The day I moved aboard, after living vagrantly with family, I had a migraine. I was lucky enough to grab a lift with M to the Marina, stopped off along the way to grab a few essentials from storage. Blankets for that chilly April, clothes, saucepans, plates, cutlery, glasses (rum!) and swept through a supermarket grabbing fresh food and bread.

I had a migraine the entire day and tried to sleep it off on the drive. At the marina, Veritas swinging on mooring, a courtesy dinghy ferried us out to the boats. Manhandling boxes and bags of possessions from one bouncing boat to another, the sun baking my hot head; I managed to achieve the bare minimum moving and unpacking so I could lay down somewhere dark. M sat on the back deck, found his first comfy seat and bemusedly waited out the first day aboard. It was, actually, a great beginning :/

That was a thursday, and on Friday with M’s dad aboard; the first sail. My first sail. ever.

Helming a 44ft yacht across a heaving, breathing blue swell toward the open ocean when every single aspect of that experience feels entirely alien is barely describable. I was in awe. Numbed and tingling at the ridiculousness of the situation. Me. on the helm. Of a boat. A sailing boat (when I’ve never liked water or wind, especially if wind is anywhere near water), on the water. heading out. to sea.

Not one sentence fragment of that statement is plausible. but it was happening. And I wasn’t dying or screaming or cowering, I was alive and drinking it in like a thirsty camel. Lot’s of good-natured swearing ensues.

Sails up and plunging through the blue. This is my new life. Am I happy with my choices?
I guess you find in things whatever you’re looking for. I’m happy to have found something I wanted to explore.

I’m grateful for a pleasant introduction. A migraine and a great sail. That’s a fairly clear analogy of this boating life. One day of bliss, four weeks of bullshit. It’s all exciting and new and adrenaline inducing at times, and every simple thing is now 3 times as difficult, but it hooks you. Maybe the uncertainty is intoxicating? But it’s wild and free and salty and slow. And stormy.

I’m in a stormy relationship with the weather.

Three days in, it stormed over me like an angry,cloud-dwelling, tantrum-throwing, sky giant. The worst storm to hit Pittwater in 20 years.

Those first 2 days aboard were great, except for the first one, I had a migraine.