Enjoy the Little Things...

My afternoon hangout spot yesterday

Jerome chumming ☺

I'm on a boat! 

            This morning was one of my absolute favorite trips out on the boat! I seriously loved everything about this morning! But first, let’s quickly recap yesterday since I didn’t make a blog post. Yesterday there was only one trip out to sea, and it was full, so a few of the vols, including me, got up at five as usual to help get the boat ready for the trip, then I went back to bed for a little longer. After the trip had returned to the harbor a few hours later and everything was cleaned and put away, the plan was for the vols to go snorkeling at our usual spot in De Kelders, then do our regular grocery shopping. I didn’t get in the water, but instead just brought a notebook and found a nice shady spot at the shore to journal and watch the others. One thing that I always recommend to people traveling is to keep a travel journal. While this blog serves as my main travel journal, sometimes I prefer instead to just find a quiet, picturesque spot, and spill my thoughts out by hand onto a notebook. I have journal entries from my time in Wyoming, Peru, Bolivia, and both trips to Africa, and I love flipping through them when I’m home and being reminded of my adventures.

            After returning home from snorkeling and shopping, most of the newer vols went out again to go fatbiking on the dunes. Since I did it a few weeks ago, I stayed home and cooked dinner. Solo travel teaches independence, budget travel teaches money management, solo budget travel teaches cooking skills! I came up with an idea for a cooking competition tv show while making dinner yesterday- send people to foreign countries that are unfamiliar to them, give them a limited amount of money, and see who can make the best meal using only resources and ingredients from the local grocery stores. You heard it here first!

            Shortly after dinner I got the message that there would be three trips out to sea today, and just enough spaces for each volunteer to go on one. I took one of the two spots open on the first trip- even though that means getting up earlier than others, it also often seems like the first trip gets the best shark activity, and best water visibility. Andre took the other volunteer spot on trip one- we definitely made the right choice! The boat launched at about seven this morning, and we stayed out until about 10:30. In that time, we saw a grand total of fifteen sharks- definitely more shark action than usual! On top of that, the water visibility was really good, and it was a fairly calm day out on the ocean, so it made for a really great morning at sea!

            After returning from the first trip, I spent the rest of the morning doing a beach clean, then came back home and made lunch, helped switch the supplies again between the second and third trips, and then I actually went on yet another beach clean this afternoon, going in the opposite direction than this morning. Tomorrow there’s only one trip out, and it’s full, so Tom says he’ll give us a lecture after he gets back from the first trip. It sounds like tomorrow should be a fairly easy, chill day here in Gansbaai. I’m still getting up bright and early to help pack up the boat, though, so I’m going to turn in soon. Yesterday afternoon, as I was sitting on the rock beach of De Kelders journaling and watching the other volunteers out swimming in the kelp forests, I thought about how important it is to enjoy the little things in life. Sitting there beside that beautiful ocean, breathing in the salty air and feeling the breeze on my face was one of those little things. It’s easy to forget those kinds of things, but especially when I’m traveling I like to occasionally just slow down, look around, and enjoy the simple, easy moments in life. With that in mind, here’s this post’s food for thought: “Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”- Robert Breault