Alan Rush

Alan was born and raised in Wimbledon, South West London in 1951. Between his 19th and 21st years, he travelled overland to Australia and New Zealand, toured both countries extensively, and returned home by a similar route in 1972.

In the spring of 1973 he travelled to Toronto to attend a wedding and was issued with a 3-month visitors permit and cautioned not to accept any work. Two years later he was picked up by immigration officers, held in the Waterloo County jail for 3 days and deported to England.

After 6 weeks in England he decided to fly to the US and return to Canada by driving over the border under an assumed name. This was only intended to be a short visit but he stayed using his new name, for 4 years.

By the end of 1977 he had managed to save some money and had decided to buy a boat on which to leave Canada and cruise the Pacific. In January 1978 he bought a locally built wooden sloop twenty feet nine inches long, with a beam of six feet and a draft of three feet six for $3,500. The spring of 1978 was spent in restoring 'Balandra' and the summer was spent in learning how to sail as he had never been aboard a yacht before. Following an injury which left him on crutches for 3 months, Alan finally set sail from British Columbia in April 1979.

Alan sailed 'Balandra' first to San Francisco then the Hawaiian Islands finally ending up on a coral atoll in the Pacific called Fanning Island where, quite by chance, he remained for 6 years running a coconut plantation.