Towards the end of last year, in the middle of our travels, I faced a challenge: do I begin working on a photo book for 2010, or do I delay the project until the end of 2011 and produce two volumes at once? Or, do I just drop the idea of doing annual photo books altogether and make a single book specific to our travels?
The alternatives only seemed to put off the inevitable, and I knew that the longer I waited, the harder it would be to remember the details. As satisfying as creating an “Our Big Adventure” book sounded (I admit I haven’t entirely ruled out the idea), over the course of our lives the trip will be just one of many things we’ve done. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of continuing the photo books as an annual tradition, splitting the adventure over two years—continuity be damned! So I decided to plow ahead, even as Bali swirled around me.
I don’t really have the words to sum up our adventure over the last year. So instead I made a map. It charts our path, departing from San Francisco on August 15, 2010 (on the right) and arriving in San Francisco on September 16, 2011 (on the left) exactly (and unintentionally) 13 months later.
Our route around the world (“read” from right to left)
Though it appears almost self-evident in retrospect, the truth is we didn’t know where we were going or what we were doing until we got there. It reminds me of a quotation by Joseph Campbell that I have always loved. He said:
If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.
My alarm went off at 5. I woke up, rubbed my eyes, and looked out the window. Lights! Land!
The captain told us that we’d be passing under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (which connects Staten Island to Long Island) sometime between 5 and 6. So if we wanted to see the approach, then we’d need to be up by then.
I grabbed my camera, Stephanie bundled up, and we headed out onto the deck. The view behind the ship was dark except for a few lights on the horizon. The air was humid. We climbed the stairs to the wings on either side of the bridge for an unobstructed view forward. The other passengers were already there. After nine days spent crossing the Atlantic, the lights of Manhattan were just coming into view.
Lights of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge aheadAbout to pass under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
We were treated to a stunning “blood orange” morning twilight behind Manhattan as we entered New York Harbor (aka Upper New York Bay). We were also able to spot Lady Liberty, quite minuscule in the distance, before making a sharp turn away from the city and into the narrow tidal straight of Kill Van Kull.
When we boarded the ship, Stephanie was almost overcome with emotion. She said it felt like she “was home”. And not because we were on our way home—because she was back “on a boat”. There were a few subtle differences from our experience on the Cap Cleveland, but for the most part our ten days on the Hanjin Palermo felt very familiar and passed comfortably.
Traveling with us were four other passengers. Three men had boarded a few days before us in Germany. Two were German, one of whom had always dreamed of arriving in America by boat. The third was a British-born Swiss man who bore a striking resemblance to my Scottish-born grandfather. Finally there was a man from Paris who boarded with us in Le Havre, and eagerly awaited news of the birth of his grand-daughter.
Otherwise we had a welcoming, affable German captain, a spacious two-room cabin with five portholes, and calm, almost placid seas the entire way from Le Havre to New York. Amazingly the ship had two pools, one on-deck just outside our cabin, and one indoors, below-deck, but since they had no way to heat the frigid Atlantic waters, both were empty. We ended up spending less time on the bridge and more at the bow—where we saw a surprising amount of wildlife in the middle of the ocean: migrating seabirds, playful dolphins, spouting whales, and even a shark!
Saturday, August 13
Clouds hanging over the port in Le HavrePulling out of the port in the mistReaching the outer seawall in the rainPassing incoming container ships in the fogLooking back towards Le Havre (Goodbye France!)
A year ago (on Monday) we set out on our big adventure. Today begins the final chapter of that journey. We’ll be returning to the United States the same way we left: by container ship.
We’re currently in Le Havre, France, and at around noon today we’ll board the Hanjin Palermo (previously known as the London Senator) for a 10 day voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. This time I won’t be bringing along a satellite modem, so there will be no blog updates en route.
Barring any unforeseen delays, we’ll disembark in New York City (technically the port in Elizabeth, New Jersey) sometime on Monday, August 22nd. After three days visiting with family and doing a little sightseeing, we’ll fly to Austin to stay with my parents and figure out where life takes us next.
