“You sailed across the Atlantic Ocean! Holy cow what an accomplishment, how did you even do that?”
My friend Lisa heard this question many times after they completed the ARC Europe passage. I’ve heard versions of that as well.
I think about the beginning, when we started with bareboat chartering, and we would be out for 7 to 10 days at a time. All day time sailing, within sight of land, and stores, and a bar for when you get nicely tucked away at anchor. When we thought about open ocean sailing and passagemaking, it seemed overwhelming, even scary.
But when dreams are big, they pull you forward. We did our first overnight sail heading to Corsica from Sardinia. We had watches and did all the things you’re supposed to do for a passage.
Then when we got our own boat, we needed to bring her from Florida to North Carolina, we stretched out into a 4 day offshore passage. We brought a delivery Captain, which helped us build confidence in our boat and in ourselves.
The only real difference between that trip and this one (aside from the amount of food on board) is that we did the same thing, but more days of it.
A little accomplishment became a big accomplishment by doing one more day, and one more day, and one more day.
It’s the same with everything. When our daughter Grace was 7, she wanted to take karate. Dottie and I decided that if we had to taxi her there and back, we might as well get some exercise too. One day led to another, and the three of us got our black belts in karate. Wow that’s so cool, how’d you even do that?
Well, we showed up, then kept showing up, and after 5 years of showing up, we got our black belts. We just never stopped, and so it was just another day, another month, another year.
On Amari, I say that we learn our boat “one screw up at a time.” Something breaks, and then we have to learn that particular system to fix it. Thank you Google, thank you YouTube.
But at some point someone’s going to say, omg you know all these systems of your boat, how do you even do that?
By continuing. One more day.
The accomplishment is in continuing, doing what needs to be done, and not being so overwhelmed by the goal that you stop trying (or worse, never even start).
So it’s not the step, it’s the journey.
How do you cross an ocean? One nautical mile at a time.
Tales of a Galley Slave
Ugh the food. I was so uninspired tonight. We had leftover bell pepper, onion, squash and yes, MORE baby red potatoes.
So this is very unsexy, but Dottie stir-fried the veg with oregano, salt and pepper. The potatoes were made just the same as before and I am so done with those spuds for the foreseeable future!
You know the whole “one more day” thing I just talked about? That so doesn’t apply to these potatoes.
I sliced the pork loin into medallions and tossed them in a pan. To Asian them up, they were seared in a makeshift teriyaki: sesame oil and soy sauce. But we also had some Chinese 5-spice that we normally put on fish.
In you go! Oh, then I thought I’d add some spice by plopping a dollop of harissa in the mix.
So the meal was totally a fusion of sorts. “Hey we have to get rid of this, throw that in there.” Fusion? More like (con)fusion, lol. In the end it actually turned out okay, just one more day of making it up as I go along.
One more day of taking care of the people I love. One more day to be grateful for the gift of this life we live.
One more day.