One Year On

One year ago today we were casting off the mooring lines in Portsmouth Harbour (UK). Setting sail on our round the world adventure and excited by the first leg; a half day sail down The Solent to Lymington!

Now we have traveled over 12,500 miles, crossed into another ocean and another hemisphere. We are literally half a world away from the mental state in which we left the UK. The big 380 mile crossing of Biscay that was so daunting to us back then would now only register as a short hop to be taken in our stride.

Then – Crossing Biscay in foul weather gear

When we left we had two fundamental worries; 1.Would we like cruising? 2. Could we afford it?

Whilst Amy had done some cruising with family when she was little, Matt had only ever raced on yachts. So we did not actually know if we were going to enjoy living on board a boat and constantly moving to new places.

We now know we love it. Yes there are times when we wish we were back on dry land sleeping in a square bed that doesn’t move (ours on board is a triangle and the boat rarely stops moving, even at anchor) . Not having to wake up in the night to check that the wind hadn’t shifted to blow our home onto the rocks. But waking up each morning in beautiful surroundings and being able to move our home to remote places, only accessible by boat, makes it all worth while many times over. Florence is a comfortable home, and sometimes we wonder why we needed more from our house at home, although a washing machine would be nice!

Now – Exploring Coral Atolls in the South Pacific, note the lack of foul weather gear!

The cost of cruising was a big unknown to us and actually our biggest concern. Could we actually afford to get all the way around the world without running out of money? The vote for Britain to leave the EU, and the resulting plummeting value of the pound, just weeks before we cast off compounded our worries. We budgeted £15,000 per year for 4 years with the backup plan to reduce our trip to 3 years if we couldn’t make the money stretch. Well now after a year of carefully counting every penny we have come in at £12,651.83 even including replacing our broken boom and the expensive Panama Canal. So rather than shorten our trip, we might be a bit longer, as there are so many places to see.

Before we left we were discussing what constituted an adventure over dinner with friends, it was proposed that an adventure is whatever takes you outside of your comfort zone. Sailing half way round the world, entering through narrow reef passes and crossing un-charted atolls at that time qualified as a huge adventure by that definition. Now having lived the adventure for a year, our comfort zones have expanded. However it still feels like an adventure, just one in which we can relax more, lift our heads, and drink in the experience rather than fret and worry as much as we used to. There is still a lot of world out there to explore and plenty of places to stretch our comfort zones further.