Megan and I have often mused about how our life at sea might change us. Would we become brave and intrepid, or terrified out of our wits? Would we sink or swim? Well, the answer may be partially in. Our return to Sydney illustrated to us that we have been changed by our experiences of living on Pavlov. I call those changes 'value propositions', beliefs that structure and give relative values to the world around you.
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| Pyrmont Bridge, SHB in the background. |
The first proposition is just about the value of things. Returning to Sydney illustrated just how aggressive a consumer society it has become. We visited a popular Sydney cafe 'The Grounds', where milkshakes were $8 and a simple breakfast over $20. This cafe was packed with people, the atmosphere was hustle-bustle, the waiters young and rude and the food was just ordinary. But it was a 'must visit' location, according to our hosts. The 'value' that was being sold here was fashionability, it was a trendy place to be, where the in-crowd could be found.
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| Glebe skyline |
We found lots of examples of this, the Woolies supermarket where half the food was pre-prepared ready to eat, at incredible prices. The supermarket even contained its own hip cafe, with huge multimedia wall screen. Sydney was trendy, hip, full of its own self-importance. Its values were about images of success and achievement, of smart designer clothes and clearly, even smarter people.
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| Sydney harbour view |
We felt alien in this environment. We have spent most of the last eighteen months living in quite simple Turkish and Greek villages, both urban and rural. There was very little that was fashionable or trendy. The value of things wasn't inflated by its social cache. I'm sure that I'm over-simplifying, but Sydney just seems so much style over substance, image over reality.
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| Street mosaic. |
Living as we do on a small pension, we have become quite frugal with money. We entertain people on the boat, we cook meals together or have them over for coffee. We say that we are now 'post-consumer', we spend what we have to buy what we need, not what we want. Substance rules over style, necessity over desirability. Our frugal post-consumer reality put us at odds with many Sydney friends that meet in cafes and socialise in places that could cost us our whole weekly allowance for food. We felt that we'd become 'poor cousins' in this environment. In Turkey, we'd never felt branded in this way by our spending profile.
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| Sydney pub in Erskinville |
So, I'll summarise our first changed value proposition as adopting a post-consumerist lifestyle. The second domain wherein we noticed a change was around self-reliance. On the boat, we had to do everything. If the plumbing broke or a toilet blocked, I became the plumber. If the engine needed a new gearbox, Megan and I become qualified transmissions specialists. We repaired or replaced woodwork, electronics, fibreglass, stainless steel. We negotiated for visa extensions, dealing with armed port police and occasionally, smuggling ourselves into countries as illegal immigrants. We navigated fierce meltemi winds and storms, depending only on ourselves to make safe harbour. We dealt with anchors dragging and boat collisions and docking under extreme winds. We've learned to negotiate with crooked tradesmen and the not-so-honest sailing support structure in the Mediterranean.
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| Sophie's kitchen party (although not in the kitchen!). |
This cemented something within us, a willingness to trust and rely totally on each other. But even more, a self-reliance and resilience, a knowledge that we can deal with anything that life throws at us. We've adopted a value proposition of self-reliance. We trust ourselves to cope. However, in Sydney, we are suddenly helpless. We have to rely on friends and acquaintances for the necessities of life. We need help to house and feed ourselves. We're not accustomed to depend in this way on others, it clashes with our current life-style. This has been difficult to negotiate. We feel so secure and independent ensconced within Pavlov. She is our strength and our armour, and we feel a little naked and insecure without her.
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| Sophie's kitchen party |
The final value proposition that's been altered by our life on Pavlov is the need to confront the real. On a boat, you can't ignore a poorly set anchor. If you do, you might awake in the middle of the night in dire circumstances. You can't let maintenance slide, you might live (or not!) to regret it. Life is a little more black and white. As Megan say's, the anchor is either set or its not.
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| Renewed life for the old railway maintenance sheds. |
So, its been fascinating to return to Sydney, and the many old and unfinished relationships that both Megan and I have here. We've also returned to 'family business', a wedding in family fractured by divorce, children affected by separation.
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| Megan's relatives, David and Carolene. |
Our new found value proposition of 'confronting the real' may play out here as well. We'll see if this improves our family relationships and the bonds of friendship during that fraught period of family fragility, Christmas. We'll report back on that one as it all plays out.
Season's Greetings to all from the crew of Pavlov.
