, and even attacks by pirates. World pandemic never made the list. Life this past year can only be described as surreal.
Normally, I consider myself a strong person. I have battled fears, frustrations, and have had to adapt to a huge lifestyle adjustment. I undertook this voyage knowing that life on a boat would not be easy. Sailing around the world has posed all kinds of obstacles and required problem-solving skills that made me dig deep into the grit department – a well that was deeper than I ever imagined.
Things came to a point where they seemed almost hopeless. Our spirits were dampened. We had a choice to make, give up, or live life on our terms. Would we fold up our sails or take matters into our own hands?
The Day Our Boat Stood Still
After crossing the Atlantic from west to east, we secured our boat in Bangor, Ireland as winter approached and headed back to the US for the holidays. We returned in February of 2020 from our visit to see our kids and to take care of some documentation for our summer travel plans to the Baltic. We had a departure date set for May to head for the Caledonia Canal which would take us through the interior of Scotland and set us on our way to the Baltic Sea.
We spent over a thousand dollars in visas, application fees, and permits to make our way to St. Petersburg, Russia, one of Dan’s sailing bucket list destinations. We had a couple of months to complete repairs and get our boat ready for the next leg of the voyage.
Upon our return, Covid hit hard. Every country went into lockdown. We found ourselves in a foreign country, no friends, no family, in a closed marina. Even the bathhouse, where we could at least shower and do laundry, was closed to the 5 liveaboards left in a marina with a hundred boats. It was a ghost town. It was early spring and we had some hope that things would open up in time to make it to St. Petersburg by July. For now, all we could do was wait.
Fortunately, we hit a streak of great luck. We were offered the opportunity to house sit in southern Ireland for a couple who was trapped in Australia. Their Irish home, with cat and dog, needed a sitter until they could return. We were all too happy to comply. While we house sat, we had two hundred acres of waterfront property, filled with flowering gardens and trails, to call our own until we could figure out our plans. It was a temporary slice of heaven.
Meanwhile, our boat sat. Our plans were nebulous. No one could predict when countries would open back up to sailors. Most countries were lumping sailors along with cruise ship restrictions. All boating was put on a strict holding pattern. For almost three months, we waited for some news that things were getting better, only to be disappointed. Our hopes of getting to the Baltic were quickly draining .
We finally decided to not put our lives on hold any longer. We were tired of being quarantined, told we could go nowhere, and do nothing. So, travel we did, waiting until the day we could sail again. We had nothing to lose. Our boat, however, our home, would remain tied to the dock, tentacles of green coating her underside from her containment. It made us sick to leave her. I blogged about this decision in the post Sailing Interrupted – Living in a Foreign Country During Covid – 19.
A Brief Respite
We traveled back and forth between Ireland and the States a couple of times. Each time, we visited our family and brought boat parts back that were difficult to find or very expensive to obtain in the UK. When returning to Ireland, we had glimmers of hope that things would be opening soon. A few countries opened their ports, often to reverse their decisions and close them without warning. It was a risky time to leave port as Northern Ireland told us that if we sailed out of port, even for a day, we wouldn’t be allowed back in. With nowhere to go, we would be stranded at sea with no safe harbor.
Case in point, a young Swedish man in his 20’s, had set off on his sailboat to see the world. The pandemic had not been a big deal for him because Sweden never shut down. He had sailed to Ireland and was our neighbor in the marina. We got to know Jacob and waved goodbye to him as he set sail down to Dublin to look for work in their marina over the winter.
A few days later, Jacob limped back into our port, tired, scared, and ravaged by sailing alone in horrific conditions. In the two days it took Jacob to sail to Dublin, another lockdown on boating was issued in the Republic of Ireland. Jacob arrived in the marina in the dark at 5 AM. Just as he crawled exhausted into his bunk, there was pounding on his hull.
The port officer told him to leave immediately. The port was closed. Winds were 30 knots, and the sea was building. Jacob argued, he even had dual Irish citizenship. The man didn’t relent and Jacob was forced to leave, in the dark, the windstorm worsening.
