Best of luck to a very brave friend

The mooring lines were freed and I sailed away off to attempt to get right round the world via Cape Horn alone, while wonderful supporter Gerry Adamson waved farewell from the shore.

If she breathed a considerable sigh of relief as Spirit of Pentax sailed away from Plymouth I can’t know.

But she certainly had every right to.

Tomorrow Gerry is to be admitted to Southampton Hospital for a very delicate and lengthy heart operation.

Similarity

There is a similarity between the two events.

She doesn’t have to have the operation any more than it was mandatory for me to attempt to circumnavigate.

And another is that success for both was far from certain.

Should mine have gone wrong and should hers on Thursday, recovery is not very likely. However, the man in charge is the notable Mr Geoffrey Tsang, Consultant Cardiac Surgeon.

His biography shows that he has performed over 700 cardiac procedures at Spire’s Southampton hospital and more than 3000 cardiothoracic operations at the NHS’s Southampton Hospital, all this since 1999.

Gerry’s courage as she packed a small suitcase for her ten-day absence reminded of the very different reaction of my own nerves when releasing the jetty warps. …  Continues on the blogs for my ocean adventuring book, Sailing to Purgatory, at
http://sailingtopurgatory.com/index.php/feeds/496-best-of-luck-to-a-very-brave-friend