It was the best of vibes. It was the worst of vibes. We waited for 2020 to have that perfect vision. Nobody could predict what they'd be seeing and doing this year- washing their hands, wearing a mask and social distancing because of the global pandemic.Normally, we would be sailing in the Norwegian Fjords, The Baltics or through Alaska's wildlife super highway, Glacier Bay . Tis the season but all fleets have come to a grinding halt.
DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP. or the goal of taking a vacation- ..You can't deny gravity, or the gravity of the situation, and traveling these days will never be the same. I'd have to get resourceful, resilient and drive somewhere long distance in an automobile.
I rented a land yacht, a 2020 Mitsubishi Outlander (my protective bubble from the Covidiots who refused to take the virus seriously enough to follow some basics) and drove from Palm Beach to Jackson Hole, WY. Planning a road trip now is like trying to build an airplane as you're flying one ... data changes constantly..so I avoided airports, public transport and took my chances in a SUV, and hit the interstate freeways. Three days (daze) later I rolled up on The Grand Tetons. I've sailed the seven seas, and visited every imaginable port of call, but being double-land locked would be a first.
Show rather than tell- If words are a net to capture beauty then I have been deputized as a commercial fisherman by virtue of my Samsung S10+--these videos below are drift netting and capture views of everything natural.
Double Land Locked In Montana and Wyoming
5,669 miles, 133 hrs driving I drove from Palm Beach to Jackson Hole,m WY,
staying in my Pandemic Bubble car.... Wasnt taking any chances.
It took 3 days, and it was an endurance challenge-Mission Accomplished, and just to
add another 5 hours, I continued to Vegas for 4 nights.
5 years ago this June, I was on top of the world, literally, at The Arctic Circle
I am again on top of the world at Yellowstone, this big, wild and stunning National Park.
The new(er) port of Falmouth looks so colonial and British Empire Authentic. Sailed here several times this decade, with RCC, MSC and like today, Disney
Just Do It...Later Swish.. with Red Stripe Beer
Traditional colonial tin roof dwelling
CYCLeOGOST
Rain or shine, I got you covered
One can imagine sugar cane merchants, the red clay roads leading to their plantations and "servants" burning and cropping the fields to harvest the cane; mixed with the sweet smell of molasses, a by product from refining the white gold.
This was a bygone time before Sweet and Low and Splenda.
No to Decaf, and Sugar Substitutes, with zero calories.
The bittersweet fact remains, African slaves, who outnumbered the Europeans 10 to 1, did all the labour.The effects I have come to know through Reggae music. Bob Marley's Redemption Song, vividly tells how awful the slave trade was.
2015 Disney Magic Pier Group berthing us safely
2014 The view from Deck 12 of the Navigator of the Seas . And from land, Docking next to The Freedom of the Seas
I started sailing here in 2009(MSC)Still amazing
The precip is fine mist that never creates puddles.Cool!
Documenting these travels with pictures has the added advantage of it being true, and therefore you have to tolerate contradictions and see things from different perspectives.
"You worked on a cruise ship and you worked in a war zone,huh?" Yep, from cruise ship to cruise missiles. Same thing , "At your service. Yes Maam, Yes Sir". Both are- The Hospitality Industry. Both are 24- hour work environments.
It is very important that expedition history not be distilled to just those great man and woman like Magellan, Edmund Hillary, Lewis and Clark et al., but to the regular folk who go out to do their own exploring and circumnavigation of the Earth and then blog about it-literature in a hurry.
No matter where I go there I am. I can still look up at the same moon, stars albeit different hemisphere. It innately belongs to all of us, children of this planet. I'm stricken by, what poet Diane Ackerman calls " the ricochet wonder of it all: the plain everythingness of everything, in cahoots with the everythingness of everything else"- Cosmic Pastoral.
"People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things".Edmund Hillary
What good is having a belly if there's no fire in it. Wake up, drink your passion, light a match, and get to work. We rarely see the incremental baby steps taken when looking for enormous outcomes, but deserving enormous outcomes is mostly the result of a series of small steps, and the art and science of achievement of turning the invisible into something visible is the consequence. State it and Create it: I want to travel around the world was the mantra I told myself everyday ad far back as I can remember. How did I do it...one port at a time, mostly by sea..
Enlighten Up- The path lies inward and its:
Direction Over Speed
There are 2 things that determine our life:
the quality of our decisions and luck. You cannot make progress without making decisions, and you will make those decisions over time with uncertainty. I call them bets.
The Earth School kills all of its students
When your future version of you gets involved in the present version of you to get to better decisions...your life takes on a new optimal perspective. You "release your emergency brake" and when you land things start to Take Off. When you truly feel the emotions of the future, add gratitude, and it is as if you have already signed for it.
You have two lives and when you realize that you only have one, the second begins and we create better decisions as other versions of ourselves..
A bet: a decision about an uncertain future. The implications of treating decisions as bets made it possible for me to find learning opportunities in uncertain environments. Treating decisions as bets, I discovered, helped me avoid common decision traps, learn from results in a more rational way, and keep emotions out of the process as much as possible.
In fact, we have no future.But what an awesome present..its useless to make plans.You can get anywhere from here. As long as you are HERE
I am a time Millionaire with hours of routine and drill, followed by moments of extreme terror.
What an awesome gift- the present I mean.You can get anywhere from here as long as you are HERE
I was an early adaptor, embracing tech and the ipod in all its iterations...and here is an analogy-we spend a lot of time in fast forward worrying about the future, and in rewind ruminating on the past, but we rarely press play and live in the present.
If you’re pointed in the wrong direction, it doesn’t matter how fast you’re traveling. Inversely, if you’re locked on to your desired destination, all progress is positive, no matter how slow you’re going. You’ll reach your goal eventually.
