While we have already encountered major speed bumps in our journey before we even untied the lines from this marina – things that never made it on our risk assessment list… Its the people that make the journey, our time together and the experiences that we come across.

Years ago I started a facebook group called “You made my day Hawke’s Bay” for several reasons. I wanted to do some good, I wanted to be reminded of all the good around us, rather than seeing all the doom and gloom on the news and in the mainstream media. My main take away from the years that I managed this group was that the majority of people are kind hearted, helpful and go out of their way to help someone else who struggles.

It really humbles me how many acts of kindness, support, encouraging words and messages we had since we made the decision to create this big lifestyle change. We have been on the receiving end of so much kindness, thoughtfulness and love, I would struggle to list it all here.

Matt, a kiwi guy living here, had a call from his mum in New Zealand alerting him to us after she read about our situation and he got in touch and invited us to his and his fiancees apartment for a BBQ. He drove 30 minutes in busy traffic on a hot day to pick us all up incl. dog. He invited a friend with kids, so our kids could socialise for the first time properly in months with other kids and cooked us a yummy meal on the BBQ. To top it all of they prepaid our taxi – which we didn’t even realise until we arrived and the taxi driver refused our payment. Its beautiful to be the recipient of such kindness and consideration.We are so grateful and it made us feel welcome and cared for by people we didn’t even know a couple of days ago.

Yesterday we met with another couple who also bought a boat and have little one, so the kids could have another play and we had dinner together in their rented apartment.

We have met another greek couple who always ask us when we walk past their boat how we feel and wish us luck and give us a smile and wave. This morning I had an old lady signing to me, how she loved Lucy swimming at the beach. The boat owners along the jetty feel like neighbors by now. We have had countless messages from people trying to help or connect us to someone who might be able to help.

The beauty of being a in a place for a longer period of time is that you really get to know the people. And I think no matter were we will go, the people on the ground are good and kind hearted and helpful. That is the real journey, the connection for us a family, with the community that we are surrounded by and being a lot closer to nature. While we haven’t moved in the boat much, we have already journey’d far in so many respects.

That all really cements my belief in humanity and that at the core we are doing fine, even in all this chaos in the world with a pandemic, wars, refugees galore, environmental destruction and god knows what. If we all just do our little bit to make the world a better place, surely we must be on the right track.

Thank you, thank you xxx