The best journeys answer questions that you didn't even think to ask.
parallel universe - january 2, 2017
Tonight, it became clear to me that parallel universes exist. They are not separated by space and time, located light years away. They are not filled with other versions of us, living better or different lives that could have been ours, if only… I found tonight that parallel universes exist everywhere around us, because as humans we are all connected, just walking different paths until happenstance brings us together. Without warning, we could find ourselves somewhere we don’t want to be, and there is no way out.
We are sitting at anchor in in the Bay of Islands. Our location is beautiful and is brimming with boats celebrating the new year. As the breeze swings us gently around we drift towards and away from the boats around us, tempting fate to bring us together. Earlier, we shared sundowners with friends from three other boats, laughing, drinking, telling stories and spreading happiness. It was a scene that is repeated many times around this little bay.
Below deck the Squid and Dolphin are ecstatic at having a friend come over for the night. They are watching Harry Potter and their world is complete. I have also gone below deck to read and drink tea before going to sleep. We have decided to head south tomorrow so I want to rest. We have plans which we see no reason to doubt, in fact there is not a thought that they could change. Why should our world lurch sideways to make things different from what they are? Surely, we are immune to such chaos.
There is a cruiser 20m to starboard. It’s big and brash, one of those boats with the blue lights illuminating the water off the stern. The music is loud and the revellers are dressed like the models in a high end boating commercial. Who really wears white pants on a pleasure boat other than crew? George Michael is now in the mix, there is dancing, laughter and raucous conversation.
The Captain comes below and asks if I’m asleep. No. He tells me a body has just been found floating in the water next to us; I come up on deck. Someone is calling the police from the boat to port, while the people on the boat off our bow are staring at the former life they have hauled from the water and laid gently on their transom. The evening is warm and I am chilled. There are only a few boats in the bay that are aware of what has happened and for half an hour we look on, knowing that someone is dead and their family anchored nearby has no idea.
Then we hear soulful howling; the family now knows. There is a large bear of a man on his knees sobbing like a child over the body. He doesn’t know what to do. Nobody knows what to do. The heartbroken man stands, paces, drops, cries; he is lost. The people on the boat try to help this shattered soul, they bring a pillow and another blanket for the dead in the hope this brings some comfort for the living. All the while, George keeps singing on the cruiser next to us so loudly they cannot hear the grief 20m away from them.
Meanwhile, below deck three children drift off to sleep. Possibly I hugged my two a little longer tonight as I kissed them goodnight. I am desperately thankful for the universe in which I sit, where those I love are safe and well. But tonight, more than most nights, I know that at any moment I could be jolted to a parallel universe, where my life is not the one I had planned and I could be wondering how the hell I got there.
what's in a photo? - September 2016
It's always the photos. That's the answer to the burning house question - What one thing would you save if your house were on fire? Almost exclusively the answer is the photos.
I'm not exactly sure why we place such a weighty importance on captured images of our past. Possibly it provides a lifeline connection to a happier time? We tend not to take photos of sadness or loss, rather we insist on smiles, shaping our past into a visual stream of joy, which may not be entirely accurate, but it is warm and comforting. Or are we afraid of losing these memories and not being able to feel again the wonder and excitement that was there in the moment? Yes, we forget some things but every experiencestays with us, locked away somewhere in our mind to be drawn upon at another time. No doubt there will be triggers to bring the memories back to the surface. Or do we need proof, to ourselves and others, of what was? Maybe we don't have the strength of faith to just believe it was good.
This week when I had my phone stolen, I was parted from almost every photo I have taken since leaving Sydney. So I have had to examine the value placed on these photos and treat them with a level of pragmatism necessary to pull me from my period of mourning. I have meals to cook, lessons to teach, passages to sail and adventures to live, so I cannot sink into misery for too long.
My initial painful cry was for my memories and no longer being able to share them. I believed that without photos I will not remember or be able to relate to others where we have been. Now I have been obliged to draw on my assertion that who I am is a unity of all that I have experienced. Each journey and interaction that I have been through this year has imprinted upon who I am and shaped me a little more. Like a rocky shore, each wave that breaks against it has an impact, usually too small to see individually, but over a lifetime the result is clear. I did not undertake this journey to have some attractive photos for the sake of conversation, I was seeking enrichment, renewal, change. Brilliant photos are a lovely bonus.
While I still wish for the return of my phone, a possibly that seems slightly hopeful given that we identified and confronted the thieves (but that's a whole other story!), I'm moving on. I need look no further than inside myself and at the people my children are becoming to hold onto the memories of this adventure.
Finding a way - MARCH 2016
Our departure date is looming but the to do list is long. I need a new motto to get me through the next two months, so I settle on Find a Way. There is no other choice but to find a way. We are committed and so each day I just chip away at the list. Some days the list grows, rather than shrinks, but no matter what, we will get there, we will find a way.
Sailing senses - January 2016
A shakedown sail is intended to sort out problems with the boat before a big passage. Usually, we find that given the right (or wrong) conditions, it shakes down a whole lot of new issues that we need to deal with. Our last voyage also revealed a few things about how I sail and taught me that sometimes it is necessary to use more than just our primary navigation sense of sight to safely find our way home.
We were heading back to Sydney from Jervis Bay. Having set out at 2am the conditions were fairly calm, but we knew there was a strong southerly on the way and the swell was going to pick up. It should be noted, I'm not a born sailor. I didn't grow up around boats and felt that having been in the windsurfing club at uni was an adequate qualification for my first yacht purchase. So challenging conditions are still new to me and just giving it a go is how I learn. Also, the wind vane autopilot broke and we couldn't repair it in the rough conditions so I had no choice.
I soon discovered that while I could see and hear the sails and the seas, my best resource in these conditions was what I could feel. I could feel the angle of QuickStar as we were lifted up on waves, dropped off the back and slewed from side to side. I could feel the wind and knew the angel at which it had to hit my face to keep the sails full. I could feel the pressure on the rudder building and fading away. All these things I could feel allowed me to adjust our course more effectively than relying on what I could see and hear.
I'll have to remember that more often and let my other senses take over. Who knows what I'll discover?
Time to commit - some time in 2015
We have just made a commitment. It is based on the vague idea that we tossed around many years earlier, without any pressure of ever having to follow through. Aboard Andiamo, our old Bonbridge 27, we first started to dream. They were lazy Sunday afternoon conversations on Pittwater, the type you can have when you are young and uncommitted. We weren’t married, we didn’t have a mortgage and we had no children. Our level of commitment was such that packing up and leaving Australia the next day wouldn’t have taken much effort. So we were free to dream. Moored in America Bay at sunset, lazily sipping wine and eating cheese, we could let our minds take us on future voyages around the Pacific. That was all we needed then; a seed of an idea.
Fast forward more than15 years. The dreaming has intensified over the last 12 months. We have purchased QuickStar, already proven seaworthy across the Pacific, so we have the means. Our lives are vastly more complicated (well, so it seems) with a mortgage, children, careers, education all weighing upon us. But it is time to make a decision and so we commit.