A precious commodity.

Looking back I don’t think I realised quite enough how fortunate I was at sea, with all that space. It awed me, amazed me, I felt so lucky to be there and live the experience, but I didn’t think enough about the space.

If anything we would concentrate on the lack of space!

As you squeeze past someone in the galley, or bump someone’s feet when creeping to your bunk in the dead of night. As too many people fit on the same bench, because the other side of the yacht is being covered in waves. As you climb inside the engine bay with someone you met less than 24hrs before.

Right now space is a strange thing:

1. We cannot touch each other. I’ve never been a touchy person (my friends will vouch for this, I have even thought about asking Google “how to hug” because it makes me so anxious – Where do you put your arms? Who goes up and who goes down? Do you touch? Do you Keanu?)…. so actually I don’t mind this change too much at all.

2. We live in our own space all the time. If you thought your home was just a “crash pad” then 2020 had a surprise in store. You have to love your space, to want to be in your space. Live, work, exercise, relax, sleep. There is nowhere to go. My space is eight paces across and thirteen in the diagonal.

3. The mental benefits of outside space. I love the outside; as well as the sailing, I have been known to dig potatoes and do assault courses, but I am much more likely nowadays to be found outside being leisurely or lazy. When outside time was limited by lockdown that was very hard, now we can go outside (weather permitting!) the space to walk and breathe means so much.

4. The sky. I listened to a podcast yesterday and they interviewed an astronaut who had just returned from the ISS (aside: this ties in with my claim to fame, ahem) as in actual SPACE and she said the thing she missed the most was the blue sky. They had all the space you can imagine surrounding them, but she wanted to be back here, to breathe the air, and to stare at the blue sky we take for granted.

I love my space, I love the blue sky, I also look forward to a time when there are too many of us crammed around a pub table or sqeezed into a sushi bar.

I wouldn’t mind never having to awkwardly hug someone again.