I wanted to close my eyes and make it all go away.  I wanted to cry but my eight-year-old was already screaming next to me and I was keenly aware that crying would make her scream more.  My other two kids looked at me with hope like I was going to make it all go away.  Instead, I was much closer to thinking that this is it.  We may actually die.  It seemed that I had inadvertently put my kids’ lives in danger by choosing to go on a sailing trip in the islands in Thailand.

We were on a 43ft catamaran off the coast of Phuket heading to Racha islands to enjoy a three-day sailing trip. The boat housed five passengers including our family, the skipper and the cook. The trip started off magically with pure sunshine and a gentle breeze on a perfectly calm sea.  We boarded our meager ‘yacht’ grateful for the upcoming adventure full of snorkeling, paddle boarding, kayaking, and swimming.  Our skipper, Alex, an experienced sailor originally from Spain promised to take us to reefs where there would be no other tourists so that we could selfishly play with all the fish ourselves.  It was going to be paradise.

Within one hour we saw that nature had other plans.  Rain was coming; the ominous clouds appeared suddenly and viciously.  But to us, it was going to be a fun adventure – we may get a little wet, but hey, we’re on a boat!

It quickly started to get darker, much darker.  The waves also started getting bigger, so much bigger that the boat began to rock like a swing back and forth so high that it felt like it may not actually come down on each break.  With the visibility down to nearly zero, Alex was having difficulties navigating towards the island while also trying to avoid any boats coming from opposite direction.  I screamed for all of us to put on life jackets and we began to hold on for our lives.  The waves got higher even when I thought it couldn’t be possible.  We were so insignificant in the middle of this gigantic, angry, and awful ocean ready to swallow us up as if it wanted to remind us who was really in charge.  Minutes lasted forever.  Alex seemed collected, telling us that the boat wouldn’t flip, but without visibility he was concerned about getting too close to the island or hitting another boats.  I didn’t really believe him; it seemed that we could flip any second.  The cook was hiding in a cabin visibly shaken which added to my fears.  The wind reached over 60 knots and the waves over 15ft high each mercilessly pouncing on the boat, sometimes allowing us to literally surf on the way down.  Each new wave was simply another new chance of flipping over.

And then it was over.  We had made it to the backside of the island and the waves stopped and the wind slowed to a nice breeze.  We saw dozens of other boats, some unbelievably heading out to sea.  One large boat, or more like vessel, was heading straight into the hell we just escaped.  We only saw it for seconds before we lost it to the rain.   We later learned that the boat had capsized few minutes after it left the island where we were seeking shelter.  It had over 100 tourists on board, half of whom did not survive.

We barely slept that evening. The Thai army came to the boat to ask whether we needed shelter as the other dozen day-boats did (not prepared to have tourists sleep overnight).  We were at the center of the evacuee area. I couldn’t process what just happened.  We checked the internet and grieved for those who weren’t as lucky.  I was grateful but also questioned myself – how did I put my family in this situation?  What was I thinking?

Generally, I’m risk averse and always have been.  As a teenager, I never understood why guys would want to rev up their engines and chase each other down dirt roads in their beat up cars. It just seemed dangerous.  People die doing this, I always thought to myself. I didn’t need the adrenaline rush and instead I felt grateful for my life and all it afforded. I didn’t care that this made me appear vapid; I cherished life and sought out my thrills in the ‘non-dangerous’ ways, as if that wasn’t an oxymoron.

Fast forward to adulthood and it’s obvious that my mentality hadn’t changed, particularly when it came to travel.  Early on I decided that I would avoid conflict-ridden countries. There was plenty to see in the world in peaceful places.  I didn’t need the rush and I was fine on ‘missing out’ when I would hear from fellow backpackers of their ‘near-misses’ and other adventures in places ‘much more iffy’.  I was just grateful to be on the road.

Sometimes though, I would find myself in an uncomfortable situations without planning for it.  In 1998 I was crossing the boarder between Belize and Guatemala on the way from San Igancio to Tikal.  CA13 highway was known to be often visited by bandits who would pull over your car and rob you, if not worse.  The opposing factions in Guatemala post civil war that weakly ended in 1997 created an environment rule of law didn’t exist.  I knew that things may be shaky, but I wanted to see Tikal and when planning the trip, I didn’t appreciate that this specific road was especially open to robberies and bandits.  As it got closer and I heard stories from other backpackers, it became clear that things may get a bit spicy.  I didn’t sleep for several nights prior to the journey.  During those sleepless nights I promised myself that I would never put myself in this type of situation again.  The morning of the trip we got in the van and got on our way. We were fine – no one stopped us and we arrived in Tikal in one piece.  I breathed a sign of relief but the experience put a cloud over my whole visit to Guatemala.

It would be eight years later when I found myself in a similar situation.  I was living in Mombasa, Kenya with Rob and we were volunteering in a cashew factory with Technoserve.  We were dying to see Lamu – an island off the coast of Kenya close to the Somali boarder.  It’s a magical place with dhows gently rolling off the coast. The safest way to get there was via a flight from Malindi – to which we had a 3 hour drive.  We attempted to fly for three weekends but each weekend once we got to Malindi Airport we learned that the flight is canceled, delayed, never coming, etc.  So one day we just kept going and drove for three more hours straight to Lamu.  The road was dangerous with State Department advising all Americans to avoid it – it was known to be often attacked by Al-Shabaab.

The stories were gruesome and recent which added to my fears.  The bandits were known to kill and rape.  As we started our journey we had to stop at several check-points.  At one stop, a young ‘soldier’ who looked to be high on something got into our car and drove with us for the next 1.5 hours with an AK-47 resting on his lap.  His eyes were red and we didn’t speak the same language but having him in the back seat did nothing to ease my worries.  Was he actually going to start shooting in case dozens of men jumped out on the road and stopped our car?  How well would that end?  I stared out the window for any sign of bandits, my eyes exhausted from constant looking while my heart raced as the red-eye-kid behind me chewed on something in my ear.  But again, gods smiled at us and we made it through safely.

I must have really wanted to see Lamu.  I knew the risks involved and still marched forward.  Afterward, more promises to myself to avoid this type of travel.  This is pre kids, and once they arrived it was clear that we won’t be doing any type of ‘risky’ adventures.

So it’s particularly disturbing when I think I have taken all the safety precautions and something like our little boat adventure rocks our world.  I rationally recognize that by getting into a car each time I put my kids in greater danger than when I put them on a boat in Thailand.  Or in a subway in London, or on a horse in Morocco, or on a zip line in Honduras.  Still, it somehow seems more real to be facing death so vividly regardless of the odds.  These mean nothing when people around you die.

But we can’t stop traveling and living.  We will no doubt have similar experiences even with the best of risk-averse plans.  We learn each time how close we are to the end and how grateful we should be for every minute forward.  And we move on with a smile excited for the next adventure.