At the age of 50, Ruby Gates left her career and home to get on a sailboat for seven months. At the time, she knew nothing about sailing, but the trip changed her life. Now, nine years later, Ruby has decided to go after the wildest idea she's ever had. She's circumnavigating the world by sailboat.
At the age of 50, Ruby Gates left her career and home to get on a sailboat for seven months. At the time, she knew nothing about sailing, but the trip changed her life. Now, nine years later, Ruby has decided to go after the wildest idea she's ever had. She's circumnavigating the world by sailboat.
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Ruby Gates:
So the day before my 50th birthday, my husband left me and it was not at all expected. It was completely devastating. I couldn't wrap my head around it for... It took two years for me to even accept that this was happening. I loved my marriage and I didn't really see it coming and it was like the classic, he went off with some chick in our yoga class. It was like the classic sort of thing, but I think what resonated the most, it was right the day before a really big milestone, which is everyone's 50th birthday. I just remember feeling worthless and undesirable and disposable because I already had an issue with turning 50. I mean, we are trained to think that that is over the hill type of thing. And it just so happened we had a distant family friend who had a 50-foot catch up in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and he invited my daughter to go sailing from Alaska all the way to Australia and she declined but said, "Ask my mom." And he didn't want to know anything about...
He didn't know if I got seasick, he didn't know if I was in shape. I didn't know anything about him really. Just this distant family friend, and in March of 2015, I boarded his boat and I didn't even know who I was. I didn't even care if I fell off that boat. That guy told me to put a harness on when I was sitting on the bow of his boat as we were going through the North Pacific. I didn't even have any conscious framework of my own safety. I just didn't care. I felt that discarded and I don't know what you want to call it--God, the universe, synchronicity. I don't know what it was, but to be able to board that 50 foot catch in Alaska, it was almost like I was transformed. Someone took me away and said, "We're going to remold you and you just hang on tight because everything that you just went through, it's going to matter. It's going to make a difference." And it did.
Shelby Stanger:
I think a lot of people go through these moments in life where the rug is pulled out from under them and they're forced to make a change. These events break our patterns just like adventure does. We're forced to interrupt our lives and do something totally different. For Ruby, the opportunity to get on the boat with a 75-year-old sailor broke her pattern. She ended up spending seven months at sea. So about 10 years ago you went from Alaska to Australia on a boat. What a badass adventure and what a nice person to let you do this.
Ruby Gates:
Well, he was a 75-year-old Australian man, and I think really his premise is he wanted somebody else on board. The thing about solo sailing is that it is a very lonely sport. You have to make friends with solitude and I think people... This was his third circumnavigation, he had just crossed the Northwest Passage, which is pretty much unheard of. Because of global warming, that ice pack is starting to break up and sailboats are not able to navigate the Northwest Passage, which he had done the prior year in 2014 that found him in Dutch Harbor, Alaska 2015, seeking someone to sail with him to Australia, which is almost... I think it was 8,500 miles, something like that. That's a lot of nautical miles to sail by yourself, so having company on board is helpful.
Shelby Stanger:
I've met a couple of 75-year-old sailor men and they're so lovable, so interesting, and they have the saltiest, craziest stories. I just want to know a little bit more about what this time was like. I mean, you were so raw, you were so stripped away of everything, and then you're with this older man who is taking you around the world and you have to contribute.
Ruby Gates:
Well, actually on his boat, I barely contributed. I think he just wanted somebody on board. He was actually ill. I think that was part of it too. He stayed pretty much alone in the salon. I would go up on deck for most of the day. I didn't know anything about sailing, so when we tore our main sail, I had no idea what that even meant and what would cause a main sail to tear. I mean, I didn't know any of that stuff. And he kept all of that stuff sort of internal. He didn't really share with me what was really going on and the boat. I remember one time the engine wouldn't start and I had no concern, but now I could see why he had concern. I was given sort of a vat of naivete or ignorance that I got to just play in for a while and it was luscious, it was great because I could be completely removed from anything that mattered or anything that I really needed to know about and just be carried away.
Shelby Stanger:
You had all this space to process a lot of grief and anger and fear, and it was seven months. I'm curious, what was most healing for you on that journey?
