Travel Light

Post Session Podcast is an ocean themed podcast with the stoke of a surf session and the wise guidance of an ocean voyager. Click to listen to Episode 10.

Traveling light and being thrifty come naturally to my family these days.  It took years of mistakes to realize what thrift actually looks like. When Ren and I first started out on our sailing adventures we threw all caution into the proverbial wind.  We quit our jobs, sold everything and sailed out with a small, green, dollar shaped cushion. Emphasis on small. We were determined to adventure and part of that adventure included jumping without a net.  We were sure we’d land on our feet. For the most part we did but not without some joint pain! Things could have been easier with better planning but as a whole, I’m glad we were fool hardy.  It was fun to have so little responsibility and we now know just how much “suffering” we can tolerate. All suffering self inflicted of course.

I remember one time, one of my favorite stories, started with a lonely, cold, four day passage to the Bahamas.  The Bahamas would be warm with clear waters. Our land of milk and honey. We had just enough money to make it through the island chain down to our favorite spot, Long Island.  Long Island is just far enough out of reach that it feels exotic. Most travelers stay in Nassau or the Abacos but we were adventurers so south we flew. The bigger draw to that particular island was Dean’s Blue Hole. A mecca for the competitive freediver. We’d post up in Long Island, live the good life and train for competition.  The only damper on an otherwise charmed existence, we only had $20…to our name. I’m not talking $20 in our checking account but plenty in savings. I mean we very much jumped without a net.  

But you know what, it was our first lesson in true ingenuity.  Plato told us “necessity is the mother of invention.” Totally true.  Over and over we find that our best selves emerge out of a slim financial spell.  When we have little, we do so much more. We grow. Our business thrives because we have to get to work. Our relationship improves because we have to exercise our partnership skills.

This particular time, before my coming to any kind of faith, I started freaking out…completely.  Ren assured me, as the family pragmatist, that we would just, you know, work and make some money. I continued to freak out while he scheduled a freediving course.  He took a few odd jobs with friends and locals to scrape by (NOTHING beats a useful man) until our course dates. We lined up at Dean’s Blue Hole with only two students in the course.  That in itself was kind of strange. How do you end up with only two students at one of the biggest freediving venues in the world?

And this is where things got weird.  As it happened, the two students who had signed up were a father/daughter team.  A team of true believers! Ren and I had very little experience with believers, though we believed most of them were full of crap.  However, these two made the ultimate impression on us. We thought we were teaching them to freedive but they ended up teaching us the truths we would carry with us for the rest of our lives.  The four of us, Ren, myself, Joe and Allie spent the next four days in spontaneous testimony, prayer and tears. It is the first time I had ever experienced, knowingly, with eyes wide open, the movement of God in my life.  It wouldn’t be the last.

The story could go on but the take home message is one of thrift. There’s something to be said about choosing to live small.  Where there is less clutter, there is more room for the things you find really matter. The experiences, relationships and clarity that come from traveling light. You may even find that the necessity sparks a fire in your inventive nature.  

Get tips on traveling light by listening to Episode 10.