Christmas shopping in Cuba

 

It is our last morning in Cuba and thought I would write a quick blog before the reality of regular life strikes back like a Star Wars sequel.

Though Christmas Eve is a mere two weeks away, it is the last thing on my mind; we have been completely sheltered from any sort of holiday spirit here at the Memories Flamenco resort in Cayo Coco. Our thoughts have been more focused on finding the best beach chairs, keeping the plastic beer cups full, avoiding sunburn and being sure to sample everything on the ample buffet spreads. As far as all-inclusive resorts go, this is probably the best one we have ever been to. The mathematics of how the tour operator and resort can be making any money eludes me. I just cannot understand how a family of four can be flown to the Caribbean, fed delicious food and unlimited drinks, and be catered on by armies of personal assistants for less than $2,500 for an entire week.

Saying all that, after a week of this routine I am always ready to go. It is nice to spoil yourself for a short time, but after a while the whole thing gets a little ridiculous. I have certainly caught up on my sleep – made it to 11:30 one night, but the rest of the evenings I was sleeping by 9:30 or earlier. Of course, I was then awake by 5:30 most days, which allowed me to sneak out of the room with a laptop, grab a coffee and do some early morning writing.

I brought a copy of my book along, and have been tempted several times to open it up and start looking for errors, but every time I tried, Ana slapped my hand.  And I am very thankful for that as I needed a break from it. The next phase of the project is to start selling the damn things instead of trying to perfect it! So far I have only really “released it” online and through Amazon and have not yet done any local marketing. There will be a couple boxes of printed books ready for me when I get home so will start my marketing efforts then and see where that takes me.

This is the time of the year when I start preparing for the annual Olson family review. It sounds dorky, but each year during the Christmas holidays I do a full set of financial statements, put a Powerpoint slide presentation together and we have a family meeting to review what we accomplished during the year, and then set goals for the following year.  We each set personal goals for areas such as health, fitness, education, and work, then together set family goals for travel and finances. I try to track every dollar we spend during the year so it’s always enlightening (and sometimes shocking) to see where all that money actually went. I may be accused of being a planning fanatic, but hey, if you don’t know where you are trying to get to, then how the hell can you even know if you are traveling in the right direction?

Ouch, just got a mosquito bite. Won’t be getting any of those in Ontario for the next few months!

I've got a book....now what?

I announced the release of The Found Vagabond last week.  Since then I've been simply trying to keep away from the thousands of reporters asking for interviews, the daytime talk show producers leaving dozens of voicemails, politicians and political leaders from around the world calling to congratulate me, and so on.  It is all really so tiring.

So, to escape all this embarrassing attention, we are headed for Cuba today for a week of sunshine, overeating, and probably a whole lot of scheming of what exactly to do with this book.

Primarily, I wrote the book because I think I have a pretty good story to tell and wanted to share my experiences with others in the hopes that they can benefit in some way.  But I also wrote it for myself...maybe just to see if I could do it.  I've always enjoyed writing, but I know that it is very tough for a writing career to pay the bills.  That is why writing is not my job.  At least not at the moment.  But that may change someday, when I move onto the next phase of my life, whatever that may be.

So for now, I just need to figure out how to promote my book, get a few people to buy it, start getting some feedback on what they think, then adjust my techniques for the next project.  I'm looking to my sister-in-law Carrie for some inspiration here - she has been an independent singer/songwriter for many years, and I'm sure has many tricks up her sleeve.  A book is very similar to a musical projects in many way - it is a creative endeavor, you put your whole heart and soul into it, some will like it, others will not, and your main job is to try and find an audience who will appreciate your creation and offer support.

So that's what I'm going to for the next week.  With a drink in one hand, a book in the other, sand on my feet, and a clear mind.  Like I write in the book, being away from your everyday routine allows you to step back, see things differently and think better.  So we will see what happens.

In the meantime...since internet is hard to come by in Cuba, I will be completely off line.  If you do contact me for any reason about the book, have no fear - you are not being ignored and I will respond to you as soon as I am home.

Enjoy!

Introducing The Found Vagabond!

Scaling the most spiritually important peak in Sri Lanka, in the dead of the night, surrounded by thousands of pilgrims...

Fishing for piranha with members of a Maroon tribe in the depths of the Amazon jungle...

Flying with your lover to an enchanting Caribbean island for lunch...

Coming face to face with great white sharks during a vicious Atlantic storm...

