Vendée Globe Challenge

It's been more than eight years since I've been sailing. Sometimes I miss it and sometimes I am glad that I don't have to work so hard to maintain my boat. And worry about anchors slipping, or bad weather or getting sick far away from the next doctor.

Other times I think I am wasting my life not going sailing right away. As far as I am concerned no other mode of life can live up to the intensity of sailing across oceans, of circumnavigating.

Isn't everything worth doing also uncomfortable, difficult or dangerous? Or all of them at once? Why is it that everybody simply assumes that safety, comfort or even luxury are the goals that we should strive for in life?

Last Sunday, before we embarked on a long drive into a truly remote place in northern Taiwan, Liping & I saw a documentary on the Vendee Globe Challenge. It's a single-handed non-stop yacht race around the world. Not for ordinary mortals as they boats alone cost millions.

The weather down there is atrocious or even downright deadly. It is the equivalent to trying to emulate Reinhold Messner and climbing one of the highest mountains in the world without the help of oxygen and other modern technology. Only half of the boats made it to the finish, several guys had to be rescued - very close calls indeed - and one guy was lost at sea.

Still, I would like to go down there.

Liping on the other hand, cried big tears when she thought of the wife and daughter of the guy who didn't make it.

I guess I won't make it down there. At least not any time soon.