How Two Empty Nesters Sold Almost Everything To Sail The World

Get ready to set sail! Today’s guest joins us all the way from French Polynesia. After raising a family and spending years building their careers, Alison Gieschen and her husband, Dan, made a bold midlife decision: they sold nearly everything they owned to follow a dream they had shared for decades—to sail around the world.

What began as a conversation many years ago eventually became a life-changing adventure, trading familiar home routines for open water, new cultures, and the freedom of life at sea. They have since traveled to more than 49 countries across 5 continents! 

Follow along on Alison & Dan's journey here: 

 https://sailmates.org/

And learn about Alison's riveting books here:

https://alisongieschen.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hello, welcome back to On Air with Dr. Pete. I'm your host, Dr. Pete Economo, and well, we've got another fun episode. This one is all the way from the French Polynesia via boat. So if you're watching on YouTube, you'll see that. And after raising a family and spending years building their careers, Alison Gishon and her husband Dan made a bold midlife decision. They sold nearly everything that they owned just to follow their dream and shared decades to sail around the world. So it began as a conversation and then eventually became a life-changing adventure, creating familiar home routines for open water new cultures, and freedom of life at sea. This both makes me so anxious and really uh really uh admirable for you. So wow, thanks Allison for being here.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to share what it's like living on 43 feet of space in the middle of the ocean.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

I I can't wait forty-nine countries and across five different continents, yeah. My God, so cool. This like there was a young lady who just did rowing across the Atlantic Ocean. Did you see that?

SPEAKER_01 1:23

I've seen several of them, and I think they're absolutely crazy. Like I I can't fathom that.

unknown 1:28

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

That's beyond my comprehension.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Same. You've got 43 feet, and I I heard in what you were saying that that it was not easy to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Crossing the ocean?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Well, it's rowing. Crossing the like 43 feet, like in the middle of the ocean with your husband. Like, I'm sure it's not all perfect.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

No.

Stranded In French Polynesia

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Alright, so tell us like where tell us about today. Like, where are you even today?

SPEAKER_01 1:54

And give us Okay, so today we are in the French Polynesian Islands, which was when my husband, like, when we started planning and laying this out, and he showed me our route. He goes, Where's the number one place you want to be? And I or that you're looking forward to being. And I said, the French Polynesians. I mean, come on, that's a no-brainer, right? And uh so we've been stuck here five months because an engine part broke and our engine was built in the 80s and they don't make that part anymore. So it's uh been a Herculean feat trying to find that part, and we eventually did pull it out and it's been shipped to Tahiti, and they have to wait for our part to be shipped to them from Myanmar, and then they're supposedly gonna fix it and get it back to us, but nothing happens quickly here.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

No. Wow. So five months uh are you docked during that, or like how does that work?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

No, we're out at anchor in a harbor, a very roly harbor. So if you see me like grab onto something real quickly, it's because you know the boat is doing this a lot. But we did go home for two months for uh November and December, uh, we went home and spent it with our kids, which was really nice because we have five grandkids that miss us very much.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

That's and where are they all over the place or where are they?

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yes, unfortunately, my daughter lives in California and my boys live on the East Coast, so even when we go home, we can fly 3,000 miles to see both of them.

The Five Year Plan Begins

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Yeah. So wait, how long have you been sailing for?

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Eight years.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

And then what was like what really was the thing that you guys were you and Dan were like, okay, like let's do this.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Okay. Well, we met in a sailboat race, and my cousin brought him down to be a ringer on my mom's sailboat, and we spent an amazing weekend together. We went scuba diving, windsurfing, canoeing, just all kinds of antics and shenanigans, and I knew this guy was like he was it. And so we were sitting at a bar, he's getting ready to go back to Philadelphia. I was going back to Charlotte to finish Wednesday, and he he's you know, we were both kind of sad because we knew we really liked each other, but we were so so far apart. And they said, you know, someday my dream is to sail around the world. I said, Mine too, let's get married. So he proposed the fourth day we were together, like he blew me up two weekends later, and the fourth day we were together, he goes, I'm gonna ask you to marry me, and I said yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

How long ago was that?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Um, we got married forty it'll be forty years this June.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

So cool. That's that's like uh that's a so uh you know, you've already mentioned the boys on the East Coast and your daughter in California. Um what did they you announced this to the family. What what was how'd they react?

