Our Mission
Ocean Voyages’ mission is to enable people throughout the world – at all levels of skill – to participate in adventure sailing, scuba diving, and luxury yachting programs with high quality captains and vessels. Over the last years, Ocean Voyages has expanded into being a full service maritime agency, with a wide range of adventure travel and educational programs, full charter service, film project support, boat location, program design and referral services.
The staff of Ocean Voyages represents an invaluable resource in providing professional advice to maritime projects and program design services for educational programs at sea. Ocean Voyages’ experts can help you make very faraway places feel like home.
About Ocean Voyages
Ocean Voyages was founded by Mary T. Crowley in 1979 and first offered adventure sailing to our customers aboard twenty-four boats. Today, Ocean Voyages works with hundreds of vessels to provide an unparalleled range of activities and locations throughout the world. The staff of Ocean Voyages inspect all of the vessels we work with, and often have close personal and professional relationships with the crews.
Our Staff
Mary Crowley has been awarded by Conde Nast Traveler as a “Top International Yacht Charter Specialist” for the years 2003 to 2022. She is the founder and CEO of Ocean Voyages, based in Sausalito, California. Ms. Crowley previously served as Executive Director of the Oceanic Society, publisher of Oceans magazine and on the board of Directors of Project Jonah, the Maritime Museum of San Diego, Sail San Francisco and many other organizations. Her current board positions include Ocean Voyages Institute, WELL Network as well as the Richardson Bay Maritime Association. She is a founding member of Planetree, which enhances healing environments in hospitals and healthcare education.
Besides being an educated and ardent environmentalist, Mary has found time to enjoy exploring the world via yacht, logging over 115,000 miles at sea. She was a teacher and program director for the Oceanic School of New York on board the 345′ Brigantine Statsraad Lehmkuhl for nine months. She was also on the first voyage of S.E.A. of Woods Hole on board the Brigantine Westward as staff. She has sailed in the Galapagos archipelago 17 times as well as repeat visits to most of the world’s ocean areas.
Ryan Yerkey is the Chief of Operations at Ocean Voyages, and a lifelong sailor, world traveler and ocean advocate. He has sailed throughout the Pacific on a 38′ cutter, from the US West Coast and Mexico to Australia where he lived for 5 years before sailing back to the US. During both voyages, Ryan was able to explore many of the world’s most remote and beautiful islands along with their peoples and cultures. These experiences, combined with his continued travels, instilled a great passion for the ocean environment and its preservation.
Ryan has founded a number of startups including an afterschool educational organization in Southern California serving thousands of K-8 students during his six year tenure. Ryan has a degree in Philosophy, focusing on ethics and business. Ryan currently lives in the Bay Area with his wife and son. He enjoys sailing, travel and carpentry and is an award winning ceramic artist.
Ocean Voyages Institute
Ocean Voyages works to help preserve and clean the world’s oceans through its non-profit sister organization, the Ocean Voyages Institute. It is a non-profit organization (501 C3) founded in 1979 by a group of international sailors, educators, and conservationists with a mission to raise awareness about the importance of ocean conservation and to take action to clean up and protect the global ocean. The Institute is dedicated to providing sail training opportunity to youth on a worldwide basis as well as providing access to the ocean world and educational programs.
In 2009, Project Kaisei was established to increase the understanding and the scale of plastic marine debris, its impact on our ocean environment, and how we can introduce solutions for both prevention and clean-up. It is imperative to stop the flow of marine litter and toxins into our oceans. It is equally necessary to begin significant cleanup efforts, both coastally and in the Gyres, in order to help to restore the ocean’s ecosystems and preserve our global ocean for future generations.
Ocean Voyages Institute has set world records for their clean ups in the North Pacific Gyre. In 2020, OV institute removed 340,000 lbs. The Institute is continuing its clean ups and has set a goal to remove over one million pounds of toxic plastics from our ocean. For more information, visit Ocean Voyages Institute.