Sitka or Bust: Commute The World

I have a fascination with the sea, it seems. The sound of it maybe, or even the smell seems to captivate me and I’m not

sure why, beyond the devastatingly romantic notions it represents. I’m afraid of the sea because there are depths to which we don’t understand, depths that hold secrets of the past and creatures of the present, even dangers yet to be.

A little fish like me fears the water, eh? I do. I don’t like the idea of having little awareness or even capacity to avoid danger while I’m bobbing like a half chewed wine cork in the ocean. I probably look a lot like the seahorse at around 16 second mark of this video .

This isn’t Message in a Bottle; I’m not gonna magically find my way to a distant shore without so much as a scratch. Water is cold enough to seize up your breath, rough enough to barrage you with swells, and deep enough to hide a smorgasbord of creatures that usually

lurk in my nightmares. Shark Week eat your heart out. May I refer back to a previous blog entry in which I held the tentacle of an octopus (Where the Wilderness Comes To You)? Seriously, reaching into a bucket is so much less terrifying than imagining one doing an awkward octopus swim towards you before grabbing hold.

And how about the angler fish?  I don’t think I’m easily attracted to shiny things being waved in front of my face, but hey, we all have our off days. I would not want to see one of these if I went snorkeling. Finding Nemo ruined me for that.

Give me the opportunity though, and if nothing else, you’ll get some great footage of me freaking out in the ocean while unknowns swim below me. And that’s what makes anything memorable.

There’s nothing like a romance with the unknown.