When Time Forgot to Pass: Notes from Month 14 of 2020

📅 Month 14 of 2020: What a Year!

When perfect vision became survival vision

🏝️ British Virgin Islands - Where the incredible year began

January 2020

🚢 Caribbean Sailaway Dreams

It started with Christmas and New Years sailaways on Disney Cruise Lines in The Eastern and Western Caribbean. New Year (January 1, 2020) and a day in The US Virgin Islands. After a mile walk around the deck we witnessed the sun rising against the Caribbean blue ocean. Spectacular.

🏰 Castaway Cay - Disney's Private Paradise

🇺🇸 US Virgin Islands
Decade - St Thomas

🇧🇸 Bahamas
Where The Waves Are

🇰🇾 Grand Cayman
Liquid Adventures

✨ Frozen 2 and Fireworks at Sea

March 2020

🦠 Then COVID Hit

Travel changed forever... 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.

🚨 PANDEMIC PIVOT
"DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP or the goal of taking a vacation. You can't deny gravity, or the gravity of the situation."

Planning a road trip now is like trying to build an airplane as you're flying one... data changes constantly. Time to get resourceful, resilient and drive somewhere long distance in an automobile.

June 2020

🚗 Yellowstone Road Trip - WY Not?

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. 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.

🗺️ Epic 2,000+ mile journey from palm trees to peaks

🌋 The Grand Daddy of National Parks

🎬 The Awe in Awesome - Yellowstone Adventures

🏔️ Yellowstone Stats: It was the best of vibes. It was the worst of vibes. We waited for 2020 to have that perfect vision. Mother Nature and Father Time had a field day in WY, MT, ID.

December 2020

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Fair Isle - Ultimate Social Distancing

Yet we managed to finish the year out on Britain's most remote inhabited island, population 45, taking physical distancing Uber seriously. Britain's most remote inhabited island. We flew in this morning. It feels like we are walking into a painting. Think Norway meets Hawaiian islands and Father Time and Mother Nature have a field day.

🐑 Fair Isle - Where sheep outnumber people 20:1

Population: 55, now 57!

115 islands in archipelago

15 inhabited

First, Sarah and I flew into Lerwick, Shetland's mainland via Edinburgh, Scotland. Next, we got a PCR test for Covid (Think Positive Test Negative). Then, we followed-on to Fair Isle. What a place to self-isolate during the global pandemic!

👫 FAIR ISLE - Are we there yet? Being there.

🎥 Living off the grid, walking through paintings

December 2020

⚡ Living Off The Grid

Fair Isle is not connected to the National Grid. Energy is generated in the island by the Fair Isle Electricity Company (FIEC) using wind turbines and solar and this is stored in a battery back up system. We brought Torches, flashlights, as there is zero light pollution or street lights.

🗼 South Lighthouse - Where Josie and Dave live

There are two choices for transport to reach the island - take it or leave it. The first involves a 20-minute straight run aboard a 'puddle jumper, 7 seater fixed-wing plane from the mainland of Shetland. Thankfully, that link was not cancelled, due to fog, wind or just plain bad weather, then it would have been a ferry, actually a converted fishing vessel, the Good Shepherd IV.

✈️ Taking physical distancing Uber seriously

Dec 31, 2020

🎊 The Year That Never Ended

From Disney Magic fireworks at sea to Fair Isle's zero light pollution - 2020 took us from crowded cruise ships to the most remote inhabited island in Britain. We went from washing hands on luxury liners to washing dishes in a lighthouse keeper's cottage.

📸 Ed and Sarah - 2020 Pandemic Travel Champions

🏝️ Caribbean
Cruise Paradise

🏔️ Yellowstone
Road Trip Resilience

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Fair Isle
Ultimate Isolation

🏰 Dover
White Cliffs Wonder

🎆 New Year's fireworks - when setting things on fire on a ship was still possible

"2020 - What a year! We waited for 2020 to have that perfect vision. Nobody could predict what they'd be seeing and doing this year. From cruise ship luxury to Fair Isle simplicity - sometimes the best adventures happen when all your plans get cancelled."

🌟 2020 Travel Stats: Started with Caribbean sailaways, survived pandemic pivots, drove 2,000+ miles across America, flew to Scotland's most remote island, and ended the year with a population of 57 instead of 55. When they ask about 2020 vision, we can say we literally had it - we saw everything coming and adapted anyway.