Almost……

When You Feel Stuck in the Harbour

Some days I look around the marina and see more than boats.

I see stories.

There’s the immaculate cruiser whose decks are scrubbed weekly but never leave the berth. The blue-hulled racer that once crossed oceans and now just creaks gently against the pontoon. The family boat with the faded stickers along the hull, hinting at adventures that stopped a few summers ago and never quite restarted.

And then there are the boats with For Sale boards.

I work with those a lot at the moment – helping people prepare their boats, photograph them, write their stories, and eventually hand them on to new owners. On the surface, it’s about brokerage and marketing. But underneath, it’s nearly always about something much bigger:

A season of life ending.
A dream that changed shape.
A quiet knowing that says, It’s time for something new.

And that’s not just about boats. It’s about you and me too.

The quiet ache of “almost”

Most people I work with at Navaia aren’t broken. Their lives haven’t crashed onto the rocks. From the outside, things often look pretty good.

Careers that pay the bills.
Houses that are warm and safe.
Weekends that are… fine.

But there’s a particular ache that shows up when you’re living an “almost” life.

You’re almost fulfilled.
Almost present.
Almost alive.

It’s like owning a beautiful yacht and only ever motoring out for an hour on a flat, grey day. Technically, you’re using it. But deep down you know what it’s built for – and you know that isn’t it.

That gap – between what your life is currently being used for and what it’s actually capable of – is where the restlessness lives.

Maybe you feel it at 3am, staring at the ceiling.
Maybe you feel it on a Sunday night, when the week ahead feels copy-pasted from the last.
Maybe you feel it scrolling through other people’s adventures, wondering when you quietly gave up on your own.

The “someday” harbour

There’s a story I see play out over and over again in marinas:

Someone buys a boat with big intentions.
One day we’ll sail to Scotland.
One day we’ll do the Atlantic.
One day we’ll take six months off and just go.

But life happens. Work gets busier. Kids grow up. Parents get older. The list of reasons not to go grows longer and more sensible. “One day” keeps moving out, like the tide.

The boat still gets used, but only in safe, predictable ways – a spin around the bay, a picnic at anchor, the same short trips repeated each season. All good things, but a long way from the original dream.

And then, eventually, the day comes when the owner stands on the pontoon, looks at the boat, and says to themselves:

If I’m honest… I’m never going to do those big trips in this boat. This chapter is over.

It’s a hard moment. There’s grief in it. But there’s also something incredibly powerful: honesty.

Because the truth is, you can’t step into a new chapter while pretending the old one is still alive.

Owning the truth you’ve been avoiding

The same moment shows up in our lives in different costumes.

It sounds like:

• “I’m not happy in this job – and I haven’t been for a long time.”

• “This version of success doesn’t fit me anymore.”

• “I’ve been waiting for permission to change, and I’m finally realising no one is coming to give it.”

When I sailed across the Atlantic with my family, it wasn’t a neat, tidy decision. It was messy and inconvenient and full of risk. But at some point I had to admit to myself that the life I was living – the carefully controlled, always busy, always productive life – wasn’t the one I truly wanted.

And once I’d seen that, I couldn’t unsee it.

That’s the uncomfortable gift of honesty: it moves you from “someday” to “now”. It doesn’t mean you change everything overnight. But it does mean you stop lying to yourself about how okay you are.

You stop telling yourself that a few weekends away each year can make up for a life that’s slowly shrinking around you.

Letting go to move forward

When a boat goes under offer, there’s usually a mix of emotions. Relief. Sadness. Excitement. Nostalgia.

The owner isn’t just selling a thing. They’re releasing a version of themselves:

• The young family who first bought the boat, full of energy and ideas.

• The ambitious sailor who dreamed of races they never quite entered.

• The couple who always planned that big adventure but ended up using the boat for stolen weekends instead.

Letting go can feel like failure: If I sell this boat, does it mean I failed at the dream?

But I don’t see it that way.

I see people making space.

Space for a different kind of adventure.
Space for a new way of living.
Space for a life that matches who they are now, not who they were a decade ago.

Sometimes that looks like a smaller, simpler boat that fits a new season. Sometimes it looks like stepping away from boat ownership entirely and exploring the world in different ways – on foot, by bike, or on someone else’s yacht. Sometimes, selling the boat is the first courageous step towards a bigger shift they’ve been avoiding for years.

You don’t move forward by saying “this wasn’t supposed to end”. You move forward by acknowledging that it is ending – and asking what that ending might be making room for.

What if being “stuck” is just a sign?

If life feels stuck right now, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re broken.

It might simply mean:

• You’ve outgrown the old dream.

• The container you built for your life – the job, the routine, the identity – is now too small.

• You’ve reached the limit of what “more of the same” can give you.

There’s a point, at the harbour entrance, where you can’t cling to the comfort of flat water and feel the pull of the open sea. You have to choose.

Turn back and stay where it’s familiar.
Or sheet in, commit, and go.

The same goes for your life.

Choosing to leave the harbour doesn’t guarantee flat seas or perfect winds. It doesn’t guarantee you won’t get scared halfway to the horizon and wonder what on earth you were thinking.

But staying tied to the pontoon guarantees something else: slow, silent regret.

Beginning doesn’t require a grand gesture

Here’s the part I remind myself of, and my coaching clients, over and over:

You don’t have to sell everything, quit your job, and sail around the world to honour the restlessness inside you.

You just have to begin.

That might look like:

• Admitting – honestly, maybe for the first time – that you’re not happy with the way things are.

• Taking one small, concrete step this week towards a change you’ve been thinking about for years.

• Saying out loud to someone you trust, “I want something different,” even if you don’t know what that looks like yet.

When we sailed across the Atlantic, the real decision didn’t happen when we cast off in Las Palmas. It happened months earlier, at a kitchen table, with a messy conversation, a lot of fear, and a quiet decision to stop living “almost”.

Everything else – the planning, the miles, the storms, the sunrises at sea – flowed from that.

If this resonates with you

If you’re reading this and feeling a knot in your stomach, maybe this is your version of standing on the pontoon, looking at a boat you love, and knowing something has to change.

Maybe you don’t know what the next chapter looks like yet. That’s okay. You don’t need a fully drawn chart to leave the berth. You just need a direction, a willingness to be honest, and the courage to take the next small step.

That’s what I built Navaia for.

Not for people whose lives have already fallen apart, but for people who can feel the quiet ache of “almost” and are ready to do something about it. People who want to move from stuck to moving, from fine to fully alive – whether that’s on a mountain trail, on a bike, or out at sea.

If any of this feels familiar, consider this your invitation.

To stop waiting for “someday”.
To stop pretending the harbour is enough.
To start charting your next chapter – deliberately, bravely, and on purpose.

And if you’d like someone alongside you as you do that, that’s what I’m here for.