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.
PHOTO: AFP
"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.
"It's not like a small boat which you can manoeuvre very easily. I am getting nervous when I am close to the coast. So I need open sea," she says.
Le Gouvello hoped to set off from Exmouth by this weekend but her departure has already been delayed twice because of fears of cyclones which frequent this part of the globe.
Yet she believes her boat -- with two tiny cabins below the deck where she can sleep, navigate and commu-nicate via a satellite telephone -- is tough enough to withstand all weather conditions.
"I could be stuck for a couple of days inside my boat waiting for good conditions with no possibility of sailing because it's too dangerous," she says.
"There is always the possibility of capsizing a few times. But as long as I am inside my boat, if the weather gets tough I think I am safe."
On her voyage, Le Gouvello will sail in two-hour stints, followed by short breaks during the day when she stretches and tries to stay focussed.
At night, she will sleep, letting the boat drift where it will, a strobe light and on-board active radar warning nearby shipping of her presence.
She cites her passion for wind-surfing, a sport she took up at 16, as her main motivation but also uses her voyages to raise awareness of the marine environment.
"Yes, that's part of the trip, part of the adventure. But I am driven by the passion for sailing, for windsurfing first of all. It has to come from here," she says, pointing to her heart.
"You need to be willing."
Le Gouvello says, somewhat unconvincingly, that once the weather finally allows her to leave Exmouth, it will be her last such adventure.
"This is going to be last one," she says, before adding quickly, "If I feel like it.
"Before I thought, what could be more interesting than sailing on the Indian Ocean? Now it's very different.
"I can't see of any interesting crossing that I could actually make with my sail boat. The Arctic Ocean and the Southern Ocean -- they are not something I can make, they are too extreme."
Perhaps.
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