The earliest that I can trace the idea to is January 15, 2007. Stephanie and I visited Baker Beach and then hiked out to Land’s End. While there, I took a picture of a Hanjin container ship passing underneath Golden Gate Gridge, which I posted with the following caption:

Is it just me, or does the idea of traveling on a container ship across the ocean sound totally awesome?

My friend Christy picked up on my off-the-cuff remark and left the following comment:

Travel by freighter does sound exciting. A friend of mine just left for 25 days to Hawaii and back on a tug, taking a barge-load of supplies to the islands. It sounds very glamorous, except for the 26 foot seas off Cape Flattery. But the going to Hawaii part, I like that.

When I suggested the idea to Stephanie, half-seriously, she was like: “Yep, you go have fun!” So I amused myself by looking into the shortest possible voyage that I could take by myself (e.g. Oakland to Hong Kong is ~15 days). The funny thing is that without any coaxing on my part, she went from being adamantly opposed to being a strong proponent of the idea (over the course of a year or two). As she says, all it took was time for the idea to sink in.

Continue Reading…

Yesterday I noticed the unusual sight of a military ship from Federated Media’s kitchen windows. Turns out it’s the Russian cruiser Varyag. We’re friends with Russia these days, right? More at SFGate: Russian warship makes rare SF appearance.