A bit late, but better late than never...

We composed this and thought we sent a few days ago - but now are posting it from Lagos in the south of Portugal having arrived here safely late Monday night April 23rd. All is well here.....

Irena and Cress

Amazing. The Straits of Gibraltar and the continent of Europe lay less than a day away. Since leaving Cape Town February 24th, we have been continuously at sea, except for four days in Saint Helena and six days in the Azores.  Over two months, we have sailed over 6000 Nautical Miles (10,000 kilometers)in 48 days at sea, to bring us to what we think of as our final passage in this phase of our trip around the world.  This last passage of only 1000 miles from the Azores to Portugal, will end in about 24 hours at a smallish town, Lagos, on the south coast of Portugal.  I get to fly back to South Africa to facilitate a coaching workshop in Johannesburg, then Irena and I will leave the boat and fly home to Canada in May for a much overdue visit with our loved ones. When we return to the boat on June 1st, if the facilities check out in Lagos, we will lay the boat up on land for at least a year and go to work. We don't have work yet, don't know exactly where we will find work, but we do know for a bunch of reasons, we need and indeed want to work for the next 'while'.

Reflection:
"...is it possible that the one thing we are looking for - STABILITY - is the thing that could lead to unhappiness??"
This is such a great question to arrive as we arrive in Europe.  It came by email from one of our family members, who, like us, are in transition! And is not transition the opposite of stability?

But who is not in transition? Most of our family is in transition. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I see a good argument that all of us are in transition, one way or another, most of the time.

Sometimes transitions are thrust upon us(good and bad), and sometimes we seek out transitions in the course of seeking out our heart's desire.  I realize so many of our transitions have been from seeking out our heart's desire. We are arriving in Portugal 7 years to the week since leaving Vancouver in our first boat on May 1st, 2005. We left Vancouver to pursuit our hearts desire of sailing to Australia. We bought the boat, transitioned out of jobs and our then 'life' and set sail. In Australia, when work prospects did not work out the way we hoped there, we pursued a desire to work in Asia. And so we did, in Singapore for 5 years. Our heart's desire there was to save money, buy a faster boat with room for family and friends, a boat to continue, we decided then, to sail around the world. And so we went to work; the boat we are arriving in Portugal with is the boat we bought in California and restored in Thailand. Next it was sailing to South Africa. Our heart's desire was then to settle for a while in South Africa as we did in Singapore and work, but when we arrived there, we decided against it, as much as we loved South Africa. So we set off in pursuit of an alternative; to sail the boat to Europe and the Mediterranean and to work in the Middle East. And so it will go I am sure. We don't get everything we want, but the art of it seems to be trying to get what we want, then doing our best to love what we get.

So if we are lucky, as we have been, we get to transition to seek our hearts desire. And this, it seems to me is a big part of happiness. I think happiness comes when we are 'actively engaged in the process of pursuing' our heart's desire. I don't think it even matters much if we succeed in the object of our desire all the time, but I think our happiness does depend on us being on passage in pursuit of our dreams. We need to be at sea in the adventure, figuratively speaking, not standing on the shore, if we are to be happy. And, if at first we don't know what our dreams are, to be happy we need to on passage - almost any passage --  trying to find out what our dreams are by experimenting, exploring, testing and failing sometimes.  It doesn't matter much what Course we set in pursuit our life's desire, it matters most that we pick one and set sail!

But what if transition is thrust upon us? What if someone gets sick, dies, we lose our jobs, whatever. Well, because such transitions are thrust upon us, they are perhaps even more uncomfortable, but what is there to do but make the best of it? After some pain and adjustment, we shift our expectations - our hearts desire -- to what is doable, and head off again in search of a new heart's desire.

But after 48 days at sea in the last two months I can say with confidence the process of being on passage is inherently UN-STABLE. And instability is uncomfortable.  And as human beings we don't like being uncomfortable, because its, well.... uncomfortable! Yet if we sought the stability to avoid our discomfort, --stood on shore  -- would we be happy? I think not for long. I think our society over rates stability. Advertisers pander to it, we are easily seduced by its false promises of happiness. While some moments of stability are necessary - we need to step ashore from time to time to catch our breath, re-cover, and re-provision -- happiness is elsewhere!

This means, I think, regardless of whether transitions are chosen or thrust upon us, we might as well go willingly -- be willing to suffer instability and it's discomfort, in order to have a chance at being happily engaged in seeking our heart's desire. Happiness, it seems, happens along the way - on passage.

It is perverse and cruel: Most of the time it seems, to be happy, we must be willing to leave stability and comfort behind. At least that is how it seems to go in our experience.

Cress and Irena

It is perhaps too perfect a morning.

Horta, Island of Faial, Azores

Behind, to the west, sets a jolly fat moon, in her great orange jacket, shouting to us "Good day, good day" after her brilliant company all the night long. Before us, the days sun rays streak yellow from behind the earth's rim, promising a new glorious day by setting the clouds ringing the horizon red with fire. And overhead, the main, staysail and genoa, pull in silent earnest to Horta, now only 20miles away below the horizon to the N.
Irena steps to the companion way, hands me a Café latte, heated to just the right temperature, and gives me a kiss, " I am off to sleep for a few hours, have a great watch babe". She steps back down the companionway and into the cabin's shadows, leaving me alone to wake with my coffee and contemplate our passage. I am very groggy this morning and more than happy to luxuriate in the freedom to simply sit and await my coffee's to bring sensibility and excitement to the day. I see the setting moon and rising sun and wonder is "Is this perhaps too perfect a morning?" But what could that mean? How could any morning at sea be too perfect?
Mornings can certainly be less than perfect! Stuck in traffic. And yes at sea too. We have had less than perfect mornings, like the last few mornings, after a night of howling winds, hissing seas and a boat bouncing wildly underfoot like a bucking horse, trying to pitch us across the cabin or out of our berths. "It's the sound of the wind in the rigging that is the most draining" I once read, about a storm at sea in a small boat, and found it to be true.
But not this morning. Harbour is just a few hours away and it's a perfect day coming on after a pretty tough upwind sail of the last 18 days. Sailing the whole span of the NE trades from just north of the equator to 32 degrees north latitude was a lot of work, but nowhere near the work of the last four days, trying to sail the last 300 miles to the Azores against a stubborn Low holding a wall of N winds in our face at 25 to 35 knots. We spent about a ¼ of our time hove to, waiting for the wind to ease just enough to allow us to resume sail and bash away, chiselling out the windward distance, one bumpy mile at a time. But that is behind us for now, for this morning, it's a perfect morning. Think I'll go make myself another cup of coffee and watch for the Azores to show up in the dawn light.
Post Note;
We did arrive in the Azores after a pretty good 28 day passage all the way from Saint Helena. We see that none of blogs from at sea have made it online for reasons we cannot determine. Rats!
We have spent the last 6 days drying out and sleeping the sleep of the weary traveller. After a day of touring the island yesterday in a rental car, we are provisioned and watered and ready for sea again tomorrow morning. We are headed for Lagos, Portugal, a mere 1000 miles away.