On October 19, 2009, my sixteenth birthday, Wild Eyes officially became mine! Now it was really happening.
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.
More Abby Sunderland Quotes
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If Wild Eyes reached those islands, she wouldn’t run aground, keel in the sand. She would be smashed into pieces.
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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.
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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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When I saw the plane, I was absolutely astonished! Two emotions crashed over me: surging joy and crazy fear.
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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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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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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 things that happen on the sea take you beyond yourself, beyond human capability.
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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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When a sailor overcomes crushing adversity, there’s a massive sense of accomplishment.
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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.
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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.”
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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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The open ocean often takes you past your physical limits and when it does, sailing becomes a mental game.
ABBY SUNDERLAND