This site will document my many journeys and display some of my photography. I guess it is the patchwork quilt of my life. I travel almost weekly and always have my camera with me. I hope this site will allow others to see the world through my eyes, but more important to be inspired to go see it through their own.
I spent last week in Trinidad. I love Trinidad, and I love Trini's. It's such a different place from all the other islands. Trini's are friendly folks with a love for life. It is sad that Trinidad also has a very high murder rate. I arrived to headlines that the rate just hit 441 this year. It is sad because it gives the good people of Trinidad a bad image. Most of these murders are tied to drug crimes- bad guys killing bad guys. Trinis as a whole are awesome, kind, loving people.
Trinidad is a mountainous island off the coast of Venezuela. It was settled by the East India Company in the early sailing days, and to this day it is mostly populated by people of East Indian descent. It's almost like travelling to India. They have a unique dialect with a very throaty pronunication of words. It's very cool. They are very hard working people, and very friendly. AND... not to mention... they love to have fun. Trinidad has one of the craziest Carnivals. I have yet to see it in person.
On this trip I got to experience some true Trini cuisine: oildown and kuku. Oildown is breadfruit cooked with pigtail and smothered in gravy. It's quite good, and as the name suggests it oils down your insides! Kuku is similar to fungi except baked and appears to have bacon fat in it. It is amazingly good, but probably not health food. I could feel my heart slowing with every bite.
We had an event there where I got to meet some executives from some of the top companies. The event was held at the new Hyatt. It was quite exquisite. I got to meet the guy that built the place. It must be an amazing thing to see your work come to fruition and then attend a party there. I also got to tour a warehouse where they buy automobiles and automotive supplies from China for resale in Trinidad. The entire building was imported from China. The building was made of these massive beams of 1/2 inch thick steel that were 3 feet wide. It was huge. The whole thing came in pieces on a boat from China. Even the walls were pre-fabricated in China. Trinidad gets a lot of stuff from China. Trinidad also gets cheap oil from Venezuela. Price per gallon is just over a dollar US.
In Trinidad I saw a building that someone had stolen all the siding and roofing off of! I thought that was amazing, but then I found out that in Jamaica someone actually stole an entire beach. A BEACH!!! They said it would have taken 500 dumptruck loads to cart it off. Can you imagine??? They believe that the police were involved in a cover-up because how could they have not known that 500 dump trucks were carting sand away from the beach. The authorities are testing sand at nearby resorts to determine if the sand came from this beach. They think that perhaps a rival resort stole the sand because a resort was about to be built on this beach. What will happen next????
The trip was short, but Donny did take me up to a cathedral on the hill that overlooked all of Port of Spain. It was an amazing view. There was quite a storm that had just passed and there was mist in the mountain. It gave it a peacefulness. I only took a few pictures because they were having mass and I did not want to photograph during mass.
The best part of the trip was we had hired a pianist for the event, and I got to talking to him and it turns out he also is a guitarrist. I told him I played flamenco guitar, and he immediately called a guy over and said he played flamenco guitar as well. One thing led to another and we ended up exchanging numbers and I promised to bring my guitar next trip and we would jam. I love how you can meet total strangers and find a common thread. Music is an international language.
Saturday I woke up so tired, but I had so much to do. I did laundry and attempted to clean, but I just crashed on the couch, still weary from my travels. Robin called and said we were practicing at 6:30. That meant I had to leave the house at 4:30 so I could catch the 5 boat because the 6 boat would put me late. Robin said we needed to pick the music. There was this song that I wanted to do for my friend Kenney who is going off to Israel on this amazing adventure. This song has a meaning to Kenney, and so I really wanted to do the song and I had translated one verse that says "Every little thing is gonna be alright" into Hebrew, which took quite some time since I don't speak Hebrew! Kenney is learning Hebrew for his trip to Israel and I thought it would be cool to bid him farewell in Hebrew. Arriving at Jeff and Laurie's I found Laurie asleep on the couch. They had run out of gas during the hurricane because they had all the boaties staying at their place, so Jeff and I went in search of food. Later we went to practice and it was just Jeff, Mike, and myself. I told them I wanted to do this song for Kenney, and Jeff said Kenney wasn't going to be there. GREAT! Well now I know how to say "Every little thing is going to be alright" in Hebrew. Who knows, one day it may do me some good if I ever meet an Israeli in need of comfort.
