Raid: Physical Challenge and Mental Breakdown

Dear friends and family,

Raid- part 3 of 3

It’s been a few days  since the Raid and now I have had time to reflect on my experience. I also caught up on my sleep and allowed time for the blisters to heal (mostly).

Here are some thoughts

PHYSICALLY:

I was mostly pleased with how my body held up during this expedition. The lack of sleep caused mental issues (discussed below) but my body kept producing energy throughout. 

The rowing issues were not lack of power or energy, but mostly technical. I found that even though I was rowing pretty slowly (average under 3 knots) that I could continue to do so for several hours. That was a nice revelation, knowing that this old guy could go for a long time. It caused me to be the last to arrive at our second last destination, but as I stated earlier, gave me the best view of the whale jumping. With a better oar setup, I could imagine rowing longer and faster for many hours, so feeling confident about this part.

Being wet and cold: it seems that I can adapt pretty well to these kind of circumstances. It was a good thing the water was quite warm, which made it less dangerous, but overall I might have been uncomfortable, but not in a precarious situation. 

I got blisters only on my right hand, the side of the “bad” oar setup. I probably would not have had any with proper oars, at least that is what I am telling myself. Might even be true.

I did miss my morning coffee, but found that it was only a convenience and not a necessity, even though when it is available I pretend that I NEED it. Guess not.

MENTAL ISSUES:

The more important factors affecting me in this endeavor were mental. The combination of lack of sleep (almost no sleep for three nights straight due to bumpy seas at anchor), being wet and a little cold and then throw in the newness of the boat, and my mind suffered. Another factor for me was the decisions being made for MY safety by SOMEONE ELSE. I am used to more control over my safety and comfort and giving that up cost me mentally.

Add in all the new factors of racing a new boat in traffic, shifting from sailing to rowing in a small area, and finding a spot to either beach the boat or anchor in a crowd; a lot to take in.

And the result?

I suffered a pretty severe lack of mental functioning. The good news is that I knew it, so could make decisions around it. After realizing this, I purposely skipped the crowded and narrow start to a race in windy weather and called into the mother ship that I was not in the race, choosing to start outside the traffic and narrow channel risk. I sailed pretty well that day and had thoughts off “i could have done”, but was happy that I had the mental awareness of my less than fully functional reasoning powers. 

Frankly, I was starting to think that this was a permanent condition and that if it were true, that my adventuring days could be limited in the future. Yes, it scared me and somewhat depressed me. When the mind starting working properly again, I felt motivated to not waste time as a more permanent condition could show up as I age. 

Looking back, I see the reality and the lessons:

What would i do to mitigate a situation like this?

I would take more control of my anchoring situation. When in Alaska sailing I find an anchorage that I feel is safe, but always have a backup place to go if conditions are not safe, so really two safe options. Here in the Raid, I gave that up to the group decision.

If I found myself in a lowered mental state I would slow down and rest to restore my faculties. With the group, we moved on and outside of dropping out, didn’t have much choice. 

I did the Raid to learn about myself and about sailing and rowing this small boat. I learned the above lessons about both and now, after being rested and restored, feel that I could do a long tour in Snark at my own pace with my own choices of distance, time and anchorages. 

And I fully intend on doing so in the future.

This wraps up the Raid on Snark series and I am already training and packing for my next adventure, which of course I will share soon.

Sending love,

Charley