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A Life Less Ordinary

Wordless Wednesday – Anticipation

I have decided to post photos of past travels in general and our eight year sailing adventure on SV Irie in particular for Wordless Wednesdays.  Also, I can’t manage “completely wordless”, but I’ll try my best at “almost wordless”. 🙂

With thousands of photos haphazardly archived over the years, I can’t easily pick what to post, so I use the weekly prompt of the Daily Post to inspire my Wordless Wednesdays. This week’s Daily Post photography theme is “anticipation“.

Anticipation is an interesting theme. It lifts the spirit, makes your heart jump, creates excitement, and can be fun, unless reality turns out to be nothing like you predicted. Anticipation does not prepare you for what will actually happen, which can be better, or worse. Anticipation can create dread if faced with something you don’t look forward to. When the situation is entered, things might turn out better than expected, leading to relief.

Anticipation’s big brother is expectation. It fits in the same category. While I used to love the excitement of anticipation and had strong expectations about certain upcoming events or destinations, experience has taught me not to fall into that trap. Many times, anticipation, or more often expectation, leads to disappointment, taking the joy right out of it. Of course, the brain has a mind of its own and whether you want it or not, anticipation and expectation are part of life, so it’s better to enjoy the butterflies and be prepared for possible downfalls!

To me the best representation of anticipation is landfall, especially after a long or tough sailing passage. While we don’t think much about the destination itself before arriving, the thought of being in a comfortable anchorage and resting up again is enough to make us antsy to get there. Having impressive scenery greet us is a bonus.

Getting somewhere by plane, especially landing in “new” territory causes a similar feeling of anticipation. Although in this case, I am pretty sure that I will be comfortable and ready to explore once I reach my destination. Anticipation grows  stronger when returning to our home countries, where we know what to expect.

Do you succumb to anticipation and expectations? Do you enjoy the feeling?

4 Comments

  1. Great theme! I’m usually pretty good at tempering my expectations for the unknown, but get excited to return to known places, like a favorite restaurant.

  2. Before we harbour-hopped up the west coast of the US in 2008, we had a serious case of nerves. It didn’t help that a sailing friend who had years of offshore experience sent us an email days beforehand begging us not to go, stating we were going to die. Well, we didn’t die and with every major milestone behind us, we felt a huge sense of relief.

    Merry Christmas,
    Stephanie @ SV CAMBRIA

  3. Wow, those pictures are gorgeous! What was Galapagos like? It’s on my bucket list.

    I try not to expect things in order to avoid disappointment, but I definitely get excited/nervous when landing in a place I’ve never been before. I’ve yet to be disappointed by any place I’ve been, so I guess I’ve been lucky that way.

    • You’ve never been disappointed by any place you have been, partly because of not having high expectations probably… 🙂

      Galapagos did not disappoint! Some cruisers had told us before that it was “expensive and not worth all the money”, and “if you have seen one tortoise…” But, we went and bought a cruising permit for two months, which was “only” $200 more than the permit that allows boats to stay for three weeks. We did not do expensive tours and instead, just enjoyed three islands at our own pace, having sea lions hang out on our back steps, penguins swim around our boat and boobies dive in formation off our bow. We swam with turtles, sea lions, rays an penguins and enjoyed every amazing wildlife encounter that came our way. It was expensive for us (about $1000 to just be there on our own boat), but worth it! Living costs were cheap. Needless to say, on top of our Panama Canal crossing (also $1000) that same year, 2013 was expensive!

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