The life of a sailor is a peculiar thing. It’s more like two lives, really. There’s life at sea, which is very regimented and routine and carries over from ship to ship. After you’ve gained enough sea time you start to realize how small the world actually is- seeing some of the same guys over again in different crews and revisiting foreign ports to find that everything is just where you left it when you first discovered it.
And then there’s the glorious life of leisurely unemployment we get to enjoy between voyages. This is the real life. Our personal life. The one we write about here. When you go to sea, time seems to stop on shoreside life. No matter how long you’re gone, it almost feels as if it’s just a pause between one day and the next. And if you’re lucky not too much actually has changed, and you can pick right back up where you left off.
We’ve been at sea for more than 6 months now. That’s a long time to be aboard a ship. But now that we’re home we aim to pick up right where we left off. Since November we’ve visited over 40 ports of call in 17 countries. We’re not going to go into too much detail about that here.
What we are going to do is share some photos. Last Summmer we began using Instagram, and although we got off to kind of a slow start with it, it’s fair to say we’re fully up to speed by now, and got a lot of use out of it on this most recent trip. We’re becoming especially fond of the photo map feature, and ours is certainly a lot bigger than it was half a year ago. Our username over there is thebaltimorechop and if you’re reading this on the web you can feel free to go ahead and follow us directly.
Here’s what you would have seen if you’d been following along…
On the way out- The Chesapeake bay bridge photographed from the deck of the ship.
The Ravenell Bridge in Charleston, SC.
Sunrise in Brunswick, GA.
A neighborhood corner bar in Bremerhaven, Germany.
The town square in the North Sea beach town of Blankenburge, Belgium.
Port of Karachi, Pakistan.
An Egyptian monument to something along the Suez Canal. Probably the 1967 war. They’re still very butthurt about it.
A European cruise ship calling on the port of Salalah, Oman.
The leaning tower of Pisa.
An amusement park in Iskederun, Turkey.
Nice bush. Blankenburge, Belgium.
Ruins of the ancient city of Ayla in Jordan.
A mural by Keith Haring in Pisa.
Bumfuck, Egypt.
Me A-rab. Me play joke. Me put sand in your Coke.
Livorno, Italy.
This pub is almost 1000 years old. The cellar was a pub in the 11th century. The actual building has been a pub since the 1300’s.
A sign on display inside the pub.
This is the bargate referenced in the sign. A relic from when Southampton was a walled city.
Asry shipyard, Bahrain. There are 5 men in this photograph. Can you spot them?
Welcome to Egypt.
Nighttime in Pisa.
‘American Alley,” a street just outside the navy base in Bahrain.
Bahrain at night.
Some Italian guy, Livorno.
Kuwait City, which is actually much, much much bigger than this photo suggests.
Sunset in Karachi, Pakistan.
The castle of Aqaba in Jordan.
A WWII monument in England.
The Rock of Gibraltar.
Aqaba, Jordan.
Fishing boats in Karachi, Pakistan.
Container ships in Salalah, Oman.
A view from the park in Southampton.
Arno river, Pisa, Italy.
A street scene in Aqaba, Jordan. New Year’s Day 2013.
Sunrise in Beirut, Lebanon.
One of many canals in Livorno, Italy.
Bahrain brohaim.
A newsstand in Pisa.
The Grand Mosque, Bahrain.
Abu Dhabi, UAE
A mountain along the coastline in Morocco.
Minaret, Bahrain.
Feet massage, Bahrain.
One of the many Catholic churches in Pisa.
US navy ships in Dubai.
The Queen Mary II docked in Southampton, England.
Springtime in Blighty.
Another view of the Leaning Tower, with its accompanying cathedral.
Dubai.
Near Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
Ataturk is as popular as Babe Ruth Justin Beiber and George Washington combined.
East Texas never looked so good. Finally back home in the good old US of A.