A dream is easy to admire from a distance. It’s much harder when you’re staring at the ocean, your life packed into a 42-foot sailboat, and the weather decides to test you on day one. I’m joined by sailor and author Alison Gieschen, who shares how she and her husband Dan stopped treating “sail around the world” like a someday idea and turned it into a lived reality through five years of preparation and eight years of bluewater cruising across dozens of countries.
Alison opens up about the personal breaking point that pushed her toward the sea: a brutal professional detour, a toxic work environment, and a lawsuit that left her depleted and searching for direction. From there, we talk about marriage on a boat, clearly defined roles, and why a shared mission can quiet so much of the petty conflict that follows us on land.
Then we get into the story that will stay with you: their first Atlantic attempt colliding with a perfect storm, massive waves, gear ripping free, and the decision that likely saved their lives.
Alison also tells the truth about what comes after survival, PTSD and panic, and the moment faith and timing collide when her sailing mentor, John Kretschmer, shows up three boats away right when she’s ready to quit. We also cover the real logistics of liveaboard sailing, provisioning for months, cooking with limited supplies, building cruising community, and staying connected with kids and grandkids while chasing the horizon.
If you’re craving purpose, courage, or a nudge to finally start your own bucket list dream, this conversation delivers.
Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the show.
To connect with, purchase any of her books visit Alison’s website at: alisongieschen.com or visit and subscribe to her YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sailingequus
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
This is my podcast.
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry, and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
I’ve still got a lot of fun left in me.
Hey, libraries, it’s Sylvia Warsham. Welcome to Released Out Reveal Purpose. And today is Alison Gishon. She is someone that when I read her biography, I was very intrigued. Because here’s someone that had a dream long ago about sailing around the world. And that actually came to a realization. She met her husband, who she ended up marrying within six months. He had the same dream to sail around the world. So once you turned 50, there came a point where he said, you know, it’s time for us to do this. This is going to be a very interesting interview because how many people out there do you know who do the things on their bucket list? And so that’s why I wanted to interview Allison because she sounds so amazing, and so does Dan, her husband. So without further ado, Allison, thank you so much for joining us on Released Out Review of Purpose. Thank you for having me. It’s really amazing to have you, and I’m just so thrilled that we could make this interview work because our time difference is so significant. We were supposed to meet this morning, and then when I looked at the time difference, I was like, that does not make sense. If she’s somewhere in Hawaii time, it’s like 2:30 in the morning over there. I don’t think she’s gonna get up for this interview.
I I saw your your first message at 4 a.m. Because our boat was slamming against the mooring ball and making this loud noise. And I made Dan get up out of bed to go stop it. And I just happened to see a new email from you. And then, you know, it talked about a time difference change, and I’m like, oh my gosh, we’re we are really not on the same page here.
It happens, but when it’s meant to happen, it’s meant to happen. And usually I don’t make exceptions to do at 5:30 p.m. because I have a middle schooler and I’m busy after she gets home from school. I’m happy it worked out. I’m really curious. When did this start, this journey, and how long have you guys been doing this?
So it actually we’ve been sailing for eight years, but we spent five years preparing.
Oh.
So um I came to a crushing halt in my professional career as a teacher when I decided to take a chance on another job, which was to run a $25 million horse park being built five miles from my house. And being that I was an equestrian my entire life and horses were my life, I took the job and I left my tenure teaching position. And it turned out these men were uh not nice people. They were stealing money and I found it and they were misogynistic and they treated the women horribly. And even though um I was hired as a director, they told me you shut up, you don’t say anything, you don’t do anything until you know unless you’re told to. And I’m like, this is ridiculous. So we bonded together the women and we sued them and we won. Hands down, no contestation. Zero. However, I couldn’t go back to my teaching because I had a master’s in administration and leadership, I had my New Jersey principal certification, and they could not hire me back legally at the same price I left. Oh so I had been abused for a year. I’d been through this terrible lawsuit, just you know, dredging up horrible feelings and hours and hours of depositions, and uh got very little money because it was split five ways. So um I was just despondent. I just I my husband came home and all the time and just found me in tears and having no direction in my life because my daughter moved out. She was the youngest, she had just gotten married, and he looked at me, he goes, It’s time. And I go, Time for what? He says, We’re gonna do it. We’re gonna make a five-year plan. We’re gonna sell everything and we’re gonna follow our dream of sailing around the world. So we for five years we traveled to boat shows, seminars, we took a thousand-mile training passage and in you know, really horrible weather in the trade winds, and um we searched for our boat and traveled all over the country trying to find our boat, and uh five years almost to the day, we cast off the dock lines.
Wow, five years. How is that? Because I mean, I’m really curious. Do you ever have conflict?
