Riders of the Night >>9-28 to 10-04-09<<
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Originally posted by megman
Came across a photo I had of the night sky when I was in Belize. Scaled down here doesn't do it justice. If you look really close in the center you can see the Milky Way.
If you email the file to me, Mike - I can put it up on the server with a link here, so we can see this in larger format. Looks beautiful, indeed!
An amazing voyage SquidInk, thank you so much for sharing. I feel a similar call for such an adventure, and hearing of your voyage has me drooling in both appreciation, and intense desire to set off on a journey of my own (In my case, and much to Shirley's horror it will likely be on the rails with a certain Hobo I had the pleasure of both meeting, and becoming infatuated with!)
Anyway, I saw your downturned smile at the end of your post, and you need to know, with absolute certainty that it is NEVER, EVER too late to at the very least go out there once again (see link below).
By chance, my store hosted Arthur Frommer for a book discussion last year, I decided to sit in and hear what he had to say. Much to my surprise, he talked about ships at length and some of his own journeys upon them in a manner similar to what you have described here. I went home and did some research on it and found this - which I have bookmarked for possible future use when I decide it is time to shelve my last book and take some serious time off to see the world - I think you should check it out
For SquidInk
Anyway, I saw your downturned smile at the end of your post, and you need to know, with absolute certainty that it is NEVER, EVER too late to at the very least go out there once again (see link below).
By chance, my store hosted Arthur Frommer for a book discussion last year, I decided to sit in and hear what he had to say. Much to my surprise, he talked about ships at length and some of his own journeys upon them in a manner similar to what you have described here. I went home and did some research on it and found this - which I have bookmarked for possible future use when I decide it is time to shelve my last book and take some serious time off to see the world - I think you should check it out
For SquidInk
"You'll get used to my babbling, all the others have." - Anna Madrigal from "Tales Of The City" by Armistead Maupin
Linnea wrote: In a way, 'sailing' on one of these behemoth freighters must be like riding on a small moving continent. Now sailing on a tramp steamer seems more visceral.
When you say, "tramp steamer", I'm envision Somerset Maugham in Tahiti, or Malaysia. He'd be sitting in a deck chair, sweating it out in a white suit, caught in an unwanted conversation while traveling to some jungle based colonial station.
On the other hand, the Gretke Oldendorff was classified as a "tramp carrier", because we had no itinerary. Some people in Lübeck, Germany were arranging cargo for us as we sailed. It was a small ship by today's standards, small enough to sail 80 miles inland on the San Joaquin river to Stockton California.
I think Emerson made excellent observations in one of his best essays:
It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth. In manly hours, we feel that duty is our place. The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet.
I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins.
Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.
But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind? Our houses are built with foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments; our opinions, our tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow the Past and the Distant. The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It was in his own mind that the artist sought his model. It was an application of his own thought to the thing to be done and the conditions to be observed. And why need we copy the Doric or the Gothic model? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of thought, and quaint expression are as near to us as to any, and if the American artist will study with hope and love the precise thing to be done by him, considering the climate, the soil, the length of the day, the wants of the people, the habit and form of the government, he will create a house in which all these will find themselves fitted, and taste and sentiment will be satisfied also.
"...the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness..."
I assume by "rage" he meant "fad", but I have traveled out of rage - or more accurately outrage. I found (and still find) it difficult to accept many aspects of the "world" or "society" I find myself thrust into. When I was younger I had no idea how to cope with certain realities - so I read books. I loved to read the romantic tales of those who had struck out to carve their own paths through life. Maugham, Kerouac, Haliburtan, Carpenter, St. Exupery, Marco Polo, Ishmael, Odysseus, Heyerdahl, Shackleton, & Robert Falcon Scott are just a few of my childhood Heroes.
Consequently, at various times I traveled, seeking something "better". I remember with a wince, four miserable years of poverty level, duffel bag travel back & forth across the US. I have been "lost" in the UK with an armload of maps. Then I found myself... out of money in the Andes, and living with strangers in Argentina (while I tried desperately to find a way to stay - and leave this absurd place behind). Finally, aboard the Gretke Oldendorff, I came to realize that traveling is indeed a fool's paradise.
But, certain other truths remain intact as well, so Kaztronic, for you:
AmenWhen all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen,—
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.
When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down,—
Creep home, and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among:
God grant you find one face there
You loved when all was young.
Last edited by SquidInk on 10-07-2009 11:45 AM, edited 1 time in total.
For if it profit, none dare call it Treason.
megman wrote: Came across a photo I had of the night sky when I was in Belize. Scaled down here doesn't do it justice. If you look really close in the center you can see the Milky Way.
Belize? Do you have any impressions of Belize you would care to share?
I've heard good things.
Have you seen THIS?
For if it profit, none dare call it Treason.
One of my favorite spots in Belize is Placencia.Nothing like trolling for crocodiles and spending nights at the pickled Parrot Bar & Grill.
Placencia is well known for:
* It’s narrow sidewalk featured as the narrowest street in the work in the Guinness Book of World Records
* Annual “Dive with the Whalesharks” between February and May
* Annual June Lobster Festival - savor these crustaceans prepared in every imaginable way while mellowed by steel drum music, inspired by the Sidewalk art show and excited by results of a fishing tournament.
Belize is also home to The Great Blue Hole It's a large underwater sinkhole off the coast of Belize. It lies near the center of Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll 100 kilometres (62 mi) from the mainland.
And the Conch shells are everywhere. There are so many that they are used as concrete filler in construction.
I haven't seen that particular video but some similar. Unfortunately the only way you will see it like that is with a long exposure camera.
Placencia is well known for:
* It’s narrow sidewalk featured as the narrowest street in the work in the Guinness Book of World Records
* Annual “Dive with the Whalesharks” between February and May
* Annual June Lobster Festival - savor these crustaceans prepared in every imaginable way while mellowed by steel drum music, inspired by the Sidewalk art show and excited by results of a fishing tournament.
Belize is also home to The Great Blue Hole It's a large underwater sinkhole off the coast of Belize. It lies near the center of Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll 100 kilometres (62 mi) from the mainland.
And the Conch shells are everywhere. There are so many that they are used as concrete filler in construction.
I haven't seen that particular video but some similar. Unfortunately the only way you will see it like that is with a long exposure camera.
Still an Original Pirate since Aug 2000
Wanna ride the Zamboni?
Wanna ride the Zamboni?