Jacob nearly lost his life trying to return to Bangor. He was scared, alone, facing brutal weather, when he posed no danger to anyone being tied to a dock in a marina. It was then that my resolve for waiting out this nightmare began to wane.
Thankfully, in October of 2020, we got the news that Scotland had opened their ports to sailors. The week after they opened, we were on our way. We were told we could return to Bangor. At that point, I didn’t care. Our boat had been in the harbor for a year. It was with great excitement that we headed off for a few weeks to explore the outer rim of Islands dotting Scotland’s western coast: Sailing Scotland in 2020.
Being that it was October, it was cold, rainy, windy, and the northern Irish Sea is very difficult to navigate. Between the 15 ft. tides and ripping currents, Captain Dan had his work cut out for him. We were sailing in unknown territory that was prone to days of high winds and rough seas. We ended up hiding in harbors and at anchorages for days at a time, waiting for suitable weather to move on.
Overall, the experience was incredible. We saw rugged islands with no sign of humanity. We anchored at the base of mountains, with waterfall views. We took incredible hikes, had cookouts on deserted beaches, and even got some visits to historic sites. It was tough sailing but rounded out a few more notches on our experience belt. It was our most northern latitude sailing adventure to date.
When Things Got Tough
After almost a month of sailing, we returned to Bangor just in time for the next stretch of Covid restrictions. It was too cold to sail, and it was certainly no fun living on a boat at the dock in a fully closed marina. Not only that, but NI was going into another lockdown phase, closing everything but grocery stores.
We had 2 weeks before we had to fly back to the states for the holidays. We were looking at another 7 months before we could sail again – with no guarantees that countries would be open again, even by then.
It was approaching the holidays so we flew back to California to spend a couple of weeks with our youngest daughter, Katie, and her family. Dan and I borrowed her RV and spent two weeks unsuccessfully trying to see parts of California. Between snowstorms and mechanical problems, we didn’t get very far. By Thanksgiving, we got the RV functioning enough to get us to Zion and Grand Canyon National Parks. We had a great week with Katie, four months pregnant, and Sean while celebrating Thanksgiving with Cornish Game Hens in an RV park.
We had a rigorous upcoming travel schedule and had to make some decisions. Airfares were rising due to people beginning to travel again. We had to get back to the east coast for Christmas with our two boys and their families. Our middle son, Derek, had a baby arriving at the beginning of January. I wanted to visit my 90-year-old mother in South Carolina, and we had to make a stop in Pennsylvania to see Dan’s father, now in his 80’s.
After Christmas, we had to return to California for the birth of Katie’s baby in April. Between airfares, car rentals, hotels, there was not enough money in our budget to complete this aggressive schedule. We had to figure out a plan that would get us across the country twice, and not break the bank.
Adventures in America
Our final decision was to buy an inexpensive car, drive it across the country and back, then resell it. It was much less expensive than all our other options. Fortunately, our automotive savvy son-in-law, Sean, helped us negotiate for a low mileage 1998 Honda Accord for $3,000. We couldn’t believe our luck. She was in excellent shape and ready to drive across the country. We named her Tabitha and set out on our trip across the USA to visit parts we had never seen.
We visited the southern coastal states and made it to South Carolina in a little over a week. I spent a couple of days with my mom, stopped for a quick visit with my sister Carol in Charlotte, then we headed up to PA to visit Dan’s father, a few days before Christmas.
We arrived at our eldest son, Philip’s house, in time to spend Christmas with our 6-year-old grandson, and biggest fan, Orion. He has been on our boat many times. For Christmas, we gave him a wooden world map for his bedroom wall. He can track our boat and put a pin in each country we visit. We will send him a postcard from each country.
Our newest grandbaby and future crew member, Elaine, was
born not far away in New Jersey, the end of December. She is the daughter of our middle son, Derek, and his wife Catie. As we witnessed the miracle of her birth, we found a moment of thanks for our delay in sailing as we got to meet and greet the newest member of the Gieschen clan. This probably would not have happened had we been sailing as scheduled. Nothing renews the soul like holding a newborn.
