Location: Underway to the Marquesas
If you’ve ever read the novel ‘Swallows and Amazons”, you will know the premise of the book is centered around sailing. Specifically, the adventure of two young brothers who set out on their first-ever voyage across a small lake to an island no larger than a house. The introductory chapter is all about how these boys convinced their parents to let them take their 12-foot dinghy on this excursion. When they approached their mom, she told them to write a letter to their father, who was currently away on business. These boys wrote a letter to their father, and a week later they got a return response: “Let the boys sail, for it is better drowned than duffers, if not duffers won’t drown”. That quote has been rattling around in my brain this passage. What the quote implies is that when you take a risk, it is better to do it than to avoid it, because it will always work out in the end. Reworded the quote basically states: idiots will drown, and that’s no big loss, but if you’re not an idiot, you simply won’t drown. This trip was a risk for everyone who signed up for it, we left home knowing full well we were trading our comfy lifestyles for rugged boat living, and to our credit we did it excitedly. Every day we have to approach our daily tasks knowing the wrong step sends us plummeting into the Pacific, or one dropped line, and we’re stuck at sea for weeks longer than intended. Last night, we put a reef in our main sail. It was almost an hour-long ordeal in 30-knot winds and a setting sun, all while climbing over 15-foot swells that could easily wash you off the bow if you weren’t standing your ground. We do things on Argo that we wouldn’t even imagine doing at home, were closing in on almost half a month at sea and were all in remarkably good spirits. I feel grateful to be surrounded by my other crewmates; every single person on this passage has proven their strengths, and honestly, we are thriving. We take insane risks living the Argo lifestyle, and when I go home, I know im going to miss the opportunities we have here to always be doing something challenging or new. I can confidently say that we have no “duffers” on this boat, and if we did, they’re not anymore. 20 days at sea has so fra been an incredible experience, and even though our daily life can be hard, sleep-depriving, and often tedious, there is no place else I would rather be.
P.S. Happy Birthday, Avery!!!