The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” ~Sydney J. Harris
Well here is another cliche quote; twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than those you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor and catch the wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr.
I live on the sea; my home is a yacht on the ocean with no fixed address and I am never more than a short dinghy trip away from her.
People stare at me when I tell them I am not on holiday, this is not a chartered yacht but rather my home.
In the beginning I had my moments of doubt, wondering if I had made a huge mistake. I am sure you picked up on this in some of my earlier blogs and maybe you also wondered? Someone even told me not to worry, when I failed and returned to Cape Town they wouldn’t say “I told you so”. While some might initially have been concerned over my chosen path, most now feel that I was lucky to escape when we did. When we left South Africa the world was one place, today it’s another so different that we still can’t quite believe.
It’s a learning curve, welcome to life. I have always prided myself in fully understanding and preparing for what I am getting into. There wasn’t one race I entered without first accepting the challenge of the training required and the same is true of this venture. With sailing however I am not sure one can ever be skilled enough to deal with all the elements nature can throw at you. By the time we left South Africa I had done as much as I could to be ready to set sail on GypsyDjango, knowing true knowledge and experience comes after years and years - or rather countless nautical miles. So I have pushed myself and learnt so much already about living in nature. I am rewarded daily with my achievements, that is growth. Today it’s finding the perfect anchor in a new bay, tomorrow it’s finding the right bay in a storm. These achievements make it impossible for me to ever go back to a life where you are measured by your next big sale, not your next big sail. Please tell me you get that 😊
I love being on our boat and I’m sad whenever I have to leave her. I love sailing and I love going to new destinations, I love being on the water and so much more.
It’s crazy to think back to the start of this year and realize how much I’ve changed and learned to get here so far. It will be interesting for me to read this post next year and write a follow on update.
Many ask me what my average day is like and while they listen politely I am not sure they truly grasp this type of life where my hours pass in minutes and I seem to run out of time daily. Maybe I have forgotten how to be effective? Maybe that’s OK.
So here it goes...
I fall asleep nightly staring at the Milky Way through the open hatch, uninterrupted by any city lights. Settling in to the gentle rock of the sea I try to read and last ten minutes at best. I wake up to the sneaky 5 o’clock sunrise, through that same open hatch, and make my way up on deck to witness the start of a new day with the most unbelievable glass-like ocean reflecting the early morning rising rays of pink as the sun pops up from behind the mountain. Over a cup of coffee I contemplate my direction for the day and in my mind set goals I would like to achieve.
I would like to mention that I was never good at routine. I think my artistic side prevented that so none ever formed and I change with the direction of the wind. I hate schedules so darn it, let’s do something different.
Kev still works; I set my destination and sail and he pops his head out from his cloud of business to ask me where we are today.
The fun of living on a yacht is my new reality, despite the constant tasks which I relish. I enjoy having fun in old towns or equally enjoy walking through a shipyard among a multitude of hardy men restoring one boat or another and my soul lifts at the simplicity of this new life. The smell of diesel and clattering of masts are part of the sensory experience that now grounds me. I am experiencing yacht envy - it used to be bike envy and that was way cheaper! I hardly recognize myself and have to acknowledge how far I have come (or is that how far I have gone wrong?) when I whisk out my mask with excitement to enter a marine boating store instead of a Zara.
I have become that nomad and my goals are no longer corporate success but rather personal and every day is an accomplishment. I didn’t randomly end up living this life by chance. My being here is not accidental, I chose to live here and I worked hard to make it possible. While I have been extremely lucky, luck never made this happen.
What next? My challenge is to make sure I can live this life successfully over a prolonged period. I want to live adventures, become better at sharing my experiences, give hope to others and welcome friends to our home. I want to create a safe space for friends, like turning GypsyDjango into a yoga retreat for a week or two with lots of laughing, dancing and exposure to a different way of living and thinking. I want to discover untouched paths on islands that we will still get to and swim in coves I don’t yet know exist. So the only real question is where is the wind going to blow us to tomorrow?
So far we have been graced with the company of two sets of visitors and it has been an unbelievable experience. The first; precious friends who enjoyed their ten days onboard so much that they are return in five days time for another ten day GypsyDjango sailing experience - this time up north towards Sibenik. The second; a lovely couple from the UK, booked through Airbnb, who were not tired of us and on their last night invited us out for dinner to say thank you and want to return soonest. And shortly, if all goes well we will have another friend joining us later in August to sail down the coast to Dubrovnik.
We share our home and our knowledge, but more than that we are having a loft of fun in a time when its needed and as we all need a little fun right now and a safe environment is the best place for it.
Comments