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Every journey begins with a dream. Ours was to travel by sailboat, to roam what parts of the world we could reach finding our routes and our resting places on the water. We nourished our dream with books read and skills learned and knowledge gained from others. Every challenge overcome took us a step closer to the beginning of our journey.

When finally we cast off the ropes that bound us to familiar places we still thought in terms of destinations. The time spent traveling between places was less important than getting there. Getting somewhere. But as we traveled down the waterways and made our way out to sea we learned something new. Destinations were convenient goals, but what mattered more were the adventures along the way.

Take our voyage from Florida to Bermuda. Our journey started quietly. The winds were light, and stayed light for the next four days, so we traveled slowly, learning the rhythms of life at sea and finding ourselves with the gift of time - time to watch and begin to learn the infinite variety of sun and wind and water and sky. We saw how sky and sea changed constantly and waves and wind created moving patterns on the water. We watched clouds moving along the horizon or in clusters overhead, fleeing toward the nearest area of low pressure. No two sunrises or sunsets were the same, and the stars filled the heavens at night, more stars than we had ever seen from land. In those vast starlit or moonlit nights our own boat lights hardly seemed to pierce the darkness all around us.

We started standing watches very soon after we got under way - four hours on, four hours off - and learned the pleasures and perils of time spent alone, each responsible in their turn for the safety of our small vessel. Our skills grew stronger with each new challenge. Whether it was growing confident working alone or gaging the distance and direction of the ships we encountered or learning the ins-and-outs of daily radio communication with other voyagers or learning to use information on winds and currents to choose our best course, as we learned we also learned new things about ourselves and each other.

As we approached Bermuda we were surprised to find that mixed with the anticipation of landfall there was a reluctance to have the journey end. There is something very special about this kind of journey. For as long as it lasts we see ourselves poised between places and ways of life, for a while free of the assumptions and expectations of life on land. This leaves us open to seeing things in new ways, as if being suspended between two places suspends our assumptions about who we are and the world we live in, and presents us with the opportunity to change, prepares us to become someone new in the place we are traveling to.

This journey, like all journeys, had a beginning and now, an end. We entered St. George's Harbour to be greeted by friends already arrived and went through the formalities of entry before we dropped our anchor and considered where we were. Here we were, with new places to explore, new people to meet, new ways of looking at the world to learn. The possibilities spread themselves out before us.

And that's when we realized: the journey does not stop here - or anywhere. Each destination becomes an exploration and part of the continuing journey of life. And then we travel on.

Learn more about this author, Margaret Mair.
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