We said “catch you later” to Margret, hoping our wakes will someday again cross but never knowing when. Then, we headed back to the Garden Route.  Today, we planned to explore Tittsikamma National Park, where we hiked along the coast and continued our ceaseless debate about what we might do next.

“We could just go with the flow, I suppose,” I said, whatever that means. “People always say ‘Leslie, just go with the flow.’” But, failure to make a decision is a decision in and of itself. What to do?

This next-step decision is really coming to a head now because of Pete and Jen’s plans. It all started in Tanzania when, in trying to manipulate the Steel Sapphires to sail South rather than through the Red Sea and thereby prolong the fun times we could have together, I mentioned maybe the Oddgodfreys could sail north to Scotland with them.

A Sail To Scotland?

At the time, it seemed at least possible that we could make good on such a promise. We have always wanted to see Scotland (though maybe not by sail!...brrr), and to do so with great friends who live there? We imagined sailing into Pete’s home port, meeting his cute family who have always been fun blog followers and friends from afar. That would be epic. We contemplated sailing through the fjords of Norway and catching up with friends we met all the way back in French Polynesia.  Friends who now run a sailing charter to take people cruising (and skiing!) on the same trip. (Check out @Seilbifrost if you want to schedule one of the most awesome (and cold) looking sailing holidays ever.) We imagined sailing Southward to Guernsey to see the little island our friends Laura and Phil’s boat Lufi hails from, eating Bouillabaisse in a real French port, and stocking Sonrisa with little oak barrels filled with Port from Portugal. I want a circuit through Greece, Croatia, and Turkey. I want to make a stop in Slovenia and travel inland to climb their beautiful mountains. I want to stop in Algeria and have a tour from a friend we met while standing in line for food at the night market in Malaysia. Then, I want to stop and stay a while in Morocco – one of the countries that has always topped my list as most hoped for. Europe had always been on our passage plan, back before we appreciated how slow sailboats actually are.  

Why not? We could, couldn’t we?

But, “if we stay in Knysna until Christmas, it means with certainty we will not be sailing North with the Steelies. They are leaving January 6.” I say to Andrew, who follows along hiking behind me.

The fact that the Steelies are “there” and we are “here” as of mid-December felt like its own answer. While Steel Sapphire and Sonrisa sail at the same pace over the average, Pete and Jen’s hearts beat at hummingbird speed. From the time we’ve met, their plans have always been paced double or triple our own. Boat repair realities (hard dodger + hard dodger revisions) and a global pandemic harnessed their speed and reigned them back to the Oddgodfrey pace the last couple of years, but those circumstances are mostly behind us now. They are back to chomping at their bits. They want to sail from Cape Town, South Africa all the way to the United Kingdom before end of May to celebrate Pete’s 50th birthday and his mother’s 80th.

“I don’t think we can keep up with them.”

Where Does The Circumnavigation Fit In?

And, what of our circumnavigation? If we sail North and toddle around Europe for the next one (two?) years, that leaves another two years thereafter for us to cross the Atlantic, sail through the Panama canal, and north up Central America and Mexico before we finish our trip. A five-year trip becomes ten. And that would be without any time exploring the Caribbean. Does it make sense to steer away from our intended goal?

“But Year 7 in Norway!” Andrew says.

This tug between exploration and achieving the end goal of tying our circumnavigation knot is always a puzzler for me. Our hearts always seem to say: “Explore!” our brains seem to say: “Achieve the Objective!”

But, what if this isn’t an “objective” anymore? What if this is the point in time where my old boss is proven right when he said: “I’m afraid I’m never going to see you again!” - not because we will sink and die and never return, but because we are sailors and this is now our way of life.

…my mother is going to kill me.

When a five-year trip becomes a ten-year trip, it changes the overall impact this dalliance has on our lives, families, careers, etc. Would I have consciously chosen to design my life to see my family in person only once every other year over ten years?  I wouldn’t. For me, accepting that level of distance and pause for five years is still difficult, but reasonable especially when the visits we did make turned out to be 2 or 2.5 months at a time. But when you expand that out to ten years, now we are talking about missing the entirety of our parents’ decade between 65-75+. It means missing our nieces lives between 0-10. It means missing all of our other family and friends in all the other years between 0 and 75+. These people matter to me!

What is the proper balance of priorities between my apparent life-objective to “make a bigger piece of the world my own” and my simultaneous desire to experience life alongside the people I love?

One Passagemaking Sailor’s Confession

There is also a dark corner of my soul that still questions whether I can make the next nautical mile. I would say this coast is killing me, but even that is dishonest. It’s not just this coast. There is a solid part of me that dislikes passage-making. But every time I think about never crossing an ocean again, I don’t feel relief. I feel an empty space where something necessary is supposed to be. To never stand a night-watch thousands of miles offshore again?  How sad!

“I wonder if all sailors feel like this?” I say as we discuss this particular internal contradiction. Andrew says he feels the same way I do. “Maybe this is why sailors marked their miles and major landmarks with special tattoos or piercings. A physical log-keeping to make sense of it all.” I swear the only thing pushing me around Cape of Good Hope right now is self-offered bribery that once I round the cape, I will follow in the footsteps of sailors of old and pierce my ear on the side to which I rounded. I’ve gone so far as to start mentally designing my collection of Barn Swallow tattoos – I have earned one for every 5,000 nautical miles sailed.

We stop and look out over the sea that lines the footpath we are exploring.

I do this sometimes. I go hiking in beautiful places, but spend the entire time existing inside my thoughts. I have to stop, breathe, SHUT THE HELL UP FOR JUST ONE MINUTE and look around.

We turn and continue walking, in silence this time. Our shoes rattle the gravel on the trail, and I love the sound of it. It’s a sound unique to land. I’ve always loved the way the rubber tires of my bike peel those little pebbles away. We don’t hear it as often, while living this life at sea. We reach an outcropping of big boulders, the trail turns from a hike to something more like rock scrambling. At the far side of the trail, we find a big flat boulder to sit on for a while.

We talk about the refits Sonrisa would need if we were going to set off in three weeks to the great UK Yonder (heater, full enclosure, new rigging, probably). We talk about finances, a decision factor no one ever gets to ignore. We imagine the routes we could take and try to envision what there might be to love or hate about any given option.

“We could stay here for a year, mountain bike, prepare Sonrisa, and then round Cape Horn!” Andrew says, putting in his vote for the most insane option of any we’ve listed, yet.

How About Cape Horn?

“Cape Horn???” I respond. Cape Horn is the Southern Cape of South America, even further South and even more fierce and cold than here.

Right.

We turn, hike back, and hop in the car for our trip back to Knysna. No decisions made.

This one of those things about adulting that has caught me by surprise. I knew I was going to have to make important decisions, sure. I knew I was going to have to make lots of silly little choices in between. No one tells you that the silly little choices are really where you answer the questions: “Who am I now? And who do I hope to become?”

I can’t decide if this is aggravating or the very definition of freedom.

It might be both.

…to be continued….