Things I'm Watching

Nope, no new pictures this week just me yacking and yacking some more.  :-)    I did try  putting the gopro on the birdfeeder but didn't really get anything exciting but got some ideas for the next attempt.   I had put the gopro up, set it to one shot every 5 seconds and then proceeded to forget about it.   Several hours later when I remembered I found I had over 1300 pictures and 12gb of data on the SD card - doh!   Took some time to go through it all.

One of the key ways of watching what I'm interested in is to watch my Blog links on the sidebar of this page.   Blogs will come and go.   Right now you'll see a few things on Ecuador and the Franklin search - hint - that might be what I'm interested in these days.

First is the Franklin search.   For those who don't know the history or don't watch the news, start here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_lost_expedition    This story has fascinated me for many years and I've read numerous books on the subject.  Franklin was pretty much an idiot when it came to exploration and he was only doing it for promotion and to keep full pay in the British navy.  But for me was the mystery of the missing ships.   The history of HMS Terror and HMS Erebus itself is a very interesting side story.   Both ships had also been to the Antarctic under the command of James Ross and Francis Crozier.   Both names very well known in Antarctic exploration and the two mountains/volcanoes located close to where Shackleton and Scott made their pushes to the south pole are named after the ships.   To have made such discoveries in Antarctic waters and then again in the Arctic make them very interesting.   The Inuit stories surrounding the ships after the crews abandoned them were discounted for many years and are just now being used in the search.   Much is known about how the crew perished and many artifacts have been found over the past 150 years but those 2 ships are still missing and all attempts to find them have failed.

This past summer, the Canadian government announced a new 6 week search to find the ships.   In my opinion it was a good start but it was doubtful that they would find much in 6 weeks and with the few million that the government put into the search.   The area is just to vast and the weather to unpredictable.   In fact the search is ending today, almost 2 weeks early because of weather systems moving in.   Initial results are that they didn't find the ships, although they have tons of data to go through.    Unfortunately it is my opinion that the search was primarily the governments way of staking a flag in the ground strictly for sovereignty reasons.   Harper doesn't give 2 shits if those ships are found, he just wants to make sure the world knows the arctic is ours and no one elses.  If they happened to find the ships - bonus!   But I think the key here was that the government wanted sovereignty, accurate maps of the floor bottom and to get some good media and press out of us doing stuff in the arctic.   He accomplished everything except find the ships.   I'm sure next year he'll do the same, wait till near the end of the summer and then give them a few million to search again, this time mapping yet another area.   In the end I hope it will help find the ships and I do hope it strengthens our sovereign claim to the area.   Anyhow, there are a few links on the side of the page that might be of interest.  One is a blog of a gentlemen who has been searching on his own for many years (he has some really cool pictures) and the other is from on-board one of the search ships.   Now that the search is completed that blog will probably go static.

The other thing I'm following these days is Ecuador.   Huh?  How the heck do we get from the arctic to the Ecuador?  ;-)   Well, I'm starting to think about my retirement.   Hang on, I'm not 55 yet!   Actually I have 9 more years to go but I've started to realize that 9 years is not all that long.   If I look back at the past 9 years it seems like yesterday.   If I'm going to change my life when I retire I do need to start thinking about it sooner rather than later.

Everyone looks at me and says "you'll never retire, you like your work to much".  Well, yes and no.   I do love my job but the reality is that I have other things that I would like to be doing.  I have things to retire too!   Which is the key.   I have watched to many people retire and then either die or come back to work.  Strictly because they had nothing to do, it wasn't what they thought it would be or they couldn't afford to retire.

Naturally in a perfect world we all know where I want to retire too - BERMUDA.   Bermuda is my 2nd home and I would love to call myself a Bermudian, but reality is that it would never happen.   The costs are just way to high for even my good pension and immigration is an even bigger problem.  It's a small island and naturally they need to keep their numbers down, completely understandable.   So a few years back I started looking for something similar.  British, English speaking, inexpensive and I came across Belize.   I spend numerous hours researching and reading and it became a possible retirement location.  They do have lots of gated communities and communities of expats - exactly what I DON'T WANT! ;-)   One of the reasons I feel so in love with Bermuda is that I integrated into the society.  I embraced their customs and traditions, as a result they embraced me back.  Wherever I go I want to experience and live their culture.

