Sweet surrender 35.31S 174.11 E
Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Thu 21 Nov 2013 18:05
Absolute fear to know we were going to be out there, far away from land and things could go broke or the weather could go crazy.
When you read stories about others it becomes a compression of things that can happen to you. Mostly accidents of the worse matter. Like a family that lost their mast and in the process the man got the mast on one leg and crushed it in the middle of the Pacific... (I read about it 2 years before we were setting off)
Now looking back at what we have been through we had no serious break downs, thank god. It could have happen but it didn't. We do not know more than 2-3 boats out of 30 that crossed the pacific that had some big issues, and that was the rigging of course, only one of the masts fell. We know nobody that got badly injured or killed. One boat that we know very well have met a boat in Las Perlas were the woman drowned when she took a night swim, according to the man.
We also know Blue Marble pretty well that got lost in Niue, but no injuries or death tolls.
So all in all you could say the fear is mostly about being in a new environment. Now when we walk ashore the traffic feels pretty violent, fast and out of control (and left hand).
If you look at the amount of information that is available today anybody can be struck by lightning any moment. Why? Well because there is so much info rolling around the world. If you lived in a small farming village in Sweden in the 17th century the chance of knowing or hear about a person get struck by lightning was nil, zero, none. Today you can probably find a short movie on Youtube with somebody getting struck by lightning. Today with 9 billion people and some cameras around the chance to get the image is pretty big. But all this information make it possible for anyone to fear for life.
Sailing long distance is a risk, but it would be interesting to compare that risk to drive a car. Most sailors get badly injured ashore, in traffic.
Sailing long distance is tiring, because in a way you know that any failure is your own fault. Sailing long distance is very tiring because you have to manage and adapt to new situations all the time. Sailing long distance is painful because you have to be a pessimist all the time (the optimists never make it according to the great author and sailor Tristan Jones).
Now I really wish to surrender, just lay flat on my back or just go to a regular job and do not give a damn about this boat or sailing on big waters.
A year has gone and we have made it around half the globe, more than 10.000 miles, Im grateful that it has all gone so well, but Im also exhausted.
We are here now in the country where it feels like being back in the western world, with all temptations and possibilities.
I'm pretty sure we will long to go out again. Especially up to Tonga and Fiji, Vanuato etc. But you need a rest, a pause.
Right now we are in a marina, you can just step ashore, you can just forget how the anchor is holding, you can cook on a flat surface. It makes it so soft, comfortable and nice. But in the same time it is costly and we feel we have to get our act together and get things done. Im chasing for a possibility to repair the windlass. We have to buy a new dinghy (the one we have is breaking to pieces now). We have to have the engine checked by professionals, there are things I cannot do, measure the fuel injectors, measure the valves and lining the propeller shaft. A mechanic was on board yesterday and he just cranked the big engine and noticed it was not completely fastened... so things do happen at sea.