Pre-departure impressions

Nervous like a university student before a big exam, or more accurately thrilled yet dreading THE moment, as things are set in motion and I’m about to give birth to a life-long dream. I’ve done the antenatal classes, gathered advice from everyone who’s done it before, and yet, I am bereft before leaping into my own unknown, unique experience of first ocean crossing. Finally meeting my demons, prepared to be shaken by the massive oceanic waves, lose control, and feel miserable. Just as my body was shaken contraction after contraction when the time had come for Zephyr to make an appearance into this world. Except that the delivery lasted a mere 10 hours, when here I’m in it for 10 days! Surely I can handle it. I thought I had achieved, with natural child-birth, the ultimate human effort, and I’m afraid I’m about to be proven wrong. And I’ll be rekindled with the sleep-deprived zombie-state of the first weeks after birth, I’ve been there. Except this time the baby will rock me, not the other way round!

And what if I panic in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by waves bigger than a truck? “Mum, we won’t be in the middle of nowhere, we’ll be in the middle of Nature” objects Azur, his way of kind-of reassuring me.

Fortunately, curiosity surpasses fear. And I want to know how scared I’ll be of these big waves and not to have land in sight. And what land smells like when you approach it after days at sea. And whether we’ll manage to stop at Minerva Reef and observe a sunset and a sunrise anchored in the middle of the ocean. And which sea creatures will greet us on our passage. And how we’ll cope the four us in such a tiny space. And how long it will take me to get used to the rocking motion and pass the amorphous larva state. And if I’ll be able to stomach the idea of fishing or be repulsed by it. And if we do decide to fish with the “Fishies Beware DIY kit” offered by Gaspar, if we’ll catch anything. And if I’ll manage to bake our family-famous crumble when we’re about to reach our destination. I want to know! This side of me, and this side of life, usually so well concealed in our comfortable urban existence.

Our last day at the marina feels like a repeat of our false start of last week when things felt too rushed and I, anyway, had this f*** fraud to deal with. Lots of admin, laundry, calling friends and Met Bob to review plans, watch the kids build a library of Lego animals to keep them company and proudly show us around their spotless cabin, tidied up for the crossing. Our galley is full of fresh fruits, and passage meals, our cockpit full of crackers, biscuits, apple sauce, bag of nuts, and bottles of water to minimise the need to go below decks to sustain ourselves, our saloon is in navigation mode with all lockers secured and table lowered as a double-bed, all devices and spare batteries charged, chart table tidied up with the New Zealand to Fiji paper nautical chart deployed. We’ve just cleared customs *with a slight delay as they had double booked themselves). We’ve had our family briefing. I think we’re ready.

No objective other than survive, not kill each other, and somehow enjoy the journey, before the destination 🙂

We’re on our way, wish us fair winds and following seas! ⛵ 🌊