So I ended The Incident with my mum being afraid and vowing to never go on a sailing boat with neither me or my dad as Captain, therefore we decided to hire a skipper for our maiden voyage so she would feel safer. 

On 18th April 2021 at 3 o'clock we left Hamble with me being dead excited because it was the first time I would sail in the night. The Skipper was very nice. He made me stay at the helm and sail the boat which was fine at first… but then we put up the sails. It was the first time I had experienced close-haul and heeling on a boat of Mistress' size. My brain thought she was going to capsize (my ultimate fear!). You see, I never liked breaking stuff and we were supposed to live on Mistress too. I know now that it was an irrational fear but it still affects me sometimes.

On top of that, I started to have a headache and then I felt sick. "I'm not sea sick" is the lie I would tell myself over and over again until I vomited in a bag. Turned out I was. I found myself losing the feeling of hunger for the first time. After all, my body was too concentrated on my sea sickness and didn't have time for food. The skipper cooked pasta and I just couldn't eat it. In the end, my sickness did go a couple of hours after we went through the needles - the narrowest part of water between the two shores.

The Journey

We started our journey in Hamble-Le-Rice - where we got our yacht from. Which is on the River Hamble going on The Solent. The Solent was extremely busy like it always is with a lot cargo and pleasure boats on it. Then we left The Solent by going through the needles which led us into the English Channel. We sailed on the English Channel until we reached Plymouth where we entered the marina.