One of the first rules of sailing is to ‘stay on the boat’. There’s a good reason for this. Should one of us fall off while underway at sea our chances of being able to get back on depend on many things, including weather and sea state, and whether it’s daylight, the water temperature, whether the person in the water is conscious or injured…all those things and more come into play. We have a Life Sling on board and sure, we’ll practice with it.  But what are the odds we’d have to use it under the circumstances that we’d be practicing in? Not very good, frankly. When I think of one of us actually falling off the boat, I feel like this:

The best we can do is to mitigate the circumstances under which we could or would fall off the boat. So we have safety equipment, and we have protocols.  Knowing that we’ll be using logical brains to create rules for safety, and that we’ll have the right gear, means that I can sleep at night and not worry too much about this. Isn’t it odd the things our brains choose to be freaked out about? This one doesn’t freak me out much because in spite of the fact that I would be freaked if it DID happen, I don’t think it’s GOING to happen.  So really, when I think about the chances of one of us actually falling overboard in the middle of the ocean, I feel more like this:

Maybe I’m in denial. That’s a good defense mechanism to have when it comes to leaving your home on a daily basis. I mean, if you think too hard about how dangerous a place the world can be, then just getting out of your bed becomes an exersize in throwing caution to the winds. Perhaps I’ve fallen under the spell of denial and it’s keeping me from perseverating on whether either of us would fall overboard.  On the other hand, we do have a few things going for us on this matter.

We have a big, well designed boat. We have high lifelines, which we will not be depending upon to keep us on the boat, but which help. How does having a big boat help? Well there has to be a good deal of wind to get our boat to heel over very far, and she can take bigger waves than our Cal 34 could. When she is heeled over, we stay on the high side if we have to move about the deck. We have high freeboard, which is both a blessing and a curse, so waves have to be pretty big to wash over our deck. Our cockpit is super protected. It would be really hard to fall overboard from our cockpit. And if you did manage it, I guarantee that being overboard would probably not be the only problem you were having.

Furthermore, there are lots of handholds and we are very good about keeping at least one hand on the boat. After all, we learned to sail on a Catalina 27, then graduated to a Cal 34. Both of those boats were much more tender than our 47 foot Galapagos. We developed the habit of holding on tight from the get go and don’t take that for granted. Neither of us is too proud to crawl on hands and knees to get forward if conditions require it. And we have mast pulpits. Actually those sturdy mast pulpits are a very attractive feature of our boat. We also have high bulwarks, which give us something else to brace against when sitting down on the deck.

Our center cockpit is down low in the boat, allowing you to hunker down and be protected.

When we are on a passage, we will have harnesses and jacklines and be attached to the boat in the cockpit. The lines will not be long enough to allow a body to fall overboard. We’ve all seen those videos where people use their harnesses and the lines are actually pretty long and they go overboard and then get dragged under the water. No thanks. I prefer to stay on the boat no matter what, so ours will be too short to allow us to go over. We’re just going to have to make the rule, which we had on Moonrise when doing that overnight passage across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, that when conditions are rough you cannot leave the cockpit without your harness and line on at all times, day or night, when on watch alone or not. And no one leaves the cockpit at night at all without alerting the partner, regardless of whose watch it is.

The most dangerous thing is not being in high wind/waves at sea. Everyone is on high alert then and thinks about things like falling off the boat. The most dangerous thing is complacency. It’s when things seem safe and calm that people let their guards down. This causes behaviors like forgetting to put the PFD on when it’s a calm day, walking forward without paying much attention because the scenery is so nice, and in the case of men, peeing overboard. Ladies, don’t laugh too hard at the  men. Women have been known to fall overboard this way as well, although on our boat this would be a mighty uncomfortable position.  Just use your head and use your head.

A sobering statistic from the US Coastguard tells us how easy it is for people to become complacent, fall overboard, and then drown. This, from their 2014 statistics:

Where cause of death was known, 78% of fatal boating accident victims drowned. Of those drowning victims with reported life jacket usage, 84% were not wearing a life jacket.

The mast pulpit, seen on the right of the photo, is completely sturdy and makes a huge difference to security at the mast. The high bulwarks give us something to brace feet against when sitting on deck and keep things from going overboard.

At the end of the day, these rules are only as good as the people who go by them. We will have to both agree that we will follow them all the time. Not just some of the time, but always. We’ve been discussing this lately and so far, we both agree to all of this. This summer we will be putting attachment points for tethers in the cockpit and deciding how to deploy our jacklines. If you’ve done this on your boat and want to give us your opinion of what would work for ours, please let us know or come by the boat.

What are the rules and equipment you have on your boat that help you stay on board? Got a confortable offshore PFD that you don’t mind wearing all the time? Let us know what you have. They are on our to-buy list for this year.

Just joined us for the A to Z Challenge? Want to read from the beginning?

