Shooting Stars and Flying Fish: Swapping the boardroom for the seven seas - Softcover

Knudsen, Nancy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1742376657 ISBN 13: 9781742376653

Verlag: Allen & Unwin, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

When Nancy Knudsen and her architect husband Ted Nobbs decide to escape their high-pressure corporate lives and follow a dream of sailing around the world together, little do they guess where their journey will lead them. Nancy and Ted cross all the great oceans of the world and visit dozens of countries. Their adventures are sometimes hilarious, sometimes life-threatening, and lead to the beginning of many life-long friendships. As well as recounting the comedy of their cockpit disputes and the sheer breathtaking beauty of their five-year adventure, Shooting Stars and Flying Fish shows how the couple's experiences both humble them and irrevocably change their attitudes, ethics and outlook on life, with neither returning to the corporate world on their return to Australia. This book is a beautifully written, inspirational memoir that shows the rewards of taking a risk to follow one's dreams.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Nancy Knudsen is the cruising editor of a sailing magazine.

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Shooting Stars and Flying Fish

Swapping the Boardroom for the Seven Seas

By Nancy Knudsen

Allen & Unwin

Copyright © 2011 Nancy Knudsen
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-74237-665-3

Contents

Map: blackwattle's route, 
Prologue, 
1. The dream begins, 
2. Sailing in circles and sinking by the bow, 
3. Shooting stars and flying fish, 
4. The lessons we learn, 
5. The magic of Kochi, 
6. Through Pirate Alley with the Spanish navy, 
7. Wild, wild desert and flying sand, 
8. Angel Gabriel and a sting in the tail, 
9. Away in a manger, 
10. Turkish seduction, 
11. The lesser-known Med, 
12. Land of volcanoes, 
13. Skippers are from hell, 
14. How strangers meet, 
15. The green silk nightie, 
16. Kings, carnivals and AK-47s, 
17. The vanishing island, 
18. Wilting military cities and howling monkeys, 
19. The home ocean, 
20. The demise of Fantasy1, 
21. Heaven, hell and too many bananas, 
22. Floating coconuts, 
23. The story of Taia, 
24. The Old Man of the Sea, 
25. South Pacific dreaming, 
26. Arriving home, 
27. Discovering my Australia, 
28. Through the looking glass, 
Acknowledgements, 

CHAPTER 1

The Dream Begins

Before the departure

One leisurely weekend in January 1996, Ted and I were sheltering from the heat in our small sailing boat in one of our favourite shadowed anchorages in Broken Bay, just north of Sydney. It must have been the middle of the day because the silence was broken only by the shrill of cicadas. I still remember tiny details: ochre leaves floating, insects flitting, two kites soaring high above us, hills rising steeply in the background, and no other boats in sight.

We were reading in the cockpit – or at least we were meant to be reading. I was actually watching the way the kites flew, wafting in an unseen breeze as they hunted for prey. A moment came when I glanced across at Ted, my husband and best buddy, and was surprised by what I saw: his face unlined, brow clear, eyes less pinched than usual. He wasn't smiling, but his mouth was relaxed. I kept watching him, warmed by the thought that he seemed, for now, serene and happy. Slowly, he turned a page. I could tell by the heading that he was beginning a new chapter.

Something happened to me with the turning of that page. Ted's expression of peace as he started the new chapter shifted something within me. I turned back to my own book, but I couldn't concentrate.

'We could stay on the boat,' I said softly into the silence.

Ted looked up. 'What? Did you say something?'

I laughed. 'You never listen. I said that we could live on the boat. We don't have to live in a house.'

'Which boat?'

'The one we'd be living on.'

'Live on a boat? You've got to be kidding. Boats are tough things to live on. For a start, where would you put all your business suits?'

Rush of blood to the head. 'You're laughing at me. You like boats better than houses; I like boats better than houses.' Defensive. 'Who says we have to live in a house?'

'You couldn't live on a boat.'

'What do you mean? Of course I could live on a boat. I'd love it.'

'You work twelve bloody hours a day, six and often seven days a week. You'd never see it in daylight.'

'Well I'd enjoy coming home to a boat at night. And what about the weekends?'

He stared at me for a second and then grinned. 'Right. If you want to come sailing you have to take time off from the company and come cruising with me. For a whole year.'

'Cruising? You're a racing sailor. You don't know anything about cruising.'

'Sure I do. You just put down an anchor every now and then.'

'Ted, the first time we went for a picnic cruise together we had to keep sailing all day because you couldn't even find the anchor,' I said scathingly.

This mischievous denigration of each other had always been a feature of our relationship, a relationship distinguished by laughter. What neither of us noticed at the time was that we had started to argue about whether we were capable of sailing away from our daily life, not whether we would go at all. Maybe I didn't think then that I really would take time off from my company, didn't think that life as I knew it would even let me do that. But a tiny seed had been sown.

Little were we to know that this small dream would assume a life of its own and take over our lives. I had no concept of the challenges, the fear, the enormity of it all. And if I had known, even a little, of what lay ahead, I would have been terrified.

But I didn't know. I didn't know.

Several years before that conversation in Broken Bay, a friend had invited me sailing one weekend when my children were off visiting their dad. It was instant love. On the water, out on the ocean, I felt like a child of the universe. I revelled in the sea's vastness, its power, the adrenaline rush I got from the onslaught of wild waves, the hurl of the salt spray, the glow of phosphorus across the water at night. From then on, whenever time allowed, I entered every sailing race I could.

As a divorced mother of two beautiful kids, this wasn't always easy. I started out with evening twilight races that could be sandwiched between work and dinner, and after a while I graduated to day races. Initially I served in the lowliest of crew positions, slowly learning more about techniques by watching others carefully, and always making myself available to fill in for a missing crew member. I never cared who won. I was ready to toil for months and years at the office if I could enjoy just a few euphoric moments at sea. Graduating to ocean racing was as natural as breathing.

When I started racing, my life was completely dominated by building my business with the aim of giving my children – Kassandra and Simon – a decent start in life. I'd committed myself to giving them a private-school education and spread myself between 'being there' for them and working hard to keep us solvent. It left little time for anything else. Sailing became my occasional personal escape.

By the time I met Ted at a dinner party with sailing friends, I had become a reasonably competent sailor by Sydney standards. My enthusiasm still outstripped my ability, and my strength – or lack of it – was a hindrance to serious racing. Meeting Ted, I was impressed by his experience in the sport I'd come to love so well, but he was far too experienced and sought after on fast yachts for us ever to share crewing. Ted had sailed since childhood and his endless love of adventure balanced his commitment to his chosen field of architecture. He had participated in an Admiral's Cup, a Fastnet, a race around Cape Horn to Rio de Janeiro, ten Sydney to Hobarts and innumerable other ocean races. I was attracted to him immediately. Unlike many of the Sydney men that I knew, he never seemed to feel the need to prove himself, and that took confidence of a very real kind. Compared to the competitive blue suits or the self-applauding sailing jackets that I was used to, his lack of macho bravado was stunning. Even though we rarely sailed together, and never in a race, our lives merged with an ease that was extraordinary, and our relationship was warm, easy and funny. He was also unconcerned and unthreatened by my business exploits, joking that sometimes he had to 'walk a couple of paces behind'. What kind of confidence was that! He understood my need to concentrate on...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Allen & Unwin
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1742376657
• ISBN 13: 9781742376653
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 344
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: ARENA ITALIA SPA; https://www.arenasport.com/en_row/; ; 3 AVENUE DE LA BALLASTIERE; LIBOURNE CEDEX; 33501; Frankreich