I will never forget the feeling of walking into my home, a place that while drifting helpless in the middle of the Indian Ocean I wondered if I would ever see again.
ABBY SUNDERLANDOne day that same year, I told my dad that someday, I would sail around the world alone.
More Abby Sunderland Quotes
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I am twelve thousand miles wiser, twelve thousand miles more resilient, and I have twelve thousand miles more faith in God.
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I will definitely attempt to sail around the world again. In fact, I can’t wait for the chance to try again.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
On October 19, 2009, my sixteenth birthday, Wild Eyes officially became mine! Now it was really happening.
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If a big wave came at the wrong moment, it would sweep me off into forty-eight-degree water, where I might last twenty minutes. Drowning quickly might be better.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
Fewer people have successfully solo-circumnavigated the globe than have journeyed into space.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
Wild Eyes was built for speed and I was flying down walls of water twenty and thirty feet high.
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Slowly, my brain let me in on the fact that I had just come this close to dying.
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In that moment it dawned on me that everything has to line up perfectly for something to turn out this awful.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
I 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.
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I knew that even if I was able to call for help, I was in a place so remote that it wasn’t likely there would be anyone who could help me. And even if there were, it could take weeks.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
One day that same year, I told my dad that someday, I would sail around the world alone.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
The things that happen on the sea take you beyond yourself, beyond human capability.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
On June 10, the worst storm in the series swept across the middle of the Indian Ocean and Wild Eyes was directly in its path.
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When a sailor overcomes crushing adversity, there’s a massive sense of accomplishment.
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The swells were amazing! As big as three-story apartment buildings!
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One place is the turbulent passage south of Cape Horn. Another is the dead center of the Indian Ocean.
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Terror ripped through me as I was falling, falling, falling toward the sea.
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It was amazing to see all the support that he got from around the world and to see how everyone worked together to help make his dream reality. Watching him do this really made me believe that I could too.
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The terrifying physics of going up-mast in heavy seas are inescapable.
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The open ocean often takes you past your physical limits and when it does, sailing becomes a mental game.
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Being at sea is like watching the whole world in high-definition.
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I’m one-hundred-fifty miles off Cape Horn, both autopilots are broken, and my boat is drifting toward one of the nastiest chunks of ocean on the face of the earth.
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Going up the mast is one of the most dangerous things you can do as a solo sailor.
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The winds were blowing from west to east, pushing Abby’s boat toward the rocks as Abby struggled with the autopilots below.
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All the ingenuity, all the high-tech gear, all the jury-rigging sometimes the sea would rip it all away until there was only you, the Creator, and His mercy.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
But 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 SUNDERLAND