In that moment it dawned on me that everything has to line up perfectly for something to turn out this awful.
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.
More Abby Sunderland Quotes
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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.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
Wild Eyes was built for speed and I was flying down walls of water twenty and thirty feet high.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
Slowly, my brain let me in on the fact that I had just come this close to dying.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
The terrifying physics of going up-mast in heavy seas are inescapable.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
One day that same year, I told my dad that someday, I would sail around the world alone.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
The swells were amazing! As big as three-story apartment buildings!
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
The winds were blowing from west to east, pushing Abby’s boat toward the rocks as Abby struggled with the autopilots below.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
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 -
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 -
I wanted to break the record, of course, and become the youngest person to sail around the world solo and unassisted.
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 -
If Wild Eyes reached those islands, she wouldn’t run aground, keel in the sand. She would be smashed into pieces.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
I am twelve thousand miles wiser, twelve thousand miles more resilient, and I have twelve thousand miles more faith in God.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
Being at sea is like watching the whole world in high-definition.
ABBY SUNDERLAND -
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