Hi,

For awhile now, I’ve been thinking about how to rework this blog. The whole “here’s where we went, here are some pretty pictures, here’s what you might find interesting about this place” routine really doesn’t work for me. In fact, I don’t think I’m particularly good at writing travelogues, anyway.

Part of the issue is that Eric and I don’t live our life as a travelogue. We’re not out here trying to see everything we can see. We’re just cruising around, experiencing life as we find it and as it finds us. If there’s something that we think is interesting in our current neighborhood, and we want to see it, we will. If we feel like spending a week in one anchorage, doing whatever, we will. If we feel like moving along to another place, we will. I’m not sure how that makes for an interesting blog, though. Maybe it doesn’t.

When I started this blog, more than a decade ago, my intention was to share our experiences with you all, our family and friends, as a way to take you along with us on our journey. And I hope I’ve been able to do that somewhat. But over time, I’ve discovered that most of what makes places memorable to Eric and me aren’t necessarily the items that you might find in Lonely Planet guides; rather, they’re the people and the animals we meet, and the relationships and moments of connection we cocreate with them; the unexpected surprises – both delightful and frightful – we encounter; the new perspectives we gain; and so many more aspects of our life, all melding in a special juxtaposition of a time and a place and a feeling that maybe happens only once. Those are the elements that make our life enjoyable.

Most of the time, Eric and I don’t choose our destinations because they boast some cool thing that might attract tourists, though sometimes we do. The reasons behind how we end up in a destination are many and varied – maybe it has a good sandy or muddy bottom that will hold our anchor well in an upcoming blow; maybe some of our friends are going to be there and we want to meet up with them; maybe it has a grocery store within easy walking distance of a place we can take our dinghy; maybe it faces a direction that will provide good shelter from the wind or waves; maybe it’s the right distance away from where we are today; maybe it has a lot of trees where I can walk and look for birds…

I often find that I can’t adequately encapsulate our cruising life with pretty pictures and a travelogue-like approach. Sometimes the things that leave asterisks in my memory about a place are some of the smallest, seemingly mundane things, rather than the “you’ve got to see this!” sorts of things. Sometimes they’re decisions made or tasks accomplished or experiences lived that remind me that I really do live a special kind of life – one that I still appreciate, more than a decade on. One that I still want to share with all of you.

So, going forward, I’m going to incorporate more of these snippets into our blog, to give you a more holistic picture of what our cruising life is like. Yes, there will be posts of really cool places (“you’ve got to see this!”), because we’re fortunate enough to be able to experience some of those places. But there will also be times when I write about aspects of our life, such as, what it’s like to leave a place where you’ve made close connections with some of the people and animals who live there, or what it’s like to go shopping in a supermarket in a country where you not only don’t speak the language, but you can’t even read the letters!

I hope you’ll still check in from time to time to see what we’re up to. You can find out where Awildian is at the moment, by clicking the WHERE WE ARE RIGHT NOW link on the right-hand sidebar. The next blog post (cued up and ready to deploy) will be the first of the non-travelogue format. Stay tuned. Cheers.