Going up the mast is one of the most dangerous things you can do as a solo sailor.
ABBY SUNDERLANDGoing up the mast is one of the most dangerous things you can do as a solo sailor.
ABBY SUNDERLANDOn October 19, 2009, my sixteenth birthday, Wild Eyes officially became mine! Now it was really happening.
ABBY SUNDERLANDOne place is the turbulent passage south of Cape Horn. Another is the dead center of the Indian Ocean.
ABBY SUNDERLANDSlowly, my brain let me in on the fact that I had just come this close to dying.
ABBY SUNDERLANDBut none of that kept me from picturing what a tsunami might look like if it did rise up and roar toward my little boat like some watery blue version of the Great Wall of China.
ABBY SUNDERLANDI had begun to think that dreams are meant to be no more than dreams and that in reality dreams don’t come true. Then my brother (Zac) left on his trip.
ABBY SUNDERLANDBeing at sea is like watching the whole world in high-definition.
ABBY SUNDERLANDI am twelve thousand miles wiser, twelve thousand miles more resilient, and I have twelve thousand miles more faith in God.
ABBY SUNDERLANDIn that moment it dawned on me that everything has to line up perfectly for something to turn out this awful.
ABBY SUNDERLANDThe winds were blowing from west to east, pushing Abby’s boat toward the rocks as Abby struggled with the autopilots below.
ABBY SUNDERLANDOne day that same year, I told my dad that someday, I would sail around the world alone.
ABBY SUNDERLANDIf Wild Eyes reached those islands, she wouldn’t run aground, keel in the sand. She would be smashed into pieces.
ABBY SUNDERLANDWhen I saw the plane, I was absolutely astonished! Two emotions crashed over me: surging joy and crazy fear.
ABBY SUNDERLANDWhen a sailor overcomes crushing adversity, there’s a massive sense of accomplishment.
ABBY SUNDERLANDTerror ripped through me as I was falling, falling, falling toward the sea.
ABBY SUNDERLANDThere are a number of places on marine charts where even the most weathered sailors point and say, “Right there, nothing can go wrong. Everything has to go right.”
ABBY SUNDERLAND