According to our most recent schedule we should be pulling into Airlie Beach about now. This would be revised schedule #3. Sort of impressive for a boat that's only been out of Brisbane for a few weeks... As I worried over not meeting yet another self-imposed sailing deadline, I thought back to all the other times I stressed over not meeting a sailing deadline and realized that not one of them mattered. Not one. Somehow whether were were in a specific place for two weeks longer than we intended, or two weeks less, it all just folded together into our journey.
Instead of being in Airlie, where they have wifi and I could be underway on my next project and catching up with friends, we're hunkered down in Scawfell Island waiting for a 30 knot blow to blow by.
As far as places to be hunkered down--this is a good one. The bay is wide and deep and held in by steep green hills. Despite a frothing ocean in the distance, in here the bright blue water is calm. This morning, before the wind rose, the bay was still enough that I could hear whales breathing off the point. I watched them spy hopping and diving for a while on my own. A turtle swam around the boat and butterflies migrated past. Then a cloud boiled up on the top of the island and spilled over in gusts. The butterflies blew away, the whales swam on and Evan and Maia woke up.
We got a weather report that concurred with the gusts that are shaking our boat, so we've settled in for at least two days.
We've learned that if you stress over travel deadlines and treat enforced stops as waiting, rather than as part of the journey, you miss out. Some of our unintended delays have include our best cruising moments. If you let them, they feel a bit like a lazy Sunday afternoon--an unexpected moment between chores and obligations. We've used the days to catch up on chores, or cook with friends, to explore a bit more of a town, or a hiking trail... But some of our best found moments are spent in quiet creativity. Maia is busy working on her second animated short; with her camera on a tripod she's making a claymation version of Dr Who. I'm simmering marmalade from my Percy Island oranges (a story in itself). Charlie is napping, Evan is working on little chores. None of us is thinking too hard about where else we might have been.
The wind is blowing and blowing.
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At 30/07/2014 11:49 PM (utc) our position was 21°39.21'S 150°14.61'E
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Good to hear you are underway and having some chill out time, if you wanted hurry and stress you could just stay in the rat race.
ReplyDeleteThe Whitsundays are indeed a beautiful place, I was there in the mid seventies in the middle of winter...it was bliss to soak up the sun and the scenery, walking about in just swimmers, breaking fresh oysters from the rocks for a snack.