Andei’s Travels

Click here for Andei’s latest Ireland Photographs taken from her trip with Dad in May 09.

Andei Keough’s Sailing and Photographic Journal

My adventure started in Daytona Beach, FL., sixteen years old and on my way to the Bahamas for the first time on our 43ft Hans Christian sail boat. Just having arrived from Paris, the weather gave me instant gratification to the sunshine state, even though it isn’t per say my type of place. I’m more of a European girl at heart, having lived in Sicily for two years and loved it’s ancient culture and timeless beauty, but can easily say the same thing about sailing. I have felt more at home on this sail boat in two days than anywhere else in my whole life. My parents couldn’t have chosen a better time to do this. I am completely ready this day January 4th, 2009, to push off for the first time and head south.

January 5th, 2009

Cruising down the Intracoastal Water Way we pass a flock of pink flamingos hanging in the trees, dolphins racing with our boat, the beautiful houses we wouldn’t mind living in, all of this under a beautiful blue sky who’s white clouds reflect off the water. I steer the boat for a while but get distracted by all the surrounding wild life. Not having to search hard to find a pelican diving down head first into the water to catch his morning meal.

January 14th, 2009

Finally after staying six days at Vero Beach Marina, partly due to my unexpected 103.2 degree fever, we have started to get a move on, heading south for Lauderdale. A cold front came in last night giving us good winds from the North West. It feels so good to be on the move once again.

January 18th, 2009, Our first time venturing off shore!

On the out skirts of Miami we felt like being in the twilight zone, finding abandoned marinas said to be once state of the art, now nothing but barren oyster eaten, crow infested docks remaining. We concluded that it must have been from past hurricanes within the last few years. With our little dingy we putted over to investigate the deserted waste land. We ducked under the rotted pathways (docks) to find the dock master to be a four foot South American Iguana standing his ground. I kicked myself for not having my camera because we got relatively close to him, and might I say he was mighty confident.

Regardless the strange experience we had with finding no such (“state of the art”) marinas, we instead found Ft. Lauderdale full of canals with Italian style villas on the water’s edge, it was almost like being in Venice. Along with the 30 million dollar houses and 10 million dollar yachts, there was not one single little dingy dock for passing boaters to tie up at. We felt totally desperate; we couldn’t trust leaving our dingy anywhere and walk to a local store for supplies. None the less we anchored out in Maule Lake and woke up early to go offshore. Well, not actually that we had planned to go offshore but when we got around Port Everglades Inlet I guess my step dad got the urge to head out into open waters while my mom scrambled to secure everything below deck… How exiting!

It was enthralling pulling her out of the inlet for my first time on our trip. We urgently felt the need to pull up the sails and lower the fishing line while we headed out deeper and deeper into the cobalt blue waters. Just as my mom came out into the cockpit from securing the lower cabin, she remarked how we were getting low on food and hoped to catch a fish. Sure enough right as the words came out of her lips the line started to make REEEEEEEEellllin noise, we looked at each other ironically in disbelief and ran to gab the reel, the fight was on! My mom held the pole steady and I pulled her in while Robert held the net getting ready for him, it was a duel effort but we caught our first fish, a good size tuna that would make the perfect dinner! Click Here for Andei’s Bahama Photographs!! Good Stuff!

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Andei in Paris, Christmas 2008

Andei in Paris 12/08

Andei is returning today from her 2 week visit to Paris over Christmas. It sounds like she had a fantastic time based on her e-mails, skype conversations and the photographs (see below) she sent me. I look forward to hearing more about her trip and hopefully she will post an extensive photographic travel blog about her experiences in France. Andei continues to amaze me with her photography and desire to step out of her box and experience the world.  She is fearless and quite the risk taker in life and her photography. Until then here are some photographs she sent me.  I’m impressed with her personal vision and eye for composition but hey…I’m biased – she is my daughter after all Enjoy!

Paris Street Scene at Night

Eiffel Tower at Night - Fisheye Lens

Eiffel Tower Low Angle

Interior of Notre Dame Cathedral

Carousel at Night

Enjoying Art at the Louvre

Detail of Architecture

Soaking up the ArT

Andei in Sicily

Click here for Andei’s Photo Blog

Click Here for some of Andei’s Photographs and my Critique and Comments.

Click Here for my Slide Show of my 2007 trip to Sicily.

I’ll be posting photos Andei sends me throughout the months. I miss here so very much and I look forward to my visit the first 2 weeks in May.

Andie and her Friend Fredarica

Another shot with (I think) Fredarica and a Hungarian Exchange Student

One of Andei’s Art Shots