Why We Go

It’s funny…people we meet often assume that Phyllis and I are great travelers. And it’s easy to see how they might come to that conclusion. After all we have spent most of the last 20 years moving from place to place around the Atlantic rim. But actually nothing could be further from the truth.

Question: How do you make great travel photographs?

Answer: F8 and be there.

Over twenty years ago I received an offer from Britain’s leading whale and dolphin researcher to become a reserve skipper on his annual survey in the western isles of Scotland. Wow, I thought, what an opportunity, and promptly seized it with both hands. Which only goes to show that you should always look before you leap, as I later found out that many wiser men had already turned the offer down – and by the end of the first fortnight, shell-shocked and absolutely on my knees with fatigue, I understood why.

Question: What do these two photographs have in common?

We were tied up alongside a fishery wharf in northern Newfoundland when the roar of powerful engines brought us tumbling up from below to see two seine boats attached stern to stern by a thick line and both at full throttle.

When you cast your mind back at the end of a season, what do you remember from it? Memory being selective as time passes, the bad stuff tends to get filed under futile, and the good just keeps coming into focus.

Phyllis and I recently prepared for and executed a two-month trip that included 11 flights and a month on a sailboat wintering over in Greenland. Since we were traveling on some small aircraft, all of our combined checked baggage had to total less than 40kg, together with two small 8kg carry-on bags. Included in this 40kg was cold weather gear, cross country ski gear, and a full photography kit.

There is nothing quite like the final moment of departure at the start of a long cruise or voyage. A strong mixture of anticipation and apprehension, it generally follows a stressful period, with all of the usual last minute glitches and hassles, however careful your planning and preparation. Then there are the goodbyes to friends and loved ones which can tend to cast a sombre mood over the proceedings, with thoughts of the many months it may be before we see them again.

We received a question a while ago that got us both thinking: “Why did you start cruising, why do you keep cruising, and how long will you keep doing it?”

Our last extended cruise ended in the fall of 2003 when John and I hauled Morgan’s Cloud in Maine so that we could spend the winter at our house in Bermuda. We had a big decision to make: If we wanted to refit Morgan’s Cloud and keep on cruising, the house would have to be sold. But the house was a little piece of paradise on the water in Bermuda—not something we could afford to replace if we decided later that we had made the wrong choice.