REFLECTIONS

Reflections….

We have been on this journey now for 6 months and have covered over 3,200 nautical miles. We have encountered, experienced, and overcome so much and still I feel like such a novice. I am part of a Facebook group that focuses on the Liveaboard lifestyle and one would think that all 40,000 are out there sailing around from the way they talk. I felt quite intimidated by the group when I first joined and over the years I friended a few of those individuals. While in La Cruz, I had the opportunity to meet one of those people. He had served as a source of information and encouragement over the years. It was a little mind bending to meet him and his wife in person. A few conversations over the years on Facebook and then 3,200 miles later and in a market in a different country to stumble across this cyber acquaintance. I asked him how many from the group he has met, how many take the leap and cut the lines. In 5 years he said he had only met a handful. It is hard to wrap your head around the fact that out of the millions of boat owners worldwide, there are only about 10,000 out sailing away from their home waters at any given time. That is a pretty elite group that I have made the ranks in. It is a little mind boggling. As I contemplate our accomplishments and plan the next leg of our journey, here are some of my random thoughts and reflections of this journey so far.
We are abundantly blessed. There are not a lot of people who get to do something like this. We are remaining healthy. Actually, I think we are far healthier than we ever were in the states. We both have lost a lot of weight. We eat better, sleep more, and drink lots more water. We are seeing some beautiful sites and meeting some wonderful people. We are doing things that most only dream about. I am surprised at how long it has taken to rewire the brainwashing of the American Dream. I felt guilty for the longest time because it felt like I should be working. Why should I feel guilty for doing something for me? Oh, that’s right, I am not feeding into the corporate machine.
I miss the girls more than I ever imagined. There are several of my girlfriends who will be surprised by that statement. I had taken a page from my own mother’s parenting 101 manual and sought to raise the girls so that they would be strong and independent. I celebrated each milestone and accomplishment. Some of my girlfriends cried with each milestone because it meant that their kids were growing up and eventually wouldn’t need them. My friend and co-worker Mary cried every single day of each of her children’s senior years. I would go over to her office and tease her about her puffy eyes and tell her she needed to celebrate these moments not lament them. I get it now. I am sure she is looking down on me and getting quite a chuckle out of this revelation. Our kids are doing amazing things, each in their own right and we are removed from that now and I miss those moments, those calls and visits and holidays. Life is so complicated, and we are so spread out and I miss the family time. I marvel and am even a bit jealous of my friends Ev and Sue who are sisters who were born and raised in their home town and went on to marry and work in that same town and raise their families within blocks of each other. I miss that relationship with my brothers and their families and never really knew my cousins when I was growing up and right now I can’t get much further away from family. That would be my one regret of this lifestyle.
Sailing is hard. Bluewater sailing is even harder. It is physically, mentally, and emotionally demanding. Even when the wind and waves are perfect (which is rare) it is demanding. I recognize now that most people sail with a wind vane or an autopilot, but we hand steer every mile. I hope that we will be able to upgrade eventually.
My perception of the world has changed dramatically. My thoughts here are very hard to put into words. In some respects, the world has gotten so much bigger. Most of my life experiences were based in Montana and North Dakota and so I only worried about issues that affected those few hundred square miles of the world. Now that I have lived in and interacted with people across thousands of miles, my world feels much bigger. Issues that once were just news topics now have much more meaning. Things like immigration, human trafficking, drug cartels and cartel violence, over fishing, plastic pollution, fresh clean drinking water, waste management and the list goes on and on. Conversely, my world feels so much smaller. We spend less and less time connected to social media. We have not seen the news in months. Essentially now our world feels like it extends only from horizon to horizon. I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing. In my travels, the world seems less violent and hateful than what is depicted on the news. We have encountered lots of good people who are kind and helpful. It seems that we all want a lot of the same thing, to raise our children well and to leave a little something of ourselves behind to be remembered.
I wish I had learned more Spanish. In Europe, when I was there I knew greetings, please and thank you and that was usually enough to initiate conversation and they would return in English because most people that I encountered had endured several years of English. Here, only the privileged obtain advanced educations and in the poorer regions if the child is not showing academic aptitude or is needed to work at home they only receive a 3rd grade education. In the larger cities that cater to the Gringos there is a fair amount of English spoken but in the smaller villages, there is little or no English spoken. I am not gifted with languages but have mastered greetings, my numbers, please and thank you and am beginning to be able to order at a restaurant and look for certain items in the store. Still it is woefully inadequate. These are an expressive people and they like to talk about their families and hear stories about you and your family and I can not accomplish that yet.
I wish I had learned more about weather, climate and meteorology. The times that we have experienced the worst weather happened after the most research and cross referencing with multiple sources to choose our weather window. I need to be able to add my current observations to the mix to make better choices when choosing windows. I am tired of relying entirely on outside sources and ending up with nothing like what we expected. The greatest frustration with sailing Mexico is the wind and specifically the lack of wind. That is not in any of the guidebooks or blogs that I read in preparation for this journey. We are motoring about 60+% of the time which I wasn’t prepared for however, all the cruisers down here say that they motor to where they want to go and then do short day sails in the region. We own a sailboat, not a motor boat and we want to sail more.
I am saddened by the abundance of garbage in the ocean and the lack of fish. I had expected the garbage but am shocked by the lack of fish. We have watched fishermen put out nets that stretch 1-2 miles and pull them in completely empty. We thought we would be eating fish several times a week but that has not happened yet. So far it has maybe been 2-3x per month. Please request seafood only for special occasions and then only order sustainable items from the menu. Take the time to educate yourselves about sustainable seafood options.
Cruising is much more fun with friends. Some of our best memories were those shared with others. It is forcing me to step out of my comfort zone and meet new people. I am finding that my curiosity about other cruisers and their stories out weighs my desire to be alone.

There is something dramatically wrong with American food sources. I am not a fan of conspiracy theories but here are my observations regarding my eating habits since leaving the states. In the states when I would eat a big meal I would find myself ravenous again in 2-3 hours. Here when I eat a large meal I find that 5-6 hours later I still feel full. I rarely suffer cravings. I had read somewhere that chemicals that stimulate the appetite are placed in some American processed foods. I thought that was ridiculous at the time but now I am not so sure.
There are days that I am embarrassed to be an American. I never dreamed I would ever say that however, I have watched some Americans behave very badly and treat the native people very badly. We are guests in their country and it is a privilege to be here. It does not take much effort at all to show a little respect and mind your manners. Of all the different nationalities that we have encountered, Americans seem to present themselves with attitude and entitlement and it makes it difficult at times to interact with local people who have had bad experiences with ill-mannered Americans.
I was a little concerned about how I would feel after our first trip home. I was worried that I would be homesick and not want to go back. I am finding that the opposite is true. I miss our boat, I miss my home. I find myself overwhelmed by the busy ness of life stateside. It is loud. The grind of the traffic and the hum of electricity 24/7 was beginning to wear on me. The speed of life there is crazy. Everything is rush, rush. Hurry here, hurry there, so many things to be done. The saddest thing though that I have noticed is that no one seems present in the moment. Everyone either seems to be running from something or racing towards something but very few people are here right now. Very few people are present in the moment. People are racing through life with their eyes glued to a screen. When they get to the end, what are they going to remember, will there be anything worth remembering? I used to be there, racing around. It seemed so important at the time. I am glad to get back to my simple life. I was exhausted by the time we returned to Mexico and the boat. Take some time each day to slow down, breathe, and just feel the moment. Don’t race through your life trying to get to something better because there is nothing better or more important than this moment. When you get to the end of your life and you look back, I hope your thoughts are filled with lots of moments and not just a blur.