There are days you remember because they were beautiful… and then there are days you remember because they changed you.
5 November 2020 was one of those days.
It was the day we hoisted our sails for the very first time… hearts pounding, hands shaking, and prayers whispered under our breath like oxygen. We weren’t seasoned sailors. We weren’t even confident sailors. We were two people standing on a boat, staring at the open water, wondering if courage could really be louder than fear.
Spoiler… it can.
As we untied the lines, I kept thinking of Psalm 56:3… “When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.”
And trust we did… because honestly, what else do you do when the wind is stronger than your confidence?
Setting Sail: Equal Parts Terror and Thrill
The moment the sails filled, our boat leaned, and so did my faith… forward, into the unknown.
I squealed. Not a cute squeal. A full-on “Lord take the wheel!” squeal.
But then something incredible happened.
The fear didn’t disappear…
It transformed.
It became exhilaration…
It became freedom…
It became the kind of joy that makes you laugh at yourself because you can’t believe you almost talked yourself out of this.
God has a way of doing that… taking the thing that scares you and turning it into the thing that strengthens you.
Isaiah 41:10 echoed in my mind… “Do not fear, for I am with you… I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”
And He did.
Arriving in Hout Bay: Beauty Wrapped in History
Sailing into Hout Bay felt like entering a postcard someone forgot to Photoshop… rugged mountains, a sweeping white-sand beach, fishing boats bobbing like colourful confetti on the water.
Hout Bay isn’t just a suburb of Cape Town… It’s a whole personality.
A valley cradled by mountains…
A harbour buzzing with life…
A place where fishermen, surfers, sailors, artists, and tourists all somehow fit into the same frame.
Chapman’s Peak towered above us like a stern but beautiful guardian. The old Dutch forts watched from the slopes… cannons still standing as if waiting for a battle that never came. And beneath the water… wrecks, reefs, and a whole underwater world that divers rave about.
But we weren’t thinking about any of that.
We were thinking…
We made it.
We actually sailed here.
And we didn’t die.
Praise God.
Fireworks, Because God Has a Sense of Timing
As if heaven wanted to give us a cosmic high-five, we arrived on Guy Fawkes Day… completely unaware that the locals celebrate with enough fireworks to make you think the mountain is erupting.
Hundreds of people lined the harbour, shooting crackers into the sky…
The bangs echoed off the mountains…
The colours reflected on the water…
And we stood there, salty, exhausted, proud, and laughing because it felt like the whole bay was celebrating our first sail.
It was the perfect ending to a day that stretched us… scared us… and strengthened us.
Two Months of Falling in Love
We stayed in Hout Bay for two months… long enough for the marina to feel like home and the locals to feel like family.
We learned the rhythms of the harbour…
We learned the faces behind the fishing boats…
We learned that courage grows when you keep showing up.
And we learned that God meets you on the water just as faithfully as He meets you on land.
Sailing has never been just a hobby or a beautiful addition to our lives… it has been part of the calling God placed on our hearts. What I didn’t know when this journey began was that my body would fail me, that sickness would try to steal my joy and limit me. I could not have imagined how much I would struggle physically, how my own strength would betray me.
And yet, God took what seemed like my greatest challenge and turned it into my greatest blessing. The water became my refuge, the place where my body could move with ease, where I could glide across the waves as if carried by His hand. What I once thought was only joy became a crown, a sacred space where heaven met earth.
Out there, on the open water, worship was all I could hear. No distractions, no noise, just the wind, the waves, and the praise that rose naturally from my heart. And then… the voice of the Holy Spirit would meet me there. Every prayer, every cry, every whisper I brought to the altar was answered. The intimacy I experienced was beyond words, astronomical in its depth and clarity. Nothing compares to the way God speaks when we are fully present in the place He has made for us, the place He has sanctified as holy.
On the water, I learned that even in weakness, God’s strength carries us. Even in sickness, His presence heals, restores, and crowns our devotion. What I thought was only a passion became the altar where I encountered God like never before, and where I realised that His calling is always more beautiful than we could ever imagine.
Matthew 14:29 became real to us… “Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.”
We didn’t walk on water…
But we did sail on it…
Looking Back: Fear Didn’t Win
When I think of that day now, I don’t remember the fear first…
I remember the Holy Spirit…
I remember the wind…
The laughter…
The fireworks…
The feeling of doing something we once thought we couldn’t.
Courage isn’t the absence of fear…
It’s choosing to move anyway… with God beside you, within you, and ahead of you. And on 5 November 2020, we chose courage.
And God carried us. He gave us wings, He let us fly.