I have a love/hate relationship with night sailing. When the moon is full and there aren’t many clouds, it’s simply lovely. But when I can’t see anything, I get very nervous about it. I guess that’s pretty normal. Maybe everyone feels a little anxious about sailing at night. We’ve done a few overnight passages and for the most part, they’ve been fine, even enjoyable.

This is what we were doing before that night sail.

On the way home from Barkley Sound this summer, we did an overnight passage as there isn’t really any good place to stop between Barkley Sound and Neah Bay. We didn’t want to cross into the U.S. and were heading toward the Gulf Islands for a few days. So we decided to just go for it and sail all night. It wasn’t our first overnight passage and it’s a good thing because it was really dark out there. The cloud cover made me very glad to have working radar on Galapagos.

Our first overnight was aboard our Cal 34, Moonrise, and our son Andrew was also aboard. We were, as usual on the last day of a summer cruise, at the south end of San Juan Island just as the sun was going down. I believe we’d spent too much time whale watching, not really being ready to go home. (That always seems to happen to us on our cruises in the summer. We seem to wait until the very last minute to leave the islands.)

Andrew at the helm. Don’t you love the flying laundry on the back stay, and the scrub brush and bucket? Oh, those were the days! Circa 2009

If you aren’t familiar with our waters, the south end of San Juan Island has no protected anchorages of any kind. The western shore is hundreds of feet deep, right up to the rocks. The southern shore, while anchoring depth, is completely exposed to the strait with its high winds and swells. We had the choice of going around Cattle Point at a bad time with wind and tide (no thanks) or crossing at night. We decided to go for it.

It was a great crossing! We had about 20 knots of wind on the beam, really big swells on the aft starboard quarter, and we were screaming along with a double-reefed main and a shortened headsail  surfing down the face of the waves. It was actually pretty sweet, even though hand steering was required the entire time. It was intense.  Moonrise was in her element and, frankly, so were we.

To prepare for that crossing, even as relative newbies, we knew we had to have a protocol and rules and that everyone had to follow them. As the mom, who is equal to the captain when it comes to safety when a kid is on board, my rule was two people in the cockpit, jacklines and harnesses deployed at all times. No one leaves the cockpit. We agreed to two hour watches. Everyone did their jobs and we just had a ripping time.

A man happy with his adventure.

You knew, of course, that something would probably go wrong. And of course it did, and of course it was the engine. We were almost across and turned on the engine to help push us through the wicked current around Pt. Wilson so we could have a straight shot into the anchorage. Our plan was to get through the current, drop the sails after we rounded the point, and anchor for the night. We were hoping the wind, which was coming in from the Pacific Ocean, would die down as we rounded the point.

Halfway through the current the engine made a loud grinding noise, and died. It would not start up again. Let me tell you, when it’s night, and the wind is up and you are close to the coast, that’s not the time you want to troubleshoot the engine.

Taking stock of the situation, we agreed we’d just sail into the anchorage, one person would drop the hook, and another would backwind the sail to set the anchor.  We were wrong about the wind. It was actually worse as we rounded the point. But regardless, we put away the headsail and sailed in with the wind behind us, one person on the bow keeping a lookout for boats at anchor without anchor lights. There are always people who fail to put up anchor lights and there is a special place in boater’s heck for them.

Here’s Ruffles (Thanks, alert reader Dave Calhoun). I believe this male orca is no longer with us. We are so glad we got to see him.

We got lucky, avoided the dark boats, dropped the hook and set it and all fell into our bunks for a long sleep. The next morning, that engine started like it had never seen any problems at all. We still don’t know why it failed. That mystery remains unsolved.

I hope all of our night sails go as well as the ones we’ve had so far. Really, sailing at night is just lovely. My biggest anxiety is not being able to see other boats, like fishing boats, especially once we head south.

Got any suggestions for making night sailing safer?

This post is part of the A to Z Challange. To read from the beginning, go here.

Like so many things in this life, how to treat your anxiety is not a black and white issue. There are no easy answers as anxiety exists on so many levels. It exists in the brain and body, as I’ve mentioned over and over, it exists in our belief systems, and I believe it exists on the level of spirit as well. For some people, it is mild and doesn’t interfere much with their daily lives. For others it is severe to the point that their life revolves around it.  If you have very bad anxiety, attacking it from many directions will give you a better result than if you just sit around wishing it would go away. That never works, I can tell you. You need a large bag of tools to deal with pervasive anxiety.

One of my favorite photos from last summer. You’d never know that later that day I’d be having a panic meltdown. Medication? Yes, please. Thanks.

I went on medication to treat mine, and, of course, I do continuous work on myself and my belief systems. It was a relief when I finally realized that I needed medication to help my brain calm down. It works beautifully for me, and for that I am grateful. I’m fairly certain that after about a year I’ll be able to go off of it and be fine like I always was before.  I probably should have made the decision sooner.

So let’s talk for a minute about medications because there is so much fear and apprehension about this stuff. People really get confused and have strong opinions, sometimes without having much information to back them up. Please realize I am not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV. I am a psychotherapist with 27 years of experience doing assessment and treatment, and referring people to medical providers who can prescribe medication for mental health issues. These opinions are my own, based on my professional experience.

