Chicken or Egg, Sailor or Traveler? (Addendum)

This way? or That way?

So, early in the blog hop, Jane asked if we’d take a stand on the question of whether we’re sailors first, who like to travel, or travelers who like to sail.  I really thought the two evolved together for us, as I wrote a few days ago.  But the question also generated a lovely long conversation with Dan in the cockpit as I was refining the first draft of my blog post.  Because although I agonized back and forth about “why” we were doing this cruising thing -- was it to fill our desire to travel or give us lots of opportunities to indulge our love for sailing -- Dan had no such uncertainty.  “Well, travel, of course!” he said.  The quickness and positiveness of his answer surprised me because of the difficulty I had coming to a conclusion, or maybe underscored that it was a distinction that made no difference to me.

I realized in the course of that conversation that he was right – travel was the most important thing for me as well, and he saw it in me before I did.  That’s the wonderful thing about living in a tiny space with someone for 10 years.  If you don’t drive each other crazy and split up, you end up knowing each other better than you know yourself.   

So okay, travel it is.  Compared to travel by more conventional means, car or train or plane (read: “travel by faster means”) the boat has all the advantages I mentioned in my previous post: it is the only way we can afford to stay long enough to get a deep understanding of a place once we get there; and our story and lifestyle is a never-fail way of starting a conversation with almost anyone.  But the other thing I realized when we got to talking is that I’m fascinated with small-space living and I just flat-out like being on the boat.  Even tied to a mooring and not going anywhere for the entire weekend.  Neither sailing, nor traveling.  Just sitting, thinking, watching the world go by, watching the water or the sunset or the birds, not doing anything, just ... being.