Photos from India

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Bareboat Charter Captain!

So, I have returned fom my first week of training, obtaining three different sailing certifications, including the ability to charter a boat on my home! Therefore, when any of you feel like taking a sailing vacation anywhere, just let me know and we can all charter a boat for a week or so, do some sailing and snorkelling and have our own personal floating resort. Overall, everything went well with the trip. One day of 8 to 10 foot waves and lots of wind and rain, which was a really fun and good experience to be able to handle a 45 foot boat in those conditions. Other than that, fair skies and light winds, some rum, red stripe and good company. The trip went withou incident excluding a smashed finger by the top opening refrigerator onboard. The swelling and pain kept me from sleeping f or a few nights, but I then made the decison to cut my finger open in order to drain out all the blood developing beneath the nail and skin. This provided relief from the pain, but my fuinger proceeded to bleed fro three solid days afterward. Not badly, just constantly. This provided me with a quick tour of my first third world hospital upon returning to Tortola. They decided to cut the fingernail out. That part ot the process wasn't near as bad as the local anisthetic, injected in a ring around my finger and around my nail. The pain of that alone hurt worse than anything with regards to my shoulder surgery earlier in the year. All is well now, and being sent on my way with some bandages and oral antibiotics, I am good to go, minus a middle fingernail. Anyway, I think about all of my friends back home and already miss al of you. I wish I could find a cheap place to sit down and email you all but unfortunately the service here is very slow and very expensive. Tomorrow, I am off for another week long sailing course aboard a brand new Lagoon 45 foot catamaran. We will most likely be sailing to St. martin and St. Barts before returning to Tortola. If winds are not favorable, then we will probably be sailig to st. croix. After that, it looks like I will be spending some time till May on a 75 foot sailboat cruising the carribbean. This results in a bit of time back in Alabama, end of May to the begining if June. I will keep everyone posted on dates. Oh, I should have photos for everyone next week! Stay tuned for more!

Sunday, February 18, 2007

The first few days - Tortola!

So here I am in Tortola! Perfect weather here, highs in the low 80's, a few poofy clouds floating around during the day and enough wind to learn how to sail. Yesterday and today were spent aboard a little 24 foot sailboat, learning the basics of sailing and what really makes the boat go as well as how to steer in any direction you wish to go. Tomorrow, I move aboard a 43 footer for the remainder of my first group of courses here until Saturday when we return to Tortola. For that trip, we will be wandering around the BVIs for the week and taking in some of the scenery above water and below as well as learning how to handle the bigger charter boats. As for the culture shock of this whole trip, it still has not set in that I am going to be gone for so long. When I consider future plans that I have on the horizon and their possibilities, it feels like time is alreday flying to fast! There are two many options and I have too many things I wish to see! Anyway, stay in touch, I should have some photos posted in a week or so, but I will let everyone know!

Friday, February 16, 2007

Departing in 3 1/2 hours!

Well, it's 3:30 in the morning in Birmingham, Alabama and I am still awake. I have spent the past couple of weeks living one of the most hectic lifestyles of my life. Almost as bad as architecture shcool! A few minutes ago, I zipped up my bags and am now ready to hit the road. As I say that, I realized I don't have any of my iteneraries printed out, nor have I checked in online! Oh well, almost thought of everything.
It has been a difficult week wrapping up everything, with work, finances and miscellaneous trip needs, but the really hard part has been saying goodbye to so many great friends and especially my family. I hope everyone can try to understand what I am doing. Realistically even I dont' understand it. I just know that I love being on the road and seeing new places. A life less ordinary I guess.
As for current trip plans, I am heading for Tortola in the morning. From there, it looks like I will be in Puerto Rico for a couple of weeks before meeting up with another sailboat somewhere. I am waiting to hear back from a couple of people to determine where my next path will take me. I should know something soon, but at the monent, it is pretty nice not having any particular agenda! I wish you all well while I am gone and I hope to share my many adventures with you while I am away! Forgive the straght and to the point email I sent ealrier in the week but I was distracted and not myself. Or maybe I was myself and was just distracted? Either way, I couldn't find words that were more in line with the nature of this trip and just wanted to let everone know I was leaving. I hope you all stay in touch and keep sending me pictures of the good times and changes back home!

Saturday, February 3, 2007

A long trip to Cananda


It's Saturday, Febuary 3rd and yesterday was supposed to be my last day at work. After realizing I was running out of time to take care of everything I need to do before leaving, and also wanting to complete the project I am working on, I decided that I would cancel my trip to Colorado and spend a few more days working before I leave. However, I am still heading to Canada today. It's about noon and after grabbing a quick bite to eat, I am heading to the airport. I am flying to Seattle through Denver and am meeting my friend John there. I think we both arrive around 8:30 tonight. From there we have about a four hour drive up to Whistler. By the time we arrive, I should be pretty tired as it will be like 3:00 in the morning my time. No worries though, that seems to always be the way travelling goes. Never really like a vacation, more like an adventure.
As for the rest of my trip, I am finalzing a few details and ready to go. It looks like I am definitely going to be hitting South America for a few months before heading back to the United States for a week and then on to Tonga in June. From there, I will be sailing through Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu and the Eastern Coast of Australia to wind up in Sydney Harbor for New Years! Stay in touch!