Well, everybody does, but ours, I think, is less than most couples because I admire him so much, and I know how intelligent he is, and he’s very compassionate. So he doesn’t butt heads with me unless it’s really important. So I know if he is contesting something I’m saying, it’s probably for a good reason.
So what happens? Like, where do you go? Because I mean, you are stuck on a boat together for the last five years. Some couples they have to leave the house, let alone. I mean, it’s not like you can jump out of the boat.
You can’t, you can’t, but you know, it doesn’t usually get to that point. I mean, honestly, we just we’re a team, we work together, and unlike life in a home where you have all these different goals and all these different thoughts and all these different distractions, we have one purpose and it’s a shared purpose, and it’s to get this boat and ourselves around the world. And you can’t have petty arguments and spats, you can’t, you know, he knows every he’s an ex-merchant marine, he knows everything about the boats and the sailing, so we don’t fight about how to go, where to go, or how to get there, where we’re going. He does all of that. He doesn’t fight with me about cooking because he would starve to death if I didn’t cook for him. Okay. So we have our roles and they’re so clearly defined, and there’s such strong boundaries between what we do that there’s really not a lot to argue about. I would say the bigger problem is that he’s so brave, and we’ve been in these horrible storms and had these situations that we didn’t know if we were going to survive. And he’s stoic and brave and thought-driven. And me, I curl up into a shell and just become useless. And so he has to pull me out of that. And I’m pretty sure that any other man on the planet would have thrown me overboard by now, like pretty confident. Oh, yep, she fell over. Sorry, couldn’t find the body, you know, that kind of. But he digs me out, he doesn’t hold it against me, he doesn’t begrudge me, he just encourages me. And to have that kind of love and that kind of person in your life, it’s a gift.
It really is a gift. You guys are really blessed to have that kind of marriage, but you work at it in the way that you admire each other and respect each other and just plainly love each other in the way that needs to be loved. I’m curious now what was the biggest storm you guys have faced?
And how did you fare?
So I’m glad that you’re a faith-based person because our story is very faith-based, and I believe that there is a higher power that God is watching over us and has so many times put things in my path to keep me going that should not have been there. Like the chances of them being there are zero, and yet they were still there. So, our very first crossing um was going across the Atlantic 1,500 miles from New England to the Virgin Islands. And I wanted to do it in a boat rally. My very first ocean crossing, I wanted to go with other people just because I needed the confidence. Dan did not want to. He conceded and he says, Okay, we’ll do that. So we joined a rally, and you spend a week preparing, and you go to seminars, they check your safety equipment, you meet in groups with women and talk about cooking and provisioning, and the men talk about engines and you know, weather. So the time came to leave, and we all headed out on the same day. But um, we headed out and we heard a noise on a propeller, a cavitation noise. And we were going to the Virgin Islands that’s just been ravaged by Hurricane Irma. And we knew we were bringing supplies for people because they were devastated there. So we knew there would be no chance to get our boat repaired because there were so many boats washed up on shore and there was just no repair options. So Dan said, We’ve got to go back to shore and get this looked at, because I don’t want to cross an ocean if there’s something wrong with our boat. So we had only been out a day and we headed back to the coast. We landed in uh Beaufort, North Carolina, and the rest of the fleet crossed the um Gulf Stream, which is notorious for being rough. And so the weather router wanted to bring everybody south, cross it at its narrowest point, and then make the 1500-mile voyage. So, to make a long story short, 10 days later, nobody was able to find anything wrong with our boat. So we’re like, okay, well, I guess we go because we had three different experts look at it. We had the boat pulled out of the water, we had divers, we had engine people, nobody could find anything wrong. So it was like nine o’clock in the morning, and the weather router was still working with us, and he called us and said, Hey, you gotta leave right now. Otherwise, you’re gonna be stuck here 10 more days. So we said, Okay, we’re gonna leave. So we packed up, headed out across the Gulf Stream. That was an overnight sail. It was five the next morning. We had made it across the Gulf Stream, and it was actually fairly pleasant. I was really surprised because I was really dreading it, you know, heard how rough it always is and everything, but it was it was a nice sail. And Dan really, I relieved Dan. I came up on deck and um he goes downstairs to bed, and about 15 minutes later, the sun comes up over the horizon. As the sun’s coming up, um, the light rays are filtering, and you begin to see things, and I see this giant wave coming towards us, and I’m like, oh my gosh, and I’m holding on, and the boat goes up and over the wave. And I was going, well, that was pretty smooth. And then I see another one, and then I realized that was just the size of the waves we were in. They were huge. They’re probably only like 10-15 feet at that time. Yeah, but that’s still a scary. Well, it was because I didn’t expect it, wasn’t a gradual thing, it was like all of a sudden in my face. So um, I started pounding on the floor with my foot because the our bunk is right underneath the cockberry. I’m