How much of our lives is controlled by fear? Religion, politicians, global warming, loosing your job, corporations, Israelis, Arabs, Al Qaedas, marriages, not being the perfect father or mother, your parents getting old – can’t you do more to alter the course of nature – all fear and guilt.

Fear does not make sense. There is no logic behind it. Simple – here is how it works for me now – but you have to find your own way to make it work for you. There are two types of things in life – things where you have control and things where you do not. When the shit over which you have control happens, well, you do what you are supposed to do and know how to do, and things are ok again – so why worry about it. When the shit over which you have no control happens, there is nothing you can do anyway – so no reason to worry about that either. Simple.

It did take me a while to figure it all out. Forty five years. It dawned on me while I was single-handling the big stretch from the Marquesas to Samoa. Twenty days. Closest land was about five miles away – below me. No land, no ships. Not a soul. The ocean, the sky, and the boat – my world. No words to describe this bliss – blessed are those who have lived it.

Amazing how ocean sailing makes you at the same time more humble and more confident. Contradictory but true. You come to terms with how small and how big you are.

And then the strangest thing happened. Now that I am back on land, fear is back. Mostly fear of loosing… what was never mine, what never belonged to me. Isn’t it time to head back for the Ocean…