Hooking Up, Part 1

Traveling solo is a little like moving to a strange city- you know there will be people there, but you don’t know how you will meet them. In a new city you may hook up with new people through work or a club, or they may be someone living in your building. For solo travelers, though, it’s a little more random- you meet up with people constantly, and you might spend a day or two with them, all the while knowing that you’ll most likely never see them again in your life. With this in mind, I’m going to do a couple RTW entries where this seems to have happened.

April 5, 2006

I’m finishing my second full day here at Wayalailai, sitting on the deck outside the kitchen. There’s a good firm breeze blowing, and the temperature is warm but comfortable. My legs, back and forehead are burned bright pink from about four or five hours of snorkeling yesterday, and I spent virtually all the daylight hours today sleeping. I don’t know why, perhaps it is the jetlag catching up to my excitement to be on the road. I felt like my head was packed with cotton or something, and at breakfast and lunch I couldn’t even make conversation.

On the good side, I’ve made a good friend during my stay here. She’s a Brit named Ann who I met on the skiff, which carried us from the catamaran to the resort. The cat was cool, except for the fact that it missed my stop and a one-and-a-half hour trip turned into a 6 or 7 hour tour of all the Yasawa islands. style=""> And honestly, the weather was rainy and lousy, and I essentially got a free tour out of it. (Note that this was very early in my trip. If this had happened near the end when I was completely burned out, I would have flipped my shit. Back to happy travel time).

It’s funny how easily you can fall in with a person sometimes. This girl Ann is staying in the same dorm, and we take meals together and hang out on the beach sometimes. The other funny part is how you have to get past the standard questions before you can have a real conversation with someone on the road:

-Where ya from?

-How long ya been here?

-Where else ya been?

-Where ya going next?

I think everyone who is on the road like me is very happy to make a friend out of a stranger, and to get past these initial, obligatory first questions and really find out what someone is like. I doubt Ann and I will run into each other again- she heads to LA in a few days- but it has been nice having a friend for a little while, and it has also been nice to find out that I can actually make a real friend on the road, even if it is only for a little while.

Thoughts from the Sea

Oceanus A-frame Sunset
Originally uploaded by brownhousechris.

I've just returned after a 13-day sampling trip aboard the RV (Research Vessel) Oceanus. We started from Woods Hole MA, and steamed back and forth across the continental shelf, all the way up to the Bay of Fundy in Canadian waters. My job was to run a flow-through system, which takes continuous measurements of different seawater properties. I also took some regular water samples as well.

I'd always just done day trips at sea, so this was a big change for me. The thought has a lot of adventure and excitement to it, doesn't it? Out on the ocean, away from the regular world, surrounded by a natural setting...these feeling go away after about a day. What it starts to feel like is waking up in your office, eating in your office, working in your office, then going to back to sleep in your office. Tedium is a good word. By the time we docked again it was a very sweet sensation to feel the land under my feet again.