Not all parts of an adventure go into the logbook. Before you lift anchors, or leave, you have to prepare everything, think things through, meet the new crew, grease the chain of command and start to visualize the journey.
Every sailor has a task. Some clean, others go to the market, others tidy and stow. I print data sheets and guides for birds, cetaceans, marine species. It’s my way of visualizing the journey as I take a deep breath thinking that it’s fortunate that my passion and my work are the same.
Yesterday I picked up the volunteers. I like that first contact, where you get to know their reasons for being here, their “why”, while you escape from yours.
I like it less to be the one that brings their dreams into a reality, as I explain the shifts, wind forecasts and the schedules that will distribute the work on board.
Not everyone adapts to the pace in the same way. And obviously over the first few days it is me that oversees their integration, that the experience itself will be transformed into trust, until it reaches a point where the work is distributed without the need for schedules and we all share everything.
I just filled the kitchen with local produce. On one side a pantry filled with tomatoes, aubergines, artichokes and peppers. On the other, some papers to be filled in. In a few days it will be just the other way around. Data will be accumulated and we’ll be missing onions. But in between, apart from food, we will share experiences, learn to live together and, without knowing how, we will be like the sea we sail. Banks that, even trampled a thousand times, always have new things to offer.
Written by Jon López
