Am I Indiana Jones Yet?

For months leading up to my departure for Los Angeles, I wondered what my montage song would be. As I boarded the plane, stared out the window, and watched what I had known disappear, what song would play over these images in the movie that was my life? After months of searching, I landed on the clichê Time of our Lives by Green Day, for which I thought was a genius choice. I had always equated my life to a film or television; that’s the way I viewed the world, through the lense of the media I adored. So, as we continue this journey, I’m beginning to wonder, am I Indiana Jones yet?

When this journey began, we were smack in the middle of a pandemic. Even though it was something we had planned to do, we never expected it to begin when it did. The original plan was to shoot footage over the summer as we slowly did our refit, and begin releasing videos in the fall. All of sudden, thanks to COVID, we had a ton of time on our hands. So, this crazy and amazing journey began for us. It was like the beginning of our very own adventure movie and the lockdown was our inciting incident. It’s the moment that upended our normal lives and propelled us on this journey. It was exhilarating, and quite terrifying. It was unlike anything we had ever done before, which makes for a perfect film! The biggest problem was, the protagonists of this journey forget they were even on an adventure. After about one month into the pandemic, it just turned into another job. Which completely ruins the second act of a movie!

Quite frankly, I’m not even sure when I began to equate my life to the media. Perhaps I assumed I would live some grand life that was beyond the norm. Perhaps it was a way for me to find logic in the chaos. If I equated my life to a movie or tv show, that would mean it followed a strict narrative. Cue “Life is Not a Movie” from Crazy Ex Girlfriend, because life doesn’t make narrative sense. The origin of my mindset truly doesn’t matter though, because I continued moving forward. Except, we forgot we were still on an adventure. Sure, it didn’t follow all the conventions of storytelling, but it was an adventure nonetheless. We were doing things we never thought we would do, meeting new people, gaining new skills, and seeing things we had never seen before. If that doesn’t sound like an adventure, then I guess I don’t know what one is then. You will hear a ton of the YouTubers in the Sailing world say that it is another job, which is true. The problem is when you only view it as such. The moment that happens, you need to reevaluate what you’re doing, or your mindset. Us forgetting about our adventure forced us to rush, and forget why we even started this to begin with. It wasn’t just about speedos on a beach in Florida. Sure that sounds nice and sexy and everything, but there was more to it than the third act of the movie. It was about the promise of the premise, the adventure. The adventure that ended up on the rocks, literally.

For like two point five seconds, I thought that adventure was over. I thought the network calendar said we were cancelled because of our premature season finale. That was all I thought about for weeks. That this was the end. When Ixion decided he wanted to get stuck there, nothing else occurred to me. Sure I said the journey was just beginning and would continue, but the inner demon inside of me who calls themselves my producer said nope. Fin. The End. That’s all I heard for a while. Well guess what, I fired the bitch. You can always find another producer in Hollywood, they’re a dime a dozen. It was then that we realized the rocks weren’t the series finale, just a really great season finale. It was the cliffhanger we needed for our series. We always viewed our lives through our media, so why the hell would be surprised when life decided to give us such a dramatic way to end season one? We should have seen it coming, we had seen the movie a million times! Then the aha moment, and we realized it was just part of the journey! The adventure continued. Act two wasn’t over just yet, it was just beginning.

Cliffhangers are designed to bring you back. Whether it be at the end of a season, movie, or book. It leaves you wanting more so that you come back and see what happens next. That’s exactly what happened to us! Our electric sailboat may have wrecked, but it’s just part of the story. We always have to remember that we are on an adventure, and realize that the best parts of adventure stories are when there are hurdles our heroes have to overcome. If everyone just succeeded without obstacles, it would be the most boring story ever created, or porn. So, I hope you all are ready for the second season, because we are! This adventure will continue and your heroes, us, will be back and better than ever! We have some amazing stuff planned and I can’t wait for you all to see it! Just remember, in this story, I’m Harrison Ford. Deal with it!

To watch our journey from the beginning and see how we have progressed, click here on the episode page.

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