Roxy - What Terrifies me? Capturing the Light from Sky Pond

What Frightens me to the Core

Whenever Carl and I meet land people, the conversation arises that we sailed about the world for nine years. It’s not our opening salvo, we try to avoid making ourselves the focal point. The first question we usually get is whether it was frightening; did we have bad weather? It was sailing, and of course, we had bad weather. And sometimes, it was unnerving. But with modern marine weather forecasts, we usually experience exactly what was forecast. We plan carefully and avoid bad weather when possible.

Then, the list of predictable questions follows. I have to suppress a chortle with most of them.

• You mean, just you and your husband?
• What about pirates (only boarded once, the first night while anchored in Vietnam. They grabbed stuff and ran)
• What about your hair and skin? (My mother)
• How was the weather? (It was nine years….)
• Do you follow the shore all the way across the ocean?
• How do you get the sailboat from one island to the next? Ship it?
• Are you mostly in marinas and eating at restaurants?
• Finally, my favorite is - where do you go at night while crossing the ocean?

What frightens a non-sailor isn’t even close to what is genuinely frightening.

In response to these questions, I never know where to start. Internally, I roll my eyes. To the less frequent query of “Have you ever hit anything?” The answer is yes, three times - a whale shark and large commercial fishing gear twice. Situations that land folk don’t know to ask are, “Have you ever had a fire on board? Have you had dangerous situations while at anchor? What about medical or dental emergencies?” These are the events that present absolute terror.

Having a fire on board is a death knell. A fire can consume the boat, forcing her crew into their lifeboat. The old joke is that a lifeboat is useful if you can get into it. You see, jumping off your sailboat and pulling yourself into a bobbing lifeboat is practically impossible with high seas. But having a lifeboat on board, ready to deploy, provides a mental safety net. You believe it will work.

For us, most hazards happened while at anchor. We used an anchor alarm at night that would blare a siren alarm to alert us if Sky Pond dragged anchor outside a specified perimeter - this rarely happened. The real danger is that other boats that are not anchored well would drag into our boat. We’ve had all sizes of vessels drag anchor and bear down on us, which forces us to raise anchor as quickly as possible and move or try to fend off the approaching vessel if it is small enough.

Finally, the most terrifying event to experience while sailing is a dental or, worse, medical emergency. I experience this nauseous feeling in my gut and my brain begins to plot next steps to reach care when the mere hint of either emerges. Cruising boats like ours are usually exploring very remote anchorages. That’s the point of sailing. It can take a month to get to a major city, most likely in another country, for professional care. Sky Pond had two extensive first aid kits and books on marine medical emergencies, and we took wilderness emergency medical classes before setting sail. But nothing can prepare you for appendicitis or a severed finger. And that’s just what happened.

Leaving Brisbane, Australia, for a two-week ocean passage to Fiji, I felt a dull ache in my lower right abdomen. I chalked it up to a starchy diet. The ache continued off and on for months. The rudimentary medical offices in Fiji and Vanuatu prescribed antibiotics - their best guess was a bladder infection. Finally, while anchored in a very remote atoll in New Caledonia, I knew I would die that night if we didn’t get to the hospital. So we left Sky Pond anchored in the atoll and caught an island-hopper plane to the main city of Noumea, where I went into surgery immediately for an appendectomy.

Three weeks later, about 20 miles offshore from the city of Noumea, Carl severed his finger while hooking onto a mooring ball off a small island. A very intense motor trip to a nearby larger island ensued, where we coordinated with French-speaking friends to moor Sky Pond and hail a water taxi. We got Carl to the Noumea hospital in a couple of hours, where they asked, “Weren’t you two just here for Roxy?” You can imagine with our cruising experiences, very few every-day events are frightening to us.

(New Caledonia, being a French protectorate, has excellent French medical teams that rotate to the tropical island from Paris. Medical services cost about 1/10 the price of U.S. services, and breakfast after surgery is a delicious bowl of hot latte and a warm, crusty baguette. Voila!)