“So… you’re going to Korea!? I can’t even keep up with your plans… It’s too bad you won’t be here for christmas. But I’m not really believing you that you will or won’t be here until Christmas day. Seeing as your plans change every other second.”
– my brother Shaun on my plan making, or perhaps lack thereof.
To which I guess I have to concede that my plans really do change from day to day (but rarely as fast as every other second) – but – there is a guiding principle underneath all of my wanderings and shifting plans that’s been directing my actions since well before I finished school and started to travel.
I’m on a 28 hour bus ride from New Orleans to Norfolk, Virginia right now where (the current plan is) I will be crew on a three month yacht delivery, a 56′ monohull sloop, through the Panama canal, Hawaii, to South Korea by March. This bus ride has given me at least a few moments for reflection and I’ve decided that this obsession I have with traveling across the world without flying can trace its origins to when I was nineteen, living in Malaysia. I remember planning a trip to Thailand and looking at a map, seeing how close the Myanmar border was, imagining how easy it would be to hop on a cheap tourist bus to that Buddhist country. It would only take a day, or two at the most. And then who wouldn’t be tempted, once there, by the mythical Himalayas towering to the west through Nepal, Tibet, and India. And, if the British could extend their colonial rule overland all the way to Pakistan a century before motorized transport and widespread railroads, how difficult could it be for me in this age of highways, superhighways, ferries, railways, and internet? And all of these geographies peopled by a body of writers and adventurers I listened to greedily telling me that it’s not only possible, but desirable that I should throw myself headlong into trust and faith and watch as the world opens its arms and circumstance conspires with perseverance to bring me always closer to my goals. On the strength of this dream I dropped out of physics, started studying anthropology and history, became a tree planter, joined a sailing club, and scratched my itchy feet with as many small adventures the routine of work-school would allow.
And I made this blog. I’m not sure anymore what my original motivation was, but at least part of it was that if I told enough people I was going to do this big trip then I’d have no choice but to do this big trip. I don’t think then I really understood the enormity of what I was taking on. Or maybe I did. Then I got scared that I’d taken on something too big, too lonely, and my dream was turning into an obligation, a job to fulfill, an answer to “hey, weren’t you going to do some big sailing trip?” How does one even go about crossing the Pacific anyways? I stopped telling people my plans beyond an ambiguous desire to travel, it sounded silly and false to boast about a trip I knew nothing about and had barely even started.
But now here it is. I mean really, this is it. The pacific. All seven thousand plus nautical miles of it. When I first came up with this plan in Malaysia I felt, and I feel now, compelled by an impulse, one of contained energy that I need to express simply and physically. It’s the same impulse that turned me on to the sport of running because when I’m running, and really running – through a forest, sweating, hurting, splashing mud, wheezing, breath turning to mist in cool air, my fingers turning numb while my body screams warmth – I am the strongest I ever am. Now that the pacific crossing is a real tangible possibility, I’m not sure what to feel about it. I wonder if my strength is enough, if it will get me through gales and high seas and the tedium of weeks contained within a 56 foot fiberglass hull. I’m excited, of course. Scared, definitely. But nervous is one thing I don’t think I am. I feel a sense of calm knowing what I have in front of me for the following weeks. As I learned from my days of running races, the nerves come hardest waiting for the starting gun, once it’s fired the course unfolds with ease – and I already have one foot in the air.
Gnarly Travels 