I've lost a hundred days in my life in the hospital, and I find discovery in ...
shortly out of the hospital, it's kind of interesting of who rebuilt who does discovery. It was
“kind of some of my reborn identity of sort of an out of a burnt accident and raising a family.”
That was just thousands and thousands of hours of blood, sweat, and literal tears, transforming it from
basically a derelict. Captain Ben Swanson is a seasoned mariner, entrepreneur, and the founder of
discovery journeys, drawing from a lifelong dream in a decades-long journey of perseverance. He creates unforgettable experiences on the waters of Alaska while inspiring others to pursue their passions, overcome adversity, and define success beyond financial achievement. Almost live in a discovery channel, or national geographic wildlife around every corner, fresh food for dinner, every now that you've got to face yourself in this state, you're living somebody's dream.
The living your legacy podcast for those who live to live a legacy.
“Welcome back to another episode of The Living Your Legacy Podcast for Insight Success.”
I am Regusiers. Joining me today is another amazing legacy maker, Ben Swanson.
Ben Swanson has transformed and neglected yacht into a world-class vessel, sharing the beauty of Alaska with guests from around the globe. Good God, man. How does one get into sharing the beauty of Alaska around the globe? Well, fortunately for me, my dad was my, or my folks were pretty adventurous. Right on. So my dad was a commercial fisherman in the 70s in Southeast Alaska, and fell in love with Southeast Alaska, but the reality of having a wife and young son at home
was they were a part of a lot. Trying to combine both worlds, he ended up selling the fishing boat and buying a sailboat, which originally we were going to sail around the world. And just as life happens,
“things change, sort of stands to change. And we ended up exploring Alaska with that boat,”
and that was in 1980. And so I grew up doing it. I grew up on boats, some very early memories are on and around the water, living on a boat, we moved on board when I was eight years old, and until I left home at 17, we moved on a boat. I got a pre-faces with a small story, living on a boat. We're on a boat. When I first early clients, I'm born and raised in Miami, fresh out of high school. When I first early clients, he lived on a sailboat with his twin kids and his model wife, and they would travel
around the world, and he was a photographer. I'm like, wow, here I am thinking I'm all cool living in Miami, but this MFR is living on a frigging boat. Yeah, talk about the lifestyle of being on a boat versus being in men like us Simultons. Well, it's an interesting question because you really don't you don't know the difference until you know. I mean, as I said, some of my youngest memories were on on board a boat. There's just so much to do. There's so much recreation there. There's no
necessarily yard to go play in. No cats or dogs, no farm animals, no that kind of stuff. But the Marina of boats, I had probably my own boat. My dad's friend built me when I was eight years old, though. So, I don't know, tens of thousands of miles on a robot, and then when I could find a outboard motor and make it run, and somebody would give you or something. So, went from rolling to motors and haven't looked back since. That's that's that's crazy. It's almost like speaking
through like a dance that starts being a ballet dancer and then they're doing hip-hop. Like there's
obviously like a transition there. I always find people that just have their their Navy Stripes,
so profound and to believe a complete different life, how similar is your life to say a pirate or, you know, give us the fun, give us the fun stats of what it's like to live in the open seas. Well, it's almost unfair. It's in some ways. I mean, it the the arduous task of working on the boat and restoring it to the condition that it's in. Yeah. That was just hours and thousands and thousands of hours of blood sweat and literal tears getting it transforming it from, as you said,
in the opening, basically a derelict. It would likely have not sold had I not bought it. Oh, sure. And it kind of it was just my dream to make a fancy classic yacht and and it had the bones for it.
That's what it started there and just years of neglect.
become amazing, but the to your question of the lifestyle. Once moving past all that,
“and even now because it's an old wooden boat, it takes a lot of man hours of labor off season.”
