Keep Living

Happy Tuesday, sailors!

I am writing to you from Zoya, as we are underway and en route to Jacksonville, FL. We are hoping to arrive today around 3pm EST, making it to anchor around 5pm.

This past week has been full of adventure, travel, family, friends, and lots of delicious foods.  We took the train to NC to spend Thanksgiving with my family on Tuesday, trained back to Charleston on Saturday, and left Monday morning around 10am out of Charleston harbor.  We have been underway ever since, with a bit of a wavy start, but now conditions have changed and so have our mindsets.

What I mean is that sailing can be very hard sometimes. Things break, the weather doesn’t do what was forecasted, sea sickness begins to set in. You learn to figure out what works best for you, whether that be a motion sickness patch, pressured wristbands, candied ginger. We’ve tried it all. The thing is, we haven’t gotten sea sick, but the nausea is killer sometimes. So, we learn to be proactive in hopes of preventing it before it gets that far.

Last night was a little rocky, but once 8pm rolled around the winds began to die down, causing the waves to slack off, and we were all able to get a little sleep.

This morning, at my 4am shift, a new day was born and my joy for ocean sailing showed itself again. The stars made me stare at the night sky until I couldn’t anymore, and the sunrise brought new light into the day (and into me). I felt the happiness I feel most times when sailing, when things don’t go wrong and the weather is perfect.

Once the sun came up, shorts and a tank top was required as warm as it was. Now that the once enclosed cockpit of Zoya has both sides rolled up, the wind is cooling us off as quickly as the sun warms us.

I did get quite tired around 9, so I began to take a nap until I heard moving around on deck and just KNEW it had to be a dolphin sighting.  YEP!  I ran out and enjoyed the view with the rest of the crew.  There really is nothing like it.

I did go back down and got a bit of rest, only to wake and return to the cockpit seeing MORE dolphins.  This time there was a baby and three of its grown friends.  It was one of the cutest things I’ve ever witnessed.  It zipped in and out of the bow wake, splashing and surfacing, then returning to (what I assume was) its mother.  We’re convinced that when they swim sideways, allowing us to see their eyes, it’s them checking us out as we sail alongside them!

What a cool experience.

Although I’m pretty sure I could fill pages and pages of the blog with just dolphin talk, I won’t. Partly because I don’t know how to fully express and put into words the joy it brings me, and partly because I know this is a sailing blog, not a dolphin blog.

I think my lesson of this trip, something that I’ve learned that I believe can relate to almost any venture in life, is that things (passions, love, relationships, jobs, hobbies, etc.) can be hard and put you through many trials, but if it brings you JOY, don’t let those hard things stop you.

We only have this one life, this wild and crazy and beautiful life.  So why the hell shouldn’t we live it to the absolute fullest?

Happy Tuesday, keep living!

Skye