A couple of months ago, on the week beginning the 24th of September, I started a week-long voyage with Ocean Youth Trust Scotland, as part of a trip with LGBT Youth Scotland.
Initially, going into it, I didn't really have any expectations.
On signing up, to go, I hadn't really thought about it as anything other than an escape from the particular strain of shit life was throwing at me at the time. I didn't even know when it was. The minute I heard "boat trip to the middle of nowhere with possible confidence building exercises"~this is not a direct quote, this is just my translation~I was on board......haha.
I had some hopes for the week but nothing I'd really call an expectation.
One hope that I had, was that I'd be able to manage the whole week without smoking any weed. And I did in a sense, I smoked before I left and when I got back but I managed sobriety for the majority of the week~the ban on drugs and alcohol helped greatly. And I enjoyed it.
For a really long time, I've been using weed to block out/cope with trauma and it got to the point where I couldn't do anything or go anywhere without smoking up. It was the only thing keeping me going, the only thing keeping me from drowning amidst the tidal waves of continues shit. My lifeline as it were but also my downfall, as most people will find, too much of something no matter how much it helps, is not good. I was starting to see that the amount I was smoking was holding me back and I seriously needed to reevaluate my life choices. I needed to go away for a while, without access to my stuff and have a really good think about everything.
When the voyage came up, it was the perfect opportunity.
On the first day, the 24th, I had to arrive at Central station at 12:15 to get the train to Greenock where the boat was docked. I think I was running off schedule and getting into a bit of a tizzy but made it with a good 5 minutes to spare. The journey was slightly awkward for me, I felt like everyone else quickly relaxed into the banter and I was just sitting in anxious silence as per usual. When we arrived, we walked down to the docks where we met the Alba Explorer and her crew for the first time. The Alba Explorer is a beautiful big racing yacht built for upwind sailing races around the world, a truly epic boat if ever you saw one.
Once aboard, we were straight down to business, jumping into the icebreakers.
I don't remember much from the rest of the first day, apart from crying myself to sleep and ~this is a direct quote from my logbook~" considering learning how to sail properly, buying a boat and fleeing society".Clearly, despite having successfully pulled off my mission of escaping, my mind was still stuck on it. We also learned how to work the winches but I don't think I actually took any of the information in...I definitely didn't....this became very apparent the following day.
~We were read a bedtime story that night, by one of the crew, Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was really nice but really set the tears in motion because it reminded me of getting bedtime stories when I was wee and of how much I missed those times.~
The next day, day 2, started off fairly shit with me realising that the period from hell had hit. Literally. It was an absolute bloodbath. It was like all the periods that I've ever missed all decided it was time to show face and fuck me over. BOOM BITCH! TIME FOR YOUR RECKONING!
I'm also pretty sure that I gave myself multiple concussions due to the low ceilings and very hard trap door/window thing that we had to slide open to get out on deck, that I kept forgetting was there.
To top everything off, after building myself up with Ibuprofen, CBD oil, and herbal tea and thinking I'd be okay, the minute I stood on deck the whitey hit. Like a fucking train. I felt like I was about to die. It was a very windy day, in the middle of the sea, on a boat that purposely sails into the wind...like a giant windsurfer. This boat was choppy as fuck, to say the least. Everyone kept telling me to "look at the horizon and you'll feel better" but no, did I fuck.
Because of my sickness and general feeling of all-out death, I decided to take some time out and go for a nap. Which helped greatly. It was like magic how much it helped.
Praise Hallelujah for naps! Am I right or am I right?
Later, feeling slightly rejuvenated, me and my group were on boardwatch; practicing knots, working the winches, steering the boat and making sure that the boat doesn't crash. For a bit, I sat and practiced tying different knots-half-knots and bowline-pretty boring stuff in my opinion. Then I got to steer the boat, which I absolutely loved despite my fears that I would accidentally crash the boat and kill everyone on board, as well as destroying a masterpiece of the seas.
By the 3rd day, I was starting to feel a bit more comfortable in my environment and around everyone on board. I still felt quite uncomfortable around some of the men in the crew but this was kind of expected and unavoidable, I just had to ignore my fears and try not to freak out.
On this morning, after breakfast, we were hit with the concept of 'Happy Hour'...which isn't what you think it is. In fact, it's the complete opposite......it's cleaning. My first job as part of 'Happy Hour'-said, dripping with sarcasm-was to clean what was known as the 'heads', in other words, the toilet. It was shite....pun not intended. I don't mind cleaning my own toilet, when I have the motivation, but cleaning a toilet that about 15 other people have used.....no thanks. I did it anyways because despite my hatred of the task, its always better to just get it done rather than to give up.
