July 2016 on the Great Barrier Reef
Aaaaahhh.
Captain Trevor Jackson
No doubt you’ve heard the expression ‘a room with a view’. Well I’ve got a room with a view…No, not the wheelhouse, the skippers cabin. It has got a window a metre square virtually at bed height. So, from being sound asleep, it’s just a gentle lift of the head to check out the sea state, the cloud cover or even just the serenity. I never really appreciated it until just now, yet it has always been there, taken for granted really.
There was a song playing on the radio next door in the wheelhouse. I sort of recognised it but couldn’t really place it. The words went “I’m heading out where the water is much deeper”. So there I was, staring out my bedroom window, listening to these words and wondering….Why do people love going to sea so much? The answer came to me as the tune faded…people love going to sea because at sea there is a distinct absence of clutter. At sea there is only the water, the horizon and the sky. That’s IT! No roads, cars, signs, houses, noise, high rises, vote for us, buy this, taste that….no nuthin’. Just those three things…water, horizon, sky. Well that was my take on it just now, there are probably plenty of other reasons to go to sea…fishing, snorkelling, sail boarding and of course the MAJOR attraction of getting down under with your “scuba on”.
But the reality of it is….we see a lot of folk on-board Spoilsport spend an extraordinary amount of peaceful, enjoyable time, simply gazing out across the waves and thinking of not much at all. Decluttering their heads. You know like once year you crack open the kitchen cupboards, realize you’ve got 20 pieces of Tupperware but not one single matching lid and container! Or digging into the bottom of the wardrobe and finally accepting you’re NEVER going to fit into those size 28 jeans again! You need a skip bin for these things…and sometimes you need a skip bin for your overloaded brain. That’s what going to sea is… a giant relief valve for all the ‘stuff’ you haven’t realized you just needed to ditch. It’s therapeutic, it’s liberating and it’s the kind of thing you should allot at least one week per year to. Get on a boat…head far enough out so you can’t see land any more, put your feet up on a deckchair, focus intently on that water / horizon / sky, and hit the bloody dump valve ……… aaaaahhh.
