Did My Heart Manifest a Sailboat to Take Me Across the Atlantic?!

Me at 26 on the sailing boat

It’s funny how I ended up on a sailing yacht as a crew member. There were three of us and a dog, setting off on a serious journey across the Atlantic Ocean, and I had no sailing experience. Or enough money to cover the eight-month trip. Or equipment. I just needed to go, go, go! It felt like my heart wanted to jump out of my chest.

I had finished university and just started working as a journalist, which was what I had studied. I was 25 and felt like I really needed some “me time” before starting a career.

I loved my job. You could say I immediately fell in love with it. But it was so intense from the very beginning that I quickly realized once you start doing it for real, there’s no easy way out. And I was right, because years and years of hard work in journalism, mostly covering crime, ended in huge burnout for me.

So it was clear to me that I didn’t want to work hard yet, but I had no idea what else to do or where to go. I just had itchy feet. Very itchy.

Then a miracle happened

“My” sailing boat

One day, a sailboat with a captain looking for crew to sail to the Americas appeared out of nowhere and dropped anchor in the sea right by my house. It was literally anchored a hundred meters away. Just as if it came to answer the call of my heart.

I didn’t care about not having sailing experience, not knowing what was waiting for me out on the open sea, or the fact that just a few months earlier I had been a poor student. I believed I could always find a job or borrow the money. I had no doubts about anything. I was sure I was going. It was my wish, and it was coming true. There was no other option.

“Yes, captain, we are going. You just don’t know it yet”

The captain himself soon became very popular in my village in Croatia. I mean, the guy had sailed around the world with a purebred Portuguese water dog on a beautiful seventeen-meter boat. He walked around the village, went to cafés and stores wearing a leather sarong only (no underwear), and he said it out loud to anyone who asked. He immediately captured the attention of the small village where everyone knows everything about everyone.

Word spread that he was planning a trip around the world, and I decided I was going with him. He didn’t know it yet. And I didn’t even feel the need to tell him right away. I didn’t want to elbow my way through the posers hanging around him just because they thought he was cool.

He often took people for free on short sailboat trips he called “sunset cruises” at the end of the day. They would sail out to watch the sun set directly into the sea and drink cocktails. That’s actually a rare phenomenon, both the sight of the sun sinking into the sea and someone making cocktails for free. So the boat was overcrowded with party people. I never joined.

“Oh, go away already, you insignificant people”

Instead, I enjoyed swimming, sunbathing, and watching them from the beach. I was so sure everything would unfold just as I wanted that I didn’t even worry about when or how it would happen. I just lay in the sun by the sea and watched a bunch of unimportant people sailing off into the sunset with my sailboat and my captain.

Watching the sails lift, butterflies would flutter in my stomach. I adored that boat even before I set foot on it. I enjoyed the anticipation of how and when things would start to unfold. Of course, I never told anyone this, because it sounds awful when said out loud. Sometimes I even surprise myself when I remember how certain I was that nothing could go wrong. But some things in life, you just know.

I could peacefully observe the elegant curve of my sailboat in the sea without doubt or fear that it would sail without me. I just smiled like an idiot and watched it, enjoying the sight. I knew I had no money. I didn’t even know how much I needed for the trip or how to get it. I had never sailed before. But that didn’t concern me at all.

“I was born by the sea”, I thought, “I’d manage.”

Me, sailing

Sailing agreement made in a local café

So I patiently waited for the day when I would fulfill my dream, and it was getting irreversibly closer every second. It gave me goosebumps.

The sailing agreement between the captain and me was made in a local café after the tourist season ended and people had left, and we finally met. In the meantime, the captain changed his mind and said we would sail across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic to the Caribbean and back instead of around the world. That was fine with me.

All the people who had wanted to go suddenly changed their minds. Besides the captain and his dog, only one guy from the village and I were ready to leave everything behind and head for the open seas. I was supposed to be the crew member who wrote stories about our adventures and handled the media promotion of the journey. That was exactly what I wanted.

I managed to sell my stories

My city editor wasn’t happy when I told him I was leaving for a trip across the Atlantic. He edited urban stories from the capital for the daily newspaper where I had started working while still studying. He couldn’t use my travel stories in the city section. He told me, with irony, “Let me know if you find Atlantis,” thereby closing the topic. Spoiler alert, I didn’t find Atlantis, but I came close.

Instead, I sent that story to a different editor. He was in charge of the section full of bizarre stories, and I sometimes wrote for him as well. He had a reputation for being difficult to write for, but he was always pleasant with me and didn’t nitpick much. I loved covering unusual stories, so I wrote for him whenever my city column work allowed it. He only published great stories. Every journalist in our newspaper wanted to work for him because it was a matter of prestige and he paid very well.

He loved the idea of me leaving everything behind and going into the unknown.

“It is a story magnet,” he told me.

So we made a deal. I would send him stories I found during my journey as a freelancer. Perfect. I loved the idea of traveling and writing, and I wanted to do it for the rest of my life.

So we really went. And yes, I had a lot of material to write about. For example, I met a world-famous scientist and explorer whom I had admired all my childhood. He was 84 and still working on new discoveries. Of course, I wrote a story about it.

The voyage itself was unbelievable. My editor was right, sailing into the unknown was a magnet for stories. I met many interesting people and had incredible adventures, and also some really dangerous situations. I will tell you all about it.

But let me ask you something first.

Was this an example of manifestation? Did I manifest a sailing yacht to take me to another part of the world? Was this anticipation of great things without worry or doubt, but with joy in the heart, the way you communicate with the Universe?

If yes, why can’t I do it again? Sometimes I can find a free parking spot in a crowded place, but that’s about the limit of my manifestation ability. Maybe the Universe doesn’t love me anymore, or maybe I just have too many doubts in my heart now. How can I ever love like that again? You know, when your heart feels swollen just thinking about the things you love? What do you think? Do you still love like crazy?