First time flight in nearly 4 years. The end of my journey.
Wading through corona turmoil
After roughly 24 hours of sailing we found ourselves in a non wind spot, with a flat surface comparable to a mirror that reflected sun in all the direction, where we launched the engine to continue the trip but shortly after 1 hour run, the engine wasn't delivering traction though it was in a noisy function as before. After some hopeful tries to bring back the gearbox in normal operation we detected that transmission failed again, it did happen in previous time as well when we arrived in Indonesia and thanks it happened in the harbour. All, besides one, of the crew were urging to go back to Sri Lanka because it was the closest land to ask for maintenance, me on the other hand was proposing to continue the journey arguing that engine is not the most important thing in sailing and we could still ask service at the next arrival harbour. My argument was insufficient convincing and later on with help of an emergency call, we were towed by an oil tanker back to Sri Lanka, such a irony, I used sailboat to use less petrol to get from point A to point B but petrol industry was victoriously laughing and mocking me with a full oil tanker to assist me in towing.
We got back to Sri Lanka but amid unfolding events of corona lockdown we weren't allowed to enter the island but after one week and countless discussions with several embassies and local authorities they let us in with the condition that we will repair the boat and leave. Perhaps this was the initial plan, to recover the gearbox and leave, but we were already late in the season to cross Arabian sea and as a consequence of losing another 1-2 weeks, made impossible to continue the journey with the sailboat due to strong storms of the dangerous monsoon season. I was completely trapped with no way to leave Sri Lanka by sea, even without the corona outbreak and closed borders and right sailing season, I would likely never get out from this solitary and repulsive island, I did tried optimistically to find alternatives but everything was bleak and useless.
First time flight in nearly 4 years
A ghost place, under the night light of curfew on the abandoned roads and gloomy darkness in the diplomatic car with two mask covered faces representatives of German embassy I was escorted, as part of an evacuation action plan, with empty feeling of disappointment and miserable surrender, I'm heading to Colombo airport. Many security posts of police and army were guarding unauthorized movements on the roads, music of ABBA in car radio in combination of clapping with hand on the leg of one representant, as his affirmation of enjoying the music, push me further into thought how unprepared I am to that new yet familiar world back in Sweden. Radio was scoffing me equally, it suggested changes people have to admit and encounter in this corona times, I felt the statement addressed personally to me, and at the same time the radio woman proudly announces the number of people taken in custody under curfew. At once I hastened to realize, as my forgotten memory turned on, how different these two worlds are: Sweden and Sri Lanka, never elsewhere in the world, in my life journey, I could feel so comfortably connected than in Sweden. Wait to get back.
Sitting in front of the gate still heavily frustrated about my decision, I'm playing and considering the thought, maybe I should stay and don't take the plane, I could still stay on the ground and wait until all the story with virus confusion will settle. My heart starts to beat heretic and uncontrolled to such an extent that monitoring the health band on my hand sends me a visual and vibrant warning of increased high heart rate and that I should proceed to relax, to calm down and rest my breath. My devotion and as I thought my very strong commitment not to fly wasn't enough to stay on solid ground, however wasn't the money I didn't have but necessary infrastructure that will support a worldwide movement and ability to handle remotely all necessary tasks either for work or private related needs. Sri Lanka and some other places were urging for closing borders and to aggravate things further, implementation of military curfews were deployed. Environment in belligerent Sri Lanka was hostile and terrible enough even before the coronavirus events but with the military on roads and daily news that people are arrested by armies, had left me no one desire to stay anymore in Sri Lanka.
The planes and boarding arrangement haven't change since my last flight the same annoying and retarded procedure of luggage and passport checking or the same bored stewardesses that speed around with stuffed trolleys. The plane lifted as normal from the ground and uniformed flight attendants in one point of the flight start to deliver meal boxes, and for me was given one, I noticed that meal wasn't vegan and without explaining the reason I kindly with minimal words handed forward her to get back the meal box, what happened next just astonished me with outrage when I saw how she unsealed the food box and emptied in the garbage. It was a harsh reminder that I probably forgot how I hate and disrespect the airplanes and governments who subsidized those who contribute not only to food waste but also for the harmful impact they have on climate change.