Ruby Gates:
Oh, the sea. Oh my gosh, the sea. At times the swells would just be like the ocean was breathing, taking in a breath and exhaling. The sea has such an immense capacity for healing. It amazes me that there isn't a more direct line between the ocean and healing human beings because it completely reset me. The ocean is a huge, a huge, vast pool of energy that surrounds you and literally it doesn't care if you live or die, but it has such a quality about it that you're able to let go of how you might conceive yourself formally and adopt maybe a new framework.
Shelby Stanger:
Do you have any stories from that trip and then how it changed you?
Ruby Gates:
Yeah, yeah, I do. You know, you are six inches pretty much away from death. I mean between the side of my cabin where I slept, I could hear the water splashing against the hull, and I remember one day thinking, "I'm six inches from death." I mean, if this boat broke up, you're out in the middle of nowhere, there's no saving you. In this particular case, our exit from Dutch Harbor, Alaska met us with a bunch of storms, tidal changes, and it was growing dark, and I remember taking a Dramamine in case I got seasick and waking up to total chaos. The captain was out in the cockpit navigating the seas, and you can tell he's alarmed. And I didn't know really what I was experiencing until much, much later when I reflected on that time. I thought, yeah, that was probably a real wake up call for me of how dangerous sailing can really be.
And I'll tell you the first sighting of land, like you're crying, you're so happy to see it. You know we're so rooted in time when we're on land and when you're out in the ocean, all the things that anchor us to a specific reality begin to lift. But when you start to see land, you're smelling it before you even see it and you know you're getting close to something that you are really familiar with or that you have some kind of affinity for. You can't quite describe what it's like to see it after a long period of time.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, so I still wanted to ask you, seven months, this trip, you were a corporate working mom. You go on a sailboat, your life radically changes. How does it change?
Ruby Gates:
Your connection to time is really different. You no longer remember the days of the week. Your connection to a reality that we use as a pacing mechanism for how we live our life literally dissipates and you begin to realize how much of your life prior, at least how much of my life prior to that was so rigid, was so controlled and how much of that control I played a part of. And when you're out in nature, you start to wake up to the fact that there is no control, that you are sort of part of this bigger landscape that's taking you somewhere and the more you let go, the more free you feel and I think that was the complete seduction of sailing. You can drop hook anywhere you want. In that freedom, you start to really see your weakness, you start to see the edges and it gives you sort of a playground to grow from.
Shelby Stanger:
That first trip changed Ruby. After her voyage to Australia, she spent three years sailing around the Mediterranean on different boats with different crews. During this time, Ruby learned a lot about taking risks safely and about adapting to boats she was unfamiliar with. Each ride brought her a new set of lessons, and in time Ruby was ready to sail on her own. After you came back from this trip, you were so inspired you spent seven years.
Ruby Gates:
Yeah, I spent seven years sailing all over the world for seven years and I sailed on different boats. I crewed, I wanted to be on deck learning everything I could and I had an accident at sea. Not my accident, but I happened to be sailing with a couple. We were sailing to French Polynesia from Mexico and we were about 1700 miles away from Marquesas and we had a major accident where a spinnaker got tangled. The captain climbed the mast hoping to untangle the lines and fell into the sea. We rescued him and he had actually, I think, broke his back and shattered his foot and the couple decided to turn the boat and head towards Hawaii for medical care. And that was another 2,800 miles that we had to sail with him pretty much looped up on drugs. And it was during that time when I thought, why am I always on somebody else's boat?
His wife and I sailed the boat to Hawaii and I felt like I am ready now to buy a boat. Learning to have faith in myself and confidence in tackling something like single handing, there are not very many women that do it. There are a lot of female racers, but not a lot of women my age--I'm 59--that have bought a boat and are seeking to circumnavigate the world. I think the reason why I want to circumnavigate is really to create a blueprint for other women to just despite your age...
I thought the age of 50, I thought, man, I'm over the hill, there's nothing... On the cusp of this devastating life change, I just really didn't think there was much ahead of me. Having this experience with sailing has really underscored the fact that life is really just beginning, and for a lot of women, they think that at the age of 50 or beyond, you can't do anything. And I am here to tell you it's a falsehood that we are taught to believe that after 50, your body and your mind are so acute and you can do anything that you really, really want to do and you are not insignificant.