like, Dan, Dan, you gotta come up here. So he comes up and he goes, What’s the matter? I’m like, look at the size of these waves. And he’s like, Wow, yeah, these are big. Have you seen the movie A Perfect Storm? Oh, yes. Okay, so that’s the scenario we were in. We were in a perfect storm. There was a front coming from one direction, another front coming from the middle, and we were getting sandwiched in between two storms. And uh several hours later, we were in 20-foot waves or breaking on the bow of our boat. The problems I couldn’t even be up on deck because the boat was actually submarining under the waves. We were going underwater and coming up out of the waves, which is not good in a boat this size. And um Dan made me come up. He’s screaming for me, you gotta get up here, you gotta get up here. Well, one of the waves ripped the dinghy off the deck of the boat, ripped the rails it was tied to out of the boat, and it cast it through the lifelines. So now the dinghy, which was several hundred pounds, was slamming against the hull of our boat, and it was still tied to our mast that was threatening to take the mast off the boat, which it would have if it had stayed tied. So Dan says, I’ve got to go out there, I’ve got to go cut it free. And I was like, Oh my gosh, you know, this is gonna be awful. He straps in, put all the gear on, straps to a jack line that keeps him safe to go forward so he doesn’t get swept off the boat. And he cuts it free, and that boat disappeared in a blink of an eye. A 10-foot, 12-foot-long dinghy, and in one blink it was gone. And I’m like, if he goes overboard, I’m going with him because I am not gonna be on the, I would rather die in there with him than be on this boat alone. So um, and then after that, we heard pounding and the anchor came loose and it was pounding against the hull of the boat and threatening to put a hole in it. So he had to go back out up on deck and try to secure that. But when the boat came up over the waves and then it dropped down, he would actually get separated from the boat. He would actually have no boat under him and be like falling back onto the deck. So in those conditions, he had to try to get that restabilized and tied back up because the shackle had broken. So he came back and I just knew this doesn’t seem survivable to me. Like he’s no, we’re gonna be fine. But I convinced him to call my cousin, who’s a sailor with our SAT phone at the time, um, to give us a weather report and help us through this. So we called him and he said, You guys have to get off the Atlantic now. It’s only gonna get worse. You’ve got to get off the Atlantic. And Dan’s like, but we could be in the Bahamas in two days. He goes, No, you need to get off now. So he’s like, Okay, so we tacked, we turned back towards shore, and about an hour later, the sun started coming out, the waves started receding, the wind went down, and a pot of dolphins came and started jumping around our boat and flipping and turning. And it was like this gif that said, Yeah, you made the right decision. So five days later, we did 800 miles and ended up 20 miles from where we started, and that was our very first experience at sea.
What that would have stopped anybody, seriously. I mean, he is very brave. Dad is extremely brave because, like Donnie, my husband, he’s very brave too, and and he’s very knowledgeable as well. Uh, very smart guy. But I think I would have flipped out. How were you after seeing your husband disappear among the waves and no deck underneath him? I mean, that’s gotta be the most terrifying experience of your life. And how did you stay calm or collected enough to manage?
Well, I don’t think that I was calm and collected at any point of life. And when we got back to shore, um, this is where the faith part comes in because while insurance paid every single dime, what it did to me is it gave me PTSD and total anxiety about going out into oceans again. However, we got there the day before Thanksgiving, and this is where one of those little miracles came in. And we were all alone on a boat, just been through this devastating storm, and I went up to throw some clothes in the dryer because everything we had was wet and soaked and salty because the water actually came in through the ceiling panels and everything in the boat was soaked in salt water. Took out our electronics, our computer, our TV, everything. And there’s a lady, and I needed it one more quarter to do my laundry. And I’m asking her, Do you have a quarter? I’m so sorry. I don’t have enough water. And I’m like breaking down, crying, and she was it’s okay, here’s a quarter. And so we talked for a long time. And I said, You know what? Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. Would you come have Thanksgiving with us on our boat? We’re all alone. So they came over, and that couple told their story, and it made us look like wimps. They had survived cancer, they had survived a heart attack, they survived her slipping and breaking her back, they survived five different things, another boat hitting them, and and oh my gosh. And I’m just like, really? I had one storm and we’re back here and the boat’s okay. These people were sent to teach me a lesson here. So that’s why I agreed to stay and go back out and give it another try. So we went and did cross again with another rally um a year later. Um, we spent some time sailing up and down the the east coast of the U.S. We actually took our kids over to the Bahamas and back, and I was ready to try again. So unfortunately, every time the word the weather started getting rough on this crossing, I went into PTSD and I started having panic attacks. So when we got to the Caribbean, I was going to tell Dan, you’re gonna have to get crewed across. I’ll fly and meet you, but I can’t do this anymore. So we’re in this harbor with a hundred boats. And remember, I said we spent five years preparing for this?