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Well, it always been kind of something our kids knew that we wanted to do.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

When it got to a point in our lives where we we had I had a horse farm for, you know, twenty-five years and an equestrian program, and I was a school teacher, and then I left my tenured teaching job to go work for a government entity.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

$25 million horse park. They were building six miles from my house, and I had a master's in administration and leadership, and I had all this horse experience, so they hired me, and it turned out they were the most corrupt, evil people on the planet. So me and four other women ended up um getting treated so horrible horribly that we filed a lawsuit against them and we won. But then I I left that job and I had nowhere to go because I couldn't get hired back into teaching because I was making too much money when I left. So nobody wanted to hire me.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

So I was so depressed. And then Dan just saw me withering and he said to one day, goes, It's time. I'm like, time for what?

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

We're gonna make a five-year plan and we're going. So we did. We educated ourselves, we boat shopped, we took a heavy weather training passage a thousand miles in the middle of the uh Atlantic and learned everything we could, and then we just did it.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

That is uh oh god, I have so many questions in my head. Lee's gonna be mad at me, baby.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

You're not going by the questions I gave you.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

She's gonna be well, because I'm thinking here's my thought. I'm just gonna go with my thought, if that's okay, Allison.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

With that.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Like, so many people get divorced today, and like here you guys are like, we still like each other, and let's go do this thing on a boat. That's like that's a that's so cool. Like, kudos to you all.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Yeah, I mean, I you know, I think that's uh really important to celebrate because obviously, like, this is a big step, and your kids and your grandkids, and you know, it's you guys miss out on a lot too by doing this. You know, so sacrifice.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

However, Starlink has been a game changer. When we left, however many years ago, we didn't get to you know talk to our kids on a regular basis, and it was really phone calls were really expensive. And now with Starlink, I video chat. Like the other day, there were manta rays swimming by my giant manta swimming right under our boat, and my three-year-old grandson was on, and I'm like, what Carter Ryder, look, Ryder, there's these manta rays, look, they live here, they swim under our boat, and he was so fascinated and blown away. And then afterwards he went into his bedroom, and it's like each of my grandkids a chart of the world, and they put a stick pin, whatever country we're in, and I send him this accordion postcard this accordion postcard that I can make online. So I put picture eight pictures, I put facts about where we are and talk about the sea creatures and the animals and some history, and I mail it to him every month. So he walked over and this world map, he pointed to the French Polynesians and says, This is where boat grandma is, and Manta Rays live here.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

My God.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

At three.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

How cool is that for them? Because they're gonna they mean they'll be so worldly in this experience that you all are having.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Well, it's just wonderful to be able to share, you know, because I was I started taught third grade, and those kids didn't even know that people lived across an ocean. They didn't know there were other countries. And so, you know, when my kids go into kindergarten, they're gonna know geography, they're gonna know about world cultures and so many things, you know, through us.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Once a teacher, always a teacher.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Yeah, every one of my books has a teacher's manual to go with it.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Of course. Of course. We're gonna get to those in a minute. But um, what's been the biggest challenge? What would you say the biggest challenge is?

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Broken parts.

The Storm That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Okay. Next biggest challenge. That's because I because that's that's real, but what like what else? Like even mentally, because I know we're gonna we're gonna talk about mental resilience, so just even validate me a little bit with how how scary this must be.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