Introducing The Found Vagabond!

Inspired by years spent living in 13 different countries and traveling to over 80 on five continents, author Kris Olson has a story to tell. Part travel guide, part memoir, The Found Vagabond is an insightful and exciting chronicle of one man's lifetime dedication to travel, and the life changing benefits of exploring the world, from one's backyard, to the some of the most remote locations on the planet.

Travel brings strangers together, breaks down your inhibitions, shatters your stereotypes and opens your mind to limitless possibility. Yet, real risks exist on the road and there are actions you can take to ensure your travels are safe, fulfilling, rewarding and unforgettable.

From novice traveler to rugged explorer, The Found Vagabond offers inspiration and insight for any reader interested in travel, delivered in a humorous and entertaining style.

The travel book is nearly done!

I am happy to announce that I am in the final stages of completing the travel book I have been working on for many years.  Late in 2012 I decided I needed to finish it, otherwise it was never going to get completed.  So the book is fully written, been through about ten edits by myself and I now have a friend doing a full edit, which she has done and will be coming over this weekend to review it with me.

We have also struck up a friendship with a local couple who had their boat docked at the slip right across from us.  She is a teacher and he is an artist and is helping us out with designing the cover for the book - we have a great concept, just need to put all the ideas together.  This is definitely Ana's arena as my visual design skills are terribly lacking, I'm more of a content guy.

I am going to be self-publishing the book as opposed to going the traditional publishing route.  To be honest, this is the way it was always going to be, and I really haven't explored the traditional route much, preferring to sell it in digital formats, but also as a printed copy that can be ordered online.

The book has changed so much since I began; it was originally going to be a book of travel tips and things I've learned on the road.  But as I wrote it over the years, it started to change, and though it still has some unique travel tips, it became a very personal memoir on travel and how travel has changed my life and caused me to view the world, people and myself much differently.  There is also a thread of spirituality that runs through the book, ranging from the coincidences that happen while traveling to how being in a foreign place can enable so much introspection and reflection on yourself and your life.

Should I tell you the title?  Mmmm, not yet, but Ana came up with it and I think it is fantastic.  My working title throughout was The Grand Adventure but I knew that was not going to be the final one.

We are now busy getting all the infrastructure set up to sell the book such as a website, Paypal buttons, formats for Kindle, Nook, Apple devices, images to be included, trim size, pricing, mailing lists, social media strategy, local marketing plan and so forth.  We have already done something similar to the other two ebooks I've written, so we are familiar with the process, though not the physical print-on-demand version, that is brand new to us.

Is my goal to sell a thousand copies?  No.  But I do want to have a final product that I can be proud of and that others will enjoy reading.  And I do think it has turned into a pretty good book.  I've tried to balance out the tips and suggestions with a lot of stories and personal experiences to support them, plus a collection of some of the best photos we've taken over the years that gives the reader a great visual to support the writing.  And, of course, there is plenty of humour, as always.  I was happy to hear that my editor friend was both laughing and crying at various points throughout, so that is a good sign.

The book is divided into two section; the first being the core part about travel and the second a collection of ten travel stories.  Some of these have been on our website at one point or another, but they have all been heavily edited or, in some cases, re-written completely.  Speaking of that, Ana has been doing a complete redevelopment of our www.lifeisgrand.org website which will be rolled out in conjunction with the book, it is going to be much cleaner, much smaller and much more focused on travel.

Many of our friends and family are referenced in the book, so if you are reading this blog, there is a good chance you may find yourself mentioned.  I will also be asking for people to help get the word out when the book is released, maybe a Facebook post, maybe a group email, pee it in the snow (for you folks in Alberta and Saskatchewan at least), send out a raven, any sort of thing like that.  It all helps.

The goal is to have it ready for December...so I better get back to work on it!

2013 Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 15

Day 15 – Port Dover

Picture this.  It is midnight on Lake Erie.  The moon is full and bright, sky cloudless and littered with stars, and we are being pushed along by a gently humming engine and the lake’s gently rolling waves.  The periodic and predictable flash from the lighthouse of Long Point is visible in the distance.  Magnus and Stella are sleeping soundly below and Ana and I are sitting in the cockpit, together, huddled up in a blanket, watching the show of stars in the sky above, talking and feeling very much in love.

It has been a fine trip indeed.  And this moment alone with my beautiful wife has made it even better.

