After buying the boat, my husband and I both decided to keep it a secret from both sides of our family.
Pierre wanted to choose the right time to surprise his family. My in-laws live on a farm which is hundreds of kilometres away. We chatted almost every day on the phone, but we warned our kids to avoid mentioning the boat to their grandparents. Despite this, my perceptive mother-in-law still noticed a little wind from them when they came to visit on their school holidays.
A few months later it was Pierre's fortieth birthday. A grand family celebration was held, the party theme was sailing. In sailor's tradition, a ceremony must be held when a sailor passes the equator, so in front of our family and friends, I cut off the goatee that Pierre carefully kept for years and announced the plan of us sailing around the world. Cutting off Pierre's beard was the sailor ceremony for us, the start of our sailing dreams. Laughter, joy and blessings filled the air into the evening and around our ears for years.
After the birthday party, my mother-in-law came to speak to me. She said seriously that she believed in me more than her son and she would support us since we had made our decision. However, she was unwilling to separate with the kids for such a long time and she could no longer see and look after the kids like before, once we set our sails. I listened sadly and I promised her, when we finished sailing around the world and returned to shore, whether in South Africa or in any corner of the world, they could come and live with them at any time. Only on one condition, they must take good care of themselves and await our return.
When it was my chance to reveal the secret to my family, I was so hesitant. My parents were living in China, they could accept the odd idea of buying a sailboat but if they knew that we were taking our children with us to travel around the world they would not understand it and scold me badly. So, I avoided it and told them only about a sailboat over a phone call, and I hoped that they could come and visit us on the boat. Unfortunately, my father became seriously ill soon after. The cancer he suffered for years had spread into his liver and he was not able to travel to South Africa anymore. Otherwise, letting my parents visit our sailboat was the best way to show my hand.
Soon after my father passed away and failed to make the trip, which was his great regret. My mother, never said a word in supporting us, not even when we left South Africa and started the journey of our dreams. Every time I spoke on the phone with her, she would try to persuade us to sell the boat. She blamed us for giving up jobs and selling the house, instead we would be squeezing into those tiny boat cabins. "Pierre is out of line, how you are confused and follow him blindly! And taking kids with you?!" As she continued talking, she got angrier and her blood pressure started rising, I lost my words to defend myself.
I know that my mother was worried and feared that we would have troubles in the ocean. Nevertheless, her blame calls were getting too much, which became a great burden on me. From then, I only dared to tell her good news, not bad ones and all irrelevant to the boat. Life at sea is so rich and the outside world is like a novel. I wanted to share every single bit of our cruising life with her so that she could feel my happiness and travel with us.
In 2016, Ithaca participated in the Vasco da Gama regatta, which is a highly anticipated ocean race in South Africa's sailing industry. The race was sailing from Durban to Port Elizabeth which is 400 nautical miles. To everyone's surprise, our "dark horse" Ithaca, which carried only amateur and "virgin" Vasco sailors, won the championship in the cruising division. Our two children, who were the youngest crew to participate and complete the race at the time, were named "Children of Vasco".
When I sent the picture of us holding the trophy to my mother, she finally had some smiles and pride. This high-intensity and strong upwind ocean race not only tested the sailing capacity of Ithaca, but also gave us the confidence to sail around the world.
After the regatta, we needed to return home in a hurry to get back to work. The championship made us full of passion. We did not pay much attention to the forecast of the coming windy weather since it was a downwind sailing. As a result, the three sailboats returning on the same day were all caught in the storm wind. When the strong gusts of 40 to 50 knots suddenly attacked us, Ithaca was in full sails and on the wing-wing position. We couldn't reduce the mainsail or roll in the genoa quickly and because of this, the mainsail gybe provender sheet snapped and the boom with mainsail swung to the other side of the boat. The boat lost control; the mainsail, as well as one side of the boat, tipped into the water. Luckily, the motor was able to start and we set the boat upright again. The damage caused Ithaca unsafe to sail for the rest of the trip and we had to use the motor to return to our home port. The situation of the other two sailboats was not much better. One boat got both her foresails torn and the other had a snapped halyard and broken shroud in the storm.
This return trip taught us a good lesson. We should never underestimate the wind and the power of the ocean. This trip also indirectly led to an endless restoration and upgrading to Ithaca in the following years.