Serving Our Seniors Magazine: Oct-Dec 2022

Braving a Great Adventure in Later Life George Steinemann, 71, and his wife Jamie, age 61 are residents of Sandusky. Both won’t let their age keep them from living life to its fullest. They are adventurists and have stories to prove it. While on a vacation in March 2016, George, Jamie and son Travis were sitting together and talking about life. Travis was talking about a career change. George asked him, “What do you want to do?” To George’s surprise, Travis told him, “I want to sail around the world with you.” George was 64 at the time and responded, “OK, let’s do that.” He already owned a 44 foot Swan Mark II sail boat, perfect for this type of voyage. Two years later, at age 66, George retired and was looking forward to their challenge. Jamie, planned the trip over the ensuing 12 months and leaned heavily on author Jimmy Cornell, who wrote several guides to world cruising. She quizzed George’s knowledge for out of ordinary conditions. She created the itineraries for each stop, how long each stay would need to be, and the timetable to avoid most of the bad weather and hurricanes. She also worked to make sure they had spare boat parts and ample provisions. On November 23, 2018, after loading the yacht aboard a truck during a snowstorm, George and Jamie left Sandusky by car, enjoyed a leisurely drive across the U.S, and met the truck and boat when they arrived in Marina Del Rey, CA. The plan was to spend 11 months covering 24,000 nautical miles, following the good weather across the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans, with stops in French Polynesia, Niue, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, Thursday Island (Australia), Darwin, Indonesia, Cocos Keeling, Mauritius, Reunion, Cape Town, St. Helena, and finally, 3400 nautical miles to Barbados. I asked George why he decided to do this at his age. “I knew it would be challenging, but also rewarding. I wanted to do something extraordinary in retirement besides working on my golf handicap and puttering around the house. I didn’t want to grow older and have regrets that I didn’t do something exciting while I still had my health,” he said. “Two people sailing around the world isn’t easy. It is dangerous. One person is on deck running the boat for 5 hours while the other person tries to sleep. It’s five hours on and five hours off, day-in and day-out. When you finally make landfall after 3,000 miles, it’s euphoric.” George went on to explain, “If there is a storm and a crew member falls over –they’re dead, unless they are tethered. The boat will keep sailing until the off-watch person comes on deck, and that could be hours after the man overboard happened. It’s a big ocean. Provisioning for long passages was particularly challenging, as many ports had minimal resources to supply two adults for a 3-week trip. Their staples were sterile milk with cereal; PB&J sandwiches, fish they caught regularly, along with canned soups and vegetables, pasta, potatoes and onions. With no freezer, fresh meat only lasted a few days. George is well aware of how fortunate he was to have this time with Travis. He said, “Not many 16