Posts Tagged With: expedition

Life Changes Just Around the Corner With the New Season (Aboard a Wharram)

Posted on November 23, 2025 by sgwest66

There’s a specific kind of silence that drifts over a Wharram just before the cool change of season.

It’s not just the temperature of the air or water—those are easy enough to identify. I find a silence that’s… something else, something subtle. It’s a pause. A breath. A moment where the world seems to lean in, as if it’s waiting for whatever comes next.

I’ve lived aboard for nearly two years now. What’s become apparent is the recognition of change. In the same way you recognize the creaks of the hulls or the gentle rumble of the kettle coming to a boil. I feel the world shifting, and my little floating life is about to shift with it.

The thing about seasons is that they don’t just happen outside of you. They happen within you. And living on a Wharram—a boat that invites a deep kind of intimacy with weather, time, and the many moods of our aquatic world —you feel these shifts in more ways than one.

The First Signs Arrive Quietly

It’s rarely the big, dramatic signs that tell you the season is turning. The signs arrive in very subtle ways.

For example when summer is approaching its end.

One morning, you wake up and realize the deck feels cooler under your bare feet. Not cold. Not even chilly. Just… cooler. The morning sun doesn’t arrive with the intense heat of mid summer anymore. The daily arrival point of “it’s too damned hot” happens a little later each week.

It also begins to show at sunset. No longer is the last couple of daylight hours filled with the intense blowtorch heat from both the sun and its reflection from the water. You can now sit, in the shade, without sweating like a dripping sponge.

The world is changing.

So are you.

Living Close to the Vagaries of the Season

For me, living on a Wharram means living at the mercy—and delight—of the small details of the natural world. There’s no central heating . No thick insulation slowing the transfer of heat.

A Wharram is an honest boat. Admirably so.

When the season shifts, the boat tells you long before your calendar does.

The lashings seem to change their tension depending on humidity, allowing the beams to sometimes creak in their sockets when the boat gets rocked by waves. The morning air slips over the bows with a different character you can’t hide from. I’m exposed to it just from making my morning coffee, it’s in the other hull with an open deck in between.

And you become an involuntary weather-watcher.

Most people have to step outside to feel the season. You simply wake up and feel it immediately—in the boards under you, the air inside the cabin, the way your pillow holds warmth or releases it instantly.

There is nowhere to hide from seasonal change aboard a Wharram.

But that is precisely what makes it beautiful.

Seasonal Shifts Bring Inner Shifts

The funny thing about the changing season is that it always seems to come hand-in-hand with a quiet internal rearranging. Every new season invites a different version of you to step forward.

Maybe that version is more contemplative.

Maybe more adventurous.

Maybe a little tired and ready for rest.

Maybe itching to do a refit, finish repairs, or start those improvements you swore you’d get to when “things slowed down.” Not that they ever really sped up on a Wharram.

Living on a Wharram makes this inner-shift especially unavoidable. The boat’s openness invites self-awareness of a rare kind. The elements aren’t out there. They’re right here, drifting through the living space, humming in the rigging, tapping lightly at the hulls and cabin tops.

A new season arrives, and you feel you’re being nudged toward something. A different rhythm. A bolder mindset. Or simply the kind of small internal maintenance that humans need just as much as boats do.

We don’t often talk about spiritual oil changes, but maybe we should.

The Rituals of Transition

The strange thing about seasonal transitions aboard, especially leaving summer, is that they always initiate a kind of domestic dance—small rituals that prepare you, your boat, and your mind for what’s coming.

You might have:

Another blanket or two that now lives permanently on the bed

The small heater to ward off the morning chill is out of storage

The hatch above the bed doesn’t open quite as early in the morning

Put away the fans and pretend you’re not a little sad to see them go

Consider where you stashed the cold weather gear months ago

These rituals are the liveaboard’s version of migrating geese—or squirrels storing nuts, only you’re pulling sweaters or repositioning your cold foul-weather jacket so you don’t find yourself hunting for it at exactly the wrong moment.

There’s a quiet satisfaction in these small preparations. They aren’t exactly chores; they’re acknowledgments. Telling yourself, I see what’s coming. I’m ready in my own small way, at least I think I am.

And maybe that’s what seasonal transitions are all about—becoming ready for something you can’t quite articulate yet.

The Emotional Weather Report

If I were to file a personal weather report during this seasonal change aboard, it might read:

“Growing swells of introspection, increasing probability of mild restlessness, warm pockets of nostalgia, and scattered clarity across the afternoon. Winds variable, blowing toward future possibilities.”

