FEBRUARY2016cruisingworld.com56
SOUTHERN OCEAN, FAMILY STYLEAfrica, you can easily pretend these things
do not exist, but the reality is that the
landscape is woven with concertina wires,
security gates, alarms, locks and armored
vehicles.
As a woman with two small children,
I was constantly on guard to prevent any
harm that might come to my family. I
hated the feeling of being unable to sim-
ply look people in the eye as a human
being without also suspecting they could
be a threat to our safety. I didn’t go out
at night or very far alone with the kids. I
avoided situations that I wouldn’t have
thought twice about entering in other
parts of the world. South Africa was such
a bittersweet place to be.
In that oppressive reality, I often felt
we had the same chance of facing peril on
land as we did setting forth in the South-
ern Ocean. Success on land or at sea had a
great deal to do with how we managed the
risk. To a lesser degree, it simply had to do
with timing and luck.
In the end, James and I chose to take
our chances with the ocean. Fear of nature
felt like a much healthier sentiment for us
to battle than fear of man. We wanted to
give our kids a wild and adventurous life.
Sailing and an ocean crossing were some-
thing that worked for us as a family.
We departed South Africa with an
enormous amount of trust in the strength
of our carbon-composite home, Anasazi
Girl, as well as in our own strength as ad-
venturers, sailors and parents.
Away we shifted, from the Cape of
Good Hope, from the chaos of the land
and the people.
Forward we went, into the dreamy
realm of the albatross.Our
objective was simple:
make zero errors on
the voyage and arrive
safely in port without breaking down or
calling for rescue.
It was mid-April — late in the season
for the Southern Ocean to many, but not
to us. James and I felt we could sail just
above 40 degrees south, avoid ice and
miss the low-pressure cells dropping off
of the Indian Ocean tropical cyclones. For
us, leaving this late just meant more dark-
ness; all the bad stuff on a voyage seems to
happen at night, so with longer evenings,
there would be a greater possibility of
more bad stuff to address. Longer, colder
nights also meant an increase in air densi-
ty and, in turn, greater wind pressure.
Despite these factors, we felt the risks
could be managed.
Our roles underway were easily defined
based on our levels of experience.