Nova Scotia Voyage

This was one of the most memorable of my sailing experiences this year, coupled with the most insane moments as well. What’s a sailing trip without a little bit of terror, right?

Just to name a few of what transpired sailing the 1500 NM from Nova Scotia to St. Augustine FL: dragging anchor while we slept in Provincetown, Mass.; having to back out of the ICW because our mast was too tall; to sailing around Cape Hatteras NC which is an adventure in itself (nicknamed the Graveyard of the Atlantic); to nearly getting tossed out of the boat in St. Augustine when we tried to sail in at night (the GPS here is really inaccurate due to the constant dredging in this area apparently); & then losing engine power multiple times…. Next time I do a sailboat delivery, I’ll definitely do some things differently…

But this trip was by far the most fulfilling sailing experience of my life.. Getting to witness the most stunning places of the Great North like Deep Cove in Nova Scotia; anchoring in places like NYC just below the Statue of Liberty after sailing into the city around 4am, getting to experience a city of this magnitude at this quiet hour, feeling like the channel’s were completely ours.. And docking in posh upscale places like Charleston SC…

On top of all of that, I’m sitting here in deep gratitude today, sooo incredibly thankful that I had quit my corporate finance job over 2 years ago. If I hadn’t shed everything I owned, I doubt I would’ve been able to have lived this complete fairy tale the last 24 months … I never would have been able to live in Camden Maine, & experience a glorious winter wonderland, or have been able to experience the stunning coastline of Nova Scotia, or getting to live on a sailboat for 4 months straight in some of the most surreal places on earth in the Caribbean… I’ve traveled more now than ever in my life, & I live on less than a quarter of what I used to think I needed to live on..

~”It wasn’t until I started reading and found books they wouldn’t let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.”~ John Waters

It’s been full of earth shattering moments of beauty, but not always easy. The biggest thing is overcoming daily bouts of fear, & ALSO getting to a point of NOT caring what other people think. This is my path, & no one else’s, so I’ve had to stop bothering to defending my lifestyle. I absolutely do not care what ANYONE thinks anymore, nor if they understand what I’m doing .. If you don’t approve or can’t comprehend why I want to lead this kind of life, I DO NOT GIVE A DAMN. It took quite a while to finally get to this place… My favorite mantra has been “One of the greatest mental freedoms is truly not caring what anyone else thinks of you”… I just couldn’t sit idly by any longer as a robot in society’s wheel, watching the days pass by.. Life is meant to push yourself further & further, into the deepest recesses of your mind… Into discovering the ‘crazy’ within. And finding out that your courage is really limitless… You CAN keep pushing into scarier mind blowing places, only to find a ‘feather bed’ in the abyss…

Life is over before we know it. If you are thinking of a change in your life, I say do it now. Do it now. Life will always try to come up with excuses.. I had NO plan whatsoever when I quit my job in March 2016. Nothing. I just knew life was supposed to be MORE than this ! When you put the intention out to the ether, it will deliver & never how you could possibly ever imagine it to be. . .

When I was in India in early 2015, the lovely Jessica Roodvoets so easily advised to ‘just quit’ to another woman in our retreat… And at the time, I just couldn’t fathom that option yet… Now I give so much gratitude & credit to this gorgeous woman for getting my thoughts rolling onto a completely different outlook… Deep Bow to you.

And the adventure continues…

“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.”

― Terence McKenna