Shelby Stanger:
Since getting her own boat, Ruby has learned what it's like to be a captain and ride solo at sea. She loves the solitude of mornings on the water, the strength she feels when she makes her own repairs, and how empowering it is to sail vast distances that are known to be challenging for solo sailors. When we come back, Ruby talks about what it's been like to prepare for her biggest wild idea yet to circumnavigate the world solo in her sailboat.
At the age of 59, Ruby Gates is setting out to circumnavigate the world by sailboat. She estimates it'll take her eight or nine years. For the last two years, Ruby has been training off the west coast of Mexico. It's a great place to prepare for the difficult conditions she'll encounter on her journey. The weather there is unpredictable and it's actually a hurricane zone. In fact, in 2022, Ruby was out sailing when she was hit by Hurricane Kay, she was stuck in the biggest waves of her life with 70 knot winds, which is the equivalent of about 80 miles per hour.
Ruby Gates:
It came up the Sea of Cortez, actually the outside of Baja, and I was in a little hurricane hole. The day that this hurricane hit was on a Sunday, it was hitting us around 11 o'clock. There was 17 boats in this teeny little hurricane hole, and you pray that nobody is going to drag because when one boat drags, it will crash into another boat and no one's going to help you. The conditions are so difficult that if I had to go and release the second anchor that I had on my bow, I would've had to crawl on my stomach just to get up there. It's about 70 knots of wind. In this particular hurricane, we're hitting all the boats in the anchorage, and when a hurricane hits, it's not just wind, it's wind, rain, and the howling is so intense that just internally your instinct is just fear. You've done everything you can to prepare your boat and you know if something happens, no one's going to rescue you and no one's going to save you at all. It's just you.
Shelby Stanger:
That hurricane was absolutely terrifying, but it was a preview of the difficulties that Ruby will face on her upcoming trip. It's one thing to stock up on food and prepare for stormy weather, but it's also important to find ways to manage the mental challenges like loneliness, fatigue, and fear. On the first leg of Ruby's trip, she'll sail nearly 3000 miles from Banderas Bay on the west coast of Mexico to French Polynesia. She'll be at sea for about a month. From there, she'll go to Tonga and Fiji and then start to move northwest to the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand. After Thailand, Ruby plans to move southwest to Madagascar before rounding the southern tip of Africa, crossing over to South America and finishing back in Mexico. Before she sets sail, Ruby has to iron out a lot of details including what takes up the precious cargo space on her boat. What will you provision your boat with? What do you love to eat?
Ruby Gates:
Yeah, so the main thing I eat a lot of are nuts. So my boat is filled with nuts and grapefruit juice. Those are my two big staples. I've learned to have treats along the way. I don't really drink much, so I don't really have alcohol. I make my own bread, I make my own cake.
Shelby Stanger:
What kind of cake do you make?
Ruby Gates:
Chocolate cake. I call it night watch cake. I put a little coffee in it.
Shelby Stanger:
I love this.
Ruby Gates:
Yeah, and it's great. The whole goal of the night watch cake is that, especially if you have other people on watch, in my case it'll just be me. You start a cake at night and then as you move through the night and different watches, by the morning the cake should be gone. In my situation, it'll probably only be a slice or two at night, but I love cake at night. It's so good, it's comforting and it keeps you awake. It's one of my pleasures.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, so how do you do repairs? What do you do when your boat breaks?
Ruby Gates:
My boat breaks. It's 24/7 on saltwater, and so I'm constantly learning to repair my boat, which I can't afford to bring someone on board to do the repairs, so that's something I also have to learn. So part of the investment that I take into funding my boat is learning how to do my own repairs, which everything from rebuilding my water pump to taking care of my diesel engine, I've had to learn to change my oil, my gear oil. I've learned how to do so many things that I have never thought that I would have to really be fluent in, and you have to do that if you want to be able to circumnavigate because things will break and you won't be able to afford to pay for it so you've got to figure out a way to fix it.
Shelby Stanger:
So are you using YouTube or are you using ChatGPT? How are you?