I was so tired that I had already planned to crash at Jeff and Laurie's. I fell asleep on their magic sofa, and was just glad I didn't have to do the whole ferry boat back-and-forth thing. I woke up at 5 AM because my body is just accustomed to doing so. I decided to do something nice for Jeff and Laurie and go get some pastries. Laurie was under a lot of stress lately so I thought it would brighten her day. I waited until about 6:30 figuring I would take a walk until 7 when the store opened (so I thought). Arriving at the pastry shop I realized they open at 8, so I walked up the hill to Dolphin Market... also closed. I was determined to bring back pastries so I walked up to Starfish- closed, Baked in the Sun- closed as well. Disheartened I walked back to the house only to find that the little store right across the street was now opened! HA! Well at least I got some exercise. I bought some frozen toaster struedel... not exactly the fresh chocolate croissants I had hoped for, but in a pinch it would do. Well arriving back at the house I found Laurie in a tyrate. "You're in big trouble buddy." It seems that as soon as I left the house Mary Ann (the parrot) started squawking and woke the whole neighborhood. I offered a peace offering of toaster struedel, which seemed to help. Once again, being nice just didn't work out so well.
We had to practice at 8:30. Robin arrived and saw the song I had picked and it was immediately obvious that she didn't like it. She said it sounded horrible and it didn't fit in and people wouldn't be able to follow along. I just laughed to myself. I had spent all this time figuring out this song and translating the thing to Hebrew and then not only did Kenney not show up, but now nobody even liked the song. Well I didn't care. I liked the song and it was too late as the music was already typed up (by me I might add... Saturday night when I was so tired.) Well long story short, we did the song and it came out amazing. Five or six people came to me after church and said it was awesome... or maybe they were just being nice!
Later that day I came home and finished up some housework. It's funny, you don't realize how dirty the tub is until you start cleaning it. I need to do that more often. So later in the day someone told me I was nice, but not like it was a good thing, like I was too nice. It's funny really when you think about it.
So here is the song....
Everything must change
There's a mirror showing me the ugly truth
These bones they ache with holy fire
But I've got nothing to give, just a life to live
If your world is without color
I will carry you, if you carry me
Every little thing's gonna be alright
Every little thing is gonna be alright
There's no-one else to blame
I live my life between the fire and the flame
I've built my house where the ocean meets the land
It's time to live again, pull my dreams out of the sand
Let your world be full of color
I will carry you if you'll carry me
Every little thing's gonna be alright
Every little thing is going to be alright
When it's all falling down on you
You're crying out but you're breaking in two
When it's all crashing down on you
When there's nothing you can do
There's someone who can carry you
Every little thing's gonna be alright
Every little thing is going to be alright
Hello All,
I am back in St. Thomas after an eventful trip. I enjoyed hanging out in San Juan, but I am very happy to be home. I have yet to venture out and see what happened to my lovely island but I have heard other than some downed lines here and there everything is well. I can't tell any difference yet but I have not left the airport area. I am sure there will be a lot of beach erosion. I always head to the beach after big storms to see what washes up. No treasure chests yet, but I'm tellin' ya the day is coming!!!
Hello everyone. Today is Thursday and I am in San Juan, happy to know that the VI did not get hit hard by the hurricane. I don't have a lot of time but here is the basic story:
I was scheduled to return from St. Kitts Tuesday afternoon, but my meeting went long. I looked at my watch and said "How long does it take to get to the airport?" Jason said it would take about 15 minutes. I had exactly 15 minutes before the cutoff to check in, and I really needed to do a few more things before I left St. Kitts. I decided to call AA and change my flight.
I soon realized that this may cause me to be stranded, as the hurricane was headed straight for St. Thomas. Oh great, and just before I left I broke the window in my bedroom and so half the window was laying on the floor. Luckily Mark agreed to fix it. American could not guarantee me if the flight would go, and I was quite certain I would get stranded in San Juan. I was okay with that but really wanted to be there for the storm. My biggest concern was my buddys that live aboard in St. John.
It rained quite a lot, and at the Mariott St. Kitts the floors are all polished marble, and the roof has openings in it for the wind to blow through. Really really bad design. The floors all get wet and very slippery so they have to rope off certain areas. That combined with the noise (see previous post below) makes me wonder who designed this place. We decided to sit at the bar and have sushi and I drank a Carib which is brewed locally, and it was quite different from the ones we get which I think are brewed in Trinidad. These were much more flavorful and full-bodied. Anyway I had some decent sushi and chatted with Raphael and Jason and headed off to bed. American still could not guarantee me a flight, but a friend had already informed me that they had a 4:00 curfew so I knew the airport would be closed. I planned to lay over in San Juan.
