The writer.
About eight months before the world turned upside down in 2020, Beth and I experienced our third trip to our number one favorite travel destination, Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Playing out July 1st through the 8th, 2019, my journal mentions it including one of the very best days of my life.
It is wonderful to report that today is an excellent day for us. We’re together in Cherry Grove, a run of built-out South Carolina coastline where we have gathered for the past several years – minus 2020, when we had to stay home. For our youngsters and the rest of us, it’s been great to ease back onto memory lane at the beach, especially with warmer temperatures enticing us outdoors. This year’s locale has us further north, and in our beach walks, the nature sanctuary of Cherry Grove Point beckons.
Read on rkdarnell.com. What would I attempt to do if I knew I could not fail? This is a challenge my mother presented to me at different times in life. Happily, I’m coming up with some answers. First, I would write more, and aim to see that work through publication. And beyond that, I would spend more time traveling, capturing scenic beauty, and producing more nature documentaries.
I’ve been reliving words written in early July, 2017, during the time of this trip. For Beth and me, the main theme of our second St. John excursion was Togetherness: We were celebrating 25 years (plus six weeks) of matrimony. Perhaps it’s also true that we were seriously starting to fantasize about our hopes for the future – which continue coming into focus as the years pass.
Stay tuned for new virtual getaways coming soon.
You may recall me expressing interest in packaging “Rare Air” differently, in a longer form. I’m excited to dig into this as 2021 progresses. With luck, something worth seeing will show up here before too long. Meanwhile, I hope you’ll enjoy the unedited scene debuting here today, which is something of a magical moment on its own.
Sunset from Caneel Bay, July, 2017.
Meet our octopus friend!
More Rare Air, coming soon.
Here are some notes from my journal on 10 July, 2017, the day this footage was recorded. “So long as nothing threatening presents itself, one can easily experience sheer bravado, even while visiting a world where we are so foreign. A half mile off the coast of St. John with mostly just ocean to the east and south, and Tortola a couple of miles away to the north, we were very exposed to all the natural life of the deep, dark sea. But as we swam from just around the tip of the south side to the north along the…