Just Bitchin

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.” - John Wooden Just Bitchin

I was just thinking back to when I first started sailing. To be honest (I know, why start now?) I was scared to death. I was over 30, had never been on a sailboat in my life, and one afternoon I found myself sitting in the cockpit of a Cal 28, sure that I was about to die.

What had led up to this was unimportant. What I learned that day was one of the most important things in my life.

As I sat there with white knuckles holding onto this big chromed thingamajig (the winch), the boat heeled over until I was sure it was going over. We’d just cleared the breakwater and a 25-knot gust filled the main and headsail. At the tiller, the man who’d just sold me the boat stood and looked totally bored.

I remember thinking he must be nuts. I was also thinking how I might be able to crab on the deal without letting him know it was because I was scared to death.

You see, part of the reason I was out there was to face a fear I’d found in myself. I know it sounds a little nuts, but something I’d learned earlier in my life told me that if you fear something, the only thing to do was to face that fear and soon the fear would be gone.

I was out there because of a book I’d read about a man who set sail across the Pacific on a raft. His name was Thor Heyerdahl, and his raft was Kon-Tiki. In the book he’d talked about how he had to conquer his fears in order to fulfill his dreams. What I’d taken away from this was his attitude after he’d been at sea for weeks, and what had once put fear into his heart now gave him a feeling of fulfillment.

Yes, the sea is daunting. She can be a tough and unforgiving foe. BUT (that’s a big word!) once you face your fears, once you have sailed across an ocean, you will live an experience few people on Earth have ever lived. You have to face your fears in order to achieve lofty goals.

I guess another way to put it is, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.

Yes, sailing across an ocean is an adventure. The more you live this adventure, the less fear you have.

Don’t get me wrong. I still have a great respect for the sea and what she can throw at you, but now it is not an unknown. I know when I set sail and leave my home port I am prepared for what’s out there. I also know that sometime before I return, whether it is in a day or a year, I will live an adventure. How many people can say that?

Adventurers are just people who have faced their fears. As Mark Twain so aptly put it, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

The man had a way with words!