In the morning we went to the airport and Raphael was not able to get a flight out (he lives in St. Lucia) but I was able to fly to San Juan. The flight arrived in just before we were scheduled to go out, and they wasted no time. We boarded in minutes and they rushed us out of there. The plane ride was non-eventful at first, but then we hit some turbulence and it was like a roller-coaster. At one point we dropped so fast that I lifted out of my seat. I had two seats to myself so I had moved to the window, but all I could see was white... up, down, sideways... any way you looked it was just white. I positioned myself where all the bumping wouldn't jar my neck too much (it is sore from carrying my laptop around) and I guess I got too comfortable because I went right to sleep. I did not wake up until we were turning final in San Juan. When we landed people looked like they were just exiting a plane crash or something. They were all talking about how bad the flight was. Man, I hate that I missed it. I said "Wow, was it bad? I was asleep the whole time." They all just looked at me like I was some sort of weirdo.
Lymari set me up at the Ritz, and when I arrived they had a big screen in the lobby hooked up to the weather radar. I watched this huge purple blob move closer and closer to the VI. I am really surprised they didn't get more than what they did. In Puerto Rico you couldn't have even flown a kite. It was dead calm. Even the water was fairly calm, but I was in San Juan on the north side, and I'm sure it was much worse on the south shore. I had dinner at the steak house in the hotel and it was the best steak I think I have ever had in my life. It's a good thing because the meal was $90. Good grief!
Today I am working from the San Juan office. It is raining a bit but very calm, almost no wind. I am thankful that nobody was hurt in the VI. My friends that live aboard are all fine. I spoke with Chris and he and Ben were sitting on Sadie Sea drinking beer at 9AM. All is back to normal in St. John!!!
Funny side note: I took a cab to the office today. Our office is in the Sony Music building. I love telling cab drivers that I am going to Sony Music, especially when I am carrying my guitar with me. They figure I'm some recording artist! Anyway, the cab driver could not find the building. I told him to go down to the end of the road and he insisted there was nothing there and kept turning around. Finally I told him just let me out. I paid him $17 and he dropped me off at a supermarket. (Yes, I paid him. Sometimes it's better to just pay and avoid the screaming argument that you didn't pay.) I called George and he told me which way to go and assured me it was only a couple of blocks. Well it was more like five or six blocks, but I had a nice morning walk.
I love Puerto Rico, and I love Puerto Ricans. I love when I come to the office in San Juan and everyone is happy to see me. They are all good folks. I feel very at home when I'm here. I happened to mention to Lymari that my neck was hurting from carrying my laptop around and she immediately called the Ritz and asked them to send a good pillow up to my room. That's just what good folks I work with. Amazing people.
Well, back to work. Tomorrow I fly to St. Thomas.
Here it is... my official first post to my new website. I hope that friends and strangers alike will find it enlightening and enjoy photos and stories from my many journeys.
This week I will be travelling to St. Kitts. My favorite place in St. Kitts is called "Mr. X's Shiggidy Shack." Despite the odd name, it is not a strip club!!! It is a beach-side bar and it's got the best grilled lobster on the planet. It sits on the beach just around the corner from the Mariott. The Mariott in St. Kitts is an amazing place. It is completely open on the inside and covered from wall to wall with marble tile. The roof is a beautiful timber-framed design reminiscent of an old barn. The combiniation of open floorplan, tile floors, concrete walls, and vaulted ceiling makes for one unusual characteristic; IT IS VERY LOUD!!! As if the echo factor was not enough, they think it's a great idea to have a band play in the lobby bar until midnight on business nights. They may just as well put the band right in my room. Other than that I love staying there. The pool is amazing, the beach is very nice, and the rooms are very luxurious. Feather pillows and comforters, and jacuzzi tubs. Oh if only I didn't always have to work on these trips.
My other favorite place to eat in St. Kitts is Ballyhoo's which is upstairs on the square. It has great people watching, and it has the best home-made ginger beer on the planet. The people in St. Kitts are so friendly and the land is very beautiful. I love going there. One unfortunate thing is due to increasing costs of farming they have stopped growing sugar cane. I used to love driving along the water with cane field after cane field. The cane is still growing but they have quit harvesting it, and the crops are starting to overgrow with brush. A sad fate for an age-old business that used to be the staple crop in the islands.
Another interesting thing about St. Kitts is the monkeys that live there. I have yet to get a picture of one. They live wild and some people keep them for pets and yes- the locals eat them too. Sorry folks, just reporting on facts here. I have never eaten a monkey. I do on occasion act like one, but have never eaten one.
St. Kitts has not lost the island charm. Once you leave Basseterre and drive through the countryside it is just one little hamlet after the other; little rows of houses surrounding a small bar with a Carib Beer logo emblazoned on the side. It is very quaint and very quiet.
I will not have a chance to get to Nevis on this trip. It is much like St. John- beautiful and quiet. It's a short ferry ride from St. Kitts. If I could not live in the VI, St. Kitts and Nevis would be a good choice to put down roots.
We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but sail we must and never drift nor lie at anchor.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes