Explorers From The United States

"The critics barged in to harp on every decision we made. . .Sadly, I began to doubt myself. Maybe I was too young. Maybe I wasn’t a good enough sailor."

"After the week of stormy weather, she set sail under sunny skies, on a glassy sea with a big swell running."

"Being at sea is like watching the whole world in high-definition."

"It seems like people my age are over-protected today, even to the point where a lot of parents refuse to put their kids in the position to make important decisions, to aspire to great things, because they don’t want to put them in a position to fail."

"I was so thankful that my parents trusted me enough and had enough faith in my abilities to let me follow my passion and try to do something great, even if I might fail."

"But none of that kept me from picturing what a tsunami might look like if it did rise up and roar toward my little boat like some watery blue version of the Great Wall of China."

"I saw the loose tiller jolt hard to the side as the boat began to spin."

"I’m one-hundred-fifty miles off Cape Horn, both autopilots are broken, and my boat is drifting toward one of the nastiest chunks of ocean on the face of the earth."

"The winds were blowing from west to east, pushing Abby’s boat toward the rocks as Abby struggled with the autopilots below. If Wild Eyes reached those islands, she wouldn’t run aground, keel in the sand. She would be smashed into pieces."

"When a sailor overcomes crushing adversity, there’s a massive sense of accomplishment."

"Terror ripped through me as I was falling, falling, falling toward the sea."

"If a big wave came at the wrong moment, it would sweep me off into forty-eight-degree water, where I might last twenty minutes. Drowning quickly might be better."

"Slowly, my brain let me in on the fact that I had just come this close to dying."

"Going up the mast is one of the most dangerous things you can do as a solo sailor."

"The terrifying physics of going up-mast in heavy seas are inescapable."

"But the more times she missed, the faster she’d be traveling when she finally slammed into the mast. And it wasn’t if she hit the mast; it was when. At that point, Abby would be either severely injured or dead."

"The swells were amazing! As big as three-story apartment buildings!"

"It was dark. Something had fallen on top of the cabin light, turning the cabin into a black tunnel. I couldn’t hear anything at all. The roll didn’t stop. It continued to port, and for just a few seconds I was sitting on the ceiling in the dark."

"Even without looking I knew: there was no way I still had a mast. And without a mast, the trip was over."

"Fifty feet of mast lay in the heaving water, downed lines and shrouds holding it there."

"I knew that even if I was able to call for help, I was in a place so remote that it wasn’t likely there would be anyone who could help me. And even if there were, it could take weeks."

"The seriousness of my situation started to sink in, and again I fought panic. I pushed it down, but it was harder this time, like my insides were an open can of shaken soda and I was trying to keep it from bubbling up out of the top."

"In that moment it dawned on me that everything has to line up perfectly for something to turn out this awful."

"It was like a horrible movie clip, only worse, because I could feel it—not just see it."

"The only thing I knew to do was to pray. “Lord, if I’m going to be rescued,” I said out loud, “please let me know.”"

"Against reason, I thought that the next swell would be it: another rogue wave would roll me again . . .At that moment, a noise from above caught my attention. And I looked up just in time to see a gigantic white airplane fly by."

"When I saw the plane, I was absolutely astonished! Two emotions crashed over me: surging joy and crazy fear."

"The things that happen on the sea take you beyond yourself, beyond human capability."

"Just like that, a single phone call erased one possible, horrendous future—and replaced it with the bright certainty that God had answered the prayers of thousands and that their beloved Abby was coming home."

"Unable to make radio contact with this second plane I felt my chances were fading fast. Dropping the radio mic, I sprinted up to the deck . . . and saw a huge ship bearing down on me!"

"Just as I was about to grab the rope ladder, a huge swell lifted the dinghy nearly to La Reunion’s deck level, and at least a dozen smiling French fishermen pulled me aboard."

"I will never forget the feeling of walking into my home, a place that while drifting helpless in the middle of the Indian Ocean I wondered if I would ever see again."

"I am twelve thousand miles wiser, twelve thousand miles more resilient, and I have twelve thousand miles more faith in God."

"I will definitely attempt to sail around the world again. In fact, I can’t wait for the chance to try again."

"I always think of Lewis and Clark, their story. It is not really their story at all. It is the story of Sacajawea who knew the way, took them along, saved them from mishaps, kept them fed, negotiated their entry into different tribal territories. The story, really, is hers. And she was still just a girl. Yet, women have been omitted from Native histories and so little is found that it is an effort to find information, even for scholars. So I like to center stories that are also history, with women as integral forces within the story."