Yes.
So we had a mentor named John Kretschmer who I read all five of his books. I went to several of his seminars and I took a thousand-mile training passage with this man to prepare me. And we pull into this harbor, and it’s you know, one of those days where I’m like, this is the day I’m gonna wake up and tell him I can’t do it. This is the day. And the earth is covered by 80% water, and there are hundreds and millions of harbors in this planet on islands and continents. And three boats away is John Kretschmer, the man who was my mentor. This is like four or five years later. Okay, this is not like you know, a week after we left. He was three boats away. So we he we call him on the radio and he invites us over, and we’re talking, and he goes, So, Allison, how’s it going? And I start tearing up. I’m like, John, this terrible thing happened. And I laid out the whole story and he starts laughing and he’s laughing at me. I’m like, Why are you laughing at me? He goes, Do you know how lucky you are? I’m like, No. He goes, Your boat did fine, your husband did fine, and you’re still out here. He goes, Do you know how many people would have just quit? And that’s when you said I would have just quit. Well, apparently a lot of people do that. And he goes, and most of all, the chance of you ever being in a storm like that again are like zero. They’re so rare. So your chances are just now pretty much zero. And he was the only person on the planet that could have looked at me and told me that, and I would have, you know, internalized it and believed him. So I had two very prominent events to get me to that point, or at least one. And then him telling me that, I said, okay, I can do this. We’ve been out eight years, and yes, we’ve had other horrible situations, really horrible, but I think that I get a little stronger after each one.
What a powerful testimony, really. And I love that that the Lord hears us and knows our heart and knows our fears and our doubts and every bit about our anxieties, and he comes through for us so powerfully, um, especially in the timing of it, because you were already thinking, you were already thinking, today’s the day I’m gonna tell Dan I can’t do this, and then you run into him. You know, it just that’s not a coincidence. And when people call those coincidences, I beg to differ because I’ve known the Lord for a long time, and he has come through for me when when the experts in the field said, You’re gonna die, you know, like you look at situations like these, you are in the perfect storm, and and you’re trapped in between two of these storms in the middle of an ocean, which when we read about it in books, when we see it in movies, it is terrifying to watch. I can’t imagine being on the boat and experience it firsthand. So the Lord knew what you needed and who you needed to bounce back, to recenter yourself on the person that first set out on this voyage, right? Because the PTSD and the anxiety come as a result of the bad experiences that we feel and the insurmountable fear that we face, and it just stays there stuck. But he knows us so well, he knows what we need. I’ve had so many experiences with him that are it’s hard to deny his existence, it just is. Yeah, great. And I’m sure you’ve had more experiences on your journey.
Um, hundreds, hundreds. That’s what I write about in my books. I’m just finishing up the third in my series of books, Riding the Ways of Reality, one, two, and three. And in weaved in these stories is all examples of what exactly what you’re talking about.
Yeah.
So just the other day, well, uh maybe a month ago, a friend of mine had her two daughters coming to visit her on her boat. And I started crying. And like, I want to see my daughter so badly. And I’m sorry.
No, no, you don’t have anything to be sorry about. I’m here for you.
So uh a week after that, my daughter calls me and she’s having a really hard time. She’s a three-year-old and a five-year-old, and she’s a doctor of acupuncture and herbs, and her husband had been out of work for a year and a half, and she’s supported the family. And she’s like, Mama, I just can’t do this anymore. I just can’t do it. So I bought her a plane ticket, and she came to see me with her two-year-old or five-year-old. And they spent a week on our boat last week, and it was so magical because you know, here I’d just been so envious of my friend, and then out of the blue, my daughter comes and is it.
And because the Lord knew that she needed you too.
I needed no, I needed her.