As we round Long Point, with the lights of Port Dover just barely visible 15 miles away, the wind suddenly picks up, going from 5 mph to over 20 mph almost instantly.  I adjust the sails for the increased wind, then we spend most of our time below in the cabin.  I pop my head out once in a while to check for boats and to ensure we are still on course, but the autopilot is doing a fine job taking us home.

We arrive in the marina at 4am, do an absolutely flawless docking and get the lines tied and power cables connected.  Ana calls Canadian border control and gets us cleared through with no issues.

We are back home, safe and sound, and after 350 miles, many new discoveries and a lot of laughs ends the 2013 Lake Erie boat trip.

2013 Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 14

Day 14 – Eastlake to Ashtabula

By 5:10, we had coffees poured, the lines cast off and were slowly motoring out of the Eastlake harbour, quite happy that we’d discovered another new spot on this fine lake.  The weather was hot, the wind was light and, fortunately, it was not nearly as buggy as the day before.  The entire trip was 35 miles and around 9 am we stopped the boat and jumped in for a morning swim and bath.  Even several miles offshore the water temperature was still over 30 degrees, so you didn’t get that spine shattering shock when you jumped in; it was more like leaping into a giant bathtub.

Arriving in Ashtabula gives you a glimpse into the area’s industrial history.  To your right is a series of giant coal piles and these huge machines on railway tracks which pick up the coal from railway cars, dump it into the pile, then later scoop the coal from the pile and load it into freighters.  After about a mile of industrial landscape, you reach downtown Ashtabula which, as far as I know, is the only town on Lake Erie that offers visitors free docking, free water and free pump outs.  The only thing they do not offer is electricity, and with a forecast temperature of 33, it’s tough to get by without the boat air conditioner.  But we do leave the boat at the public dock for a while as we walk into town for a coffee at Harbour Perks, a groovy little cafe steps from the water.  The kids and I hung around there for an hour or so reading magazines and playing chess while Ana hit the local Goodwill store, one of her favourite retail spots on the lake.

We returned to the boat, waited for the top of the hour when the lift bridge opens and piloted her a short ways down the river to the Ashtabula Yacht Club, when they do have electricity and do offer free dockage to associate club members.  By this time the temperature in the boat was 97 degrees Fahrenheit, so it took a quite a while for the ac to cool things down, which gave me time to get the grill fired up, sit in the covered cockpit and cook up some sausages for lunch.

We checked the forecast and both Friday and Saturday were looking to be extremely windy and stormy so we decided to spend a few more hours in Ashtabula, then do an evening sail all the way back to Port Dover, which was a 75 mile trip, but would get us back early Friday morning and give us the whole weekend back in home port.

We walked back downtown and hopped from one air conditioned shop to another, picking up a super cool orange Ashtabula t-shirt for Magnus (I assured him that nobody in his class would have a shirt with a big black coal digger picture on the front) and a round of ice creams.  Our plan was initially to leave after enjoying dinner at Briquette’s, an excellent local southern style rib restaurant, but instead we decided to get take out then have dinner on our way across the lake, as everybody was still full from the lunch sausages.  So we grabbed our food, hustled back to the boat, and did a high speed undocking in order to make the 5 pm life bridge opening, which we did, but just barely.

We soon had the sails set, motor running and were headed directly across the lake for Canada.  The home stretch is always very exciting, as it represents the final leg in what always feels like an epic and fresh journey every time we do it.  Magnus was desperate for a swim, so we stopped twice along the way and we all jumped in to cool off, even Stella who has been reluctant to swim in the deep parts of the lake.  Once again, swimming off your own boat, in the middle of a giant lake, on your own schedule, is an exhilarating and empowering feeling and there is really nothing else like it.

2013 Lake Erie Sailing Trip - Day 13

Day 13 – Cleveland to Eastlake

We had three choices for our next stop.  We could travel to Eastlake, Mentor or Fairport harbours, all of which were quite close together and only about twenty to thirty miles away.  Mentor was tempting, as it’s a beautiful yacht club with a big pool, but as we’d been there several times before and seen pretty much all of what there is to see there, we decided against going there.  We had not spent a night in Fairport, but had been there the previous year to a restaurant called Pickle Bills (see last year’s blog posting around this same time), which is the only restaurant I know of on the lake which has boat parking right at the bar!  We didn’t remember the marinas themselves being all that special, so we decided on Eastlake.