The end of the journey
How fast everything happened when one take a propeller or a jet plane, the airplane life is frenzy and with less time to make mistakes or delays and since I didn't have time to plan my comeback I ended up having no place to live, no work, no warm clothes, no structure or action what should I do next. The consequences would be radically different if I would get where I need to go, slowly and have control of every meter every km, rather than skipping hundreds of miles in no time by taking the plane. Having my own tact of traveling by train, boat or bus would unleash an abundance of time which road or sea trip generously provide, it would furniture myself with plenty of strategic time to plan and elaborate in advance the next steps at the forthcoming destination place.
Speed up and change the existence, it is a moto dictated by the modern world though many baffled people can't cope neither with hasted pace of development nor with digital bizarre quick changes. Relentless technology and current societies are advancing constantly and rapidly leaving no marginal space and time for self reflection, critical thinking or sustainable resource management. Often fast decisions, without analyzing the circumstances, lead to unfavorable outcomes which influence directly and negatively our private life or relationship with people or attitude to the world. Under pressure of time, society and money, we give up to be our self, every time we lose a part of us when, we take jobs that don't fulfill us, we choose to study objects that tend only to fill economical status or when we hasten to acquire new friends just to seduce our self with feeling of fondness and association. To find your own unique journey, ask yourself a question and let it uncontrollably guide you, accept the result even if it is hard to acknowledge and agree with, follow the path of ultimate truth to find your identity and the place in the world.
I suppose this is the end of my journey, abruptly unexpected and untimely but as it began with no steady contour it also finished in its own exceptional manner. It equipped me, and hope others too, with an unprecedented first hand expertise of the surrounding world, a world still in infancy to achieve the prosperous common goals, it is still stressfully struggling to change socio-cultural values but there are less troubling prospects in the future though other challenges will wait us there.
This is equally the end of my posting blog as well, I choose to close this chapter in agreement with my own expectation to not achieving my own objective. Even if I would discover other places and would write about those amazing experiences, it would not be anymore a constant flow of events when traveling without flying.
P.S.
This is an end but it is also a new beginning
A ghost place, under the night light of curfew on the abandoned roads and gloomy darkness in the diplomatic car with two mask covered faces representatives of German embassy I was escorted, as part of an evacuation action plan, with empty feeling of disappointment and miserable surrender, I'm heading to Colombo airport. Many security posts of police and army were guarding unauthorized movements on the roads, music of ABBA in car radio in combination of clapping with hand on the leg of one representant, as his affirmation of enjoying the music, push me further into thought how unprepared I am to that new yet familiar world back in Sweden. Radio was scoffing me equally, it suggested changes people have to admit and encounter in this corona times, I felt the statement addressed personally to me, and at the same time the radio woman proudly announces the number of people taken in custody under curfew. At once I hastened to realize, as my forgotten memory turned on, how different these two worlds are: Sweden and Sri Lanka, never elsewhere in the world, in my life journey, I could feel so comfortably connected than in Sweden. Wait to get back.
Sitting in front of the gate still heavily frustrated about my decision, I'm playing and considering the thought, maybe I should stay and don't take the plane, I could still stay on the ground and wait until all the story with virus confusion will settle. My heart starts to beat heretic and uncontrolled to such an extent that monitoring the health band on my hand sends me a visual and vibrant warning of increased high heart rate and that I should proceed to relax, to calm down and rest my breath. My devotion and as I thought my very strong commitment not to fly wasn't enough to stay on solid ground, however wasn't the money I didn't have but necessary infrastructure that will support a worldwide movement and ability to handle remotely all necessary tasks either for work or private related needs. Sri Lanka and some other places were urging for closing borders and to aggravate things further, implementation of military curfews were deployed. Environment in belligerent Sri Lanka was hostile and terrible enough even before the coronavirus events but with the military on roads and daily news that people are arrested by armies, had left me no one desire to stay anymore in Sri Lanka.