But when you're there, we have a lot a lot of repeat guests. Oh, sure. That of course, starting guests and become friends that have taken as many as 22 trips, but a lot of guests that have taken five or six cruises that we've visited in the off season. And they're paying us good money. Yes, they're to come and you almost live in a discovery channel or national geographic that that's just our summer season, wildlife around every corner, fresh food for dinner or fresh
seafood for dinner, for sure. It's it's pretty, every now and then you've got to face yourself and just say of course, or the seasons gets long and the crew gets early. And you say, look, you're living somebody's dream. This is somebody's dream job in that realization, which probably came a little later in life, but it's pretty cool now. I mean, I dinner with guests every night. And so you share stories from their backgrounds and for sure. And almost every one of them
is just invasive of being in the captain seat and getting to do it. No, for sure. They're paying us a good money to take them and see that we're going to do as a livelihood. For sure, what inspired you to to renovate this boat to to save this boat and put your blood sweat in tears literally onto this boat and then manifest it into what you created today. Well, the the onset was a lack of money. So as I mentioned, it was good. It had great bones to
start with. The the hull and the integrity of the boat was good. The years of neglect, I guess from a young age, my folks were kind ofizers because they started this adventure
tour company when it really wasn't the thing. Oh, sure. So we were the first charter
operators in South East Alaska in in the era and and they're just no internet. There was it was hard getting the word out. So it was meager financially and they kept that through out there and still to the stage. We're in on our a bit of meager and spending. So even though my dad had own several classic yachts, he almost wasn't willing to give them the time and attention and money that they deserved. And so I was able to just, from a young age, I kept, it was kind of a dream,
sure. Basically to just take one of these boats to completion and and discovery just happened to fit that bill. So it was a long time coming, but 25 years of painstaking labor and now it's just such a great, that's awesome. That's awesome to see Alaska. That's great. I got to ask when when
“you are, when you were painting, and when you were bringing it to life, what was going on through your head?”
Did you have like a fan of people cheering you on? Did you kind of envision like gosh, I can't wait till it's done because this is going to happen. That's going to happen. What was keeping you motivated, especially in such a lonely, derelict place? Like Alaska, and you're just there like brushing away, I'm like, oh, show them. Like what was going on through your head? But at that time, it started to become, it was a passion, but my wife and I had three, we had a young son at
when we bought the boat, and then later had two other boys. So, so it was, there was a lot of driving factors to build something successful for sure that one day they could in an ideal scenario that they can take it over and enjoy some of that lively hood. Literally building a legacy. Yeah, I was young in ambitious, coming out of the hospital, I lost a hundred days in my life, in the hospital, and I kind of was like, gosh, I got to make that hundred days up, funny enough. I don't know that I
knew that then, but subconsciously that must have been going on. And the satisfaction of there are so many compartments in the boat from the wheelhouse to the galley to the accommodations.
“And so finishing one of those projects and that reward, like would you paint a room for example?”
Sure. That reward is just so satisfying, absolutely. That kind of keeps you going. You know, and then you're inspired to, well, what could I do better in this room or that one? Yeah. And so that's taken place on the boat for, since 1998, basically,
and it was optimizing, always, yeah, sure. So I often think of what's next? How can I make the boat
a little better nicer or more comfortable? And I got to ask, you know, adventure is top of the
Line, you're providing this adventure.
tourist down to the Titanic. And it's quite that CEO was sure he's got his tribe and he's thinking big, and he's like, the impossible is possible and then, so how do you avoid the, but keep your
“entrepreneur adventure genuine and authentic without going?”
That's interesting, because I, our son now has put in his second season on the boat
with the, with the ambition and desire to take it over. And, and the first thing he said, we've got to submerge it down. No, he, he just started like game vusters last season as an engineer. It's a long, it's a long season. And so halfway through the season, sometimes the crew is just frail to know. Even though it's such an adventure and such a cool thing, you are on every day, a chef of a few years ago asked, he said, what happens if I get sick? And I said, you don't
do you? You get sick when our season's over in September, but otherwise you learn to be very mild this time. Yeah. So the, I guess the keeping me from from the explosion is that again,
“for eight months, you have all this painstaking work. And then for four months, you're in Alaska,”
just going, and a lot of times in the spring, because we work around Seattle climate. So we have some opportunity in the front. Right weather, by the way, said no one ever. We have some opportunity in the fall to to get some paint and varnish. And then again in the spring. And so by the time you leave for the spring, you're just exhausted and tired. And like, gosh, I don't know if this is for me,
like, I could go work at a desk. Oh, God, it's brutal. But then you, you say a lot. And that first few days,
it's just weird because of both underway and every season for 40 seasons out, you go, gosh, did it make that noise. But once again, the way they'll just get in your rhythm and your, it's just, it's surreal. I love how after 40 seasons, you're like, I don't recognize that noise.
