We're Not Afraid to Die if We Can All Be Together
When I was 7 years old, my family set sail across the Southern Indian Ocean on our yacht Wavewalker. Half way across we were hit by an enormous wave, which crashed through Wavewalker's deck. I was flung against the roof of the main cabin and the hull, fracturing my skull and breaking my nose. Our boat filled with water and was too badly damaged for us to hope to reach Australia, still several weeks away
My injuries were severe. My mother wrote in her diary (shown here) that my head was "disfigured by [a] huge swelling on temple, top of head, side of face - she looked deformed. Panic - She was in tremendous pain"
Three days later we were lucky enough to find Isle Amsterdam, a tiny atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean. There I was operated on several times with no anaesthetic to fix the huge swelling on my head that was pressing down on my skull, threatening brain damage
My father later wrote an article for Readers Digest about our shipwreck. This article focuses on his role in the aftermath of the accident. It doesn't, however, dwell on how he came to be in the Southern Indian Ocean - one of the most dangerous oceans in the world - with only his wife, his two small children and two novice crew on board. This article has since become a core text in Indian schools (see below for the pdf of this)
In my book "Wavewalker" I tell this story from the point of view of the small girl who never chose to be on that boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean