Whales, Tornadoes, Lightning… Oh My!

I have come to the realization that our trek across the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii to Vancouver for the Vic-Maui delivery is only a month away… wow. We will be sailing approximately 2,308 nautical miles or 4,275 km. Just to put that into perspective, it is 3,440 km to drive across Canada (cutting through the US). Yeah, that’s right.

Even though I have been on boats my whole life (or perhaps because I have been on boats my whole life), I am super nervous! A good nervous though. I mean I have training, great gear, a great boat, great crew mates, but… Mother Nature is in charge. Now THAT is something to be nervous, and in awe, about!

Worrying…

My youngest daughter asked me a tough question the other day: “Mommy, why do you have to do this trip?”, I replied “Well I don’t have to, but I want to”. Then she asked what she was really worried about: “What if you die?”.  Wow. Not that I haven’t actually processed that thought myself, but for her to be aware of that possibility made me a little anxious. It made me realize the stress that I was putting on my kids and the need for me to ensure that they realize just how safe I will be.

Tethers, tethers and tethers!

Grab bag safety gear

Flipping the raft…

Make light of it!

So, last night we played “Name a Disaster!” game. The kids threw scenarios at me and I walked through how I would overcome them and what gear I would need to be safe. This was actually pretty fun as it also had me brainstorming on how to avoid killer seagulls, giant whales attacking the boat, massive tornadoes, and even having all of my clothes blown overboard (that question came out of nowhere). I also talked to them about rigging failures, seasickness, crew injury, ion dissipater, and communications failures. We watched a few life raft deployment videos, discussed tethers and I also taught them about EPIRBs and different ways to call for help if your electronics are down. Overall it was pretty fun!

I stopped short of suggesting that we go see Adrift this weekend though… That might have changed their comfort level a bit … 🙂

Fair winds,

Captain Penny

References:

Feature image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

Safety gear images: author’s own photos

Sailboat with broken rig retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

Ion Dissipater drawing: clearly retrieved from some brilliant artist’s repertoire 🙂