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