Loose Marble

We returned to Hawaii several times after that first trip.  Each trip having its own unique twist or dynamic.  We were there when the Brady Bunch filmed their famous Hawaii episodes and played in the waves and sand with the Brady kids behind the historic Royal Hawaiian.  We vacationed with my mom’s mother, sister and my cousin.  At least once we rented a green VW Thing and toured the island, jungles and mountains.  Visited Air Force friends of my parents and my sister and I stayed the night with them and learned about Man O War jelly fish when we had to forego a dip in the ocean.  We stayed on Kauai and Maui and I stupidly passed on one trip to stay home to attend a summer high school class, then stupidly again several years later cut a trip short to return to my college girlfriend.  My last trip to Hawaii was June 1999.   It was my father’s last flight as a commercial pilot.   He was based in Honolulu and was a Captain on the 747.      At that time commercial pilots had to retire wh

By this point in my life I’d flown enough to have seen the world through a wider lens than afforded on a car trip.  I’d seen the tree tops, fields and mountains from an airplane window, but flying to an island, looking out the window and seeing effectively what looked like nothing was an eye opening experience.  Water is pretty featureless from 35,000 feet.  Just black as far in all directions as you can see.  It really drove home the reality of how huge the ocean is, and the world by extension and how small we are in comparison.  There is a lot to see out there and I was seeing a small bit of it for the first time. After five hours of the featureless, blackness our destination appeared as a disruption to the nothingness on the horizon.  The earth started to poke its rocky, tree covered dermis forth from the water.  The black water started to turn to dark blue giving away to ever lighter hues of blue.  The outline of the land looked like the piping of a sofa cushion in a contrasting

 This was the start of writing about jumping off the metaphorical hamster wheel of life and sailing the islands...Still debating about finishing the story.  I've made a couple of failed starts sharing this complete story on Facebook and YouTube .  I've never gotten nudged or requested to finish any of them, so figure there is not much interest out there....see what you think. Southern Boy Goes To Sea Rubrum Terra Firma…that was my place and life.   My feet were firmly planted on the red clay soil of Georgia for 56 years until I watched some YouTube videos about people living their lives on the aqua waters of tropical islands.   With each video I became more transfixed at the possibility of a life at sea amongst the perpetually warm, sugar sand trimmed tropical islands.   Thus started my transition from landlubber to sailor. While I’d been to and on many bodies of water; streams, creeks, rivers, small lakes, large lakes, seas and oceans I would have never be mistaken to be a s