Seasonal anticipation for me rides its own kind of emotional tide. I’m not necessarily sad, nor necessarily excited, but suspended in that productive in-between space where reflection becomes easier and clarity tends to drift in and out unexpectedly.

This is why the changing season often brings questions I haven’t thought about in months:

Should I reorganize the cabin?

Should I write more?

Should I finally fix that one squeak that I only hear at 3 a.m.?

Am I moving in the direction I want, both literally and metaphorically?

What do I truly want out of the next few, colder, months?

I dream of warm tropical beach’s right alongside dreaming of the unbelievable beauty of cold northern places like Nova Scotia.

These questions drift in the same way clouds drift across the sky—sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes gathering in meaningful formations. And living aboard means you have the time and space to actually notice them.

Life ashore often moves too quickly for these thoughts to gather traction. Aboard, they drift in and out naturally like the tides.

Letting Go of One Season Before Entering Another

One of the quiet truths of living on a boat is that you’re always letting go of something.

Sometimes it’s literal—objects that don’t fit the space or get used enough, clothes that don’t suit the climate, gear that you finally admit isn’t pulling its weight.

But other times, it’s internal. Outdated worries. Old priorities. Habits that once made sense but don’t anymore

And I think each season asks you to release something different.

Summer asks you to let go of excess—too much clothing, too many indoor activities, the belief that you need walls to feel secure.

Autumn asks you to slow down. There’s no need for constant motion.

Winter asks you to accept the comforting monotony of early nights, warm drinks, and low-key living.

Spring demands you let go of dormancy—the temptation to stay comfortable, quiet, unchanging.

Living aboard seems to heighten all of this. There’s no spare space to hoard possessions or old versions of yourself. You become intimately aware of what your “next season self” may not be anymore.

For me this feels healthy, almost instinctive. Just as the Wharram needs to be a minimalist environment, your mind benefits from getting rid of clutter. Just as the boat can be reorganized for the seasonal change, you can reorganize internally.

You let go, because the season asks you to.

The Wharram and the Wider World

One of the unique joys of living on a Wharram is that it gives you a front-row seat to the drama of the natural world, without drowning you in theatrics.

The open decks, the simple nature of the hulls, the flex and give of the rigging—all of it creates an intimacy with the change in seasons. Nature doesn’t shout at you through glass. It whispers through the fibers of the boat itself.

And at the same time, living aboard lets you feel connected to the broader human experience.

People everywhere feel the tug of seasonal change, even if sheltered from it. Even if they ignore it as the heater kicks on or the first frost carpets across their car’s windshield.

While they sit in their climate controlled cars or apartments, you sit on the exposed deck with your morning cup in your hand and the sky wide open above you.

In a way, the experience is universal—you’re just… closer to the source.

The world is changing for everyone. You’re simply noticing it sooner.

The Inner Compass That Turns With the Seasons

Every person has an inner compass—an instinctual direction that shifts ever so slightly as the season does. Not a moral compass, not a navigational one, but a psychological one.

Seasonal changes affect:

What we crave (pumpkin spice vs cookout and beer)

What we’re afraid of (frozen pipes vs A/C breaking down)

What we’re drawn to (a warm fire vs the pool)

What we hope for (good skiing conditions vs good surf)

How we want to spend our time (hunkered inside vs lounging in the sun)

Aboard your Wharram, you might suddenly feel the urge to tidy the deck, or work on a project, or write longer pieces, or plan new voyages, or simply sit in the cockpit and breathe. I tend to do that far too often.

Meanwhile, someone living a thousand miles inland may feel the same urge in a different form—cleaning a closet, rearranging the house, rethinking a career, or letting go of a long-held worry.

The season turns, and hopefully, all of us turn with it.

The Pause Before the Shift

Always, before the new season arrives fully, there’s a pause. A moment when life seems to hover—neither here nor there. A kind of liminality.

This moment is an invitation.

Take stock.

You don’t have to rush.

Something new is coming, meet it at your own pace.

This is the perfect time for reflection aboard a Wharram. For sitting on the trampoline with the sun warming your face. For watching birds and dolphins chasing their meals. For listening to wavelets break on nearby shores.

These small details carry the weight of the season’s approach.

Life is shifting.

You’re shifting with it.

And the boat is holding you through the transition, just as it has held through all the others.

Stepping Into the New Season

When the new season finally arrives—not all at once, but slowly, with thousands of subtle signals—it feels like the world is exhaling. The air steadies. The world adjusts. You adjust with it.

Maybe you feel a new burst of energy.

Maybe you feel a need for calm.

Maybe you feel ready to create, to rebuild, to explore, to retreat, or to begin again.

None of these reactions are wrong.

