Hawaii_ My First
My First Ship
I showed up in Hawaii, and magical things began to unfold. It all began with one simple decision—to go.
Hero Header · Answer the CallIt Began With One Simple Decision: Go.
I showed up in Hawaii, and magical things began to unfold.
Being here placed me in a unique space—one that fostered personal exploration, oneness, and mystical experience. I was fortunate to tap into the ancient teachings of Huna, where Hawaiian spiritual traditions speak of life force as mana, and where attention, intention, and energy become part of how you move through the world.
These practices became part of my life on the island, guiding me in ways I never expected.
The Journey in Images
The images below are placed in the sequence you requested: the story moves from American Hawaii Cruises into the lived chapter, onward to the ocean-liner years, and finally into the Hero’s Journey frame that ties the arc together.
Life aboard ship becomes a lived reality rather than a distant idea.
A later sea-years frame: the great ocean-liner chapter enters the archive.
The Hero’s Journey diagram turns the travel-and-ship story into a coherent life map.
Fortune Began Opening Doors.
My journey began with an unexpected opportunity on the television show Lost. Soon after, teaching contracts appeared, allowing me to stay longer, go deeper, and experience Hawaii not as a visitor passing through, but as a place that had begun to reorganize my life.
Even the reverse commute from my condo in Ka-a-a-va became part of the rhythm. The route itself felt like evidence: I had stepped outside the familiar map and discovered that another life had been waiting just beyond it.
Follow Your Bliss.
Reflecting on the journey, I realized I was the hero of my own story. Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey resonated because it gave language to what I was experiencing: departure, uncertainty, unexpected allies, and the strange realization that a new world appears only after you leave the old one.
Bill Moyers: Did you ever have the sense of being helped by hidden hands?
Joseph Campbell: All the time. It is miraculous. I have a superstition that has grown on me—if you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a track that has been waiting for you all along. When you see this, you begin to meet people in your field of bliss, and they open doors for you. Doors will open where you didn't know they would be.
This philosophy became a guiding light. As I stayed true to myself and to the things that pulled me forward, opportunities appeared in places that had previously seemed out of reach.
Hawaii became more than a backdrop. It became a place of transformation. The invisible hands Campbell spoke of seemed to be everywhere: people, moments, invitations, and unexpected turns that opened not only professional doors, but personal ones.
What started as a simple decision—to go—became a life of unexpected blessings.
You Do What on A Ship?
From Island Life to Ship Life
Eventually the story acquired another question: You do what on a ship?
The answer was never only about a job title. The ship became another version of the same decision that brought me to Hawaii: leave the familiar, enter the moving world, and discover what becomes possible when the horizon stops being a boundary.
Hawaii had taught me to recognize the doorway. The ship taught me to walk through it.
Thirteen Films. One Working Life at Sea.
The Job Behind the Journey
The sea-years archive is more than a list of ships. It is a record of contracts, crossings, cabins, ports, audiences, and the strange privilege of making a moving world feel briefly like home.
The Balloon Tycoon
Featured sea-years film
MS Prinsendam
Ship contract film
Celebrity Solstice
Ship contract film
Pacific Pearl
Ship contract film
Crystal Serenity
Ship contract film
Azamara Journey
Ship contract film
Carnival Splendor
Ship contract film
Princess Cruises
Ship contract film
Oasis of the Seas
Ship contract film
Disney Magic
Ship contract film
MSC Poesia
Ship contract film
The Queen Mary 2, the last of the great ocean liners.
Ship contract film
The Prinsendam That (Damm) ship Holland America
Ship contract film
The Archive Behind the Journey
Go East, Young Man
The decision to move toward possibility—and what happens after you stop waiting for permission.
Open StoryEarthlings, Please Don't Feed the Tourists
A field note from the strange territory between visitor, observer, and participant.
Open StoryHuna · Helped by Hidden Hands
The spiritual thread behind the Hawaii chapter: Huna, mana, synchronicity, and Campbell's hidden hands.
Open StoryFrom Lost to Paradise Found
The bridge from an unexpected television opportunity into a larger Hawaii story.
Open StoryThe Cruising Godfather
The larger sea-years archive: ships, crossings, contracts, and the life that grew from following the horizon.
Open StoryYou Do What on a Ship?
The working-life chapter behind the shipboard stories, roles, and moving-world experience.
Open StoryI Myth You
A companion chapter where travel, myth, memory, and personal narrative meet.
Open StoryNew York Harbor
A harbor-side chapter connecting the sea journey back to one of the world's great maritime gateways.
Open StoryThe Asymmetrical Life
The later-life framework that turns movement, risk, opportunity, and accumulated experience into a philosophy.
Open Story