I grew up by the ocean. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always felt drawn to it, even though I’ve never been what you’d call a confident swimmer. I love the sand beneath my feet, the smell of salt in the air, the endless horizon and, most of all, the sound of the waves throwing themselves against the rocks.
The ocean has a way of making everything else feel very small.
In Croatia, that feeling followed us everywhere.
‘The sea, when it has worked its magic, holds you forever in its web of wonders’
Jacques Yves Cousteau
We spent our days wandering along marinas, weaving between boats and stopping to admire the yachts bobbing gently in the water. Naturally, I took every opportunity to remind my husband that he could buy me one. Nothing extravagant.
Well…nothing too extravagant! A small sailboat would have been perfectly acceptable. A little deck at the back where I could sit in the sunshine, perhaps with a coffee in my hand, watching the world drift by. That was all I needed. At least that’s what I told him!
I never got my boat, however, you can’t go to Croatia, look out across that impossibly blue Adriatic Ocean and not get on one. So we booked a boat trip! Our first adventure was on a speedboat and from the moment the engine roared into life, I was hooked. The boat tore across the water, the wind rushing against my face as the coastline slipped past us. The sea seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction, sparkling beneath the sun. There was a deep rumble of the engine, the sharp scent of saltwater, the spray rising beside us and that strange, exhilarating feeling of leaving everything behind.
For a while there was nothing else. Just us, the boat and the sea. Then we arrived at the Blue Cave. Inside, the world changed as we swam through a small gap between the rock and the ocean. The sunlight filtered through the water beneath us, turning the cave into a glowing blue chamber. The light seemed to rise from the sea itself, illuminating everything in an almost otherworldly glow. I looked down. A fish swam past my feet, then another, then another! I remember feeling an almost ridiculous sense of excitement. I was like a child discovering the ocean for the first time. The fish were so close and the water so clear that I could see every movement as they disappeared beneath me.
It was such a simple thing. A few fish swimming through clear blue water. And yet I knew I would remember it forever. Something had been reignited in me. My love for the ocean had always been there, quietly waiting beneath the surface. Croatia had simply brought it rushing back. One boat trip wasnt going to be enough, so we booked another one. This time, the destination was the Blue Lagoon. More coastline, more sunshine and more swimming. And more of the bluest water I had ever seen.
“The sea is so blue”, I kept saying. Again. And again. And again. Eventually even I was bored of hearing myself say it. But honestly…THE SEA WAS SO BLUE. There was no other way to describe it. And salty, very salty. I didn't go swimming with the intention of drinking the Adriatic, obviously. But somehow, despite my best efforts, I managed to swallow a mouthful of seawater. I could taste the salt long after I climbed back onto the boat. It clung to my skin, dried in the sun and followed me back to the hotel. We would return from our trips and head straight for the shower, trying to wash away the evidence.
But I really didn’t want to wash the day away. Because for all the boats, tourists and people swimming around us, the sea never felt crowded. That surprised me. I don’t particularly like crowds. Too many people in one place can make me feel overwhelmed, but out there in the open water, I never felt that way. There was simply too much ocean. Enough for everyone. People floated, swam and laughed around us, each of us caught up in our own little world of happiness. Nobody seemed to be rushing anywhere. Nobody seemed particularly concerned with what was happening back on land.
‘In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take.’
-Lewis Carroll
For a few hours, everyday life disappeared. The emails. The responsibilities. The worries. The endless list of things waiting to be done. All of it seemed very far away. There was just sunlight on the water, salt on our skin and that enormous expanse of blue stretching towards the horizon. And perhaps that’s what I loved most about the sea. The freedom! When you’re swimming in the ocean, you become completely insignificant. Just one tiny human suspended in something so vast and powerful and ancient. Strangely, that doesn’t make you feel small. It makes you feel free.
The water quietens your mind. The rhythm of the waves slows everything down. For a little while, there is nothing to think about except where you’re going to swim next. Its peaceful. Almost meditative. And it leaves you feeling lighter than when you arrived. By the time we climbed back onto the boat, salt drying on our skin and the Croatian coastline slipping into the distance, the joke had started to feel less like a joke.
We had spent days watching boats glide in and out of the marinas. We had felt what it was like to move across the water with nowhere else we needed to be. We had discovered how quickly the sea could quieten our minds and make ordinary life feel impossibly far away. And suddenly, the idea of owning a boat didn’t seem quite so ridiculous. “Let’s buy a boat”, my husband blurted out. This time, neither of us laughed.
We had never owned a boat. We didn't know the first thing about maintaining one, mooring one, navigating one or, for that matter, actually sailing one. The practical questions seemed strangely distant. They belonged to another world - the world of paperwork, instruction manuals and sensible decisions. We were thinking about the sea. About the mornings spent on the water. About the quiet coves, dropping the anchor and swimming until the sun began to soften.
‘You can. You should. And if you are brave enough to start, you will.’
-Stephen King
About having somewhere to escape to whenever life became too loud. We loved the sea. We loved being on the water. We loved the freedom it gave us. And perhaps that was enough. It was impulsive. It was unrealistic. It was probably completely mad. But the more we talked about it, the less it sounded like a holiday fantasy and the more it sounded like a plan. By the time we left Croatia, we had stopped saying, “Wouldnt it be nice?” We had started asking, “What would we need to do?”
That was the moment everything changed. We had gone to Croatia looking for sunshine, good food and somewhere new to explore. We came home with a decision. Not a souvenir. Not a photograph. A boat-shaped hole in our finances, absolutely no idea how to sail it and a dream that suddenly felt far too real to ignore. Could we turn our fantasy into reality….
Or would it drift away with the tide, leaving room for another impossible dream?
