Scene Magazine | Fall 2016
The family of Molly McGreal-Stence '95 will forever remember Christmas 2014.
After all, sitting on a 57-foot sailboat afloat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is about as silent as a night can get.
"We talk about it all the time," McGreal-Stence said of a 17-day, 2,700-nautical-mile voyage from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean that she, her husband, Matt, and their three school-aged children shared. "We got back and the kids were like, ‘OK, what's our next adventure?'"
That daring Atlantic crossing aboard Nimbus, a sailing yacht the Stence family purchased in the spring of 2013, will be hard to top. It's a level of adventure McGreal-Stence never could have envisioned for herself while she was earning her Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy degree at St. Ambrose.
The Stences started sailing on lakes near their Des Moines, Iowa, home. Next, they tackled Lake Michigan. In 2013, they took ownership of Nimbus in Croatia and sailed around the boot heel of Italy to the south of France. There, the boat remained until November 2014, when the family returned for their cross-Atlantic adventure.
Molly struggled with seasickness during a five-day sail through the Strait of Gibraltar to the Canary Islands. That was merely the journey's start. "Of course, I had my fears and doubts," she said, "but I decided I needed to do it for myself and my family."
Accompanied by a volunteer crewmate and a "hitchhiker" making his way around the world with the intent of writing a book, the family set sail for the Caribbean-a 21-hour trip by plane, quite a lot longer by boat. And there were no rest areas along the way.
"If you run into trouble," McGreal-Stence said, "your best hope is that there is a tanker two days away."
The Stences enjoyed blissfully smooth sailing, arriving in the Caribbean on New Years Eve. They later sailed another 10 days to dock Nimbus in North Carolina.
"It was a very profound experience, even though at times it was really hard or really boring," she said. "It's those hard times that help you push to the next level."
One of seven McGreal siblings who followed their father, Thomas '62, from Strawberry Point, Iowa, to St. Ambrose, Molly's fondest college memories are of spring break service trips to Appalachia.
"In that experience, and all the travel experience I've had," she said, "the most rewarding thing is the people you meet along the way."
You meet fewer people when the way is crossing an ocean by sailboat, of course.
Still, she said, "It's a more interesting way to show up in a country than through an airport. When you show up in a boat, there's a certain level of respect."
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