“It's, it's at it in every season. It's just one of those. And it's a, it's a, it's a captain,”
it's not just an old wooden boat. It's a captain thing. Oh, love it. Well, for sure. I run other yachts as well from time to time, and you can get on a brand new boat. And then a week later, go back and go, I don't know if that's right. And maybe that's part of the, the competency of your captain to be for sure. Oh, where and attuned to anything that may or may not be. I got to ask
this out of curiosity. You know, you're not our first or a last game to sit in this chair is the space
a little crowded now. I feel like folks are, are, are, are pervy now to like, Alaska's like a hot commodity. We really should start building a tourist. Do you see a lot of folks kind of like, being you? Yeah. Yeah. Again, when, when we started going in 1980, there just was nobody was there. There wasn't charter operators. And now, and then that the as catch became a thing. Did we catch this thing? Yeah. Yeah. You know, people not want to travel overseas is a thing. So the cruise lines
unfortunately have exponentially increased there. Oh, yeah. Presence in Alaska. And could that are indifferent? They spend millions of millions of dollars on advertising. So they create awareness and what's out there for sure. Even if they're ads or deceptive, you know, it doesn't matter. You send your money in your books, you're, you're going. Alaska's pretty on any platform. So even a cruise ship fight. Yes. Yeah. Good work. But it's different. It's different than what we
offer. And to answer your question, yes, the, the space has become so crowded that, um, even through the late 90s, there were probably five boats doing what we do now in a relative comparison. Sure. But you're the top dog, man. You've been doing this in the day one. Wait, wait, wait. We're definitely the whole G in that space. I love it. Good for you. And have the only really classic restored fan tail yacht. So we stand way ahead of the rest of the pack in that, uh, in that
case, but, um, sir, you've been better than advertising. You know, they're probably now 80 boats in that space. Holy moly. Well, out of those 80 boats, you sir, are here in Miami talking about your life and your adventure on a podcast. So I feel like the other 79 boats could take a hike. Mr. Swanson sir, what do we to learn about you and your episode of legacy makers so we can wrap up today? Well, um, it, uh, it's been, uh, I've had a colorful and interesting
cool life in that, um, growing off on boats and coming from absolutely just, we had no money.
You know, and everybody says that, right?
it's more stuff. Uh, everything I had, uh, growing up on a sailboat fit in a drawer. Wow. It was
“other than my bicycle. So we didn't have any money and, um, and buying discovery in a darelook”
state shortly out of, um, out of the hospital, it's kind of interesting of who revealed who, wow,
because discovery was kind of some of my reward identity. You'll serve it out of a burn accident
“and uh, raising a family and, um, so it's just, it's been a long road, but it's, it's been satisfying”
along the way and it feels pretty good to, to look back on the boat with pride of what you built
in the service in its present. Gosh, man. Well, I, I appreciate you kind of giving us a sneak
“peek into to, to, to, to your recovery. I'm going to leave that to the actual episode, uh, when”
you film with coffee. Uh, how can folks learn more about you and continue learning about your journey and your discovery out in Alaska? What's a good website? Uh, our website is Alaskachartars.com. Right on, Alaskachartars.com. Simple and easy. Any, any closing comments, anything that you want to say to folks that are watching listening, Ben? Oh, just, uh, if you're looking for an adventure, come join us for, uh, we've, we've been cruising Alaska for many, many years and know it, uh,
know it better than anybody, any other tour operator there. Right on, well, Ben Swanson, thank you so much for your time and energy, sir. I'm eager to learn more about you and your legacy makers episode. Uh, with that then, uh, this has been Swanson, uh, part of Alaska. And, uh, I am regulatoryers, not a pirate, but mostly a Miami resident. And with that, we are inside success.