As I continued to read I kept coming across little references to Ecuador.  I just ignored them.   What the heck is an Ecuador and they don't speak English so not for me.   But as time went on I started hearing people at work talking about relatives retiring there or people who have taken vacations there.  My curiosity peaked so I started looking into Ecuador to see what it was all about.  The more I read the more intrigued I've become. 

Yes it's Spanish speaking and I would obviously need/want to learn the language but for the most part it's a safe, interesting and inexpensive place to live.   Why would I care given my pension?   Well a couple of reasons.    The costs to live in Ecuador are actually extremely low.   People talk of living on $800 per month, but I would say $1200 is a bit more on the realistic side.   This would really free up my cash flow.   I am going to have a bit of a reduced pension and cash flow, due to my ex-wife and depending on how much of my pension I can pay back.   One of the two things I would like to do when I retire is to concentrate more on my travel photography.  I seem to take much better pictures when I travel for some strange reason.   By being based in an inexpensive country it frees up the cashflow to do more traveling.    The 2nd thing I would like to do is to continue to feed my amateur radio hobby.   I've been involved with radio since 1987 and have always enjoyed the hobby.   The city that I am looking at, Cuenca, is located 2500m above sea level in the Andes.  Although not an extremely hard country to find on the amateur radio bands, that height would be of interest to people who experiment in contests, moon bounce, VHF work and several other aspects of the hobby.   They call these DXpeditions.  Hams will pay good money to travel to foreign countries to play radio for a week, particularly if things are setup for them.   They fly in, play radio, brag about the wonderful place they are staying and go home.   Next thing you know your location is published in the radio magazines and business starts.  All I would need is to rent a place on the outside, but close to, the city that has guest quarters.   Looking at the real estate sites for Cuenca, there are several places that fit the bill and are extremely cheap compared to what I pay today.

So why would I want to leave Canada?   This has been the primary question, do I want to?   Yes and no.   I love Canada, it's my home and there are numerous places in the country where I could retire and be very happy.   I would love to try moving to the north, I would go back to Newfoundland, the east coast or the west coast.   But 3 of the most interesting years of my life was when I lived outside Canada.   I really enjoyed learning a new culture and making new friends..  Those people have remained my closest friends for the past 20 years.   I would like the cash flow to be able to travel and not just be a home body who putters around the house.  And I also want to get away from the insane weather in Ottawa.   Ottawa is terrible, +40c in the summer and -40c in the winter (ya ya, worst case) but I can't deal with the fluctuations.   It's to much.  It's to hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.   I could go elsewhere in Canada and have a less drastic change but I like the idea of consistent weather.   Cuenca is 23C during the day and 15C at night.   + or - a few degrees depending on the season.    Perfect temps!   Nice for working in during the day and fantastic for sleeping in at night.   I do worry a bit about dampness levels but I would need to experience it to know for sure.

Other things to consider; will Jen go with me?   She has a daughter here in Canada, would she even want to go far away?   How close am I with my kids at the time of retirement, how does that effect my planning?  Anything else keeping me here?  Health issues?  etc etc.    So the decision process is far from over.   A lot more reading but more important, I need to start taking trips to Ecuador to make sure first hand.   This will cut into my Bermuda visits :-/    Not an idea that I like.......sigh......   But time will tell.  For now I read blogs from a few expats living in Ecuador (again, on the side bar) and read what their lives are like.  But for the most part they have retired and don't seem to do all that much day to day, I would (I hope) have a more active and involved lifestyle.   

So that's what I'm watching these days ;-)   Sorry if you thought what am I watching on TV hahaha, that will be a post for another day.

Hope everyone is having a great week.