And so our very first ocean crossing, we went with what's called a rally, a boat rally, and that group of people get together for the week before you make this big passage, and you have seminars, you have people inspect your boat, they make sure you have all the the uh safety equipment, and then they have a weather router, so they tell you, okay, we're gonna cross now, and they follow you and track you all the way across, and every morning you go a call on the radio that gives the latest weather. So it's kind of a safety net. And I wanted to do this because that was our first ocean crossing. So we started off with a rally, and we were up in New England, and we were going down the coast past North Carolina, and we heard a noise on our engine that we had never heard before. And Dan says, Oh my god, do we really want to cross an ocean? Knowing there might be something wrong with our engine. And I'm like, No. So we deviated off to Beaufort and we spent 10 days there getting our boat checked out. We we had a diver and then we had a mechanic, and then we pulled the boat out of the water. Ten days later, they didn't find anything. So we're like, okay, I guess, I guess we're gonna go. So one morning the weather router said you have 24 hours to get across the Gulf Stream because there's a storm coming, and you gotta get across. If you want to go, it's gonna be another week, or you gotta leave right now. So we cast cast off the dock lines. I was like, Oh my god, we're going. We got across the Gulf Stream overnight. Next morning before dawn, it was my shift. So I went up on deck, and as the sun is coming up over the horizon, I see this giant wave coming towards me, and I'm like, holy crap! And the wave came and the boat went so smoothly up and over it. And then I saw the next one come and I'm like, these are the size waves we've been going over. I just didn't know because it was dark, and then I got really uncomfortable and I'm pounding on the floor, you know, Dan, you gotta come up here, you gotta come up here. So he came up, and what transpired was a quick, um, rapid front coming through. Have you ever seen the movie The Perfect Storm?

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Yes, of course.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Okay, well, that's what we were in. There was a storm coming in front of us, a storm coming behind us. It was compressing the waves, so they got bigger and bigger, the wind got stronger and stronger. Before you knew it, 20 foot waves were crashing on the deck bow of our deck, and our dinghy was lashed to the deck to these wooden teak rails, yeah, and it ripped the dinghy and the rails right out of the deck and put the dinghy to the lifeline. So now the it's threatening to demast us because it was banging against the shrouds, and Dan had to go up tethered in on these 20-foot waves and try to cut it free. And when he cut it free, and I saw how quick I mean, literally in the blink of an eye, that boat disappeared. It just disappeared from view. And I said, Well, if he goes in, I'm gonna jump in with him because I am not gonna be on this boat alone in this weather. I'm like, if he goes in, that's it. We're both going.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

So to make a long story short, um, we ended up turning around and heading back to shore. So we did 500 miles in five days and ended up 10 miles from where we started. But the after effect was that I had extreme PTSD. And so when when we crossed again, when we finally did cross, I had huge anxiety and panic attacks. Like as soon as the weather started getting rougher than it was predicted, I'm like, oh my god, it's happening again. And Dan's like, no, no, you're gonna be fine. So every day I thought, when I wake up, when we get there, I'm gonna tell him I can't do this.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

It's not worth the fear and the anxiety. So we pulled into St. Martin and it was a harbor with maybe a hundred boats in it. And three boats away was the man that we did our our thousand mile training passage with, our mentor and the peep person that helped us with our entire beginning of our sailing. And he was three boats away. And when the earth is covered by 80% water, and you go to the island and the harbor that your mentor is in, that's a huge sign. So we called him on the radio and said, Hey John, we're here. Can we come over? And he goes, Yeah, come on over for happy hour. So we go over and he says, So Allison, how's it going? And I'm like, John, it's really bad. We got in this really bad storm and this happened, and I'm just I'm really scared now, and I don't think I can do this anymore. And he starts laughing, and I'm like, Yeah, something funny. He goes, Yeah, he goes, Do you know how lucky you are? I'm like, No. He said, Your boat did fine, your husband did fine, you did fine, and most importantly, you're still out here. He goes, Do you know how many people would have sold the boat and given up? And the chances of that happening again are about zero. You are gonna be fine. And he was the only person in the world that could have looked me in the eyes and told me that. And I believe that.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Like so that because I know that you say that a lot about your journeys taught you about mental health, isn't just about eliminating the fears, it's developing tools to move forward despite it. So share that framework. And I'm assuming this was the framework of how that's changed for you.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yes, because I still have fear. I mean, just on this crossing the Pacific, our biggest crossing to date, we got caught in a Chinese fishing net and it took out our autopilot and nearly disabled our boat. And we were 680 miles from shore, and we had a choice to make. Do we abandon the boat or do we fight through this? And we fought through it, and it was terrifying. But I'm like, I've been scared before. And every time it's come out, okay, I'm gonna trust my husband, I'm gonna trust the journey, I'm gonna trust that everything that's happened this far to keep us going is a sign that I need I need to be strong and I need to deal with it. And I'm okay with having my breakdowns, and my husband is okay with walking me through them, and it's part of the process. And all I'm hoping is that I have fewer and fewer as we get this array of experience under our belts, and pretty soon it's gonna be like, Yeah, we've done this before. This is a no-brainer. We we got this. And we've been sinking, we've been sinking twice, and he he saved us both times. He he was dead once. I went up and he just passed out, and I thought he was dead, and I'm calling Mayday on the radio because I thought my husband was dead, but see, he was still alive, and we're fine. So as long as we're I think it was fatigue, our autopilot had kept kept shutting off, and he had no sleep, and he was probably dehydrated. And I've never seen him in 30 year well 39 years of marriage, I've never seen him pass out, and he just killed over. And I didn't check for breathing. I panicked. I'm like, oh my god, he's dead. He died.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