There are two kinds of medications that are commonly prescribed for anxiety. One is the anti-anxiety medications, tranquilizers actually, like Xanax. I’m not going to focus much on Xanax and other Benzodiazipines except to say that they are excellent in the short term for acute cases, but are highly addictive. They are central nervous system depressants and using them with alcohol is dangerous. If you want more information about how they work, here’s a  good article. These medications are not a good solution for long term treatment of anxiety.

Mike is using a lead line to check depth because I thought the water was too shallow. Turns out, this time I was right.

The other is the SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) anti-depressant category, which also treats anxiety. Depression and anxiety are best friends and frequently walk around together holding hands and sharing the same neurotransmitters. Many, if not most, people who have chronic anxiety also have depression. It’s only a matter of which problem rears its ugly head the most.

After so many years in the mental health business, I am disheartened that we continue to have a serious problem in our country with a belief system about mental health. People continue to be ashamed to say they are on an anti-depressants, as though that means there is something immoral or unethical about them, as though they suffer from bad character development of some kind. It’s okay to say you’re on high blood pressure medications, or antibiotics, or that you take something for pain. We’re not ashamed of taking those things. But suddenly, if it’s mental health medication, there’s an issue.

I can’t tell you how discouraged I get as a clinician when a client who is clearly suffering from a profound anxiety disorder, suffering every moment of every day, tells me that they “don’t believe in medication.”.   It’s disheartening because I know that they are going to suffer for a much longer time than necessary, it’s going to be next to impossible for them to follow through with any of the things I’m going to suggest to them, and that they are going to get discouraged that therapy isn’t the magic bullet they thought it would be.   If you are someone who ‘doesn’t believe’ in medication for anxiety and depression, then please consider your belief system carefully. Why, exactly,  don’t you ‘believe’ in it?

Take a careful look past the aft deck. That’s VERY shallow water covering mud right there. We were just that close to touching bottom. Thanks, Amy.

In my experience the answer to that is usually twofold. First and foremost, the person thinks they should be able to handle it themselves. This is fine for mild cases. Certainly changes in diet, such as how much caffeine you drink, and changes in exercise habits can do wonders for mild anxiety. Even supplements, which I may talk about later, would be a good choice if you want a natural approach. I’ve recommended certain coping skills in this series of posts. And by all means please get a physical exam that includes blood work for thyroid functions, adrenal functions, and other hormone levels.

However, for people who have severe anxiety that truly interferes with their daily functioning, and that is not caused by another medical condition, medication is a good solution and can make the difference between being able to cope and learn new tools and making little progress. In those cases, the combination of psychotherapy and medication is the best bet for creating lasting changes.

Recent research has revealed that the amygdala in anxious people actually has less plasticity than in people who do not suffer from anxiety. This means that once it records an emotional event, it is less likely to be able to differentiate in the future between a neutral event and one that triggers the emotional event. This is a measurable thing using actual science that I am not making up. I think it is important to remember that we are dealing with a physical organ here; one that shows differences in structure between people with anxiety and those without.

Best fun ever. I want to feel like this all the time. At the Owlery in Scotland.

The second reason is lack of education and information. Somehow many people continue to associate anti-depressants with illicit ‘drugs’. I mean, like ‘uppers and downers’. They continue to call medicines like Prozac and Zoloft ‘happy pills’.  And this could not be further from the truth. These medications do not ‘make you feel happy’. When they work correctly, they make depressed and anxious people feel normal. There’s a big difference.  People aren’t out there getting high on Prozac and Zoloft.

I have a little educational talk, complete with bad drawings that I do on the fly, that I give people who really do need medication but don’t understand how it works and are at least open to information.  Instead of giving you that talk, I’ve found a video that does a better job.

A final point I’d like to make is that many of the folks I’ve talked to who won’t entertain the idea of using medicine to treat their disorder actually are self-medicating at an alarming rate with alcohol, or pot in the wrong form. (Actually, pot in the right form can be a very good anti-anxiety medication for some people.) So, what they are telling me, really, is that using alcohol all the time or smoking pot every day is more acceptable to them than taking a pill. Unfortunately, in the long run, self-medicating with alcohol can make anxiety worse. And it definitely makes depression worse.

I hope that if you are a fellow anxiety sufferer this post gives you food for thought about using medication as one of your tools for treatment. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that medication is going to completely ‘fix it’.  It’s not likely to be the only tool you will need.  Does it help everyone? No.  Does it come with risks? Almost certainly, but so does continuing to have high anxiety. Might you have side effects? Of course you might, but you might not.  Do you still have to do your own personal work in conjunction with medication? Well, it does work better that way. Will you have to take it for the rest of your life? I don’t know. That depends on your history and on your particular set of circumstances. Like any other kind of medication or treatment, there is a cost/benefit analysis that must take place in the decision making process.

Just joined us in this A to Z Blog Challenge on Anxiety? Want to read from the beginning? Go here.

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