I started sailing when I was around six or seven. Back then I was living in Sweden with my family. I was the only kid in the sailing class that didn't speak swedish. This meant that most of the time I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing but I loved it anyway. I will always remember sailing out of that harbor. I would launch my little boat and then slowly sail past rows and rows of bigger sailing ships until we got to the inlet. From there the wind would pick up and you could sail faster until you got to the channel. At that point you had many choices of where you could, right left, or straight ahead. There were so many islands to explore and so many possible destinations. I always wondered how far I could take my little boat and what was beyond the horizon.
Later on, I moved back to the United States. I didn't get to sail as much anymore but I found something else I loved to do. When I was in the 5th grade I was involved in a program called the Global School House. This was back before anyone had heard of the World Wide Web or Yahoo. Google wouldn't be started as a company for 5 more years. The Global School House was a lot like Eye of the World. We would use the internet (or the Information Superhighway as we liked to call it back then.) to communicate with kids in classrooms and scientists all over the world via email and video chat. We learned how to make web pages and use the internet and computers.
In college I started sailing again. On the weekends I was racing against other college sailing teams and during the week I was majoring in computer science. In the meantime I found my third calling. I started working as a photographer for the school newspaper and eventually rose to become the photo and graphics editor for the whole paper. In a way I think photography was an extension of my love of exploring. Photography is about looking at the things around you in a new way and exploring different viewpoints.
After college I got an internship and eventually a job at a company which specializes in putting the finishing touches on documentaries. I got to work on projects that were broadcast on the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Animal Planet as well as featured videos for the US National parks. It was fun, always interesting and combined my love of photography, design and computers, but sometimes I wished I was doing the things that the people in the shows I helped make were doing everyday.
When my chance to join the crew of Eye of the World came I jumped at it. I saw it as my chance to combine all of my favorite things as well as give kids the same kind of experience I had in the 5th grade. I can't wait to see how far we can take this boat and what is beyond the horizon.