Are You a Traveling Sailor, or a Sailor Who Travels?

When we went to Ft. Lauderdale a couple months ago, we had the pleasure of meeting and enjoying a meal with some blog followers, fellow sailors who are off on their own journey in a couple months. As it does when sailors get together, talk turned to cruising and sailing and what makes us tick about floating around on boats.  "Would you consider yourself a sailor who travels, or a traveling sailor...?" they asked, "...because there's a difference" they added.

I thought this was a very interesting question that was further punctuated by a recent interview we did (coming soon) when the interviewer asked "What made you decide that this was the lifestyle you were going to pursue?" The conversation with our friends in Ft. Lauderdale resurfaced in my memory...

For me, it has always been about the travel.  I have been plagued by wanderlust all my life and some way, some how I was going to make travel a huge part of it.  I backpacked across Europe at 18, moved to Tanzania at 24, backpacked solo through South East Asia at 27 and did another solo trip to South America at 29.  In between those larger trips are countless smaller trips to equally compelling destinations around the globe.  While these quenched my thirst for expedition for a spell, I found my appetite for adventure insatiable.  Staying in one place with a two week vacation every year just to keep me from going insane wasn't going to cut it.  My love of travel combined with my passion for sailing and the ocean made it a no-brainer.   I'd live on a boat.  I'd sail around the world and make travel my life.  The logistics of making this happen were inconsequential.  I would find a way.  Now that we're actually living this life, I am still driven by the travel component.  For me, making landfall is the rush.  I get all giddy inside like a child on Christmas morning but instead of presents,  meeting the locals, shopping their markets, walking their streets and eating their food are my surprises.  While I thoroughly enjoy the sailing, it's the travel that drives me.  I am a traveler who sails.

For Scott, it's about the sailing.  Being one with the boat.  He fell in love with sailing at a young age and for him, it wasn't where he was going but the act of sailing that was the escape.  Tweaking the sails, feeling the rush of the water over the rudder, registering the wind on his face and making his little boat go.  He can sit on deck patiently and quietly for hours and hours on end, watching the water, checking the sails, adjusting the jib cars, plotting our course.  His innate sense of calm and inquisitive nature lend themselves well to a life at sea.  He doesn't need books or music to pass the time.  He can sit contentedly in the cockpit - making little adjustments as he sees them, considering ways to make our boat go a tenth of a knot faster.  He doesn't get frustrated when the wind dies.  A flapping sail is simply an invitation to do something better.  The sea fuels his ideas and his dreams.  The destination, for Scott, is simply an added bonus.  Sure he loves to see new places and Scott is no stranger to travel himself having lived more or less like a nomad since college. The real adventure for him, however, begins not when we get to shore, but when we head back out to sea.  Scott is a sailor who travels.

Whatever the motivation - sailing, traveling, or some combination of the two - our end goal is the same:  To take our lives into our own hands.  To write our story the way we want it written and not the way someone tells us to write it.  To take time to enjoy every minute of every day.  To spend as much time as we can in nature - breathing fresh air and feeling the daytime sunshine on our skin.  To become self-sufficient and self-reliant. To learn not to sweat the small stuff and revel in life's simple pleasures.  To be healthy and fit.  To meet, be inspired and learn from others.  To dream freely and openly and live the truth that less really is more.  To remain far outside the "status quo" and not to become another cog in the wheel.  To teach our children that there is another way.  To live a life less ordinary.  To live a life extraordinary.

So we live on a boat.  We sail around.  Who knows where the heck we're going but gosh-darnit, we're doing it.

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