I figured out that the fastest way to learn is to learn from someone who has walked the path before you. For me that was the journey with the seafarers Klochkov family. Marina, Andrei and their daughters Anastasia and Lada have been living on a yacht and sailing around the world for the last 7 years. They’ve been to the most isolated and stormy places in the world, including Antarctica, Cape Horn, the Drake Strait and the fjords of Patagonia. After completing their journey, Klochkov family will be the first Russian family to circumnavigate the world around the Capes and Antarctica as a family with kids. And now the destiny has brought them to Fremantle in Western Australia, where we first met them and quickly became friends.
I was fascinated with this family and wanted to know how they managed to sail around the world without any help for many months. Survial skills are transferable and depend to a great degree on your mental attitude. People who can survive in deep ocean, far away from civilisation, relying on themselves only, are capable of doing that on the land. This is what I wanted to learn from them. I learnt the importance of being self-sufficient, flexibility of foregoing such luxuries as taking showers daily, and a delicate dance of proper planning and surrendering to the unfolding of the events and circumstances. Shiftig the focus of attention from myself and my own needs and desires to other people, to the environment and simply to the present moment, made a big difference.
Travelling and living with people who not only inspire you but also push you to your limits and beyond accelerates your own progress on the path to turning your dream to reality. And if you can share that dream with someone, it becomes a lot more meaningful. So I’ve organized this journey to the Golden Outback on our 7-seater Pajero pulling 5.5m caravan (where all 7 of us slept every night for a week). I carefully planned the route and destinations on our journey but as is the case with free spirited people, half way through the journey Captain Andrei changed my plans and instead of stopping at the farm stations overnight as I planned, he took us to wild free campsites.
Honestly, I was a bit nervous and fearful. I learnt that I had to trust. Trust was the first thing that I had to learn. Andrei told me about it directly: “Let go and trust life”. I heard that from him a number of times. First, when it came to interactions with my sons. “As a parent, you overprotect your children. You need to let go of that control and adopt a more relaxed way of accepting things.” I saw, with the help of Andrei, who was willing to constantly point that to me, that I had constructed boundaries around myself long time ago and I did not trust life itself. That distrust manifested in everything – the way I parented children, the way I was holding myself in the world, the way I was living my life.
Learning to trust life was the first thing I had to learn. And I learnt to trust Life by trusting Andrei take us to unknown, unpredictable places. Pulling out in the dark in the remote isolated place, off the road for the night was not a problem for him. I surrendered my desire to control and let go. May what comes, be. I don’t have to be in charge.
Quite often being around Klochkov family I feel that I have a long journey in front of me. It probably means many journeys are ahead of us, which we will undertake ourselves or perhaps, with Klochkov family or with new companions – who knows? Observing our friends – their passions, courage, strength, ability to go with the flow and change plans, as well as their knowledge about life, history, culture and people has made us stronger and more resilient. Every night we were spending around the fire, looking up in the sky and learning about constellations, galaxies, night sky, sun and stars navigation. Now my kids know where the Southern Cross, Corvus and Scorpius are. They can point to Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and to the stars Antares and Aldebaran. They know how to start a campfire safely. But more than anything, I learnt to trust the unknown. I came to see that the universe is abundant and always provides us with what we really need – whether it is challenges, wonderful uplifting experiences, hard lessons we need to learn or sufferings from which we emerge like new butterflies emerge from their cocoons in spring. I learnt that your intentions create your reality. If you intend to find gold, you will find gold. In my case, it was the gold of knowledge and experience. It is the attitude of openness and acceptance that carry you on your journey. Of course, planning, researching and proper preparation is important. More than anything else – taking a plunge into the cold waters of the oceans, which is your first step, is crucial.
May you dream big, may you trust life enough to take the first step. May you have the courage to take plunge and turn your dreams into reality. Life is given to us, so that we can grow and evolve into better, more open, brighter and lighter human beings.
The next adventure is calling you! Are you ready?
May the stars point the way….
