Push Pins

I ski but I am not a skier. I sail but I am not a sailor. I snorkel but I am not a swimmer. I am a small town base brat, doing things I never could have come up with on my own.

I remember when Graham and I moved into our first apartment together 20 years ago. He started telling me about how people back packed around Europe. I am sure my first question would of been, "Where's Europe?". I remember how excited I was at the possibility of taking a plane and flying to a different country and setting off exploring. We bought a map of Europe and taped it onto a big piece of cardboard and pinned flags in all the countries we wanted to visit. We began to save and plan and dream. As much fun as it was to talk about it and dream about it I still didn't think we would actually go but I kept putting one foot in front of the other in the planning process. Then before I knew it we had all the money saved up, the three months off, the travel plans and we were off. It was totally possible.

If someone had told me all those years ago as I pushed pins into countries in Europe that some day I would be sitting in the cockpit of a 43 foot sail boat in the dark, with no land in sight, with my two children on board, I would have never believed them.

This is our fourth overnight sail and it is definitely getting easier. Alex isn't sea sick. The kids actually slept through the whole night. The anxiety left after only an hour out this time. We have sailed the whole way. Graham has rigged up Artemo so she sails FAST downwind. It is wonderful.

In the middle of the night I could hear Graham yelling at me, "Julie, Julie, get over here you gotta see this". Of course I wake up in panic mode and then he tells me that he was watching the waves break along the boat and then there right before him on a few feet away in the darkness were dolphins. SO COOl. I didn't get to see them but I fed off his excitement. How lucky we are to be experiencing all of this. Blanquilla is about 9 nautical miles away and we have about an hour an a half more to go.

I can't help but wonder what life has in store for me down the road. Will I be reflecting 20 years from now, saying, "20 years ago I never would have thought that I would be....." Maybe I can imagine up the next crazy dream.