I was so thankful that my parents trusted me enough and had enough faith in my abilities to let me follow my passion and try to do something great, even if I might fail.
ABBY SUNDERLANDI was so thankful that my parents trusted me enough and had enough faith in my abilities to let me follow my passion and try to do something great, even if I might fail.
ABBY SUNDERLANDWhen I saw the plane, I was absolutely astonished! Two emotions crashed over me: surging joy and crazy fear.
ABBY SUNDERLANDWild Eyes was built for speed and I was flying down walls of water twenty and thirty feet high.
ABBY SUNDERLANDFewer people have successfully solo-circumnavigated the globe than have journeyed into space.
ABBY SUNDERLANDI am twelve thousand miles wiser, twelve thousand miles more resilient, and I have twelve thousand miles more faith in God.
ABBY SUNDERLANDThe open ocean often takes you past your physical limits and when it does, sailing becomes a mental game.
ABBY SUNDERLANDI’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.
ABBY SUNDERLANDI 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 SUNDERLANDAll 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 SUNDERLANDIt 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.
ABBY SUNDERLANDI will definitely attempt to sail around the world again. In fact, I can’t wait for the chance to try again.
ABBY SUNDERLANDIf Wild Eyes reached those islands, she wouldn’t run aground, keel in the sand. She would be smashed into pieces.
ABBY SUNDERLANDOne day that same year, I told my dad that someday, I would sail around the world alone.
ABBY SUNDERLANDOn October 19, 2009, my sixteenth birthday, Wild Eyes officially became mine! Now it was really happening.
ABBY SUNDERLANDIf 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 SUNDERLANDIt seems like people my age are over-protected today, even to the point where a lot of parents refuse to put their kids in the position to make important decisions, to aspire to great things, because they don’t want to put them in a position to fail.
ABBY SUNDERLAND