He wasn't Yeah, it's I know like now. Do you feel like this is something this is the rest of your life, or is there does this is there an end to this at some point?

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Well, we started out, I gave him 10 years, but we got stuck in Ireland for two because of COVID, and he said that doesn't count. So we're way behind the ball game on that one. And at this point, we absolutely have zero plans for our future. People say, what are you gonna do when you're done? I'm like, we don't even know if we're gonna live through it. Like, why make plans when we made a 10 10-year plan and we have never been in one single place that we predicted that we would be there, and sometimes not even the same country. Like you throw schedules out the window, you throw plans out the window, so we stop making them. We know day to day, and then the wind is right, the weather is right, and the boat is working, and then we then we make our plans to go to our next place.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

But beyond that, do you have a favorite place that you've been? No. Out of these, you know, 49 and Yes, we love the Azores.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

There are have you heard of the the Azores? Azores, some people call them. Okay, there are a group of islands about 800 miles off the coast of Portugal. Absolutely magical. And um there are a group uh I think there's seven or eight of them, I think five are inhabited, and it's between sixty and seventy degrees, three hundred and sixty days of the year. Uh they're they're volcanic islands, so the water coming through is very deep and it attracts whales and dolphins and the most incredible sea life. The islands are all organic, they use no pesticides or have anything unnatural. They all make their own cheese and they even make their own wines, and it's so inexpensive. To go to a meal with an appetizer, starting with a bottle of wine, this amazing, you know, four-course meal dessert, and then a bottle of port at the end.

unknown 15:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

$20 a person. Yeah. And so how long did you guys stay there?

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Oh, we were there several weeks. I would have loved to spend longer, but at that time we were still kind of trying to stay on the side. Is there like a map?

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Is there a map that we're agenda? Or there is an agenda?

SPEAKER_01 16:05

There is an agenda. We're actually doing a circumnavigation which take us on a very well-traveled route that you know 90% of the people that circumnavigate west to east take. So we see the same people over and over again at the same ports and the same harbors because it's just if you're gonna do it, there's a you know, a good route and good places to stop.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

And do you make friends with these people?

Staying Grounded At Sea

SPEAKER_01 16:27

So the friends that we've made out here are stronger friendships than we've ever had on land because you are literally and figuratively in the same boat, and it's the kind of person that it takes to do this, are very resilient and strong and helpful, and just they're I don't want to it's hard to describe, but you're very like-minded, and when you meet, you have an instant connection, and we just absolutely love spending time with them when we can't.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

What kind of techniques have you learned to stay grounded? So you said like Dan really helps kind of get you through it. Obviously, the fear is real, and thank you for sharing that because I was feeling like such a little chicken. I'm as I'm sitting here, like I don't want to leave my house, and Allison's amazing just there with these 20-foot waves and cutting something off, and her husband's passing. I'm like, what is this? But so what what have you learned that kind of helps keep you grounded?

