

This project is not about a great idea that you have never seen before. It is about the little things, which make Life big.
Why boat observation tracker and why you?
Actually, you can choose any kind of activity to track. The idea is to find something you love to do, better with a person you love, and to start doing it as often as possible.
Stuck in Europe because of the Covid situation and with no information on when it will be possible to fly back to Australia, my husband and I decided to move to our coastal home. It is a small apartment, but with a great view. Which makes our early morning balcony coffee drinking very exciting.
In these October days, already short, the sky is still dark at 6 am, with thousands of huge stars and all the sea is full of the bright little lights of the fishermen’s boats. The sky looks like it melts into the sea so that no one can say where the one finishes and other begins. It is the Zargan (Garfish) season and dozens of small boats are going out in the small bays around our home all day and night. So beautiful!
How often do you stop to appreciate the view around and the people you love?
Maybe this sounds a bit weird, but there is one thing I really appreciate about these Covid times. My husband started working from home, so we spend almost all the time together. We talk a lot more – dreaming, making plans. Sharing feelings and observations…
Somehow, I’ve reduced my pace and am feeling more and more often how little things are visible. The formations of the ducks flying above (can you imagine, it never looks like a perfect V). The breathing of the sea wind around our rooms. The ever changing colours of the water. The mystical mist above the waters in the distant bay. The almost monochromatic look of some days, when the clouds look like they’ve been drawn with charcoal, smeared with a finger.
There are afternoons, when the sea is so calm, the wind is sleeping somewhere in the mountains behind us and I can hear almost nothing. Not even the seagulls’ usually raucous cries.


And I made a Boat observation tracker
Boat tracking started somehow accidently. We were counting the times when the flock of ducks were flying from North to East and back. The number of the cormorants, drying their wings in the sun, the huge distant alien-like structures of the ships on the horizon. The blond lady from the big house behind, walking her dog on the beach… and the number of boats. Now, two months later, we already recognize some boats, as people recognize their neighbours: “Oh, “Covia” is in the bay for the second time today!”, “The pink boat is here again!”, “I didn’t see the black boat recently…”. Maybe with time, if we become more “local”, we will meet all these people, will start having not only imaginary conversations like, “What you are doing in these waves? Aren’t you cold?!”, but for now only can discern which are “ours” and which are not. In our small marina all the boats are blue and white, so the pink and black ones are not ours. Even “Covia” with her bright solid orange lines we haven’t seen in our village… A whole new life, so different from the one in the busy city.
It is easy to make it
I used for the cover a page from my watercolour sketchbook and simple A4 size office printer paper, folded on two.


Then, as a cover, I painted in water colours a funny picture of us both, covered with a blanket and with our coffee cups and binoculars.


When the cover was ready, just pierced the holes for the page binding will be. Because I didn’t take with me any specific instruments, I used the sofa cushions as a soft mat for making the holes…


… and then used my needle and thread and sewed the pages of your Boat observation tracker together.


I am telling you, it is very easy and really fun to make.


You don’t need any specific instruments. Only a desire to do something together with someone you love. It is not necessary to track boats, but if you have this option, why not? Write about birds, kisses you shared, the cats you have seen, the flowers in your garden… Just start seeing the world around you more often in all its beauty.
This is the strange, but precious gift, which the pandemic has given me. We have to start seeing and feeling our Life. There’ll be no other one.
…Soon the swans will come into our bay…
Enjoy your days and be safe! ♥


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Thank you for helping me! ♥
Also…
If you are a notebook or a journal, or a tracker lover, maybe this article will be interesting for you: DIY smash journal from unwanted paper


And something else to think about:
Often we buy our materials in whole packs and after a certain project always something is left over and has to be hidden away in a box or an envelope. As the paper pieces from the article above (they are not ugly, just don’t answer my style)… And this is cluttering up our workspace – maybe a lot! The problem is that not only do they clutter your craft area, but also they are also cluttering your mind. For me this is the biggest problem and if you want to read more about this, you can check my book about Capsule craft collection.

