As I mentioned in my last post, I finished the crossing of the Atlantic ocean via container ship. It was a great experiene that I’ll happily do again. 11 days wasn’t enough, and would be happy to spend a month next time around.

Too Much Twine on my Hands

A blog post probably wouldn’t due the experience justice so I decided to play around with a basic word game engine to give you a more self-directed tour. Hope you enjoy it!

Working with Twine was quite enjoyable and I could see myself using it a lot in many different lines of work. If I was still consulting, it would become a prominent tool in my tool-belt. My biggest complaint with it is that the documentation is all online so I couldn’t figure out how to do anything more sophisticated than what I created.

Man Over-bored

Honestly, that header was just for the pun factor. What amazed me about the voyage was how quick it went by. I didn’t think once that I wanted it to end and that I was bored. I savoured not being in a rush to do anything. The only structure to my days revolved around meals which were at: 07:30, 12:30, and 17:30. That set my rythym for the 11 days.

Crew Man Group

The ship was run by a crew of 21, all male. The captain was Romanian and the rest of the officers were Croation. The chief engineer was Ukrainian and the rest were Filipino. Everyone was very nice, but when asked for their name, they simply asked to be addressed by their position (Third, Chief, etc…).

Retrospective

What Went Well:

• Scotch - Sipping 18yo Glenlivet was a wonderful way to be even more relaxed
• Jambox - This dependable gadget has been filling rooms with tunes well for several years now
• Offline Wikipedia - Wow! I cannot believe how much I perused Wikipedia while I was on this trip.
• 11 days of no expenses - Being disconnected is a good way to not spend money.

Not So Well:

• Gym clothes - There’s an exercise room with a stationary bike. I wasn’t always allowed on the main deck (to do laps around the ship) so being able to do 30min of hard cardio would have been good to stave off the belly I grew.
• Scotch - One bottle was definitely not enough.
• Offline map - I would have liked to better explorer the route and plan the rest of my trip better.
• Making Twine tour at the last minute - I wish I had a skeleton of it done much earlier so I could get more details from the crew.

Action Items: I’ll definitely do this again and I’ll be sure to come with a fitness plan. Though that directly opposes the action to bring more liquor.

Offline By Default

Being disconnected from the world for 11 days was a far better experience than I had expected. It’s made me realize I need to create a habit of disconnecting. It brought me back to the era when your computer was offline by default, and you had to explicitly connect to see what’s going on in the rest of the Internet universe. This experience has showed me that I like that. It may sound backwards to a lot of people, but the computer has always been a tool, not an entertainment device (gaming being the exception). My phone may eventually be the only always-connected device, but even then, I turn off all notifications and keep it silent.

Let the Eurotrip Begin

After a 140 euro ride through immigration and into Antwerp, I can begin the next phase of my journey!

Update I was later interviewed by the BBC and the video is online now.

• career break