Our return to Sea Odyssey during Covid
Emily:
Matt and I teamed up on this one. I’ll set the stage for you. Then Matt comes in and sums up perfectly the reflective side of things in the second half.
We left in a hurry. We didn’t mean to leave in a hurry but we did indeed leave all of a sudden. And it went like this ~
We initially bought tickets sometime in October for Thanksgiving Day. They got canceled. The cool thing about that was we could re-book for any time. The flexibility was a nice luxury. Unfortunately, this allowed us to dilly dally mentally. Meaning we didn’t really commit to packing, lol, which did bite us in the ass later.
We were thinking about leaving but couldn’t confirm a date. Then boom, confirmed. Two days later, gone. We did manage to button up packing everything by 4:00 am that morning so no harm done… smh, that is sarcasm.
The airports were extremely empty. The world has been dealing with COVID for some time now so I don’t think anyone is really surprised to read that, but for us, it was definitely eerie. Here we are moving about the world just when the numbers are really ramping up again. It ain’t great. Stressful in fact.
What are we doing? Maybe we shouldn’t have done this right now? What are we heading into? What will life be like in Finike? Are we going to be trapped on the boat? Will we get COVID in a foreign country? Are we putting people at risk? Yeah, stressful.
Isolating to the max
We definitely made a lot of sacrifices as far as isolating ourselves while in the USA. We didn’t go out, we didn’t eat out or do take out, we wiped all our shit down, shopped in the mornings, on and on. We both agreed we didn’t want COVID stopping us from getting back to Sea Odyssey. If we got sick and were one of the lucky ones who didn’t fair well, we might not be able to return to Sea Odyssey, like ever. So we did what we needed to do to ensure our freedom… one day.
But how long tho? It was getting increasingly harder to watch people living. What were we waiting for? But then there is spreading it to people at greater risk! Ugh! What to do? Everything sucked.
At the end of the day, we just made the choice to isolate on the boat. At least there we will be happier. We will feel like we are living our lives.
You’ll see a lot of countries crossed out??
Much easier on arrival.
Matt:
Why now
Waiting for life to return to normal has not been easy, to say the least. We have been patient and prudent awaiting the return to Sea Odyssey. We have come to the realization now that life may never return to the way we remember.
The time is now to make the tough adjustments and get on with living life. Changes, although not easy, mostly have been needed and have presented new and different opportunities. It’s a time for growth. What will it be this time? We have no idea. But we will adjust to this too. That’s the thing about change, no choice sometimes.
Gotta move forward
Heading off to a foreign country during a pandemic probably seems a bit crazy. It has not been a simple choice to make. It’s a bit like walking on stones across a river. You never know if the next stone will support you as well as the last one but you can’t cross a river without making that step forward. Questions like what if this and what if that does constantly pop into our minds. We wouldn’t be human if they didn’t.
We will do the extras to stay safe and make the choice to continue the journey rather than not. We have included in our travel gear this year masks and goggles and even a few Clorox wipes to clean the plane and seats on the way to Turkey. We do a temp check now and then throughout the day to reassure ourselves that we’re ok, even though we feel just fine.
A different kind of life
We are not looking forward to the isolation portion of the next few months. We like people and enjoy interacting with them. It’s what has made this journey fun and exciting. Sundowners and happy hours will never be the same I fear.
We are hopeful, though, we have learned enough to avoid the pitfalls that lay ahead. All challenges are accepted and life will continue on, just differently.
Emily:
Hopefully the resolution is on the way to protect our older generation and compromised individuals so everyone can get busy living again!
A not-so-fun fact
We only prepped Sea Odyssey to be gone for one month, not eleven months. There are certain things we would have done differently had we known there was a global pandemic on the way. As it turned out, we headed to San Francisco right before it all came into play and has been the reason we didn’t return to Sea Odyssey earlier.
So how did Sea Odyssey fair after 11 months? You can check out our first impression when we return to Sea Odyssey in this video. Read the video description for more details.
Don’t forget to like, comment and share if you liked the video!
Before you go…
You’re diggin on those goggles aren’t you…
If you want them, you could use our Amazon affiliate link. Just saying…
