Live from Cockroach Island
We leave the Caribbean behind and head north into five days of open ocean, saying goodbye to six extraordinary months of island life. Also: our first livestream was an absolute catastrophe.
As I write this, we have been at sea for 12 hours. There is something deeply surreal about watching the land and the sun disappear, leaving two people and one confused dog cast into an inky wet blackness, bobbing northward hour after hour.
The final speck of earth we saw leaving the US Virgin Islands this morning was a mossy little island. Looking at the chart, I felt very let down to discover that our last glimpse of land for days was called Cockroach Island. That’s just rude. So, still intoxicated by the romance of our voyage - before fatigue, fear, or concern for Gypsy’s turdy tribulations sets in - I promptly renamed it Farewell Rock.
So farewell Caribbean! What an extraordinary six months we have had wandering through this part of the world: the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the USVI, the BVI, St Martin, Sint Maarten, and Saint Barts. We will miss you enormously, but I am also itching to continue onward, Collecting countries, it turns out, is my new middle aged crack.
As some of you lovely readers know, we attempted our first YouTube livestream yesterday. I am very much of the “cobble it together and no one will notice” school of thought, but I had not quite anticipated broadcasting 15 silent minutes of me in close up, frowning into the camera looking increasingly annoyed and confused, to what YouTube later informed, me was an audience of 110 people before I finally abandoned the attempt and started again.
The final result was not exactly an Oscar-worthy production, although, as my somewhat delusional but deeply supportive sister pointed out, once you could finally hear and see us, the picture quality was so terrible it authentically looked as though we were broadcasting from the edge of the known world. Nailed it!
We will do better next time once I figure out what the actual heck a decoder is. Perhaps it is something I can also use to make better life choices or at least understand how radar works.
Anyway, for anyone who missed the miraculous moment where the livestream became both visible and audible, I have included the link below. (So Kim, no more of that “some of us have to work” excuse. There will be a test). It is probably best treated as a podcast to listen to whilst planting some spring bulbs, if you find yourself in traction or sitting in traffic giving thanks that you too are not currently being gently marinated in diesel fumes in the middle of the Atlantic hounded by a dog who won’t pee, because visually there is not much going on.
Despite the obvious technical massacre, we genuinely enjoyed chatting with everyone, and we truly appreciate the family and friends who tuned in despite me scheduling it well past sensible bedtime hours for the UK and Europe, and I still can’t work out what time it ever is in Australia where my Brother lives. We will schedule the next one when we reach Bermuda, at a more civilized hour for most, and, with any luck, with marginally fewer disasters.
Why indeed …do we look like we are at the dentist? Because YouTube says that shocked faces make viewers more likely to click a link. I think in this case it might have the opposite efffect..
If you know someone who may like to follow our journey (even in fascinated horror), please forward this email to them and they can sign up below.