If Wild Eyes reached those islands, she wouldn’t run aground, keel in the sand. She would be smashed into pieces.
ABBY SUNDERLANDThe 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.
More Abby Sunderland Quotes
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The terrifying physics of going up-mast in heavy seas are inescapable.
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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 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.
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The things that happen on the sea take you beyond yourself, beyond human capability.
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When I saw the plane, I was absolutely astonished! Two emotions crashed over me: surging joy and crazy fear.
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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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In that moment it dawned on me that everything has to line up perfectly for something to turn out this awful.
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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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On October 19, 2009, my sixteenth birthday, Wild Eyes officially became mine! Now it was really happening.
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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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One day that same year, I told my dad that someday, I would sail around the world alone.
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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.
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The swells were amazing! As big as three-story apartment buildings!
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Being at sea is like watching the whole world in high-definition.
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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.
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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.
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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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Fewer people have successfully solo-circumnavigated the globe than have journeyed into space.
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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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Terror ripped through me as I was falling, falling, falling toward the sea.
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Wild Eyes was built for speed and I was flying down walls of water twenty and thirty feet high.
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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.
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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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I will definitely attempt to sail around the world again. In fact, I can’t wait for the chance to try again.
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When a sailor overcomes crushing adversity, there’s a massive sense of accomplishment.
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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