Happy New Year everyone!
With every passing year I aspire to learn a little more of this beautiful blue Sphere I sail upon. The last year was one of great personal contrast. I’ve had some really amazing experiences in 2010 and I also lost things so very precious to me. My favorite time in 2010 was in the Bahamas with my girls, it was true magic and I felt a “wholeness” I’ve never known before. However life is ever-changing as is Project BlueSphere. I don’t really know where 2011 will take me but I’m hoping to continue a positive path on Splendid. I want to cross an ocean as soon as I’m able to put together the pieces I need to finish her refit, and make her worthy of crossing a great ocean.
I guess this is a good time to say something I should have said in my first blog back in 2003, however I was embarrassed and I need to come clean.
I late 2001 I was at the bottom of my life, really at the bottom! I hated my career and found my fiancé had been having an affair for 8 months. I had no where to turn and found myself on a beach in Malibu doing something extremely negative with my handgun. I wanted to end my life and came about as close as humanly possible. I’ll never forget the taste of gun cleaner. It wasn’t a call for help as I told nobody; I just wanted to check out.
I guess you could say I had an epiphany, a moment of profound insight. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, or series of temporary problems. I couldn’t “check out” without doing the one thing I always had dreamed of, sailing the world as a free man. No system binding me, no bills, no government, just myself and the sea, autonomous! I promised myself I would not live a life that was not exactly as I wished, “not one more day Alex, not one more F’ing day”! I still tell myself that today!
With a severe hang over and eyes drained of every tear I threw my dog (125 lb Rottweiler (Ranger)) and some things in my Jeep and I just left. I just drove away not knowing where to go. I pitched my cell phone out the window onto the 405 and didn’t look back. I had sold my 34’ hunter the year before, and sold it for land things and Love, it was a horrible mistake. Not being able to sail and feel the wind in my hair and the waves beneath me was a hideous experience and one I will not endure again.
I drove for about 6 weeks and found myself in Fredericton New Brunswick Canada. I spent just under a year there trying to heal from a life I was not meant to live and forge a plan for my future. “Why not sail away penniless and see where it brought me”? “Why not just follow my heart save the consequences”? “What’s the worst thing that could happen, death”?
One thing I knew I had to do was share my experience so other men in the same boat (suicide) might find the same way out and perhaps some hope. In the years I’ve been doing this I know I’ve helped two men out of that sinking boat, and truly that’s all I really care about.
If you are not getting anything out of my website, or you find it uninteresting, please do me the favor of unsubscribing. I don’t want, or need your money, I’m not a puppet.
Project BlueSphere isn’t here for your entertainment. I’m not an actor, and I’m not trying to give you a show. I’m sharing my unconventional life with you and if you can’t respect it please don’t bring your negativity to my table! If you have something worth saying please do so as I’m not opposed to criticism. I am also a student and wish to learn.
Wanting to help my fellow man is why it is so hard for me to come up with a price for a charter. If you need a hand or are looking for help please contact me. If you just want to learn about cruising I’m going to charge a little for my time, and I won’t charge you more than I need. I’m also not interested in doing luxury or vacation charters. I really wanted to teach families how to live on the sea and out of the system. The notion of having a “family” seems to bind people to the system and I believe we should do just the opposite. I believe Parents should educate children, not strangers who are paid to do so.
I’m not going to apologize for being a little sporadic in the past months as they have been exceedingly thorny and I’m trying to find my way again. Loosing the girls really broke my heart and I often still feel quite lost without them.
Every day is a good day to reflect, and we all need to turn off the television and really take a look at our lives. If we don’t, we are no more than bees buzzing in a hive, working for the collective not knowing where our path lay.
Every day from my time on that beach in Malibu till now has been a gift. I try and live every day as if it is my last, and when that last day comes, I’ll take it with profound laughter. We have but one shot at our time here, why not make it count?
For everyone who has supported me and my message over the years I think you from the bottom of my heart, truly I do!
In 2011 I will continue to share my path weather it is “on the hook fixing and old boat”, or crossing a great ocean. I’m still trying to decide if I want to cross the Atlantic or Pacific. If I cross the Atlantic I’m going to give the straights of Magellan or the horn a shot as I eventually want to visit the Indian Ocean and finish a circumnavigation, however when I do finish a trip around the world my journey on the sea is not over. “Circumnavigation” as a word isn’t so important to me, leading a life of autonomy is.
Make 2011 your year!
Peace everyone.
Sail far and live slowly _/)
– Alex
Happy New Year Alex! You certainly have played an important role in shaping my life. Thanks for walking off the beach in Malibu.
Love ya,
B.G.
Buddy,
Your a good friend mate. We have had a few miles at sea eah?
Happy New Year _/)
Happy New Year! And, thank’s Alex. You have been an inspiration to me(and a thorn in my wife’s side) as I try desperately to find fulfillment in life. Several years ago, I first felt the tug of the wind in the sails and realized that this wind could take me anywhere!
