Surviving Your First Virus Outbreak – How To

The theme this week on Sailing Britican started out about doing things for the first time. Our video that goes with this article showcases a guest who joined Britican for a week. It was her first time ever sailing.  While writing this article, the concept of doing things for the first time, however, has morphed into something a bit more encompassing. Heck – it ends up being a message about surviving your first virus outbreak. Check out the video here: First Time Sailing.

Read on to determine if I’m losing the plot or if I have a message of enlightenment!

But let’s first back up a bit. Let me tell you about Julia.

Our guest a couple of months ago, Julia, decided to fly out to Britican with her lovely two children to get an idea about what the sailing lifestyle was like. She had never sailed before. Julia thought of doing a sailing adventure for years but didn’t feel the time was right. One day she woke up and thought, I’m going to do it!

Julia was a guest like no other.

Witnessing Julia’s openness to go with the flow was spiritual. She ate what we ate, woke when we woke and fit into the family as if she’d be around for years. She had a true lack of preconceived expectations – she wasn’t trying to achieve anything other than to gain experience.

Many of our guests have very specific objectives – they want to see if they can survive a long passage or gain confidence in boat handling maneuvers. Some of our guests want to feel what it’s like to sit at anchor for a few days and get bored. Others want to bring their partner to determine if it’s feasible to even consider the sailing lifestyle together. And having objectives is great so don’t get me wrong. I live by objectives!

But not having them is great too – as Julia demonstrated.

We always ask our guests, ‘what do you want to get out of being on Britican?’ Julia’s response was, ‘I want to have an experience. That’s it.’

Stick with me and allow a bit of a side-step here…I will get to the bit about surviving your first virus outbreak.

Lately, with more time on my hands being under a lock-down, I’ve been being more thoughtful about what I post and why I post it. In the last few weeks, I started a weekly ’theme’. Last week the theme was ‘Sailing With A Buddy Boat‘ and the week before was about the necessity of understanding the VHF Radio. With my themed weeks, I now create a quote, question, and base most of my posts around the main concept.

While considering Julia’s story I wanted to come up with a quote that reflected the energy of her story.

Originally, I thought the theme should be around the area of doing something for the first time…

I, therefore, put a quote on our social media earlier this week with a photo of a sailboat slicing through the waves. The quote read, ‘When was the last time you did something for the first time?’ I chose the quote to reflect Julia’s ability to go out into the world and do something massively different.

Julia wasn’t coming sailing with us to necessarily change lifestyles. She instead wanted to experience our lifestyle and feel what it felt like to be free to roam the seas on a floaty boat with white things!

Watching others allows us the ability to reflect upon ourselves.

I couldn’t help but think, ‘when was the last time I did something for the first time?’ My initial reaction was to sink in my seat and feel blasé – we do new things all the time but none of them are what I would call massive. I had a niggle that this question wasn’t actually the right question to be asking myself.

For a couple of days, I pondered…when was the last time I did something for the first time?

And then I had some epiphanies.

Not only am I doing something massive for the first time, so are you and everyone else! We’re all living under various restrictions due to the Coronavirus. For the first time ever there is a prolonged and indefinite massive reduction in our social lives.

In addition to the lack of social engagement, I now am spending all my time with my husband and daughter. Our fuses have gotten short! I’m also having to figure out how to use food wisely – it’s not easy for us to get groceries and we need to make what we do have last as long as possible.

And there’s the fear element too. What if we run out of money before this situation ends? What if we get sick? What if something happens to one of us? What if the country we are in becomes unstable?

Then I thought but THIS IS DIFFERENT.

Julia’s ability to do something for the first time in her life was something to look forward to, something exciting, something fun and adventurous. Surviving your first virus outbreak is none of these!

Ahhhhhhhh…but living under the Coronavirus lock-down IS experience.

And if I take a page out of Julia’s book and drop my preconceived notions about what I think should happen. Or how I want to achieve something and just realize that it’s an EXPERIENCE perhaps I can reflect upon our situation in a more enlightened manner.

Whether we enter willingly or not into doing something for the first time it’s us who determines how the experience plays out.

We can be open to it and allow things to take a course – enjoying the journey as we progress forward. OR, we can fight it and struggle.

It’s not like I’m going to jump through the streets yelling, ‘Yippie – I did something for the first time. I experienced a lock-down, I’m still experiencing it and I have no idea how long it will go!’ But I am going to change my perspective. In fact, I already have.

When you do something you want to do for the first time you’re present.

You’re more in the moment and less worried about your ‘normal’ life. Perhaps if we realize that the Coronavirus is providing us the space to be more present we can find more fulfillment during our lock-down.

I’ve always appreciated nature but now the colors of the sea are deeper. The variety of birds is more pronounced and the taste of things is amplified. This morning Simon was able to score a Passion Fruit. We cut it in half and all three of us took time enjoying the sweet and sour flavor with the crunch of the seeds. We were certainly present.

In hindsight, I don’t think the quote I selected was accurate. I want to change it now to this…

When was the last time you did something for the first time and consciously decided to just experience it?

What are your thoughts about surviving your first virus outbreak? Leave them below in the comments section 🙂

Other Articles/Videos You Might Enjoy

• Cruisers Checklist To Surviving A Virus Outbreak
• The COVID-19 Silver Lining For Cruisers
• Life With The COVID-19 Pandemic – Our YouTube Channel Update

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