AAs we walked through the dark marina at 3:30 a.m., I swallowed the last bite of my banana and then tossed the peel onto a pile of other bananas on the dock. Bananas are considered bad luck on boats and we needed all our luck to make it through the next 750 cold, wild, wet miles. The eighth Race to Alaska (R2AK) was about to begin and I was on one of the 44 teams heading to the start line. Some teams wanted to be first; the rest of us just wanted to survive.

More than 100 adventurers from four countries met in Port Townsend, near Seattle, in June to test their mettle against the unpredictable elements of the Pacific Northwest’s famous Inside Passage. Our goal was to make it to Ketchikan, Alaska, before the Grim Sweeper – a boat that slowly follows racers along the course – took us out.

Unlike other sailing races that have complicated rules, the Race to Alaska is deliberately simple: no engines and no outside support. My team – a trio of women in their mid-40s who called themselves Sail Like A Mother – agreed on why we were taking part in the race: we were hoping for a midlife fresh start.

Katie Gaut, a sailing enthusiast like me, and I and the third loyal crew member, Melissa Roberts, also participated in the R2AK to prove to ourselves and our children that we had “the courage to overcome a difficult task,” as my nine-year-old son wrote in a note he stowed on board.

I had a nervous feeling in my stomach as we made our final preparations. A motley fleet of boats, most smaller than a pickup truck, crept toward the start line as the sun turned the horizon pink.

The range of boats competing in the race this year ranged from a stand-up paddle to a sleek racing trimaran and a hand-built wooden catamaran to an old monohull bought for $250 on Craigslist. Crews ranged from parent-child duos to 70-year-old soloists to a boat full of seven strangers. Some were six-time R2AK veterans, while others, like me, had never sailed the course before.

The first leg of the race will take place across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a notorious stretch of sea that separates Washington state in the US from Vancouver Island in Canada. The strait is part of the “Graveyard of the Pacific” and has left dozens of shipwrecks on the bottom of the channel due to stormy seas, thick fog and strong, changing currents.

Our team, in our 27-foot (8-meter), 50-year-old sailboat, was the last to leave the dock. I biked around the dock with us—yes, I biked. R2AK sailboats have to be creative when the wind dies down. We had a bike strapped to the stern that turned an airplane propeller so we could crawl through the water at about 2.5 knots—walking speed. We reached the start line with just a minute to spare before the horn sounded.

We took off like a bunch of turtles in the still air. I sighed with relief when the wind filled our sails an hour later.

Long before the race started, all teams had to grapple with tricky logistical questions. Questions like: What will we eat for five to 25 days at sea with no kitchen or refrigeration? Where will we sleep? Where will we pee?

If you want to know the answers, they are: dry meals, porridge, dried meat, nuts and lots of chocolate. Luckily, our sailboat had two camp beds under the cockpit, which I affectionately called “coffin bunks,” and that’s where we slept. We peed overboard or, in rough seas, into a bucket that was tipped overboard.

In the low points of racing over the next few days, I remembered my son’s belief in my courage, which strengthened my resolve to keep going. Like the time I changed a sail at the bow in 30-knot gusts as we plunged into steep, breaking waves that splashed me from head to toe.

Or when the wind died down at 2am and we were still ten kilometres from an anchorage where we could rest for a few hours. Or when I accidentally gybed in 2.5m waves, driving our boat frighteningly close to a jagged rock in the dark.

I was also inspired by the two teams made up entirely of teenagers from the Puget Sound area of ​​Washington. Both youth teams maintained a good pace and were in good spirits throughout the race. Their age perhaps gave them an advantage over the adults in terms of endurance.

Willow Gray, a member of the Juvenile Delinquents team, brought a gown and hat to commemorate her high school graduation, which she missed during the race. Her highlight? “The view was so breathtaking – stars like I’d never seen before, all the wildlife, crystal clear water, seaweed and so many jellyfish.”

Like Gray, the rugged beauty of the route was one of my favorite parts. A pod of orcas swam past us during one particularly stunning sunset. One afternoon, a humpback whale surfaced just a stone’s throw from our stern.

Another night, the full moon reflected bioluminescent sparkles as I pedaled through still waters, the silence broken only by the call of a loon.

Ten days after leaving Victoria, our team was nearing the finish line. I cried a little as Ketchikan – and the end of our journey – came into view. So did Gaut, our captain. “I love being out here so much. I don’t want it to be over yet,” she says.

At 1 a.m. we finally reached a small dock and were greeted with cheers by about 30 people huddled under raincoats. The race to Alaska changed me, as it changes everyone who travels this rugged, remote and unpredictable route.

Now I have even more respect for the ocean and its immense power. I appreciate the fact that it takes a village to launch a small boat. And I am finally sure that I actually have what it takes to complete a difficult task.