Solo Sailing As A Teen

My mum and I visited an island where all our friends were staying. There was a big house with 50 beds, a massive kitchen, a volleyball court, a playground, and great anchorage’s for those with boats.

That’s where we stayed for a whole week.

Me and my two friends wanted to experience life on the boat ourselves – being in charge and living life as co-captains.

My mum allowed this, she talked me through the responsibilities and I double checked with her how to tell if we are drifting – if the boat is moving without want or desire of the captain.

We were sorted.

My mum left us to it.

We were all alone. Just the three of us and the night sky.

Oh the night sky, I did not appreciate it enough in my youth.

That night I only have one memory.

Waking up at 3am and going outside to check the anchor was still holding strong.

I looked around and the moon and yacht-mast lights guided my vision.

Where were we?

Oh my god, where were we?

I ran downstairs and woke one of my friends up. She came running outside with me.

There were boats. We could see land. But we weren’t in the same spot as when we went to sleep.

“Turn the engine on.”

“Drive back to where we were.”

“Let more chain out.”

“Should we bring the anchor up and try again?”

“How deep is it here?”

“Are we going to hit that boat?”

“Oh my god, are we going to hit that boat??”

As teenagers usually do, we decided to find a mum.

We hopped into the dinghy and rode as fast as we could to shore to wake up my mum.

We ran so fast and wasted no time in getting her up and across the water.

She took in our stories, assessed the area, used her judgment and said:

“I don’t think you drifted, I think the boat just turned around.”

Boats do that. When you have the anchor down, boats will turn in the wind and can do a full circle if the winds are high enough.

That is also taken into account when you are anchoring.

And my mum knew about this and took it into account.

She went back to bed and so did we.

In the morning, friend three woke up and we relayed the story to her. She wasn’t too happy to hear we’d left her sleeping on what we thought was a drifting boat.

As teenagers don’t – we didn’t think of that.

And we also decided we never wanted to be captain of this vessel.