 The Day Of Infamy
The objective of the Red Thread was to have and create meaningful relationships, with ourselves and others we would meet though the travels we had with our boat. There is no doubt that the boat was key in doing this and she did such an amazing job of getting us places to meet extraordinary people and doing things we had only dreamed of.
There is no person that exemplify this more than Benjamin in Posa de Oro, in the southern area in Patagonia Chile who pulled me out of 40 degree water after I was in for more than 90 minutes that brought on hypothermia, numbness and near delirium . A man who came into a raging storm that had sustained winds of 50 mph to help someone he didn't know... yet. Today our world is very different as we await a salvage crew to take the Red Thread off the rocks where she sits beaten and bruised.
Six days in a southern storm in which we saw guts of 72 knots of wind and consistent gale force winds day after day.
For five days we waited out a storm tied to shore with three lines and two anchors, but with only 10 hours before the storm would break she brought her worst and in moments both anchors broke free sending us into the rocks in minutes. Despite our best efforts to save her, today we lost the battle, but we won: all four of us stepped off the Red Thread with no injuries. Our three hour battle to save her didn't work out as we had hoped, her propeller is broken off and the rudder is bent and there are breaches in the hull, as there are in our hearts as we had great plans and hopes of so much more. The emotions are quite strong as the captain saying: "We have to abandon before someone gets hurt" are the words you hope never to say, but the shore was like a jack hammer on her, sending out a Pan Pan calls and an eventual distress signal also invoked feelings of failure that will replay in my mind for years to come.
In the end it is how we act as people to each other and it times of extreme stress. I would like everyone to know that we all held our cool, no one yelled, except for two: "You mother fucking wind!", the rest was all business. Pam and Linzi showed great valor, courage and strength as we toiled for hours. These virtues come at a price and now Pam and Linzi need never explain what lies within their heart for it is strong. MeiLing, well she was napping.
The Armada de Chile, arrived within 40 hours after Doug Holzman called the US Coast Guard in Seattle to inform them of our distress. The Chilean Coast Guard has taken Pam and the girls to hotel on Chiloe Island while I await a salvage crew to pick up the pieces. It just breaks our heart to report this, but this is not the end of this story or the Red Thread. The boat is NOT a total loss, despite the fact we did not insure her.
We have moved into the adventure part of our trip, we are now apart, a little afraid and not knowing where we go makes us know the adventure has begun and we will raise to this occasion as we always do. This is difficult, but if we wanted easy that would require normalcy, which left us a long time ago. Now is the time when all those things we all say of how much we love adventure, must be applied, this is part of the whole adventure gig and not just a dime store slogan. We didn't plan this, but there are many things we don't plan that happen. Maybe our sailing trip is over, but the great life we have is in full force, the one where we live deliberately and in 'technicolor' is what we hope for.
Normalcy left us a long time ago and I assure you it will not creep in now.
In the end we fulfilled our goals through our 'chance' encounters and certainly Benjamin here in Posa de Oro is a permeant part of the Red Thread's tapestry.
Glenn
PS the story gets better... Read "The Journey of The Red Thread - Chile
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