Riverton woman Anne Pilcher Gough has lost the count of how many nautical miles she has done during her 40 years of sailing.
Her latest adventure, when she sailed around the world in 11m steel yacht Kiwi Dream, became the subject of the book Ocean Freedom.
"You never get bored on the boat. There's always something to do," she told the Otago Daily Times.
Mrs Gough was born in Australia and was the granddaughter of a master mariner.
While he died when she was only 6, his passion for the sea was passed on to her.
"I think he sowed the seed in me for sailing.
"He told me real stories about pirates in the China Sea and sailing around Cape Horn in square-rigged ships.
"He died when I was very young, but he left a big impression. I still feel that he's with me whenever I'm sailing."
Her adventurous spirit, along with her passion for the sea, led her to live in three countries, build boats and travel several countries.
After meeting partner Alan Forrest, she decided to move to New Zealand and, for the past 10 years, Riverton has been their home.
"Riverton is one of the most beautiful places in the world and it's on the door of Stewart Island and Fiordland. We can get out into the Pacific any time we like, and I can sail over to Australia, so it's very central to us."
In June 2015, the couple decided to start a trip of a lifetime and sailed across the world.
"It had always been our dream."
The adventure took five years to complete and, after 33,000 nautical miles, they had visited 29 countries and hit two whales, until they were stopped by Covid-19 in the remote Patagonia Chilean channels in 2020, before finally returning to New Zealand.
One of the highlights for her was crossing Torres Strait, a place her grandfather worked during World War 2.
"It's a very interesting area because two oceans join. You've got the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and they're different heights and [there are] lots of current there.
"So when I was sailing through Torres Strait, my sister sent me an email and said, ‘I've just looked up Granddad's age and he's the same age as you are now sailing through there in your 60s’. I thought it was pretty emotional moment."
While this was a positive highlight, one of the challenges was when she and her partner had to deal with a rat infestation which delayed their trip in about three weeks.
"When we got to the Solomon Islands, we met people who'd been pirated.
"So, we decided to leave the boat there for the cyclone season and then come back and continue sailing a different route where the pirates weren't near New Guinea.
"And then we had a rat infestation and the rats had come aboard.
"They'd swum on to Kiwi Dream where she was at a marina and they ate everything but the sails."
She recalled they had to take everything out of the boat to catch the rats.
"It turned out to be a mother with five babies. They chewed their way through all the electrics so we had no radar, no depth sounder, no GPS, no AIS, which tells you when the ships are coming, or water because they chewed into our rubber water tank.
"It was just quite devastating. We just had to pull our socks up and do the best we could."
This and other adventures were part of her book released by publisher Pegasus in the UK.
Mrs Gough now hoped to have it published in the country which she calls home.
She had been having a conversation with her publisher and trying to get reviews on the book, she said.
"We're trying to get it into the bookshops here in New Zealand as fast as we can."
