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On October 19, 2009, my sixteenth birthday, Wild Eyes officially became mine! Now it was really happening.

Abby Sunderland

One day that same year, I told my dad that someday, I would sail around the world alone.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Alone Around Dad Day One Year
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.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Amazing Dream Got Make Support Together World
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

Able Helping Place Remote
Wild Eyes was built for speed and I was flying down walls of water twenty and thirty feet high.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Build Eye Feet High Speed Wall Water
Terror ripped through me as I was falling, falling, falling toward the sea.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Fall Ripped Sea Terror
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.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Begun Believe Brother Dream More
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 SUNDERLAND

Abilities Follow Great Parent Passion Trying
There 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

Marine Number Ocean Plate Right Weathered
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

Drowning Eight Twenty Water
If Wild Eyes reached those islands, she wouldn’t run aground, keel in the sand. She would be smashed into pieces.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Blowing Boat East Eye West Wild
On October 19, 2009, my sixteenth birthday, Wild Eyes officially became mine! Now it was really happening.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Birthday Eye Happening October Sixteenth
When I saw the plane, I was absolutely astonished! Two emotions crashed over me: surging joy and crazy fear.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Astonished Crazy Fear Joy Surging Two
In that moment it dawned on me that everything has to line up perfectly for something to turn out this awful.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Awful Dawned Lines Moment Perfectly Something
The open ocean often takes you past your physical limits and when it does, sailing becomes a mental game.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Game Mental Ocean Past Physical
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 SUNDERLAND

Feeling Home Indian Ocean Walking
One place is the turbulent passage south of Cape Horn. Another is the dead center of the Indian Ocean.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

One Passage Place Point Turbulent
It 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

Decision Kids People Position Protected Today
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

Blue Boat Little Look Version Wall Watery
I wanted to break the record, of course, and become the youngest person to sail around the world solo and unassisted.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Break Course Records World Sail Unassisted Youngest
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.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Eye June Ocean Strom Swept
The terrifying physics of going up-mast in heavy seas are inescapable.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

heavy Inescapable Physic Sea
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.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Boat Broke Broken Cape Drifting Horn Ocean
The winds were blowing from west to east, pushing Abby’s boat toward the rocks as Abby struggled with the autopilots below.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Eye Piece Pushing Running Struggled Wind
When a sailor overcomes crushing adversity, there’s a massive sense of accomplishment.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Accomplishment Adversity Crush Overcome Sailor
Fewer people have successfully solo-circumnavigated the globe than have journeyed into space.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

CIrcumnavigated Globe People Solo Space Successfully
The seriousness of my situation started to sink in, and again I fought panic. I pushed it down, but it was harder this time, like my insides were an open can of shaken soda and I was trying to keep it from bubbling up out of the top.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Harder Panic Seriousness Soda Time Trying
Going up the mast is one of the most dangerous things you can do as a solo sailor.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Dangerous Most Sailor Solo

On October 19, 2009, my sixteenth birthday, Wild Eyes officially became mine! Now it was really happening.

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On October 19, 2009, my sixteenth birthday, Wild Eyes officially became mine! Now it was really happening.

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