Oceans of Hope Challenge: An amazing 5 days discovering what I CAN do.
Thankful for MS? After almost 13 years with MS I never thought I would be, and yet…
The day after turning 60 in early March, I heard about two remaining places on the 2021 Oceans of Hope NZ MS challenge. I applied the next day, waited 2 weeks to hear my application had been successful and then quickly gained financial assistance from MS Southland Trust to turn this dream into a reality. Everything fell into place in record time, and only 4 weeks after first hearing about Oceans of Hope I was crewing the Steinlager 2, doing something I would never have thought I could – not even ‘before MS.’ Yet without MS I couldn’t have even applied for this amazing adventure.
Over the 5 day voyage around the Hauraki Gulf in early April, we ‘MS crew’ had the opportunity to try our hands at all aspects of crewing a classic racing yacht. We wound the grinders to raise the sails – always in pairs, always controlled to match the slower grinder, always with the option of a lighter gear when it got too tough. We took turns to take the helm – an absolutely exhilarating feeling and the best bit for me. We cooked and cleaned in teams, and pushed ourselves to do things we never dreamt possible. The assumption of the crew was “There is always a different way of doing anything” if we wanted to try something which seemed impossible!
The toughest bit was probably having to get back up onto the ladder out of the water a second time, after falling off on my first attempt. I thought I’d already done the hard bit – jumping into the water rather than climbing down the ladder as I had the first day. The most valuable bit of learning was not to let pride get in the way of asking for help. Also learning it is well worth putting the effort into working out exactly what kind of help would be useful! I intend to practise this more – asking for specific help to live the life of my choosing.
I now recite to myself daily: “On a world-beating racing yacht maxi class, everyone asks for help sometimes” - and I can learn to do that on land too. And best of all, I feel STRONG!