You needed her, and she needed you. It was both because sometimes we think, well, it’s just me, but our daughters they want their mom when things are not going well. When you feel sick or you don’t feel like yourself, and life gets really hard. The first phone call I have is to my mom. I need to hear her voice. She brings me back to my center. You definitely needed your daughter, but she definitely needed you. And how beautiful. I mean, like, I have a perfect example of this, too, if I may share with you so you don’t feel quite so bad. When I first moved to Austin and we got married, I was in a really stressful job. I worked in medical devices, and I had to be in the OR very early in the morning. And I was a person that never liked to see the sight of blood. So it It was interesting that I ended up in the OR and I remember praying to God and saying, You know how much I need this job. I can’t pass out in these surgeries. And so that first surgery came through and I didn’t pass out. And I didn’t pass out for the full year I was in that job. Well, I ended up leaving because I got pregnant with our child. And in that weekend, um, it was a Tuesday, I remember. We were gonna go see the sonogram, my husband and I, and we walked in. I was so excited because I had already seen the sonogram, and he was super excited because it was his first biological child, and he was in his 40s, and walked in, and of course, they don’t see a heartbeat. Oh it was so devastating because I had been through a medical complication that put at risk having a biological child. I had pulmonary embolisms and butt carry syndrome, and they were really scared that if I had high hormones, like when you’re pregnant, that I would develop pulmonary embolisms and die. And so they told me you had to be on blood thinners for a good while. And for a long time, the doctors didn’t know if I could carry a child biologically. I was carrying a child and I was able to inject myself with blood thinners that wouldn’t affect the baby. That was a big thing, right? And lo and behold, we lose a child. This is a Tuesday, and out of the blue, my mom calls a couple days later saying, Honey, your dad and I, we want to come and see you guys this weekend. Is that okay? And it was like the Lord knew I needed my mom because I was about to be wheeled into surgery so that I could start up this whole process all over again. And it was so devastating for us. And and our doctor even suggested, Sylvia, why are you keeping this quiet? This is devastating. You you need to share it with your family, you need support, and then to have my mom call and out of the blue, Allison. It wasn’t like we were scheduled or anything like that. Right. And it was the perfect weekend for my mom and my dad to come up. And it’s the way the Lord works because he knows what everybody needs. Mothers, they need to see their children, they need to care for their children because that’s been their role. That will always be our role until the day we die. We we don’t stop being parents just because they don’t live with us anymore. You know, we I don’t stop being her daughter. I love that he heard your thoughts, he heard your heart, and he loves you so much that he sent your daughter to you. That is so awesome. That is an amazing story. And I’m just grateful that you’re on this podcast sharing these stories because they’re amazing.
But I do want to get to questions that I’ve had since you told me that you’re on a 42-foot boat and you’re sailing around the world. And you said, you know, all these things that come to mind, how do you manage groceries? How much do you buy? And is it between islands? Like, how does that work?
So, your very first lesson that you learn as a blue water cruiser is you carry enough canned goods and dried goods that you could survive for months at a time if you couldn’t find a single grocery. So, as a result, we have 10-pound bags of rice in our build, we have cabinets full of pasta, we have cabinets full of canned goods with meats and um beans and veggies and stuff. So we we could exist for quite some time on that. And depending where we are, because we’ve been to 50 countries, every country is a little bit different. So when we were in Spain and Portugal and you know countries that had big ports and cities, and you could, you know, walk into a grocery store, the groceries are gonna be different, but you could pretty much find fresh fruits and vegetables and meat. That all changed when we got to French Polynesia. We were on remote eight tolls, which are just little rings in the ocean. Well, not little, some of them are you know 30, 40, 50 miles wide, but they’re just circles of sand with palm trees on them from where the volcanoes sunk down into the water and left these rings. Contiki landed. I’m sure you’ve heard the Contiki story of the men trying to recreate the root of how people got here and they took a raft across the Pacific. We stood where they landed on an a toll, no grocery stores. So for probably two months, we had to just exist on what we could catch and coconuts and finding little places that were sort of like grocery stores, and they might have onions and carrots and garlic and potatoes, and that’s pretty much it, you know. And um, so you just learn to adapt and you don’t eat as much on a boat as you do when you’re on land. You don’t really snack. Um, you have maybe two meals, and you just learn to eat less, and you learn to eat whatever’s in front of you. You know, you’re not picky, you’re just appreciative that you have something in front of you to eat. So that’s pretty much how we deal with that.
That would be so cool and yet so challenging, I would imagine, from time to time. It is. Um the question that’s gnawing at me is how creative have you gotten with the food?
Unbelievable. So we run into really amazing friendships on this journey because you run into people and you have so much in common by being, you know, 0-1% of the world that does this, and you have the same kind of personalities and the same goals and the same troubles. So you make really, really good friends. And while you’re all on your, you know, your own voyage, you end up in the same harbors a lot. You end up in the same places because circumnavigating the globe, there’s a pretty steady route that people take. You know, certain harbors and islands and hurricane seasons drives you to the same place. And um, so they love my cooking, and I often host dinner. I got like eight people stuck in my little cockpit here, and uh I make boat fondues and I make uh chili and I make amazing fish dishes and stuff, and they love it. So I guess I get out for my brother because he was a chef, he was a professional chef at a five-star restaurant, and maybe I inherited a little bit of uh, you know, a fraction, a salt grain of his uh his ability.
You know what would be awesome, and this idea just popped in my head. I know the Lord maybe is feeding this idea, is thought of doing a cookbook from your sales, because that would be a really unique take on cooking and being adaptable with the resources you have with the bare minimum, and how you can actually make it like a nice spread of it, and just you know, the different scenarios. It’s just an idea. I mean, you’re already writing stuff down, anyways. You’re all your experiences of being on on this journey, right? You said you’re on your third book.
