A Heart Ready for Anything
Reflections from a rainy week in Horta — a friend’s dismasting in the Atlantic, unexpected generosity, and bonus photos from our transatlantic crossing.
It’s the end of another week and I’m sat in Horta’s beautiful library, having what I like to call a ‘Georgie day’, whilst Jasper is taking the boat apart to try and fix our ongoing plumbing issues. Earlier I went for a luxuriously long swim at the public pool, with a lane all to myself, and I found myself feeling very grateful for these excellent public services — especially on such a rainy day as this one.
We had some sad news earlier this week from friends who are sailing here from the Caribbean. On Monday I picked up the phone to my friend Sam to hear that they had just been dismasted in heavy weather, around 350 miles from here.
It was an awful call to receive and I tried my best to hold it together whilst asking for all the important information so we could help coordinate assistance.
The mast had parted a few feet above the deck and they’d lost their mainsail, furler and headsails, along with their masthead communications and lights. Sam had to cut the mainsail free into the water. To make matters worse, their engine was also out of action due to a broken water pump.
I quickly headed back to the boat and told Jasper what had happened. Together we wrote down their position, put an alert out on No Foreign Land so nearby boats were aware of the situation, and then went to the marina office to contact the Portuguese MRCC.
That afternoon I put together a GoFundMe to see if we could raise some money from friends and family to support them once they reached safety. Rebuilding a rig on a remote island is not going to be cheap, and they still have a long sail home to Cornwall ahead of them.
GoFundMe really is an incredible tool for connecting people with help. There is so much generosity out there and it’s amazing what people are willing to give in moments like this. The day after we launched it, we got a call from a major UK press agency asking to be put in touch with Sam and Kelda for an interview, and suddenly the story was all over the news. I think people need stories like this to rally behind when so much of what we see every day is war, disaster and disappointing politics.
In the space of a few days we’ve raised over £20,000, which will go a long way towards getting Tonks sailing again and, hopefully, take a huge weight off their minds.
I feel like I’ve spent the week carrying a kind of second-hand nervousness for them as they slowly make their way towards land, but the whole thing has reminded me how quickly things can change, and also how much people care.
This morning, walking to the pool in the rain, I was listening to one of my favourite podcasts by Tara Brach, a psychologist and meditation teacher, and she was talking about equanimity. It’s not a word I’d ever thought much about before, but the way she described it felt very relevant to how I’ve been feeling lately.
She described equanimity as a kind of spaciousness of the heart — a grounded presence that allows us to stay open to life as it is, rather than constantly resisting or grasping for things to be different. An ability to meet uncertainty with steadiness. To have, as she put it, “a heart that is ready for anything.”
I think I’ve been spending too much time lately caught between the past and the future, tense about what’s around the corner and holding too tightly to how I think things should go. This week has felt like a pretty clear reminder of how little control we actually have over most things anyway.
Watching the way people have shown up for Sam and Kelda has also reminded me that strength doesn’t always come from being in control. Sometimes it comes from staying open. From trusting that we can meet whatever arrives, even when it’s difficult.
Thankfully they are all doing well onboard. They seem to have recovered from the initial shock, maintained a sense of humour throughout, and are somehow making surprisingly good speed under a jury rig they constructed. They’ve also managed a temporary fix on the engine which will hopefully bring them safely into harbour sometime tomorrow. I’m looking forward to greeting them with pastries, fruit and cold beer.
Jasper is leaving to fly to Tokyo on Monday for a yacht delivery to the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. It’s a huge trip, and very strange to think he’ll suddenly be on the other side of the world. It looks like he’ll be gone for around six weeks and I’m going to miss him a lot.
Whilst he’s away, I’m hoping to make good use of the time and focus on some of the things I’ve personally neglected over these past busy months. I’d like to get back into a more regular breathwork and yoga practice, spend more time on creative work, and hopefully as much water and nature time as the weather allows.
To round off this week’s post, I thought I’d share some photos from our transatlantic crossing.
As always, thanks for reading
Georgie x