The planes and boarding arrangement haven't change since my last flight the same annoying and retarded procedure of luggage and passport checking or the same bored stewardesses that speed around with stuffed trolleys. The plane lifted as normal from the ground and uniformed flight attendants in one point of the flight start to deliver meal boxes, and for me was given one, I noticed that meal wasn't vegan and without explaining the reason I kindly with minimal words handed forward her to get back the meal box, what happened next just astonished me with outrage when I saw how she unsealed the food box and emptied in the garbage. It was a harsh reminder that I probably forgot how I hate and disrespect the airplanes and governments who subsidized those who contribute not only to food waste but also for the harmful impact they have on climate change.
The end of the journey
How fast everything happened when one take a propeller or a jet plane, the airplane life is frenzy and with less time to make mistakes or delays and since I didn't have time to plan my comeback I ended up having no place to live, no work, no warm clothes, no structure or action what should I do next. The consequences would be radically different if I would get where I need to go, slowly and have control of every meter every km, rather than skipping hundreds of miles in no time by taking the plane. Having my own tact of traveling by train, boat or bus would unleash an abundance of time which road or sea trip generously provide, it would furniture myself with plenty of strategic time to plan and elaborate in advance the next steps at the forthcoming destination place.
Speed up and change the existence, it is a moto dictated by the modern world though many baffled people can't cope neither with hasted pace of development nor with digital bizarre quick changes. Relentless technology and current societies are advancing constantly and rapidly leaving no marginal space and time for self reflection, critical thinking or sustainable resource management. Often fast decisions, without analyzing the circumstances, lead to unfavorable outcomes which influence directly and negatively our private life or relationship with people or attitude to the world. Under pressure of time, society and money, we give up to be our self, every time we lose a part of us when, we take jobs that don't fulfill us, we choose to study objects that tend only to fill economical status or when we hasten to acquire new friends just to seduce our self with feeling of fondness and association. To find your own unique journey, ask yourself a question and let it uncontrollably guide you, accept the result even if it is hard to acknowledge and agree with, follow the path of ultimate truth to find your identity and the place in the world.
I suppose this is the end of my journey, abruptly unexpected and untimely but as it began with no steady contour it also finished in its own exceptional manner. It equipped me, and hope others too, with an unprecedented first hand expertise of the surrounding world, a world still in infancy to achieve the prosperous common goals, it is still stressfully struggling to change socio-cultural values but there are less troubling prospects in the future though other challenges will wait us there.
This is equally the end of my posting blog as well, I choose to close this chapter in agreement with my own expectation to not achieving my own objective. Even if I would discover other places and would write about those amazing experiences, it would not be anymore a constant flow of events when traveling without flying.
P.S.
This is an end but it is also a new beginning
Ilmmünster, Germany | 17 April , 2020
Photos
1. Ion Storland, 23 March, 2020, Oil tanker towing Sea Wolf sailing boat, Laccadive sea
2. Ion Storland, 04 April, 2020, Flight attendant assisting a passenger, Somewhere in the air
3. Ion Storland, 07 April, 2020, Stop in forest during a bicycle ride, Ilmmünster, Germany
4. Ion Storland, 05 April, 2020, Ion Storland portrait selfie photo, Ilmmünster, Germany
2. Ion Storland, 04 April, 2020, Flight attendant assisting a passenger, Somewhere in the air
3. Ion Storland, 07 April, 2020, Stop in forest during a bicycle ride, Ilmmünster, Germany
4. Ion Storland, 05 April, 2020, Ion Storland portrait selfie photo, Ilmmünster, Germany
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