Well, I’ve published five since I’ve been out two children, one fiction, and three nonfiction. Okay. So um, yeah, I write a lot. I write a lot of books. The only problem is there are so many amazing recipes now on Instagram and all these different places. Like, I can’t look through any of my social media, and these amazing recipes pop up. And it’s I don’t know if people look at cookbooks anymore.
You know what? They probably would considering that uh if you do it in the right way, like marketing it in the right way.
See, and there you that’s the the M word is the bad word for me because I really fail at marketing.
That would be something for someone that actually knows what they’re doing to hire that person to do it. I came from the sales environment, so I know how to sell stuff, but the marketing piece is very different than sales, and and it would just be a very unique take. You would be a very different cookbook, it wouldn’t be lost with all the other recipes from these influencers that are on Instagram. You might actually end up on MasterChef. Who knows? I don’t know, I don’t know, because when you have those big pantries and Gordon Ramsay yelling down your throat, you know, I mean, you’ve already had like tough guys to deal with anyway. So it would be a good thing. It would be your thing to do after. Are are you guys planning on sailing until you reach every country?
Well, the the goal is to get all the way around the world, but before we left, my husband had a very precise plan. I gave him 10 years to get around the world, and he had every country, every port picked out, and this nice little chart with every single stop along the way. And we have yet to be a single place when we thought we would be there, and some of them we haven’t made it at all. So that entire thing has been thrown out the window. And we have a saying that we are exactly where we are when we are meant to be there. And we don’t go by plans, we go by day to day. So people say, Well, what are you gonna do when you’re done sailing? I’m like, who knows where we’re gonna survive? Why plan it? Like, we cannot plan because the weather changes, the boat breaks, things happen, and there’s just no point. So it is totally in God’s hands where we are when we get there and how long we’re out here. And I have no um desire or earthly clue to look beyond tomorrow.
So, how did you get five books out?
Um because um I’m a prolific writer, and my husband is an excellent editor, and he takes my books and he does all of the edding and the formatting and the cover designs and the page layout. And now here’s a story that kind of disturbs me, but um, I got my first book traditionally published called The Seven, which came to me in a dream and was totally divinely inspired. And it’s about seven humans from different places around the world, seven different cultures, chosen from the pool of humanity to represent mankind, and they’re not judged by God or his son, they are judged by seven horses. Like I said, this whole premise came to me in a dream. So the fate of humanity rests in these seven individuals who have these encounters, and after their encounter, they all end up in heaven. And it’s a really special story because each of the people or the places has a special meaning to me from around the world. So I either know the place or the person. And all of their stories are 100% fact-based as far as their cultures and the history of their cultures and the breeds of horses and how they got there. So I take all this knowledge that I have and I turned it into this story. So I got it published with a company, and it’s been like two years, maybe a little bit more, and they did nothing with it. Like they were just so unhelpful. And I think that I just so jumped at the chance to get published. And it was the first publishing company that ever responded to me. Well, actually, another one did too for this book, but this is the one that I chose. And I just was so disappointed. And as I’m having this thought about how can I extricate myself? Is it even legally possible? Can you unpublish? Can you get your rights back? Because I didn’t read all the fine lines. Well, a week after I had that thought, I get an email and it says, The owner of the company died. We’re disbanding, and all your rights are given back for your book. Did I kill the guy? Is this my fault? Did I do this?
No.
I felt so bad. I felt actual guilt, a little bit of joy at the same time, but I definitely felt guilty. I’m like, I prayed for this and it was awful, like, and kind of good at the same time.
Well, so if he was a loving man and believer, he’s in heaven, and so he’s in a way better place than the rest of us. So don’t feel bad about that, right? We pray to get our books out there. We pray that we can extricate ourselves when people don’t treat us well. That doesn’t mean we cause anything, you know. Things are gonna happen in life. People have free will. I would feel awful too. Don’t get me wrong. That would be like, whoa. But it is something that was already meant to be, right? And it taught you a lesson. What do you think has been the biggest lesson you’ve learned in these five years of sailing that you want to share on the podcast?
So when you live on land, as you know, you’re working, you’re working every day and you’re working for things. You’re working for your house, you’re working for your car, you’re working for new furniture, you’re working for that vacation, you’re working for everything but yourself. And when you get rid of all of that stuff, when you own nothing, we own nothing except what’s on this boat, a couple computers and some clothes. That’s it. That’s literally all we own besides the boat. And your sole purpose is to go out and live life on your terms, it totally changes you as a human being. You’re suddenly enjoying every moment. I just feel so fortunate because you know, even just two days ago, I woke up and I looked outside at this new place we were in, and I just teared up. But the beauty of it and the appreciation of being there and of having gotten there and of everything that we’ve accomplished to get where we are, and you’re it’s just living life as fully and as most appreciatively, as humanly possible, is how I feel.