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Dan is always grounded. I don't think the man knows fear. So um he was a merchant marine before he started this. He had crossed ships on oceans on ships, and that literally I asked him one time, is there ever time you felt fear? And he goes, Well, not really, but going through the Straits of Gibraltar, um, you know, the the waves are so big you could see the ship rippling, like the metal rippling down the aisle. So on the so we when we had an epic failure in the Straits of Gibraltar, which is part of my book, so you have to read it to find that story. But my coping mechanism is um we I met a solo sailor and he had been around the world five times by himself and circumnavigated. And uh, you know, here I am thinking how difficult this is and how you know all these things go wrong, but at least I always have Dan and we have somebody to talk to. We have two hands to stop the water from coming into the boat and you know, fix us from sinking and things like that. And I'm like, how do you do it? How do you the the solitude, this just being out at sea for you know a month at a time and having not another human being to talk to? And he goes, Well, I was like to have a hat and I put it on my starboard winch. The winch is the thing that you put the handle in to create the sails in and out, and we have conversations. And I'm like, okay, and it and he goes, You want to know why I don't talk to the port winch? I'm like, okay, why? He goes, because it doesn't talk back. I'm like, oh, okay, I understand now. Whenever I start feeling overwhelmed or anxious, I'm like, you know what? If Nicholas can sail around the world five times, and he's talked about he told us about you know some of his worst moments, I'm like, if he can do it, we've got a very, very sturdy boat. Dan is so darn he's like the MacGyver of the ocean. He can fix anything with a paperclip. If Nicholas can do it, I gotta shut up and just like suck it up, and we're gonna be absolutely fine.

Next Stops And Hurricane Seasons

SPEAKER_00 19:00

So that's my it must be so hard for him to not fix this part of the motor from the nice. It is. It's killing us. I'm imagining. So I and I know it's gonna get fixed because you you know it's just life and the universe and Dan. But where to after the French Polynesia? What's next on the agenda?

SPEAKER_01 19:15

So we have some more exploring here to do. I we're avid scuba divers. We actually have a dive compressor on board, so we fill our scuba tanks, and we really want to go to the atolls because it's amazing clear water, and they're these little round rings in the ocean with this beautiful crystal clear water in it, and the most amazing sea life. One is known for as a manta manta ray cleaning station where the all the mantas come in in large groups and the little fish clean them called a cleaning station. And on Rang Aurora, the dolphin pods usually are nomadic. These dolphins live there and never leave, so when you go dive with them, they'll come right up to you. Like my friend was there, and one just rolled over on his back and wanted his belly rubbed, and so there's all these amazing experiences in the atolls, and then uh there's some other island chains here we want to see. And then before the next hurricane season, because that drives where we are and when we're there. We need to go to New Zealand from New Zealand after the hurricane season is over, we'll go to Australia and then up to Thailand, and that's really as far as we've gotten right now. Like as far as planning.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

I'm imagining getting to New Zealand is like a long ocean cross. I'm American, so my geography is sorry, you you're the teacher in you is gonna cringe, but but that's a long ocean cross to get to New Zealand? No?

SPEAKER_01 20:31

No, actually, New Zealand's only a couple of weeks because there's um some islands.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

But a couple of weeks, come on. Like that's it's long.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

No, that's no no. Two weeks is really short, to be honest. Um well it took us 28 days to get here. It would have taken longer, but we had to make an emergency landing in the Galapagos Islands because we had some issues. So we did stop. Um so it would have taken us you know a month to get here had we not stopped.

