Julian Garcia, a 2018 Yelm High School graduate, was one of the top lookouts aboard the Barque Picton Castle, a 179-foot teaching vessel that sailed around the world in 14 months.
As the ship approached its next port throughout the voyage, Garcia developed a habit of telling his fellow seamen, “We’re almost there,” much to the annoyance of the crew who would point out that the ship was still thousands of miles away from reaching shore.
But when the ship broke through the thick fog en route to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada — where its journey began back in May of 2023 — on July 13, 2024, Garcia once again told the crew, “We’re almost there,” a statement that was met this time with approval.
In Lunenburg, Garcia’s family — mother, Christa, father, Julio, and sister, Megan — awaited him with a large sign that read “Welcome home Julian, we love you.”
“Once we rounded Battery Point, we could see the town and I knew I was so close. We got closer and closer and eventually I saw the docks where we were gonna be boarding,” Garcia said. “I saw all the signs and then I heard my name in the distance and knew it was my folks. I did a little wave, and all of a sudden, I heard screaming, and I was like, ‘Yep, there’s Mom.’”
Christa Garcia’s shriek of joy was met by the cordial applause from the Canadians who gathered on the pier to witness the return of the Barque Picton Castle. She and her family had to wait another hour after the ship came into view to hug Julian as the crew had to securely anchor and dock the ship to officially cap off the voyage.
“As a parent, the first thing you want to do is just run up there and give them a big ol’ hug, and we actually had to stand back for almost an hour,” she said. “But it was nice because we could be on the dock and watch him do what he actually does and what he’s been doing. That hug was really awesome because he snuck up on me and got me from behind.”
Megan Garcia, Julian’s younger sister, greeted him with a bowl of peach cobbler and a hug.
“I just remember Julian talking about wanting Mom’s peach cobbler basically every time we called when he was in port. I told Mom we need to make him peach cobbler before he gets into port, so she did,” she said. “The anticipation of seeing his silhouette at the edge of the ship, but not being able to see his face was a little torturous. It gave me too much time to think about what it’s gonna be like to not only have my brother back but my childhood best friend.”
Julian admitted that the siblings had a “love-hate relationship” growing up but that they learned to appreciate one another while they were apart.
But once Julian settled back into Yelm, the siblings’ antics quickly returned.
“We went right back into it. Granted, the first few hours of seeing each other was all hugs and whatnot, but after a while, it was right back to ‘I’m not touching you,’” he said. “Our relationship has definitely still strengthened, but we’re still black eyes and bloody noses like we were years ago.”
Garcia’s welcome home to Yelm was a trip to his bed to rest. Life back on shore has been quite an adjustment for him after 14 months at sea, which was broken up by stops in Bermuda, the Caribbean, Namibia, Cape Town and more. He said he had “land legs” for a couple of days and was a little wobbly. The biggest adjustment, however, was shifting his eating habits.
“We had a habit of throwing our scraps overboard. We’d have fried chicken and we’d toss the bones overboard. That’s a very bad habit,” Garcia said. “When I got home, there was one time where we went to this really nice little diner and I was eating a lemon. I ate the lemon and threw the peel behind me without thinking, and luckily there was a wall behind us, but everyone looked at me like I was crazy. It wasn’t until it hit the wall and bounced back that I realized what I did.”
Garcia was nicknamed “Chain Locker Julian” aboard the ship because of his willingness to store the anchor chain when no one else wanted to. Some of his fondest memories from the trip were hearing and seeing whales breach in Palmerston, New Zealand, and gazing at a sky full of stars on a clear, silent, moonless night at sea. He enjoyed the captain’s swim calls when he and the crew would jump into the ocean or nearby body of water to have a swim.
Even though Garcia accomplished his childhood dream of becoming a “pirate” and sailing the world, it didn’t come without its challenges. Communication was impossible while at sea, so he couldn’t contact his family until they reached port, with gaps often reaching weeks or months. The Barque Picton Castle also nearly ran into a sailboat cruising into its path in the middle of the night and had to take a maneuver to avoid collision.
Despite the long voyage, Garcia said he would do the trip all over again without hesitation because of the knowledge he gained and the connections he made with his shipmates. He even has trips planned to Australia and Europe to visit a couple of them. Garcia said that the trek changed his perspective about the life he wants to live.
“I’m definitely a little more sure of directions I want to go and a lot of aspects in my life. This has helped me phenomenally with my confidence,” he said. “Growing up, I was always the shy one, the quiet one. This has definitely helped me realign myself. By the time I reached Bali, I had reached my equilibrium. I knew what I wanted to do with my life because I was originally supposed to get off in Cape Town but we managed to work out a deal for me to stay on longer. Everything after Cape Town was an added bonus.”
Christa Garcia added that she has seen him grow since he left for the trip last spring. Her family could actively hear his growth just from the phone calls they would receive from him when he reached port.
“When we would get phone calls at the beginning, he was like, ‘Yeah, I had fun.’ You had to ask him a bunch of questions to find out what he did or how things were going,” she said. “But right about in the middle was where we would get a phone call and he’d be like, ‘Mom, let me tell you about this, and I’m so excited about that.’ He was talking to his dad before he left and he said, ‘Dad, I really want to have a story. I’ve lived in Yelm my whole life. I want to be able to have something to show and to tell.’ Through this whole experience, he’s written a good chapter of it.”
Garcia took home a number of souvenirs from his trip, including a tooth scrimshaw necklace that he received from a friend upon his arrival in Bequia in the Caribbean, a war club in Fiji, pearls in Mangareva and more. But one of his prized possessions is his passport, which contains stamps from every country that he visited.
Julian Garcia is now sharing his love of the sea with other members of his family, including his 5-year-old cousin, Gavin, who calls Garcia his “pirate cousin.” When the two play together, they pretend to fire cannons off the front porch into the apple trees and throw stick spears at the fish in the water — grass.
Next, Garcia hopes to get a shipyard job working on cargo ships or a welding job to build back some savings after spending years saving up to afford the trip aboard the Barque Picton Castle. But with his newfound sense of direction after the expedition, he knows that the life he dreamt of as a child is worth it after all.
“It was absolutely worth it. A trip like this is hard to come by these days. It’s iconic. It was amazing that I found it in the first place and then saved up for it,” he said. “Sure, it was hard and there were many times that I thought about giving up. On that first day, I grabbed my stuff and threw it all aboard and got my bunk all sorted, and that’s when I knew it was going to be worth it. Sure enough, it was.”