We left Cleveland around 6am and by then it was already hot and windless so I cranked up the motor and we did it power boat style.  As soon as were offshore a mile or so, the bugs began collecting in the cockpit, and got steadily worse, so I sent everybody down into the cabin while I did battle with the wretched creatures.  I counted at last ten distinct species.  There were the standard mosquitoes, who were biting my ankles, legs and shoulders then these little black flies, which look exactly like house flies, but have a nasty bite which, fortunately, don’t leave any marks but hurt like hell.  They concentrated their attack on my feet.  Then there were these little green bugs which instantly explode when you touch them, leaving an artistic green splatter on the cockpit cushions, bimini or boat hull, wherever you made contact.  I had thousands of these other little green suckers which didn’t leave a stain, but just landed on me and walked around on my skin for no apparent reason, every time I looked down my arm there were a dozen of them crawling around.  I saw fish flies, midges, moths and a couple gigantic yellow creatures that I had never seen before.  As the sun rose and the heat came I looked as if I was wearing a bug sweater so I had to get out my secret weapon.  We have this little Portuguese broom called a “basura” which is the most versatile, multi function tool on the boat.  It is a miniature corn broom, about two feet long and used, among other things, for swatting bugs, cleaning off spider webs, scrubbing the boat, cleaning the cushions, scratching one’s back, fluffing one’s hair, beating the children, wacking your wife ass, then using as a shield against the inevitable counter attack.  In fact, as I sit here looking at the basura, I’m thinking we should start mass producing them and selling them, as there is nothing quite like them available in stores.  Perhaps I’ll set up a little sweat shop in our basement and put the kids to work building corn brooms, man I get some good ideas early in the morning.

After beating off the bug sweater with the basura and trying to clean up the bug remains in the cockpit, I stopped the boat and ordered everybody in for a morning swim.  I also got out a bucket and rinsed off as much of the nasty bug stains as I could, which had completely ruined our beautiful cleaning job from the previous day.  If you can believe it, the water temperature was 32.9 degrees so jumping in didn’t give you that immediate cold shock, but was nonetheless most refreshing.

We pulled into the marina to find a small, secluded and very nice yacht club.  The girl working at the fuel dock assigned a slip to us and informed us that the first night’s stay was free, yay!  We got our boat docked, plugged into shore power and let the sweet a/c start working its heart out.  With the lake water that warm, it takes a while for it to get the temperature down, but it eventually did, which was a welcome relief from the heat.  We had a walk around the clubhouse and marina grounds, found a nice playground complete with a basketball court and tetherball pole, so we played a few rounds of each, then instead of dying of heat exhaustion, got our swimsuits on and headed down to the small, but nice little beach.  Magnus and I did some snorkeling for a while, but the visibility was very poor, so we swam around in half a metre of water and flipped over rocks, looking for crayfish or any other creatures of interest, but didn’t really find much of anything, besides some nice rocks.

Stella and her mom scoured the beach for rocks and sea glass and found some nice pieces so Stella took their collection and set up a display on the picnic table.  Ana settled into the comfy adirondack chair with a book and spent a couple hours reading while I either played with the kids or sat beside her enjoying the sun.  Magnus is a real water bug and did not leave the lake until we hauled him out so we could get ready for dinner.

We had a great meal in the clubhouse and met a bunch of the locals, in particular Buzz and Sally who were in the 41’ Beneteau sailboat right beside our slip.  We grabbed some drinks from the bar then they introduced us to some of the other members.  Dinner was delicious – we both had a seafood platter and shared a calamari appetizer, and the bottle of wine I got from the bar cost $12.50, which made me instantly angry with the Ontario government.

Buzz and Sally had sailed extensively through all the great lakes and described Lake Superior as their favourite.  If you look on a map you will see that these lakes cover an enormous area and the possibilities for exploring are limited only by your imagination, available time and budget.  But then, with a good imagination you can probably figure out a way to handle the time and budget issues, so imagination is really the only thing that matters.  Traveling these lakes is something I would love for Ana and I to do once the kids are older and into their own lives and boats.

We had a relatively early night, as we were planning for a 5 am start to Ashtabula.  We also began planning for our trip home, and since the forecast was looking very windy and possibly stormy for Friday, we decided that we might do a night sail the following evening across the lake to arrive in Dover sometime Friday morning.  But we’d wait and see how the forecast looked before setting out.