Minimalism Money And Meaning

SPEAKER_00 20:58

All right, well, that's that's really uh what what about like any regrets about what you left behind? Love that. Zero. And and I said like the Starlink, like that allows for you to stay connected with the you know, your family, which is I think that probably the most important thing. Right. Hearing how you build these connections with other people that are circumventing the world is just beautiful. I get it. It that sounds like uh a really beautiful experience. So what other what other life lessons would you like before we talk about the books in a second, but other life lessons you'd like to share? Because I feel like you have a lot of gems to teach us.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Well, I think one of the greatest things that we've learned is how living a minimalistic lifestyle really helps you appreciate this planet on a much greater level because literally everything we own that's important will fit in one suitcase. We have we don't have possessions, we don't have routines, we don't have jobs, we don't have telephones ringing, we don't have everything's on auto. Our few bills that we have, like boat insurance or what I don't even know what else, Starlink is all auto pay. Have any constraints on our timer? Energy. Like just seeing the world and you know, like living in this culture here, this island. There's maybe 1200 people on this island, and they're such beautiful and passionate and spiritual people. And we get to live among them. You know, this for um five months, I have lived in French Polynesia with these people, and I know them and I know their names, and they've invited us to ceremonies and things, and just seeing how the rest of the world lives and not having life pulling you in so many directions is just a really amazing way to live.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

It's and you, you know, I think some some listeners will be like, well, that's privilege and all that. And it's like, but you also you guys had your career, you taught, you switch careers, and so when you make decisions for your the your first date, you knew you wanted to do this. You know, so if when you when you plan, you can do anything.

Memoirs Mermaid Tales And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Yeah, exactly. I mean, you just it's your priorities. I mean, you know, you can go on you go on cruise the money that you spend on a cruise ship for a week, you can sail around the world for a year. So Yeah, I mean, what are your costs? I mean, most we can take a walk up on this island, we can go back with coconuts, mangoes, avocados, hot peppers, uh, papayas, like we can come home with a feast just taking a walk through the woods here. Beautiful. And it's you know, it's just incredible. There's so little to buy, you don't spend money on anything. So when you your your wind pushes you, your solar power charges your batteries. What are your expenses?

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Well, you've written b a few books, and so tell the listeners where they can find them, and maybe if there's anything you would share about the books or sort of even what the right because there's got a lot to write about.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Like what So I have our two sailing books about the first three, four years, and then after that, our time in the Mediterranean, and those are called Riding the Ways of Reality. One is Mediterranean Mayhem and Magic. I'm sorry, Tales of Turmoil and Triumph, and then Mediterranean Mayhem and Magic. And I'm starting my third one about our next set of adventures. So those are just our memoirs and a lot of funny stories and scary stories. And then I just published and it just well, it won the Golden Wizard book for children. Uh Sienna, and it's a mermaid book, but all of the sea life is real. So when kids read it, it's an early reader chapter book. They learn about the sea life, and in the back is is a glossary with actual photos of the sea creatures and then facts about them. And I've already written Marlin, the sequel about a boy mermaid person, and it's gonna be again educational, but still, you know, rooted in fantasy. And I wrote the seven, and that just got reader's view silver medal for a Christian books, and it's the father and the son narrating seven humans picked from seven different places in the planet, and they are deciding the fate of humanity. If you if humanity appreciates the gifts of the earth, humanity will be redeemed. If they don't, humanity will be wiped out to start again. Each of the people or the locations has a special place in my heart, and all of the cultures of the people and their locations are all 100% facts. So it's again, I try to weave facts and reality into all of my books. So I have several children's books, several adult books, fiction, nonfiction, and they're so they can either just go to Amazon and type in Alice and Geishon author, or I have an author website that has a lot of stories, for instance, a story behind the story for every character in the seven, like why I pick them. So Alice and Geishan.com is my author website, and sailmates.org O R G is my sailing blog. So I do photos and stories and pictures of every place we visit and put them there. And on my Facebook page, I do daily photos and stories and short videos, and I've started writing songs and take using my own music to put with my videos.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah. Well, Alison, thanks so much. This was really great. I really appreciate you being here today. You've shown us that it is not too late to follow your dreams and just to live life fully and you know with adventure. I I'm inspired. I also feel lazy, even though I I I'm a higher performer, but I feel like a a little stagnant, and I'm gonna go push myself today. But this is really beautiful. And uh, I know that those listening at home, if you want to follow Allison and Dan's journey, all the things that she just said, we'll have all those links in the show notes and sailmates.org, you know, just so you can really look a little bit into this. So, Allison, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Final Takeaways And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Thanks for being here listening at home and for keep sharing all your stories with us. We want to hear back from you. And until then, until next week, when we're back here, spread a little kindness and stay well.