black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 am twelve thousand miles wiser, twelve thousand miles more resilient, and I have twelve thousand miles more faith in God.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Faith God Mile Resilient Twelve
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
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
Being at sea is like watching the whole world in high-definition.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Definition Sea World
I will definitely attempt to sail around the world again. In fact, I can’t wait for the chance to try again.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Again Change Trying Waiting World
Going up the mast is one of the most dangerous things you can do as a solo sailor.
ABBY SUNDERLAND

Dangerous Most Sailor Solo
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

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Abby Sunderland Quotes