So when did my life journey really begin?  I have wondered on that many a time.  I could be tedious and go right back to my earliest memories of my life and the circumstances that helped shape me, but I won’t.  Primarily because the people, events and influences that contributed are like the seeds in a sunflower; far to numerous such that I am not sure that it would be helpful in explaining my yellow brick road!

Instead, I will begin at a time when I genuinely remember thinking I wanted something different; wanted to be different; wanted to go through life differently. I was about 13; I felt completely alien in my family and in the world around me.  I had none of the talents of my siblings; I was not athletic, nor artistic, nor was I gorgeous like my beautiful sisters.  Instead I was the odd one out, short by comparison, bowed legged, and a shadow that merely followed around behind my big brother! I remember one afternoon after school following some typical childhood bullying incident, being in tears and feeding the chooks for Mum, deciding that there was only one thing for it….I would do life differently somehow.  I didn’t quite know how or what exactly it might look like; but I do remember asking the universe to send me an angel to guide me and help me find that something unique.

Then while on summer holiday at the beach that same year, along came this cute, suntanned, beach kid with gorgeous brown eyes and a cheeky smile.  That chance meeting changed my life and set me on a journey that has continued, 30 years on, to be a wonderful and sometimes scary, surprise to me.  None of it has been what I had expected or even planned for.  Some might say I have just bumbled along from one thing to the next without any direction, but heck, I have had fun doing it.  I have so far had some amazing experiences; seen some breathtaking places, tasted a variety of wonderful foods from around the world, listened to the voices and music of countless peoples, and surrendered to cultures far and wide.

And I hope I am only part way along my road to Oz!

Sunset Sail

There is something truly rewarding seeing the face of someone you share life with just shine with an almost childish delight.  The reward comes from knowing that they are chasing their dream and that you have supported them to grasp it.  It also comes with a degree of selfish pleasure because you are not only along for the journey but are also reveling in the delight of it too.

That is how I found myself recently at the helm of a 41 foot Beneteau, demonstrating what I hoped was a satisfactory level of skill sufficient to be deemed competent to hold a Day Skipper certification.  As terrified as I was being in charge of this vessel in Force 6 winds off the coast of Western Australia, fearing for my life and concerned that boats should not heel like that surely, it was worth it all just to see my partner’s sheer delight at being out there on the water working the ropes.

For the twenty something years I have spent my life with him, sailing has been an ever present shadow, following him around and nagging for attention, whether living and working in the central Australian desert, or in the old world that is London.   His dream is to one day step on deck, hoist the sail, and head off on a bearing that will take him towards the sun wherever that may be.

I have happily partnered him in that dreaming; never really believing it could happen.  Until, that is, more recently when the dollars in the back pocket have been comfortable and the time has felt right.  So I had to ‘bite the bullet’ and step up to the challenge.  One thing I knew for sure was that if I was going to sail off with him, I sure as heck needed to know how to sail myself.  

So that is how I ended up with a grin a mile wide holding my Day Skipper certification and sharing a glass of a great Western Australian red with my partner who was just itching to find a boat and ‘get going’.  His excitement is catching…infectious, but a genuinely wonderful thing to be around!