We were recently nominated by our friends on Kaleo to participate in a travel blog initiative called 7 Links by Tripbase, where travel bloggers troll their archives, fishing up their best and favorite posts in predetermined categories.
This was much harder than I thought, but here is the end result.
MOST BEAUTIFUL :: THE SCIENCE OF PINK
I often put my writing and my photography in separate entries, but I had one post that seemed to knit together words and photos in a way I wish I could do more often.
If you would prefer to interpret "beautiful" as visually beautiful, you might like these two:
MOST POPULAR :: THE WOMEN OF FREEDIVING
The most unexpected occurrence in our first year of cruising was our brush with freediving in Long Island, Bahamas. I wrote and published an article about it in The New York Times.
Because of that article, the freediving community has discovered my blog and this post about THE WOMEN OF FREEDIVING, which I should have called The AMAZING Women of Freediving.
You can see the top five most popular in the left margin of this page.
MOST CONTROVERSIAL :: THINGS I SHOULD NOT DO
Apparently fear is controversial. I see my blog as a blueprint for other wannabe adventurers. I talk about everything, good and bad, highs and lows. It seems some folks either don't want to hear about the lows or take them more seriously than I do. My inbox -- and even Chip's -- got blasted with all manner of reactions to this blog about fear.
Those who didn't stop reading my blog at that point, could witness how quickly overreaction turns to sanity:
MOST HELPFUL :: THE REALITY OF DREAMING
Since I don't write travel tips or outright advice about sailing, I chose a more esoteric post that I truly hope is helpful. It is about dreams becoming reality and how that reality can far surpass the dream. It's called the THE REALITY OF DREAMING.
MOST SURPRISING SUCCESS :: TONGUE LASHING
I'm a writer of few words, trying to pack as much as I can in as few words as possible -- driven in part by the fear of boring my readers. That's why it surprises me that TONGUE LASHING, at 1,755 words, is ranked second overall in page views (at the time of this writing). My more typical blog post runs much shorter like this TWO GENERATIONS, ONE DREAM or BETTER THAN HOPE.
DIDN'T GET ENOUGH ATTENTION :: OUR NEW WORLD
The long-awaited day we untied our lines and finally, finally left our home port, I changed from my old blog URL, ploddingTOparadise.blogspot.com to the new ploddingINparadise.blogspot.com. Because of that switch, I think many of my readers missed this post about the emotion-packed and weepy first day of the rest of our lives.
MOST PROUD OF :: PARADE OF DREAMS
This was by far the hardest post for me to choose. There are different reasons to be proud of posts, but after much pondering, the ones I am most proud of are those that pack the most emotional punch. I decided on this one called PARADE OF DREAMS from the old blog. It captures for me the challenges of waiting and the potential perils of chasing a dream even though, at the time it was written, I had no idea it was two months before the house sold, almost two years before the business sold, and a whopping 26 months before we started cruising.
For the record, my runners up were:
MARKERS, about roots
THE ULTIMATE KINDNESS, about sacrifice
LOVE ME TENDER, about loss
NOMINATIONS
The last assignment is to nominate five other bloggers. My choices are all sailors:
Anastasia: http://www.sailblogs.com/member/anastasia/, treasures we uncovered in Long Island, Bahamas.
Saralane: http://sailingsaralane.blogspot.com/, adventurers we encountered in Georgetown, Exumas.
Snowbird: http://swedishsnowbird.blogspot.com/, the Swedish kids we fell in love with in Georgetown, Exumas.
Knotty Cat: http://knottycattales.blogspot.com/, written by Laura, whom I've never met but enjoy reading.
Unicorn: http://www.sailunicorn.com/, world cruisers we found in St. Mary's, Georgia, and reconnected with in Vero Beach, Florida, and Georgetown, Exumas.
Hope you all will find room for the Rothko Blue Horizon... what an amazing photo!
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