Seasonal change isn’t a command; it’s a gentle invitation. The kind that says:

You can shift now, if you’d like. You can move in any new direction you please. You can release something. Or start something. Or simply notice what’s different and let that be enough.

You are part of the cycle as surely as the tides.

And with the cooler season just around the corner.

So are the changes.

Categories: Journey Skills | Tags: adventure, autumn, expedition, fall, Lifestyle, Wharram | Leave a comment

Your Backyard is Someone Else’s Exotic Destination

Posted on October 13, 2025 by sgwest66

***Sunrise or Sunset; still breathtaking***

I’ve noticed humans can have a strange quirk, no matter where we are, we tend to think the good stuff is somewhere else. The good old “The grass is greener on the other side.” We often imagine life being grander, more meaningful, better, just over the horizon. Meanwhile, there’s probably someone standing on the other side of that horizon staring back at your patch of earth thinking, “One day, I’ll go there.”

When I taught outdoor education and sea kayaking, I would often tell my clients that where we were climbing, hiking or paddling was an exotic destination for someone a world away. Then encourage them to view our current situation from that perspective.

Someone else’s once-in-a-lifetime destination could be in your own backyard. Someone out there is right now is scrolling through travel blogs and whispering, “One day I’d love to surf on the coast of Queensland!”, or “Fishing in America’s Gulf Coast bayous must be amazing”.

We can be a funny species that way. We’ll spend thousands chasing distant beauty when half the time it exists just outside our back door.

The Lure of Somewhere Else

As kids, we dream of adventure — jungles, deserts, mountains, castles or pirates. Treasure maps always lead somewhere else, far, far away. The treasure was never hidden near home. The adventure was always imagined to be in a distant place that was hard to get to.

Then we reach adulthood, and with it, the ability to travel. Suddenly we’re convinced that peace, happiness, and adventure are only available by the week, in Bali, or the Bahamas. We chase sunsets and cocktails in far off places, forgetting the sun sets just fine right where we are.

Don’t get me wrong, travel is a wonderful thing. Seeing the world, and different cultures changes you and opens your mind. But sometimes, I think we travel less to see but more to escape the ordinary. The trouble is the ordinary can follow us, like luggage. If we tend to grumble about the price of coffee at our local cafe, that headspace will make it through customs with you just fine.

I think John Gierach once wrote that fly-fishing was less about the fish and more about the places it took you. Oftentimes those ‘places’ can be close to our backyards — we simply don’t recognize them because they are wearing their “ordinary” clothes.

The Tourist at Home

Could we treat our backyard like an exotic destination? Wander out the back door with the same curiosity and reverence usually reserved for somewhere stamped in the passport?

Pack a small bag, or load the canoe. Walk a local trail, or paddle around a bend in the nearest river. Take a bottle of wine, a pair of binoculars and a notebook or camera. Make your way to an area you’ve never been before, and just sit and listen, and look around.

You might see tiny school of minnows flickering like silver confetti under the hull, or dragonflies hovering overhead in the trees like fairies, maybe a turtle sunning itself on a log as if auditioning for a nature documentary.

Imagine David Attenborough narrating, “Here, in the wilds, the common slider turtle basks in the warm sunlight, blissfully unconcerned he’s being watched.”

Take some photos, write in the notebook, enjoy your glass of wine, and realize you’re doing something in a place that someone else is only dreaming about. It may be your ordinary, but it’s also an exotic destination for someone a world away.

Perhaps the difference between being exotic and being common isn’t distance, but attention. Maybe wonder doesn’t live in the passport stamps, but in how we look at the world.

Someone Else’s Dream

Imagine this scenario.

A German backpacker has flown half way around the world just to surf the very beach down the road from your house in Australia. He’s sunburned, thoroughly stoked, and carrying a surfboard that costs a small fortune.

You meet him in the car park.

He asks, “Do you come here often?”

And you reply, “Nah not really, it’s too crowded, and I don’t like sand in my shorts.”

He’d probably look at you like you hate puppies. “But this… this is Australia! Sunshine! Ocean! Kangaroos!”

And with a bit of sarcasm you might say, “Yeah, mate. And magpies. Don’t forget the magpies, and bloody green ants.”

Here’s someone who’d crossed the globe to experience what you might write off as merely background noise to your life. The surf, the sun, the salt air — all the things he’d dream about while shoveling snow back home in Germany.

I think everybody has a tendency do it. The Parisians roll their eyes at the Eiffel Tower. New Yorkers not paying attention to their astounding skyline. Australians tend to not give the “Outback” much of a second thought

And yet, somewhere, someone, is looking at your part of the world, your park, your coast, your backyard, and thinking: One day.