"Ocean in view! O! the joy"

"I wanted to go everywhere. I would have started on a day’s notice for the North Pole or the South, to the jungle or the desert. It made not the slightest difference to me."

"I was born to be an explorer. There never was any decision to make. I coudn't be anything else and be happy,the desire to see new places, to discover new facts- the curiosity of life always has been a resistless driving force to me."

"The untransacted destiny of the American people is to subdue the continent — to rush over this vast field to the Pacific Ocean — to animate the many hundred millions of its people, and to cheer them upward — to set the principle of self-government at work — to agitate these herculean masses — to establish a new order in human affairs — to set free the enslaved — to regenerate superannuated nations — to change darkness into light — to stir up the sleep of a hundred centuries — to teach old nations a new civilization — to confirm the destiny of the human race — to carry the career of mankind to its culminating point — to cause stagnant people to be re-born — to perfect science — to emblazon history with the conquest of peace — to shed a new and resplendent glory upon mankind — to unite the world in one social family — to dissolve the spell of tyranny and exalt charity — to absolve the curse that weighs down humanity, and to shed blessings round the world! Divine task! immortal mission! Let us tread fast and joyfully the open trail before us! Let every American heart open wide for patriotism to glow undimmed, and confide with religious faith in the sublime and prodigious destiny of his well-loved country."

"Ain't nobody ever cut 5 centers, lessen' it were Dan'l Boone."

"Many heroic actions and chivalrous adventures are related of me which exist only in the regions of fancy. With me the world has taken great liberties, and yet I have been but a common man."

"Nothing embitters my old age [like] the circulation of absurd stories that I retire as civilization advances, that I shun the white men and seek the Indians, and that now even when old, I seek to retire beyond the second Alleganies."

"I've opened the way for others to make fortunes, but a fortune for myself was not what I was after."

"I can't say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days."

"Curiosity is natural to the soul of man and interesting objects have a powerful influence on our affections. Let these influencing powers actuate, by the permission or disposal of Providence, from selfish or social views, yet in time the mysterious will of Heaven is unfolded, and we behold our conduct, from whatever motives excited, operating to answer the important designs of heaven."

"Situated, many hundred miles from our families in the howling wilderness, I believe few would have equally enjoyed the happiness we experienced. I often observed to my brother, You see now how little nature requires to be satisfied. Felicity, the companion of content, is rather found in our own breasts than in the enjoyment of external things; And I firmly believe it requires but a little philosophy to make a man happy in whatsoever state he is. This consists in a full resignation to the will of Providence; and a resigned soul finds pleasure in a path strewed with briars and thorns."

"Daniel Boone was a man, Yes, a big man! With an eye like an eagle And as tall as a mountain was he! Daniel Boone was a man, Yes, a big man! He was brave, he was fearless And as tough as a mighty oak tree!"

"The Indian-fighting frontiersmen and the "valiant" settlers in their circled covered wagons are the iconic images of that identity. The continued popularity of, and respect for, the genocidal sociopath Andrew Jackson is another indicator. Actual men such as Robert Rogers, Daniel Boone, John Sevier, and David Crockett, as well as fictitious ones created by James Fenimore Cooper and other best-selling writers, call to mind D. H. Lawrence's "myth of the essential white American"-that the "essential American soul" is a killer."

"Westward lay the march of American Empire. Within thirty years of the establishment of the Union nine new states had been formed in the Mississippi valley, and two in the borders of New England. As early as 1769 men like Daniel Boone had pushed their way into the Kentucky country, skirmishing with the Indians. But the main movement over the mountains began during the War of Independence. The migration of the eighteenth century took two directions: the advance westward towards the Ohio, with its settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee, and the occupation of the north-west forest regions, the fur-traders’ domain, beyond Lake Erie. The colonisation of New England and the eastern coastline of America had been mainly the work of powerful companies, aided by the English Crown or by feudal proprietors with chartered rights. But here in the new lands of the West any man with an axe and a rifle could carve for himself a rude frontier home. By 1790 there were thirty-five thousand settlers in the Tennessee country, and double that number in Kentucky. By 1800 there were a million Americans west of the mountain ranges of the Alleghenies. From these new lands a strong, self-reliant Western breed took its place in American life."

"Of all men, saving Sylla, the man-slayer, Who passes for in life and death most lucky Of the great names which in our faces stare, The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky, Was happiest amongst mortals any where; For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he Enjoyed the lonely vigorous, harmless days Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze."