He lights a cigarette, takes a deep drag and slowly lets out a stream of smoke before continuing, "I hadn't changed clothes for two weeks and they were all sticking to my skin, wet. The whole night, I curled up at the corner of the cabin, which actually became a water cell, wishing that time could move faster."
"The cold, loneliness and helplessness almost killed me, but an inner voice kept telling me, 'Stick it out! Make it home!'"
Guo admits that he would have given up that night, had it not been for a powerful, life-changing event four years earlier.
In 2008, Guo was recruited as a media crew member to participate in the nine-month around-the-world Volvo Ocean Race. Most of his fellow sailors aboard the Green Dragon had participated in the Olympic Sailing Regatta, including five gold medalists and three silver medalists.
"We ate dehydrated food and slept only several hours a day. The ocean was so unpredictable in some waters that we had to be ready for storms that could occur at any time," he recounts.
However, for Guo, the mental anguish was far worse than any physical trial. Working with his fellow top professional sailors, Guo felt like a student facing 10 professors.
"I was quite nervous and depressed due to the language barriers and my inferior sailing expertise," Guo recalls. "I couldn't blend into their circle in the beginning, and I felt that I was like an idiot. What's worse was that I had no place to be alone."
This stress kept him awake at night, but it also prodded him along in the voyage. "I even wished that something bad happen to our boat, so I could quit."
When the boat finished the fourth leg of the race, Xiao Li, now Guo's wife, found Guo on the verge of collapse.
"He was numb, with no smile for anybody and no hope for life," she says. "He finished three bowls of noodles in front of me, not stopping, without looking up, not saying a word. I couldn't bear seeing him like that."
Her care and affection, however, warmed Guo's heart, and he decided to return to the Green Dragon and finish the race, no matter how difficult that may be.
"I went to the doctor and took medication to help alleviate my symptoms. I had to save myself by sticking it out, or I would regret it and despise myself for the rest of my life."
The adversities he faced in the Volvo Ocean Race in 2008 almost destroyed him, but they also forged him into a mature sailor with inner strength. "True inner strength is more crucial in ocean sailing than energy and skills."
AROUND THE WORLD AND HOME AGAIN
Of all the suffering Guo endured during his solo 138-day voyage, incessant homesickness was the most intense.
"Drifting alone in the ocean can make the toughest guy fragile," Guo says, frankly describing his vulnerability. "I cried countless times, sometimes because of missing my family, and sometimes just because a bird flying in the sky made me feel like I wasn't alone."
Although he could talk to his family almost every day via satellite phone calls, his homesickness grew day by day. He filled the cabin with pictures of his younger son to encourage himself to brave all the difficulties he would encounter on his way home.
"My wife and my sons were the strongest driving force during my solo sailing on the ocean," Guo says through a lump rising in his throat. "She is really a great woman for her understanding, support and taking care of the whole family."
Xiao Li runs a company on her own and is always there for her husband. "He is a simple but great man. He doesn't spend much time at home, but his heart has never left."
On May 13, just over one month after finishing his around-the-world voyage, Guo went to France to prepare for an international sailing race next year, though he has not yet decided which race he will participate in.
"I still expect new challenges in my life," Guo says over the phone. "I'm looking for the next voyage."
"Challenging the ocean is not my dream," he explains. "The ocean is just the stage for me to challenge myself and to fulfill my dream of living a meaningful life."
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