Courage, resilience and solidarity

Courage, resilience, solidarity... Current events are like a wave that every day brings to the shore the echoes of joys and sufferings experienced in the world.

This morning, the coup in Burma reopens a dark page in the country's history. One of Fondacio's Burmese friends writes: "no more internet, but it's okay for all of us, but the feelings of anger are there. It was already very hard in the Covid pandemic, and now, political instability is added."

All over the world, we are in a difficult situation, confronted to varying degrees with the second wave of Covid-19 which brings us all into communion; it requires a good dose of courage, resilience and solidarity.

Courage, resilience, solidarity... it's needed by all the Vendée Globe skippers. The first arrived in Les Sables d'Olonne last Thursday, while the last two had just rounded Cape Horn some 11,000 kilometres away, saying that they had just come out of "the horror, 5-10 metre waves trying to capsize the boat. It had nothing to do with sailing anymore. It was just survival."

What beautiful life lessons this solo round the world sailing trip gives, ... and so united. This race touches on something very deep in nature and the human condition that we share in common. The fourth in the race, Jean Le Cam, known as King Jean, aged 61, who arrived on Thursday evening, knows something about it. We remember. After having enabled the miraculous rescue on December 1st of Kevin Escoffier, an unfortunate castaway who had held out for 11 hours on a life raft in the Roaring Forties of the Indian Ocean, Jean Le Cam discovered that the front of his own boat was damaged, on the verge of breaking. He testifies: " When your hull moves five centimetres and the foam cracks, you tell yourself that it's going to break at any moment. And if it breaks, you sink. And where I was (in the Indian Ocean), I had to find a solution." Twice, he went to repair his boat, with makeshift means. Almost two months later, upon arrival, Jean Le Cam still can't believe it: "That I'm here today is a miracle. I've experienced a lot of pretty difficult things in my life, but this time I experienced... the unbearable." (L'Équipe, January 29, 2021).

At each edition of the Vendée Globe, all these skippers translate into action this statement by Mark Twain: " They did not know it was impossible so they did it."