Never Left Home

We spent a day last week transiting the Panama Canal again, this time from the Atlantic side to the Pacific. The other day in the chow line, we chatted with a lady who was incredulous that we would be going through the Canal for the second time within a few weeks. Jay tried to explain to her that the second transit would be completely different since we would now be going from north to south, instead of our previous transit south to north. She politely moved on, no doubt convinced that we were totally insane, as we progressed to the salad bar.

This post is dedicated to our friends Chip and Kit, who transited the Canal in 1975 in their 65’ sailboat. Chip had sent us excerpts from his log of that trip before we made transit #2 and we continually marveled at how the two of them, along with their young son, made that trip. They had to enter the locks in front of a huge freighter, sharing the lock space, and narrowly avoiding being squished as their engine failed toward the end of exiting the last lock. Watching the huge cargo ships going through the Canal and imagining our friends negotiating this in a sailboat over 40 years ago made this an experience we will never forget. We’re pretty sure it’s one they won’t either.

In a few weeks we will be boarding this ship for a 125-day trip around the world. Why would we do such a thing? Circumnavigating the globe is certainly nothing new today. We know one guy who is doing it now for the 11th time. A former Navy friend laughed when we told him our plan, indicating it was no big deal. He had done it for five years aboard an aircraft carrier. We’re not blazing any new trails. We won’t be facing any particular dangers or hardships, as did Ferdinand Magellan in 1519. There will likely be no mutinies and it’s highly unlikely the ship will sink. We’ll have plenty to eat and we’ll have a comfortable bed to sleep in. Even the ports we stop in will be pretty tame: Shanghai, Colombo, Osaka, Singapore, for example. We can think of so many reasons why we shouldn’t take this trip:

• It takes too long
• Traveling on a cruise ship is environmentally unfriendly
• It’s decadent
• Being on a cruise ship encourages the exploitation of crew members from developing nations
• You don’t get a chance to really experience any destinations, you just see them
• It’s not really “travelling”
• It’s only for old people who have nothing better to do
• We would be better off spending our time fretting about the impending Trump presidency and commiserating with our Facebook friends as we worry about the future of the country

The list goes on and on.

So why do this? For one, we’ve never done it before. OK, so there are a lot of things we’ve never done, like walking on hot coals or eating live frogs, but going around the world on a ship seems like something special. We want to, at least once in our lives, get an appreciation of how big, or small, the world really is, by traveling at a speed not experienced in an airplane. We want to wake up in the morning, walk around the deck and see nothing but water, for days.

For Tanya, it’s a chance to relax after a lifetime of work, caring for others, and to look at the four months on board as a “spa experience”. For Jay, it’s a chance to read some of the books he’s never taken the time to finish. His Kindle is flush with classics, including the ever-popular “War and Peace”, the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson and Jules Verne. And, for both of us, it will be an opportunity to meet some new people, a few of which are bound to become long-time friends.

Trump will become president no matter what we do. The world’s problems will continue whether we’re in the middle of the ocean or on land. From a carbon-footprint standpoint, the ship is fully booked so if we weren’t there someone else would just take our place. Just maybe this will be our opportunity to rejuvenate and gain perspective. In any case, we’ll always be laughing and we look forward to sharing our experiences with you.

A couple of weeks before the US presidential election, Jay visited New York for a few days. It was a chance for him to dig four nights of great jazz (Blue Note, Village Vanguard, Jazz Standard, Brooklyn Academy of Music) and to take time to get a feel for the city he’d only visited previously at night. Times Square, Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, Central Park..all were wonderful to see. But by far the most emotional experience was the 9/11 memorial. Photos can’t really convey what one feels at this somber site. For those of you who’ve been there, you know what I mean. For Jay, it was a range of feelings, from anger to sadness to anxiety about the future. But there were also feelings of resolve that the twisted thinking that motivated the people responsible for this disaster must be addressed. No matter what one’s religious beliefs are, there is absolutely nothing that justifies what happened here. 

Part of the exterior superstructure

Remains of the TV tower

Stairs used by people to escape the burning towers

The new One World Trade Center