We stayed and helped out the new mom and dad for a few weeks before heading south again. Our boat buddies, Gary and Maryann on s/v Whatever She Wants, traveled with us for a year in the Caribbean and crossed the Atlantic with us from Bermuda to the Azores. They are in the same boat, figuratively, not literally.
Their boat has been stranded in Portugal during the pandemic. They went back to Florida to visit family and friends. We just had to stop and spend a couple of weeks with them before heading west, making sure to cross back to California in the southern states during the dead of winter.
The one beef we had with crossing the country again, was paying to stay in hotels. They are expensive, and you only stay in them for a few hours. Not worth it. We decided to get camping equipment and take a couple of weeks to see as many state parks as possible on our return trip. Since camping equipment can be expensive, we decided to be thrifty on this front as well.
I did what I do. I searched Craig’s list while in Florida with our boat buddies. I found a deal, almost as good as Tabitha. We got a tent, 2 air mattresses, 2 sleeping bags, chairs, blanket, cookstove, and pots and pans, for $50. We made a run to the dollar store and Walmart and stocked up on a few other essentials. We were ready to rough it!
We did have a few issues on our trip. The first rainy night our tent leaked like a sieve. We bought a new tent and a fold-up canopy – vowing to stay dry on rainy nights. We did have to stay in a hotel a few nights when we were visiting parks in Colorado and surrounding states. We encountered at least 3 snowstorms. We were not equipped for cold weather camping.
All in all, we had a great return trip. We bought a National park annual pass which paid for itself after the first 3 parks. During our entire US trip, we toured a total of 9 national parks. We saw many places we had dreamed about visiting while we lived in the States, but never had been able to visit.
- Zion
- Grand Canyon
- Hot Springs
- Carlsbad Caverns
- Petrified National Forest
- Mesa Verde
- Joshua Tree
- Yosemite
- Sequoia National Forest
Back in California
We were excited for Grandbaby number 3, as our youngest, Katie, prepared to give birth to her son. We were up until the wee hours of the morning with Katie when she went into labor. Two days later, we got to meet baby Carter Keville. We now have 3 grandchildren to crew our future adventures!
We spent another 2 weeks helping Katie adjust to motherhood before it was time to return to our boat and see what the world had waiting for us. Before we left, we put our camping gear for sale on Craig’s List. Our package of camping gear sold for $250, not only reimbursing all our expenditures but adding a little bonus cash.
Then, it came time to part with Tabitha. We loved her and wanted to keep her, but we needed the money for repairs and are not sure when we will be back in the US. Reluctantly, I put her back on Craig’s List. Low and behold, she sold in just a couple of hours for $3,500 – $500 more than we paid for her!
The last bit of luck for us was that we had purchased round-trip tickets way back in October for around $400 apiece. We knew it was a good deal then. We looked at return tickets, thinking we might want to alter our return trip to Ireland, one-way tickets were over $1,000.
Always a Life Lesson
We feel very fortunate to have been present for the birth of two new grandbabies, have great visits with our parents, be able to spend the holidays with family and visit a great portion of our country we had never seen. In total, we put over 14,000 miles on Tabitha in 4 months. Pandemic be damned, we decided to live our life on our terms and not be prisoners.
The universe must have been on our side for this one, as our travels were smooth, our journey incredible, and we found a way to make the entire trip extremely affordable on our very limited budget.
We really couldn’t prepare for a pandemic and what it had to throw at us, but we are learning to take an active part in what our future holds for us, make things happen, and not wait for them to happen. Our difficulties may not always be boat-related. Whatever they are, we are not going to take life sitting in the cockpit, tied to a dock. We will continue to adjust our course, wherever we need to go, to keep life adventurous, fun, and filled with pleasant surprises.
May all our friends and family have fair winds, following seas, and the greatest of adventures.
Alison and Dan
s/v Equus