I love that. I so love your spirit. You are really someone that is full of joy, full of gratefulness, full of the Lord, goodness all the way around. And your story is amazing. I’m grateful today that you are right in front of me because you are adding joy to my life at this precise moment.
Thank you.
That’s really sweet of you to say. You really are, and I mean, I just felt the Holy Spirit within me as I said that. You are a joy, and your books are gonna spread like light should spread in the world.
That’s my prayer, that is my one prayer.
You know, and I don’t know. I mean, I even have my my pen here that says be the light, and that’s how you usually sign off. It’s Matthew 5:14 from scripture. And I’ve always considered people like yourself, even your eyes are very illuminated, and it’s not because you’re out in this beautiful Tahitian background, but also because it’s just you. I mean, your soul and your spirit, everything about you in this interview has been about love, about joy, about alignment, about purpose. Because when you have purpose together as husband and wife, there’s very little room for conflict when you guys are one, right? And I think most of us forget that because we’re caught up in the things of life, like you said, and we lose sight of what’s truly important, and that’s the family and the love in our life, because that is the only thing we get to take with us when we transition. When we I always say when we graduate into heaven, because it’s a form of graduation. We’ve lived out our purpose, our divine purpose. We have fulfilled his master plan, and then now he wants his child home, and so he calls us home. And it’s the most beautiful sight that people who have died clinically and have gone to heaven talk about. It is magical to be in heaven, you don’t want to come back, and I’ve read so many books like that because I was very intrigued by near-death experiences. And the interesting thing was we landed in the church here in Austin. John Burke is the New York Times best-selling author to Imagine Heaven, and he was the senior and founding pastor of Gateway North here in Austin, and that was the church we got drawn to, and we’re still there today, and it’s been 10 glorious years of having a wonderful community, but it was his book that actually helped me surrender my grief to the Lord when my daddy was dying, and it just gave me such peace knowing that my dad went straight to heaven and was received by a committee and felt so much love in the world. And that love that that you feel, I have felt it in my own testimony when I received three miracles in 72 hours back in 2012. It was profound. And it’s a love that you can’t put into words. It is so amazing to feel that. I mean, that is it’s inspiring, Allison. Thank you. So I I admire both of you for taking the plunge, literally, literally and figuratively. Yes, uh, and traveling and doing everything. And I I assume the 10-year uh plan also went out the door.
Out the cockpit. Yeah, it’s gone.
The Lord will tell us when we go back to land and stay there.
Would you go back to New York or Philadelphia? Or where did you where was home base for you guys?
We lived in New Jersey for 30 years, and my one son lives in our hometown still, married a his one of his schoolmates that he went to school with and knew all of his life, ended up marrying her and bought her parents’ house, which we used to drive by and admire all the time. So my son like lives in a town, in a home, in our community, and my other son lives less than an hour away in Pennsylvania. But my daughter, unfortunately, married a California boy because we went out to California to borrow a horse for a competition, and she fell in love with the son, or they fell in love with each other. And so she lives in California. So when we go home, we try to go home once a year. We have to go 3,000 miles back and forth to see both families, of course. Yeah, so it’s a lot of traveling.
But it’s worth it, it’s so worth it because you get to see your grandchildren and your kids and just be with family.
Can I tell you tell you one short fun story about my grandkids? Absolutely. They each have a map of the world in their bedrooms, and it’s a stick pin map. So they can take a pin and put wherever we are in the world. And every single month, I make these accordion eight folding panel cards, and I put up the pictures of where we are. I show the sea creatures, the animals, and give them a little history, and they get the cards and they read the message. They call us boat grandma and boat grandpa, and they get the little message from us on one panel, then all the pictures and the stories, and then they take the stick pin and they put it um, you know, where we are in the world. So they’re learning geography. And we were in the island of Nukuhibu in the Marquesas a few months ago, and lo and behold, manta rays came and started swimming around our boat. Not just one, but like two or three of them. You might see them pass, but I’ve never seen them come up close before. And my grandsons were on the phone with me at the time. So I’m like, oh my gosh, look at this, boys, it’s manta rays. And I put the phone close and one swam right up with its mouth open right towards the camera. And it was just unbelievable, right? So Katie said that after we were done talking, the three-year-old ran into the bedroom and ran up to the stick pin and said, This is where both grandma and grandpa are, and this is where manta rays live. He found us on the world map at three years old and said, This is where Manta Rays live.
Awesome.
Those were the two boys that came on the boat, and we had not seen dolphins. I commented just not too long ago, Dan, we don’t see any dolphins anymore. They used to play in our bow wake. You know, where are all the dolphins? The day the boys got to our boat and we pulled up anchor, dolphins surrounded our boat and started playing and jumping and right next to the bow, like so close they could reach out and touch them the day they got here.
