Written March 2023, Bora Bora, French Polynesia
The ocean is a relentless teacher—one that doesn’t care about what you thought you knew. Life out here isn’t about efficiency or achievement. It’s about surrender. About feeling the salt on my skin, the bruises on my legs, and knowing that every cut, every callus, every slow, still moment is proof that I am here.
In the process, the ocean reshapes you—your habits, your priorities, even the way you measure time. These are the lessons that have shaped me the past 4 months.
1. The Shaka Says It All
At some point over the last four months, shaking hands and waving started to feel weirdly formal. Now, I just throw a shaka. It’s simple, effortless, and somehow holds more meaning than any stiff, Western greeting ever could. And while I can’t have a full-blown conversation in Polynesian, I cling to the three words I do know: Ia Orana (hello), māuruuruu (thank you), and nana (goodbye). It’s not much, but language isn’t just words—it’s tone, body language, presence. A smile, a nod, a shared understanding. It’s realizing that you don’t have to speak the same language to connect with people.
2. My Hands Know More Than My Head Now
Back home, I used to pride myself on what I knew—on ideas, on words, on planning. But here, none of that matters when something on the boat breaks, and it’s all hands on deck. I’ve built a cockpit table, sealed a leaking hatch, drilled, polished, painted. At first, I was clumsy, second-guessing every move, but now my hands are catching up to my mind. There’s something grounding about fixing things with your own two hands, about seeing immediate results from your effort. It’s a different kind of intelligence, one that doesn’t care about degrees or emails or clever words. Just action. Just doing.

3. Saltwater and Bruises are Part of the Deal
It’s impossible to live on a boat without earning some battle scars. My legs are a chaotic map of bruises, cuts, and abrasions from dinghy mishaps, slippery decks, and too many barefoot encounters with boat hardware. My hands are rougher, my skin permanently kissed by salt, my hair constantly tangled. But I kind of love it. There’s no room for vanity here, no need for perfection. Just proof that I’m living, moving, working, adapting. Every little scrape is a memory—of the work I’ve done, the waves I’ve ridden, the places I’ve been.
4. The Sun Decides My Schedule
There are no streetlights out here, no humming city life to push back the night. When the sun rises, I wake up. When it sets, I slow down. It’s strange at first, surrendering to nature’s rhythm instead of a clock, but it makes sense in a way I never fully understood before. The artificial structures of time we rely on back home don’t apply here. You don’t rush from one thing to the next just because you’re supposed to. Instead, you move with the day, with the light, with the wind. I don’t miss the late-night screens, the overstimulation, the background noise of modern life. Out here, it’s just the ocean, the sky, and me.

5. I’m Becoming the Sea
At first, my body resisted the motion of the boat, my stomach waging war every time the waves got rough. Now, I barely notice. I’m learning to move with the sea instead of against it, to let it carry me instead of fighting back. My balance is better. My stomach is stronger. I’m not gripping onto things as much. It’s almost like I’ve stopped seeing the boat as something separate from me—it moves, and I move with it. I used to think of the ocean as this wild, untouchable force, something to be tamed or endured. But maybe the trick is to surrender to it, to stop treating it like an obstacle and start seeing it as a dance partner.
6. Slowing Down is Harder Than It Sounds
I’ve always been wired for motion. Productivity. Progress. Measuring time in tasks completed, in things achieved, in some external proof that I did something with my day. But here, I’m trying to unlearn that. Some days, I catch myself feeling guilty for just existing—for sitting on the deck, staring at the horizon, doing nothing but breathing in the salty air. It’s ridiculous, really. But I guess that’s what happens when you grow up in a world that teaches you that your worth is tied to your output.
I’m working on letting that go. On being okay with stillness. On understanding that life isn’t something to be won or optimized—it’s something to experience. And right now, that means being here, in this moment, feeling the wind on my skin and the slow rock of the boat beneath me. No paycheck, no deadlines, no clear-cut “next step.” Just me, right here, floating in the middle of the Pacific, learning how to just be.
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