A fortunate Lifestyle

Sowell Family's Travels on Gijima
Skipper: Tim Sowell Admiral Tracy Crew Sean & Alex
Thu 2 Dec 2010 21:04
One of the books I read this year about some cruisers who describing going from work to cruising as "Going from Ordinary life to and Extraordinary Life" I thing they missed it is a "fortunate lifestyle". Like today I was up early to a partly cloudy sky, and I put the kettle on for the boys hot chocolate, and our tea. I then went outside and walked the decks and jumped over did a lap of the boat and came back on board, had breakfast with the family. After a reduced schooling we took the boys on a field trip up an unchartered river we had noticed as we came down the coast a couple of days ago. We took the dinghy and small motor and it was about 4 miles away, we approach ran aground a number of times, at the entrance and then rowed over the bar and then started the motor going up the river. "Snowy Egrits" glided between the tall trees, we had great grey herons, and crocodiles, and lizards. We stopped as best we could in the flowing current to look and identify the many birds we saw, looked up at trees and discussed how the orchids have placed themselves half way up the trees. It is a natural lab for the boys who love to see the birds and think this is normal way to live. It is seeing their eyes light up, the questions asked, and the discussion that brings great pride in what we are doing, and how fortunate we are to be able to live this life.
As we look and talk about the future the "next Chapter" as we say, is it returning to work normal life as we knew it, NO, we have transformed our lifestyle, we are all excited especially Tracy about going to Australia (me returning to Australia after 24+ years), a new country, new places to explore, new friends to establish, family close, and a different lifestyle. I will be working from home, so my lifestyle will be different, and going to live in beautiful places that we can use the boat regularly so the experiences we have seen this year continue. We have found a new lifestyle that we all like and feel comfortable in, is it Jimmy Buffet cruising No, it is the SOWELL way of cruising and living with travel, and water exploring combined.
But as I sit here in the afternoon sun, the sea lapping on the rocks under the jungle behind me, the hawks fly and hunt off the port, and the sounds of the jungle flow out across the remote bay, I feel very lucky.