There isn't much that frightens someone who is prepared to spend 75 days tethered to a tiny sliver of carbon fibre and resin while windsurfing the vast expanses of the Indian Ocean on their own.
Mountainous seas, wayward shipping, intense loneliness, thirst, hunger, sharks or even the thought of having to operate on herself in a crisis hold no fears for 45-year-old Raphaela Le Gouvello.
But Le Gouvello, a passionate windsurfer who has conquered the vast expanses of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and the Mediterranean sea in the last five years, admits to being scared of just one thing.
"It's myself," the Frenchwoman says candidly. "The fact that if I am not vigilant enough, if I make a mistake, this can become fatal. I have to be always tied to my boat. The sailboat is my life."
The 7.8m-long hybrid-vessel -- a sort of overgrown windsurfer meets mini sailboat -- will be her home, gym, workplace and, heaven forbid, even hospital as she navigates the 6,300km from this remote township on the far north-western Australian coast to Reunion Island, south-west of Mauritius.
Although she has never had to perform surgery on herself, Le Gouvello, a veterinarian, says she has the skills, the mental toughness and the equipment to do it should the need arise.
"I have everything to do it. I have a complete on-board pharmacy," she says.
"I am a doctor in veterinary medicine so I have a background for that I think. Plus with satellite phones I can work with physicians specializing in these kind of cases. By distance we can discuss it and we can get it right."
Lean as a whippet, her skin weathered rather than aged, Le Gouvello stretches her muscles constantly while talking. Years of intense physical preparation for her voyages and months at sea have taught her the need to stay flexible.
Her naturally brown hair cropped practically short and bleached several shades lighter by the sun and sea, Le Gouvello says the trick to surviving major ocean crossings is finding the balance of the physical and the mental.
"It's both," she says. "You have to manage both the mental and the physical -- both are controlling each other. I have to be strict with my physical discipline and not go beyond my own limits, other-wise you may get in trouble."
Only once, when she made her first attempt to cross the Mediterranean, has Le Gouvello ever failed in her goal, though both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans held their own special challenges.
"Each of them has it's own story and specific difficulties," she says.
"With the Atlantic crossing I was expecting winds, good winds to go and I actually suffered from a lack of them for three weeks, which is a lot of time when you are alone on the ocean and mentally it is very difficult to handle.
"My crossing of the Mediterranean was a short one, it was just for training and my first attempt and I capsized and had a real problem getting back to my boat.
"I found myself in a very difficult
situation and I was obliged to ask for rescue but then I succeeded on the second attempt with the crossing.
"The Pacific, it's so big, you are so isolated and you really have to count on yourself. This feeling of knowing that you are 3,000km or 4,000km away from any coast can be difficult so you have to keep yourself busy."
Despite that, Le Gouvello sees land as a potential hazard, rather than a blessing, fearful that her sluggish vessel doesn't have the steering capabilities of a normal boat.
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