EXIT ONLY

Over the years. quite a few folks have asked us where we came up with name "Exit Only" for our catamaran.

This is the way it happened.  While I was working in Saudi Arabia, whenever we went on vacation, we had to obtain an Exit-Reentry visa in order to make the trip.  The Exit visa got us out of the country, and the Reentry visa got us back in to resume our work.

There was a special type of visa for people who were leaving the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and not coming back.  Those folks received an Exit Only visa.  Once you went Exit Only, your work in the Magic Kingdom was over, and you were on a one way ticket to some place other than there.

I worked for eleven years in Arabia, always traveling on my Exit-Reentry visas.  Finally, at the end of the eleventh year, it was time to sail on the ocean of my dreams, and so I got an Exit Only visa and went sailing on Exit Only around the world.

Going Exit Only on board Exit Only was a liberating experience.  The scraping, scrounging, and saving were over, and it was time to live my dreams.

Exit Only proved to be a good name.  It constantly reminded me that my old life was gone, and  that I wasn't going back.  It was time to move forward into new territory.   I had a new life, and I was a new person.  I was now Captain Dave, Master and Commander of Exit Only, and it was time for 33,000 miles of global adventure.
 

LIFE IS GOOD

When you sail at night, take a good look at the midnight sky.  You can see billions of miles and millions of light years in every direction.  From the beginning of time, astronomers have searched the sky for signs of life, and so far the only place where life is known to exist is on planet earth.

Earth is unique because it’s chock-a-block with life; it’s everywhere, and it’s relentless.  It’s in the air, on the land, and in the depths of the sea.  The reason earth is such an awesome place is because it’s a sanctuary for life in an otherwise hostile universe.

Sailing around the world in a yacht allows you to see life in all its glory.  Because you sail in remote locations beyond the reach of the developers and destroyers, you see life in a different manner than city slickers do.  Their version of life is limited to a few birds in Central Park, dogs on leashes, and animals in zoos.  It’s an extremely skewed view of what life is all about.

In cities, it’s hard for people to  appreciate or experience the richness of life as they ride subways and work in concrete jungles.  Their constrained view of life is to wake up in the morning, commute, work somewhere all day long, commute again, spend the evening at home, and then repeat the cycle the next day.  When that is their daily routine, they may not even notice that that their planet is alive.  The only living things they see may be people, pigeons, dogs and cats, plus a few cockroaches thrown in for good measure.

Contrast that to the life of a sailor totally immersed in our living planet.  He wakes up in the morning to the sound of seabirds in his small patch of paradise.  Sea turtles swim by, and when his sailboat gets underway, porpoises escort him out to sea.  The sea is alive with mahi mahi, Spanish mackerel, and tuna.  When he makes a long passage offshore, wandering birds often rest on deck using his yacht as a floating island.  Sometimes the birds even land on his finger and eat from his outstretched hand.   When he visits the Galapagos, all manner of creatures tolerate his presence totally unafraid because they know he means them no harm.  That’s the way the world was meant to be, full of life that surrounds us on all sides.

Now that I am back in “uncivilization”, I am hearing talk about how hard life is.  Wars, sub-prime mortgages, foreclosures, the high cost of health care, drug abuse, political corruption - the list goes on and on.  Unfortunately, I’m not hearing much talk about how good life is.  There’s a perceptual problem here.  We are focusing on the dross and slag, when there is pure gold right in front of our eyes.  Life is pure gold, and life is good.

Life is an awesome miracle.  The fact that we are here on planet earth means that we won the lottery of life.  We won first prize, and all of the living things that surround us are our most precious possessions.

When I sailed around the world, the most important discovery I made was that life is good.   Everything that’s alive, including you, is a massive miracle.  Don’t waste your time complaining about the things in your life.  Forget about your woes and worries, and instead, focus on the miracle of life  You are a miracle and you live in a miraculous world.

A fitting epitaph at the end of life’s journey would be: “Been there, done that, life is good.”

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GETTING CONNECTED

After living outside the United States for twenty-eight years, I am finally connected.  At least that's what everybody tells me.  You see, I completed my circumnavigation around the world on my sailboat, I'm back in the USA, and I now have a cell phone.

Don't feel sorry for me because I wasn't connected for all those years.   I was connected to other things, and I didn't need a cell tower to feel my life was good.

Life is good
 

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