Chapter 2 — We’re Not Afraid to Die... if We Can All Be Together

The chapter is a first-person survival narrative about a family's round-the-world voyage on the boat Wavewalker. A massive wave in the southern Indian Ocean nearly sinks the boat, and the family and their two crewmen fight for days to keep it afloat before navigating to the tiny island of Ile Amsterdam.

The narrator is a 37-year-old businessman who, along with his wife Mary, had dreamed for years of duplicating the round-the-world voyage made 200 years earlier by Captain James Cook. He and Mary had spent 16 years honing their seafaring skills in British waters before the journey.

The crew consists of the narrator, his wife Mary, their son Jonathan (6 years old), their daughter Suzanne (7 years old), American Larry Vigil, and Swiss Herb Seigler. Larry and Herb were taken on in Cape Town specifically to help tackle the rough southern Indian Ocean.

On January 2, an enormous wave — almost twice the height of other waves and described as nearly vertical with a breaking crest — struck the ship. The narrator was thrown overboard, his left ribs cracked, and his mouth filled with blood and broken teeth. The starboard hull was smashed open, the decks were flooded, and equipment including the forestay sail, jib, dinghies, and main anchor were wrenched overboard.

The narrator stretched canvas and secured waterproof hatch covers across the smashed hull to slow flooding. Larry and Herb pumped water continuously. When hand pumps blocked with debris and the electric pump short-circuited, the narrator found a second electric pump under the chartroom floor. After 36 hours of constant pumping, they reduced the water level enough to proceed. They also rigged a sea anchor using heavy nylon rope and two plastic barrels of paraffin to protect the weakened starboard side.

Seven-year-old Sue had a serious head injury — a deep cut, two black eyes, and a swollen skull — but deliberately said nothing so as not to worry her father while he was trying to save the ship. She later gave him a hand-made card with an encouraging message. Six-year-old Jonathan told his father they were not afraid to die as long as the whole family was together, and later it was the children who first spotted Ile Amsterdam, informing their father he had found the island.

On January 5, when the situation was again desperate, Jonathan told his father: "We aren't afraid of dying if we can all be together — you and Mummy, Sue and I." These words gave the narrator the determination to keep fighting. The chapter takes its title directly from this moment because it captures the story's central theme of courage and family unity.

The narrator had lost his main compass in the storm and was using a spare compass that had not been corrected for magnetic variation. He made allowances for this error and estimated the influence of westerly currents in that part of the Indian Ocean. Through careful calculation of wind speeds, drift, and course changes, he directed Larry to steer 185 degrees, and despite doubting his own reckoning, the calculations were accurate enough to bring them to the island.

Ile Amsterdam is a small volcanic island in the southern Indian Ocean that serves as a French scientific base. It was one of two small islands a few hundred kilometres to the east that the narrator found on his charts. Because the great wave had disabled the auxiliary engine and the main mast could not carry full sail without pulling the damaged hull apart, reaching Australia was impossible, making Ile Amsterdam their only realistic destination.

The central theme is that courage, optimism, and the bonds of family and crew can help people endure extreme hardship. The narrator reflects at the end on Larry and Herb who were "cheerful and optimistic under the direst stress", on Mary who held the wheel through the crucial hours, and above all on the two young children whose quiet bravery and selflessness sustained him throughout the ordeal.

Sue had a large bump above her eyes immediately after the wave struck, two enormous black eyes, and a deep cut on her arm. By January 6 the left side of her head was very swollen and her eyes were narrowed to slits. The narrator notes at the end that her head injury subsequently required six minor operations to remove a recurring blood clot between the skin and skull.

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