![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Snowflake Challenge Day 5
Jan. 5th, 2012 06:01 pmDay 5
In your own space, share something non-fannish you are passionate about with your fannish friends. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
I think that most people on my friends list know that my big passion these days is offshore sailing, but before that it was caving (or spelunking, for those of you across the Pond).
I started caving in my late teens, and it pretty much consumed my life right up until I got pregnant with my first child. It gave me everything I was looking for - a close-knit 'tribe' to belong to, the excitement of risk and of pushing myself, and the kick of doing something that most people found slightly (or very) odd and didn't understand. I caved mostly in the Yorkshire Dales, and spent a lot of summers on expedition exploring new cave in the Austrian Alps (that's me in my icon, abseiling into the entrance of 164, a cave we were exploring in the Austrian Totes Gebirge mountains). I love sporting wet caves and big shaft systems best. I've seen some strange and beautiful things, and I've stood where no-one on this planet has ever stood before. I've also faced some dangerous situations and handled them; that's a good thing to know about yourself.
These days my passion is offshore sailing. The sailing I love isn't gentle sailing from one marina to another, sipping G&Ts while moored each evening. The sailing I love is the more serious stuff, the long passages, the night watches (I *love* night sailing). I get the same things from my sailing as I got from caving - the tribe, the excitement, the pushing my limits, physical and mental. My idea of heaven is beating to windward in a Force 6 with waves crashing over the deck. At that point you really know you're alive :)
Snowflake Challenge Day 5
In your own space, share something non-fannish you are passionate about with your fannish friends. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
I think that most people on my friends list know that my big passion these days is offshore sailing, but before that it was caving (or spelunking, for those of you across the Pond).
I started caving in my late teens, and it pretty much consumed my life right up until I got pregnant with my first child. It gave me everything I was looking for - a close-knit 'tribe' to belong to, the excitement of risk and of pushing myself, and the kick of doing something that most people found slightly (or very) odd and didn't understand. I caved mostly in the Yorkshire Dales, and spent a lot of summers on expedition exploring new cave in the Austrian Alps (that's me in my icon, abseiling into the entrance of 164, a cave we were exploring in the Austrian Totes Gebirge mountains). I love sporting wet caves and big shaft systems best. I've seen some strange and beautiful things, and I've stood where no-one on this planet has ever stood before. I've also faced some dangerous situations and handled them; that's a good thing to know about yourself.
These days my passion is offshore sailing. The sailing I love isn't gentle sailing from one marina to another, sipping G&Ts while moored each evening. The sailing I love is the more serious stuff, the long passages, the night watches (I *love* night sailing). I get the same things from my sailing as I got from caving - the tribe, the excitement, the pushing my limits, physical and mental. My idea of heaven is beating to windward in a Force 6 with waves crashing over the deck. At that point you really know you're alive :)
Snowflake Challenge Day 5
