Pacific crossing in hindsight

A year ago today we were setting out on our 30day sail across the Pacific Ocean… looking and hoping for the winds that would carry us rookie sailors across an ocean.

A crossing so big that we never dreamt of nor planned to do it in our lifetime (they say more people climb Mount Everest each year than sail across the Pacific Ocean), yet we look back now and can hardly believe it ever happened.

The thing that once seemed so vast, terrifying and impossible - is now simply on a list among many things that brought us to where we are now.

Many goals/dreams seem impossible when you first imagine them (and sometimes even halfway through, as this one did), but when you surround yourself with others working toward similar goals and simply keep taking steps forward… magic happens.

For us, we really didn't know that we would cross the Pacific at all (and only a few months before we would have told you we absolutely were NOT), we simply kept choosing destinations along the way and slowly moving forward in that direction.

At some point, as we got closer to Panama it seemed that everyone around us - literally everyone, was planning to cross, talking about crossing and preparing to cross.

Funny thing that happens when everyone around you has a common goal and you sit in and amongst conversations about that goal... you start to realize it really doesn't feel that big or impossible anymore. I mean... if all these people are doing it, why not?

At some point we simply began asking ourselves why we wouldn't cross the Pacific rather than why we would - and soon after we decided to start planning around it and prepping the boat (and ourselves). We certainly could have decided to not set out at any point, we could have decided to bring aboard a professional captain or even crew to help with the passage - but the more we settled into the idea the less terrified we were of the unknown.

It was exactly the opposite of our experience so many years ago when trying to create the confidence to quit the rat race and move into a van (and the same when selling the van and moving onto a boat with no idea how to sail it) - we had never known or met anyone who even dreamt of these things, much less was working towards them or better yet - had done them and survived to tell the tale.

Of course we were terrified - who were we supposed to look up to for advice or inspiration? Who could possibly tell us everything would be okay if nobody had done it? In fact it was quite the opposite - because everyone around us involved in corporate jobs and working 9-5, everyone we talked to told us we were foolish, insane and would most likely die. (No, I'm not kidding... we eventually simply stopped telling anyone and simply told them after it happened).

I can't emphasize enough the power of surrounding yourself with others who share your goals/dreams! The mind can and will play tricks on you, but peer pressure is a very real thing. You can either decide to fight like a salmon swimming upstream to all those who are programmed/conditioned to tell you that "you can't" or you can swim with people who share your goals and let them convince you it's the most normal thing on the planet - apparently even when it very much IS NOT.

Even in the last days, as our weather window seemed to not develop and we were burning through our provisions. Even as the boats ahead of us were facing storms, and lightning strikes, one boat sunk after getting hit by a whale, another dismasted at sea - while the heart rate increased with every story we didn't once question whether we were going (likely something to do with how expensive it is to transit the canal). We were all in!

Now, from the other side (both the other side of the wall that was trapping us in the rat race AND the other side of the Pacific) I would be the first to get onboard telling others not only that they can, but that they SHOULD!

We had a beautiful, blissful sail across the Pacific. Even as just the two of us double handing, out there all alone for 30days - we wouldn't have changed a thing.
The nature, the calm, the peace, and yes - even the confidence/pride that came with it... the sail was so lovely that as we approached the other side I didn't want to stop and asked Jen if we should keep going (the answer was a quick "No"). ;)

Here's the thing about combining a seemingly impossible goal with a bunch of other people who have done it once before and/or are about to do it themselves.

You might just find yourself looking back at the once impossible thing you accomplished as though it was no big deal at all.

If your goals don’t seem impossible (and maybe a little terrifying) you may not be setting the bar high enough.