Ruby Gates:
Yeah, YouTube. YouTube. YouTube's amazing. Yeah, I mean, I just rebuilt my water pump and I used YouTube. I probably watched one single video about a gazillion times just to figure out how to rebuild my pump and I did it. I did it successfully. I'm using that pump now on board. But YouTube is the best thing since sliced bread, I'll tell you, because I can learn anything on YouTube. I have Starlink on board, and so I just fire up my Starlink and I can watch a YouTube video on fixing X, Y, and Z, whatever it is.
Shelby Stanger:
Modern technology has made a significant impact on sailing. For example, Ruby has wifi on board and she can keep in touch with friends and family while she's at sea. The kitchen on her boat has everything she needs, even though it's tiny. She can still make kombucha, nut milk, bread, fizzy water, you name it. Ruby also uses a system called AIS or Automatic Information System. It allows her to see and identify the other boats nearby. This technology allows sailors to help each other while at sea and even form friendships. While there's now more conveniences of sailing in the 21st century, there are still some serious dangers that Ruby needs to be aware of. I'm curious about the dangers you could encounter, like talked about being alone. I think the biggest fear, obviously weather waves. What about pirates?
Ruby Gates:
Yeah, pirates are a big concern because there's an increase in pirate activity all over the globe. My biggest concern there is someone boarding my boat. A lot of onboarding happens at night, and an example that just happened recently is somebody was off the coast of Morocco and a pirate had somehow the AIS identification of a super yacht. So the sailor in question wasn't concerned, and it ended up being a pirate that had stolen another boat's AIS. And so when they were moving through the water, they didn't look like a strange boat. They looked like it was an identified boat, and really they were a pirate and they tried to board this guy's boat. So yeah, piracy is a big concern of mine. I have certain techniques that I've already planned for that if I dealt with pirates, I would deploy to keep myself safe.
Shelby Stanger:
Like?
Ruby Gates:
Oh, there's all kinds of things. One trailing ropes in the water so that it fouls their props, letting off flares, pointing flares at them and shooting them off. There's wasp spray is a really big component to have on board because it's got a 30-foot spray and it's pretty accurate. I have a laser on board, so I can... I hate to say this, but pointing a laser at someone's eye can disable them visually. There's lots of different techniques to keep people away from your boat, but the biggest part is just vigilance. You just don't go near an area that is known for piracy and you're aware of all the boats that are around you. Oftentimes, if I'm going into an area that I'm not sure about, I'd probably buddy boat with somebody and just not be alone. I would have another boat nearby that I trusted.
One of the things that I worry about the most is not so much piracy, it's my boat colliding with a whale. That's more common than you think, and I think five boats last year collided with whales during their passage to French Polynesia, and we're sailing through their territory. Humpback whales don't have equal location and their vision isn't that great, so the likelihood of a collision, it can happen. When it does happen, it can disable your boat to the point where you can take on water. Five different boats had that happen last year, and that's probably my biggest concern in my crossing, is ensuring that I don't collide with a whale.
So right now in Banderas Bay, when I sail, there's tons of whales in Benders Bay and I play music. I point my speaker through my hole so that the music is something... It's just an indicator that I'm around and so that they won't get too close to my boat. I've had whales so close to my boat, I've had to come out on the side and bang on the side of my boat so that they know I'm there. So being out in the middle of the ocean, a collision with a whale is huge, huge concern. It can come out of nowhere and be devastating to your boat.
Shelby Stanger:
What are you most looking forward to?
Ruby Gates:
It's a really great question because it's twofold. I really look forward to the solitude and the challenge and I also look forward to that moment when I'm smelling land and I know that I've completed this huge journey. That's just for the first leg, the first piece of the circumnavigation that's 2,800 miles. I think the biggest thing that I look forward to over the whole trip, the whole nine years is the interactions with different cultures that I'm going to have. It will be very unusual because there are just not very many women that are circumnavigating, and I know that the response I get will elevate curiosity and encourage women along the way to do things that they never thought that they could do at an age that they never thought they could do it at.
Shelby Stanger:
If you want to follow along with Ruby's trip, check out her Instagram @rubyatsea. That's R-U-B-Y-A-T-S-E-A. Ruby also teaches women to sail, and she plans to continue to take on new students during her circumnavigation around the world. If you're interested in becoming her student, visit Ruby's website, seanixie.com. That's S-E-A-N-I-X-I-E.com. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producers are Jenny Barber and Hannah Boyd. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, when you take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.