The Myth of Elsewhere

Francis Whiting might have once said that travel doesn’t make you better; it just makes you more you. If you’re impatient, you’ll be impatient at the Colosseum . If you’re generous and happy, you’ll be generous and happy in Ecuador . And if you’re a chronic overpacker, you’ll still carry way too much onto the plane.

We romanticize the idea of “elsewhere” because it’s unspoiled by our reality. The places we haven’t visited are still a mystery. But once we get there, the same life ingredients we left behind are also there: weather, traffic, mosquitoes, overpriced coffee. Conversely, the things we imagine are exciting in that far away place, are actually with us all along.

We might think adventure may lie in far away places, but a lot of life’s mysteries can be found in our own backyard. Walk around a local park or beach, find a spot to sit still for a while and you might see a family of creatures that live in a log or a tide pool. The heron that lands by the creek long enough for you to watch it stalk and catch its next meal.

Maybe the point isn’t to escape the ordinary, but to learn to see past it. When we travel to new places we tend to look for interesting things, but not so much at home.

Why We Miss It

So why do we overlook our own surroundings?

I guess it’s partly novelty. The human brain loves change — it lights up when we’re surprised and stimulated. After a while, our brains go “seen it” and tunes out. It’s the same reason we don’t see the car keys on the table.

And maybe marketing. Billions are spent convincing us happiness is elsewhere — on beaches, in mountain lodges, on yachts with infinity pools. No one’s really running ads saying “Rediscover the magic of your shed!”

But mostly, I think it’s habit. We forget to look. We stop paying attention. And attention, it turns out, is the key to wonder.

Francis Whiting, an Australian columnist, once joked that the best way to make your town exciting again is to have a visitor point out all the things you’ve stopped seeing; “Look at the dolphins! You have dolphins right there under your boat!” they’ll say, eyes wide. And you’ll shrug, “Yeah, but the beer’s gone a bit warm.”

It’s a humbling reminder: the extraordinary doesn’t stop being extraordinary just because we’re used to it.

The Exchange Program

Imagine a global swap program where everyone trades backyards for a week. The English gets an Aussie backyard with kookaburras and magpies. Australians get a snowy German forest. Americans might swap their porches for Japanese bonsai gardens.

We’d might come out of it marveling at how exotic our own patch of dirt actually is. The German would rave about the lorikeets and galahs. The Aussie might weep at the sight of a fox in the snow. And everyone would have a chance to see their own gardens with fresh eyes.

Maybe we don’t need a plane ticket — just a change in perspective.

The Backyard Pilgrimage

Gierach wrote about the “home water” — that local body of water you fish over and over until it becomes sacred through repetition. You know every rock, every bend, every stubborn trout that refuses your fly. You could go anywhere, but you keep coming back because it’s yours.

Maybe we all have a “home water.” A place we’ve worn smooth with our presence. It could be a backyard, a park, a corner café, or a bench by the beach.

It’s not glamorous. But it is familiar, and comforting, and quietly miraculous if you pay attention.

The thing about sacred places is that they don’t declare themselves. You have to decide. You have to say, “This — this patch of sunlight, this breeze, this cafe — this is my Shangri-La .”

What the Tourists Know

Every now and then, you might see a group of tourists snapping photos of something you’d never look twice at — a mural, a fruit stall, a street musician. They’ll beam, take selfies, and then you might realize: they’re right. It is beautiful. I just forgot.

Tourists find the secrets we’ve forgotten: the world is astonishing if you’re seeing it for the first time.

So here’s a thought experiment. Tomorrow morning, wake up and pretend you’re visiting your home area for the first time. Take the scenic route to work. Walk instead of drive. Ask questions. Notice things.

Hopefully you’ll find something you’ve never seen before — even if it’s just how good the light looks at a certain hour, or the way the neighbor’s jacaranda turns the footpath purple.

The Grand Conclusion (with a glass of wine)

After all these backyard expeditions and philosophical wanderings, I’ve come to a simple truth:

Everywhere is exotic to someone.

Everywhere is ordinary to someone else.

And the difference lies in the eyes doing the looking.

You don’t necessarily have to cross the Andes Mountains on horse back to feel awestruck. Sometimes it’s in the way the morning light hits your backyard trees. Sometimes it’s the smell of fresh rain on dry earth. Sometimes it’s just sitting with a cup of tea, realizing you’re standing in the middle of someone else’s dream location.

So, next time you find yourself scrolling through travel blogs, dreaming of far-off lands, take a walk outside. Listen. Look. Smell. Pretend you’ve just arrived.

You might discover that the adventure you’ve been saving for is already happening — right there in your own backyard.