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Old 10-21-2010, 03:20 PM
  # 5 (permalink)  
Bolina
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Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 545
I watched Alive (the film with Ethan Hawke) years ago and was haunted by the story for some time. Puts worrying about fighting for a parking space into perspective......

That reminds me, I was going to write a post about an experience I had this summer that was full of recovery metaphors. I haven't time to write it up properly now (and I'm sure it won't be of interest to most people!), but I'll give you the jist....

My father and I set out for a two day and night sail, with a fair forecast, although with a tiny patch of increased wind of a strength that we had dealt with easiy before. The first day and evening were beautiful and we were all set for a long, but easy passage. At about 4am, the wind started to pick up and the waves started to increase in size. Within 3 hours, it was blowing a Force 6-7 with gusts of Force 8 and the seas were heaping up and breaking all around us. In 30 years of sailing, I had never been in conditions like it. There were no ports available for us to head into safely, so there was nothing we could do except continue. We had reduced sail to the minimum possible our next option were tactics we had only read about in books. It was unbelievably difficult to make any food, so we were surviving on crisprolls and bottled water. I have never held off for so long on going for a pee because it was just too much like hard work to go down below with the boat lurching about. I was terrified, it was so far beyond my comfort zone and yet I had never felt so alive. The whole "present moment" thing was very much my reality.

Anyway, we surfed on top of a wave and saw an oil tanker on our beam. It was close, but we were not on a collision course. But then, it turned and was heading straight for us, about a mile away but in those conditions that is nothing. Dad called them up on the radio, but there was no response and we knew that they would be unlikely to see a small white yacht in the breaking waves. So, we had to change our own course, which meant greater wind forces on the sails and going at a much more dangerous angle to the waves. We really thought our time had come. Obviously, I am writing this now, so we managed to get clear, but I have never felt so much in danger than I did for that half hour. It took 16 hours before the wind died down, but there were still no safe ports to head into so we sailed on for another 24 hours. We were so tired that we were taking it in turns to sleep for an hour, then coming on the helm for an hour.

On reflection, there were many valuable recovery illustrations in that experience. We survived because we were prepared and so the decisions we made were sensible. We had faith in our plan and faith in our abilities. Being scared was understandable, but there was no panic. We knew what to do based on our previous experiences and the information that we had gathered over the years - information that was given to us by people who had been through the same situation and passed on their experiences. And the boat was coping fine. She's a great sea-going yacht anyway, but it's good to have the proof. There's another metaphor in there somewhere. I kept remembering the Just for Today card where it says "I can do something for twelve hours that would appall me if I felt that I had to keep it up for a lifetime". And the fact that I can cook a beautiful 3 course dinner in a well appointed kitchen or that I can change a car tyre in 5 minutes meant nothing in those conditions. Pouring a glass of water or safely having a pee were the skills I needed at that precise moment. Our world got very small. Whilst it wasn't quite the survival situation that those guys faced in the Andes, we were one breaking wave or one popped mast fitting away from it being so.

And you know what? My comfort zone is now a whole lot bigger. I know that the boat, my dad and I can survive that. We learned some more lessons but being in that situation will be easier next time. And there will be a next time.....we are heading across the Atlantic at the end of the year.
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