About sharks and coconuts

Good evening. I´m sitting in my couch looking for new and old blogs about long distance sailors. Time is running fast, and we count the days until we set sail from Terceira in the Azores in August. The waiting is almost unbearable, but we try not to think too much about it. We just have to fill our days with exercise, work and other everyday pursuits as time goes faster. We can not put the house up for sale earlier than a year after the completion date, ie July 2, and as soon as we get the house out for sale, we are gone. Expected in late July / early August sometime :)

 

Most of the people we know, know that we are going out on a long voyage, and most of them are very curious about itinerary, practical and above all potential hazards. Approximately 90% of all I talk about this asks the same question: "What if you meet a shark ?!", "Aren´t you afraid of sharks" ?. Most people are still struggeling with nightmares after watching the mechanical hollywoodsharks in the 90´s. But I must admit that I'm not excited about these animals themselves, but if I'm going to think about that, we should just stay home. We are guaranteed to meet sharks at some point, in all varieties and sizes. I also choose to believe that it´s not eating everything it comes across, like they want to in TV. Statistics says, moreover, that between 2 and 11 human lives are taken each year due to shark attacks. Put in perspective with, for example, the malaria mosquito that takes between 1.5 and 2.7 million lives each year, is this an fairly small numbers, or what? And hwat about car accidents, it is about 90,000 (!) Times greater chance that you crash your car and die on the way to the beach than the shark kill you in the water.

 

Coconuts also extends over the shark in the death statistics, said that it kills about 150 people annually. A typical coconut palm can be 25 meters high, and the nut with capsule weighing at least 2 kg. Nut will have a speed of about 80 km / h when it reaches the ground, or your head. Something to think about!

One thing I think a lot about is the anxiety that can come crawling if it comes a hurricanes out on the ocean, and then there are at least 10 days to landfall whichever way I turn. Loneliness and helplessness will probably surpass the fear of sharks on my part. Although the chances that we wrecked in the storm is quite small, it is still larger than that we´ll be a maincourse for sharks. So I have enough other things to think about than dangerous fish before we put away. Pirates, dangerous waters, reefs and monster waves, man overboard, whale collisions, broken mast, sail rips, cockroaches .... yes, the list is quite long. What concerns me most of all is that homesick and missing family and friends will destroy the joy of sailing. If we were normal people with common sense, we would probably just stayed at home. But then I reckon that we had repented us depraved that we never tried.