December 2015
They say that the best experiences in life are even better when shared with others, and Jonah and I are learning this to be true. We love this life and are grateful to get to live it. It is a great lifestyle, but it takes a ridiculous amount of time, money, and hard work to set up, making it difficult for people to be able to live it for a short stint. This is why we’ve been inviting others to join us for legs of our journey. We do all the groundwork and preparation providing a safe and easy way for folks to explore by sea, and they in turn help to sustain our lifestyle and leave some of their infectious enthusiasm with us.
In December we had our first crew trip, and a group of four friends, old and new, hopped aboard Orion. Corina, Ryan, Jason, and Alice met us in La Paz and joined us for eight days of adventure. We headed out to some of our favorite islands, Espiritu Santo, Partida, and Los Islotes and split our time between scuba diving on colorful reefs, snorkeling with sea lions, wake boarding behind the dinghy, hanging on deserted beaches, staring at the stars, and playing games. It was my birthday during the trip and it turned out to be one of my best ever. Everyone surprised me with pancakes and a birthday song when I woke up and Jonah even decorated. Then we dove on a shipwreck and finished the night with a dance party and a midnight swim. I mean, how am I going to top that in years to come?!
You never know what it’s going to be like to have a bunch of people living with you in your tiny floating sanctuary for an extended period of time. Friends or strangers, everyone has differing personalities and needs. Six people sharing one toilet. Six people with different eating habits, sleeping habits, snoring habits. There is plenty of room for things to go wrong, and not enough room to step away from it. But things went right. This was an experiment and so far (n=1) the results show that we absolutely love it. Jonah and I find that having some more people around is really good for us, since we’ve been known to get a bit sick of each other after a while. Entertaining guests forces us to stop doing boat maintenance and projects (which are never done) and go play for an entire week. We learned new games and constellations and got to teach all about the marine creatures we’ve been getting to know so well. As for me- an only child that likes plenty of personal space as well as everything in its right place- it feels good to practice surrendering and find that there is happiness in some benign disorder. Basically, we are stoked for more.