A day has not gone by since that I don’t long for that tugging wind and seek escape from the ‘machine’. I may never live as free as you do, but I WILL untangle myself from the things that rob me of the joy that life is supposed to be!
I consider you a friend and continue to pray for you.
b. hinton
Good on you Alex for finally getting to the point where you were able to write this log. You really do inspire people to live a better life.
With all that you’ve been through in the last year I feel you are a better person for it. BlueSphere will be better than ever in 2011!
Thanks for everything so far, Alex. You have been an inspiration. Perhaps we’ll get to sail together in the next year or two.
Happy New Year Alex (and all the other readers). I like this current form of “Checking Out” much better than anything more permanent. For sure, you’ve got a smile on your face most everyday.
peace,
Happy New Year my friend.
Happy New Year!
This world is a better place with you in it. Thanks for sharing the adventures, look forward to seeing where this new year steers you.
Peace!
Mark
Happy New Year Alex, from both my wife and I, and continue down the path that brings you happiness!
Alex,
I can honestly say that you have had a direct impact on the course of my life (in a positive way).
I was on the path of ‘checking out’ for many, many years. Actually you could say I checked out when I was a teenager and it wasn’t until 2005, during hurricane Katrina, that I realized I needed to change my life. It was a very similar epiphany. I simply realized I had more to live for, and the things I was doing at the time were not conducive to living… It still took me a few years before I was able to say the past was behind me… It was 2007 when I finally turned my eyes to the future and discovered the world of sailing and cruising. I knew then what I wanted, but I had no idea how to pursue it.
I eventually found project bluesphere (and small handful of others) and I finally had true inspiration to work from. Now, 3 years later, I have my own sailboat and my sights are set on the horizon. I don’t know whats on the other side of that horizon I just know I have to go see.
Anyway, Just so you know, your ability and willingness to share your experiences, your life, with us does not go unappreciated.
Here’s to a new year.
THANK YOU for walking away from that beach. My wife and I love your stories and feel like we know you personally.
Non carberundum iligitmus est. Translates loosely ” Dont let the bastards grind you down” Just tell them to F*%$# OFF
Thanks guys.
That beach is far in my past and don’t think I’ll be visiting it again unless I’m looking at my final days in a hospital bed. I recently had someone tell me he didn’t feel like he had a way out and I was worried about him. It finally gave me the courage to fess up part of my past that I found embarrassing and didn’t want to talk about. It’s important to understand we are all human.
Sailing and the pursuit of freedom saved my life and is something that i feel must be shared, by all of us. Lets all make our lives better in 2011!
Change is good :)
Great post Alex, it takes courage to speak about suicide and redemption. Good luck on your retrofit and I hope to follow you across another ocean in 2011.
Mike
Very insightful Alex. I appreciate your honesty and all of the information provided on Project Bluesphere. It seems being able to read about your daily living with all of its trials and tribulations is very educational. And I really liked your comment about trying to be able to help families understand how to break away. As someone with a family of his own, I find true inspiration in your writings and videos. We are about the same age I belive, and I hope to some day be able to find a way to ‘get away’ from the machine and really ‘live’. Thanks again for Project Bluesphere!
Alex,
Your epiphany has been a benefit to many. Not only has it been an obvious new beginning for you, but it has brought untold education and inspiration to me. I am one of those who lived and looked out the same window for twenty years wondering, “is this all there is?” Even after I bought and restored a 30 year old sailboat I still knew something was missing. With you as an instrument of inspiration and some life changing events of my own, I now am nine months from becoming an RN (nurse). This will allow me to work by the sea and share my new education for the good of others. It will allow me time to sail and become the man I’ve always admired in you and others. Thank you for saving the bullet, you only know what it means to you, but I can attest to what that decision has brought to others like me. I owe you my friend.
Mike
MAPLE SYRUP…..AND A BIG BOTTLE WITH YOUR NAME ON IT ….And a label that states “I hope to hand it to you someday”
Inspiration is a strange and funny thing.
Mix that with things that happen to friends and family like: disease, death, divorce, and whatever else can get packed into a few years of a persons life.
It took awhile but then I realized it was time to spend some of my 401K while young and able (52) and happily married for 26 years, no kids, a little dog and a boat, SO here We sit, my wife Chrissy, our dog, Stelly and I aboard the Rubaiyat. We are 1200 miles from home (Mich.) and we are ready for a new year in Florida !!!!!!!!!!
You cross oceans, I want to beat the ICW, looks like a WIN/WIN for us both bud..
Capt. Dean
ps. For all you outhere hoping to GO,,,, JUST GO, RUN WHAT YA BRUNG MAN thats what we had to do, we kept the house but took off without the perfect boat and equip. No autopilot, I drove it all the way, limitied canvas and all that , JUST DO IT !!!
you got me off my beach as well. Thanks I owe you.
Dude you fall in love with a new one every 2 years…..don’t sweat the women