Is it that one has more time to listen when travelling? For certain one does hear more stories, some happy, some sad, some amusing, some mad – especially when viewing 20 plus potential blue water cruisers.

One boat had been abandoned since 2008, but through little details the excitement of the then owner still shown through. A woman in her early forties with a couple of small kids herself had planned to show them the wonders of our blue planet… when one cold and stormy winter night, while getting the boat ready, she fell into the harbor and drowned.

Stories that are more common in the second hand boat arena are owners who waited until retirement to realize their dream of sailing the oceans and then fell ill or died before they could ever cut the lines.

Yesterday we got to a random campsite near Los Gallardos in Andalucia to recharge our batteries – figuratively and literally. Here we are hearing different stories. A lady with two youngsters decided to move to this campsite for a year to unschool her children, reconnect with nature and teach them about simplicity. A story not learned by the last port we stopped in La Manga – a 19km long, less than 1km wide stretch near Murcia. During the boom years countless buildings had been built without leaving a space for nature to breathe. One beside the other, one uglier than the other, and now, a decade or so later, one emptier than the other. It felt like a ghost town, with shit hanging of the walls and disgust steaming out of the gullies.

Back to Los Gallardos, there’s also a bunch of English peops who dominate the campsite. At seven in the morning you see them buzzing around busily in their white polo shirts. They are heading towards the Almeria Bowling Club before the Spanish sun hits too hard. All have settled here in the middle of nowhere, at least semi-permanently, creating a little Britain with hotter weather and a drier landscape. This makes me wonder, is man made to seek adventures, or no matter where we go, do we always try to replicate the proven and known?

Nomadic life gives you the opportunity to listen to many different stories and alternative ways of life. It shows you that ‘normal’ doesn’t exist as everyone builds themselves their own reality. The best you can do, while silently observing, appreciating and learning on the way, is shape your own story with the colours you like most. Everyday makes it more clear that life, happiness and everything beyond and in between lies all in your very own hands.