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A Summer Adventure
By Neil Peterson | June 28, 2009
I have always looked for challenges, for opportunities that would test my mettle. One summer while my family was vacationing on Chappaquiddick Island, I decided to do something nobody had ever done: circumnavigate the island alone and, being the first, set a world’s record for doing so. I was just sixteen.
Chappaquiddick Island sits off the main island of Martha’s Vineyard, bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the south, Nantucket Sound on the east and north sides, and Edgartown Harbor on the west side. The total circumference of the island is nearly eighteen miles. My sailing vessel for the excursion would be a sailfish. Invented in the early 1950s, the sailfish was essentially a large wooden surfboard with a sail, rudder, and dagger board. It was the precursor to today’s sunfish, the major difference being that the sunfish has a well for your feet that is self-bailing.
My sailfish was one of the early ones: old, wooden, a heavy 150 pounds, and only ten feet long by three feet wide. Our neighbor on the island gave it to me. It had been getting dusty, just lying in his garage unused. The first thing I did was clean it up, then give it some pizazz-bright red and orange flames over a background of black. I called it Blazer.
I loved sailing it in front of our house, especially on high-wind days. I probably tipped over a thousand times. But I didn’t care. It was all about the challenge. Each outing presented a new experience with different lessons to learn. How tightly could I head into the wind? How far could I heel over before I would capsize? How far could I lay out, gripping onto the mainsheet for dear life, before I fell over backwards into the water?
Blazer
On the big day of my trip, I was up early, all excited in anticipation of this amazing adventure. Of course my parents thought I was nuts. But they always thought that. And I didn’t care. I was determined to circumnavigate Chappy solo and to do so in record time.
Shirtless, no sunglasses, and with only a swimsuit on, I pushed off from the beach in front of our house at 8 a.m. sharp. It was a beautiful sunny day with a good breeze coming out of the north. Perfect.
The trip went pretty smoothly overall, although it was not without its challenges-probably the greatest of which was lugging my sailfish 400 feet over burning hot sand in bare feet and then another 150 feet just a short while later. By the end of the eleven-plus-hour excursion I was dog tired, roasted by the sun, famished-but invigorated.
Chappaquiddick Island
My parents and sister were on the beach waiting for me when I arrived, relieved that I had returned safe and sound. At the same time, their expressions seemed to say, Why? What in the world possessed you to do this? You must be crazy.
Only I could savor the satisfaction of what I’d done. No official contest drew me to take on that sailing adventure. And while no one else-to my knowledge-has ever attempted to circumnavigate the island in a sailboat, no real Guinness World Record was at stake that day. Yet the exhilaration of my accomplishment was intense; to this day, in fact, I remember my adventure in almost photographic detail.
The expedition was entirely self-driven, and I think that’s what made it so special. The desire came from within. In the end, I alone realized the accomplishment, relished it, and took satisfaction from it.
I did it for myself and not for anybody else…and maybe that is OK.
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Topics: General, Perseverance, Self-improvement, Sports, Stories | 1 Comment »
October 17th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
[...] vacationing on Chappaquiddick with my parents one summer during high school, I got a call from Stuart Higley, one of my dad’s friends, [...]