After 'Happy Hour', me and the rest of the people from LGBT were allowed to go into Tarbert, where we docked, for an hour to have a wee wander around or a cup of tea. There were 5 of us, 'young people', so we decided to walk down together and check out what the wee town had to offer. It was a quaint wee town with a cute wee line of cafes and local shops, a bank and a co-op and castle ruins that you could walk up to. After picking up a few things from the co-op, we decided to have some tea in a lovely wee cafe we found. During this time we started to talk a bit more and add each other on social media, a norm among 'young people'. Since we had our phones taken away from us at the beginning of the journey so that we would all be present, we spent some of the time checking our various social media platforms. On leaving the cafe, me and my friend decided to pick up some travel sickness tablets because fuck feeling that sickness again. Of course, as usual, I was late back to the boat...only by a few minutes but late all the same.
I hate being late...despite my tendency to usually be so.
Once we were all on the boat, after meeting two of the youth workers halfway down the boardwalk and taking a few photos~which I might upload at some point.....once I figure out how to download my photos without getting duplicates lol. The 3rd day was a pretty good day, as now armed with my seasickness tablets, I was feeling a lot better. Again, I don't remember much of it~due to the passage of time~but of what I do...I remember that we were sailing to Rothesay and that it was a nice, if not slightly temperamental day. ~A paradox I know but that kinda shit happens at sea~ I remember working the winches and building my confidence with them and I can honestly say that if someone put one in front of me right now, it'd be really weird but I'd be able to do it no bother with only slight prompting.
That night we anchored in Rothesay Bay, about 2 or 3 full sized football pitches away from land~a terrible way to measure distance but fuck it~with a beautiful view of the island-I think I might have pictures of this too. Before going to bed we were told that we'd all be doing anchor watch shifts of 2 hours or so in pairs but luckily mine wasn't until 6am. I had to get up at 6am...fair to say I wasn't really looking forward to that aspect...
After finally getting to sleep at about 4am, getting up 2 hours later was brutal. On waking, I felt like I'd only just gotten warm and that I'd only been asleep for about 10 minutes. One of those nights. ~Ahhhhhhhhh! *Sigh*~
Once I'd pulled myself free from the, only just, pleasant confines of my sleeping bag, I was straight onto anchor watch duty...which I surprised myself by really enjoying. Anchor watch happens when the boat is anchored rather than docked and one or two of the crew have to keep an eye on and take note of the wind speeds, water depth and the degree of the offset; the angle of which the vessel is sitting at. This was a fairly simple task as we only had to check the monitors every 5 minutes-within an hour-and take note, making sure that nothing was going into critical levels and staying there.
During this, we were given the task of creating a story. Everyone who was on watch had the opportunity to contribute by adding a few lines or pages in, which was certainly the case for me, whenever they were on. As you can imagine, the end result was interesting. It started off as a pretty average funny story related to sailing and the like, slightly confusing but nothing too weird and then I decided to dump my imagination on it....putting it onto a slightly weird but fun twist. I feel like I'm kinda tooting my own horn here but I was quite proud of my contribution. I thought we all did a really good job, if I can find it (and ask everyone's permission) I think I'll post it here.
After sharing our work with the rest of the crew over breakfast, which me and my partner made, we got stuck straight into setting sail to Greenock, where the voyage would conclude. The rest of the journey was pretty much the same as the previous days; I spent time practicing and mastering the knots~which I can't actually remember but that's probably for the best~working the winches and steering the boat. I also spent time getting to know people too but due to my having an anxious pea brain, I can't really remember this either.
All in all, I would highly recommend going on a voyage or volunteering with Ocean Youth Scotland...no matter where you're at, it's a really fun and educationally enriching experience.
I found that it helped me greatly in terms of my mental health and my general outlook on life. I also love the sea; I like looking to see if I can see any mermaids beneath the turquoise tides.
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I hope y'all enjoyed reading about my experience :)
I'm so thankful that I've finally gotten it done after so much worry about it not being good enough...now all I need to do it edit out the not so family friendly stuff and get it sent off to the right peeps...shouldn't be too hard~wish me luck anyways though? Cause there's always the chance that I could fuck it up.
I hope y'all are having a fabulous night, morning, day and evening! :)