That’s awesome. I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen these amazing creatures of the ocean, whales, I’m sure. And um, what has been the most magical creature you’ve encountered?
Well, while I do love the dolphins, the manta rays are just amazing because they have these like 12-foot wingspans. And I write songs on Suno and I make up the lyrics and I do songs and videos. And my husband and I went down and we’re all alone, and these manta rays just showed up, and they’re and when you get underneath them, you’re watching them soar, and they look like giant birds going through through the water, and they they have no teeth, they just take implankton, they have no fear of humans, and they just swim and glide and circled in unison above me. And I just sat there underwater and I filmed them, and I have this amazing video, and it was just so special. It was just like in like aquatic angels swimming above us. They were just they just took my breath away.
I’ll have to to sign in to to hear your music and see what you’re talking about because I’m very visual and I would love to see that um up close. But wow, what a what a life. I’m I’m so happy for you. I’m happy that you get to do what you love. And you do it every day, and you get to be with the man that you adore and respect and admire, that’s the life. That truly is the life. And I’ve just been so blessed to have you on the podcast. And I know the people on the other side are gonna be equally as blessed as having heard your stories.
If we wanted to purchase your books or your music, where can we find all that information?
So my books are on my author website, which is allisongeon.com. All with links to they’re all available on Amazon, even the seventh. Still there. Uh, if there’s any publishers listening, please keep me in mind. Um and I have a YouTube channel, Sailing Equist, and we have hundreds of videos on there of all the different places that we’ve been, and I take the camera with me and just talk about where we are, what we’re doing. And then every single day, almost every single day, I post little mini clips of what I’m feeling, what we’re doing, what are we eating, what are we seeing on Facebook and Instagram. So you can pretty much find me anywhere. My pen name, I’ve rebranded myself as an author as the nautical novelist.
The nautical novelist? Okay. Like a like a good writer myself, I always have a pen and paper next to me because I’m constantly jotting notes and thoughts are coming at me pretty fast. And I’ve just loved my time with you.
Thank you.
I’ve really loved it. And I look forward to reading your books online because as a as an author, I know the algorithms and how these things work. I’ve been doing it for a couple of years now. I’d love to be able to purchase your books to support you and to support your purpose of sailing around the world. Uh, and just sharing the joy with others on your YouTube channel because all that takes time and and effort, and it’s extremely valuable to people out in the world right now. We need as much light and love and kindness that we can spread. But your story does that immeasurably. And I will likely be listening to this podcast interview a couple of times over, especially on on bad days, so that I can lift my spirit up uh and know that someone out there is living the dream and it’s very possible for the rest of us as well. So thank you, Alison. Any last words of encouragement you want to leave us with before we sign off?
Um, only that if you are, if you have a dream and you’re wondering, should I do it, should I do it, or waiting for the right time to happen? Um, you have to do it. You have to to go out and try because you don’t want to be one of those people on your deathbed with those wishes of I wish I had done that, I wish I had done that. And you’re gonna be so happy you did.
I love that. I think that’s the best advice both you and I have given on this podcast of just go do it. What are you waiting for? Life is short, life is fleeting, and tomorrow is not guaranteed. And we both know that. So why make plans? Just follow your heart and follow the Lord’s promptings into where you need to be, and you’ll be in alignment to who you were here to become in the first place. So that’s it. And look for those, look for those signs because they will appear, and those messengers, because he’s going to send people your way, and as well as the people he sent you at precisely the moment you needed them. I think that was the most powerful testimony to date. So, Allison, thank you so much for joining us on Released Out Reveal Purpose. And for the listeners, remember Matthew 5:14 to be the light, be the light. Like Alison has been the light. She has gone out there, she has made her dreams come true, she has published books, she hasn’t stopped writing, she hasn’t stopped sharing on her YouTube channel. Anything that your heart desires, anything that the Lord prompts you to do, step into it with confidence and trust that he’s guiding you into your light because he is. So thank you so much for being on the show, Alice. And it was such an honor and a pleasure. Please let Dan know that it was such an honor to hear y’all’s story on the podcast. And if ever he wants to be on the podcast and you want to do a couple interview, that would be an awesome opportunity for us as well, at some point or another. When you get to a different port and a different time zone. But I wish you the best and most blessed rest of your week, Allison, and to the listeners. Have a beautiful rest of your evening. Bye now.
So that’s it for today’s episode of Release Doubt Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on iTunes. We’ll win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a $25,000 private VIP day with Sylvia Worstham herself. Be sure to head on over to Released Doubt Reveal PurposePodcast.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift. And join us on the next episode. So that’s it for today’s episode of Release Doubt Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who hosts a review on iTunes. We’ll win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a $25,000 private VIP day with Sylvia Worstham herself. Be sure to head on over to sylviaworsham.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.