The last three months have been filled with many lessons, and I am sure there are many more to come. The biggest lesson so far has been one of ‘surrendering’.
Why Surrender?
Well as a person who loves to plan, and then execute the plan, I thrive off doing and making things happen. So my plan was get married, move on to our sail boat, get the boat ready and sail North.
A Simple plan, I felt up for the challenge and was ready to make it all happen.
One lesson I had to learn was that I had no reference for how long it would take to get a boat ready for long term cruising. Sure we needed solar power, water storage, safety gear, spares, replacements, provisions, and the list goes on, but it all seemed manageable.
For March, April, May and June we worked our buts off to get ready to sail. We stowed things away, ticked things off the list, and got to the point where we felt ready enough and thought we could do the rest of the jobs as we go.
With much excitement we set off on a four day sail around a local island 20 km’s off the coast. We left and as soon as we cast off everything felt right. We were finally sailing again and it was such a beautiful feeling.
Two days of sailing, anchoring, catching our dinner, and getting into the cruising vibe, we felt so ready for the big voyage. We knew there was a bit of bad weather coming, but we wanted to test both the boat and ourselves so we decided to go anyways and circumnavigate the island. The plan was to sail back home before the worst of the storm came through.
Things didn’t go as planned, and the ocean gave us a bit of a slap. It was enough of a slap that we broke a few things and realised we weren’t as ready as we thought we were.
Getting back to our pen in the marina, we slept, ate, dried out and made a new to do list.
A little set back wasn’t going to stop us. So we pushed on to finish the jobs and watch the weather very closely. Winter had well and truly set in and the storms were brewing closer and closer together, closing out our weather window.
It was a massive swell that sunk a sailboat in the middle of the WA coast ( just where we were about to sail to) that was the final sign we needed from the universe and mother nature that was telling us to rethink our departure.
We always said we would never go in winter. Our Egos, and our pride was the thing that was telling us to keep pushing forwards.
But to be a sailor, is to respect the power of the Ocean and the strength of Mother Nature. We decided to alter our plans. We are waiting for the right weather window in April next year to sail North.
Between now and then we plan on sailing as much locally as we can, doing charters and sailing tours since our boat is commercially licensed. The whole time we will keep planning and prepping for our departure in April next year.
Of course I am not sitting idle… I have a side business up and running to pay the bills, and I have some amazing eco-living tools in the pipes. Plus a super exciting Podcast all about women and our connection to the planet ( Plus heaps of outdoor adventure inspiration too.
I have learnt to stop pushing when things are hard. To let go and go with the flow not against it.
Nature is humbling and I have absolute respect for it.
So thank you Mother Earth – Lesson learnt.