10,000 nautical miles!

Today we reached a massive milestone; we have travelled 10,000 nautical miles at sea since starting our liveaboard life on GypsyDjango some 810 days ago.

To give this some context, and to try to rationalise it in my mind, I did some googling… 1nm = 1.85km and the distance by sea from Cape Town to Rio is 3,274nm, to Sydney it’s 5,948, and to Barcelona 6,586.

While we have never defined specific goals for our sailing, these numbers have blown me away. I often wonder what I was thinking in those first few months adapting to a new way of life in a foreign city. I do know there was a lot of fear and uncertainty, but an even greater persistence to succeed. We had no aim other than becoming skilled in our new “career” of surviving as liveaboards - both literally and figuratively.

There are two questions that people often ask us; how long have you been doing this and how long will you still continue? My answers… over two years and at least another five. The fact that the five keeps shifting out with each year does not escape me - there’s clearly a little insanity there.

We’ve had a busy and exhausting year. It's been filled with people and movement and I can feel the end of the season is approaching fast. While I welcome the break that is coming, I am sad that soon we will leave beautiful Croatia and the summer behind us. The trip from Barcelona to Italy, Greece, Albania and eventually Croatia has been magnificent and we have been fortunate to share this time with great people 👏.

Our first two years have passed in a blink, but I now know I can do this. Even more, that I was meant to be this person, slightly volatile and always searching. To me, less is more and I feel truly alive every day. Alive - living on the sea and one with nature never wasting a single day. The moment I swapped a manager in an office for that dictator named Mother Nature I understood it was one I could never dare ignore. I fondly remember getting a written warning while at Dell for not following protocol in order to get a deal signed, believing it was easier to get forgiveness than ask for approval. Today though I don't mess around, there is no forgiveness in this life 😊

If I get my way I will be a gypsy for the rest of my life, flitting between a small cliff-top shack over the ocean to some remote mountain cottage. But first things first; to make the most of every moment now, of every adventure. To live my life like there is no tomorrow. Too soon we will have explored most of the Mediterranean and it will be time to think about sailing GypsyDjango across to the Caribbean. When we tire of this way of life then it’s on to phase 2… maybe exploring the wild USA West Coast by van life? My goals are no longer immediate. They are no longer about going out for a ride or a run to ease my tension and feed my need for achievement. They are not about today or tomorrow. Rather they are life altering aimed at experiencing, exploring, and discovering. Sharing my journey along the way with you, be it in person or through my words, is what feeds me.

What have I learned so far? we no longer have a need for a familiar piece of mooring in a marina to call home (for winter). We don’t need a fixed address in order to feel grounded and secure. I constantly grow as a person and have come to acknowledge those who are as important to me in life as I am to them. I value our family who are primary to us and those beautiful souls we have as friends. Everything else falls away.

We don’t know where we are headed from here and have no safe haven for winter - yet. While in the past this lack of a plan would have freaked me out, it’s now part of the voyage and I look forward with excitement to finding out where we will end up. And all will be well.

So, 10,000nm is a big achievement. Not just in distance but especially in the impact on our lives. It’s huge this life we have lived in the past two years. But it’s more than that, it's a realization that we have experienced and achieved. Stepped out of our comfort zones and the norm to follow a somewhat crazy dream. A belief that there is more to life than work and money. Along the way we have met some incredible beautiful people and seen some amazing places. There might have been a few scary moments along the way crossing back-and-forth between Barcelona to Croatia, delivering unpredictable changes in our conditions along the way, but it has delivered to us opportunities we would otherwise never have had.