When we broke the news of our plans to sail around the world the first comments we usually got were and still are:
Aren't you afraid?
What about the Pirates?
What can I say? No, not really, we're not afraid.
I mean, I'm afraid of a lot of things, but not of sailing around the world.
I think it's much more dangerous to drive or ride a car in South-east Asian countries and we still did it every day to go to work and while travelling.
Just crossing the road can be a true adventure but you learn and get used to it.
When I started driving in Macau it used to worry me, seems like traffic rules don't really apply, we drive on the opposite side of what I was used to and in an automatic car, but I've gotten used to it, although the thought of how mad it can be at times still crosses my mind when I'm surrounded by motorcyclists that don't seem to cherish their own lives.
But we learn and get used to it.
I'm not afraid of quitting our jobs and go sailing around the world, but there are things that worry me. I worry about running out of money, getting caught in a big storm, getting really sick at sea (not talking about seasickness).
That's just life and regardless of where we are, whats the worst things can happen. So we can only try to be prepared for those moments.
Sailing nowadays is not like it was in the 15th century during the Portuguese Discoveries where sailors didn't have proper charts and had to rely on sextant and the stars for navigation. today technologies are well advanced and integrated into sailing, we have RADAR, GPS, AIS, Digital charts of the entire world, EPIRBS, PLB and the good old fashion paper charts.
It's going to be a huge learning curve going from sailing occasionally on someone else's boat as crew on day trips to being in command of our own yacht full time.
In fact at the moment what worries me most is how the hell will we going to moor/dock such big yacht just the two of us! That worries me, seriously.
As John always says: "Feel the fear, do it anyway!"