Korčula, Croatia - Monday 18th May 2026
So, I’ve been thinking about how I share my travels whilst I work on cruise ships. My use of social media has changed and also feel more and more reticent to be playing into the hands of those who own so much wealth and data - why should they have my photos, my thoughts, my creativity? I was using another app called Polarsteps (which you can have a look at for my previous travels: search StevenTroubador on the app) but I also felt I was sharing a lot into something that someone else owns and not many people were really seeing it. Then I wondered what am I even sharing for? I know some friends and family want to see where I have been, and I appreciate that. But my phone is now just filled with photos that I don’t share and I wonder why we are taking these pictures when really you can just find them on the internet… is it to prove that I have been here? To prove I’m alive? To show off to others about my wonderful life?
Remember when we used to go around to see the holiday snaps of family or friends after they had had a break? I think I found this quite boring as a child but also I can see there is a least more of a connection there. There is a sharing of stories and tales and it takes time. I can now send a bunch of pics which someone can glance through in seconds and say ‘oh wow, how wonderful’ but know nothing of what is actually going on. And trust me, I do the very same thing the other way round. I don’t think we will ever go back to how things were pre-digital era but here is me trying something out to slow it down and share what I’m doing but also what I’m thinking and feeling - for whoever wants to read. As you might already see, this could be a rambling ramble that does not get to any particular point fast… but it’s my ramble and my website and my life which I want to share.
And so, I begin nearly 2 months into my current cruiseship (or superyacht) contract and I sit in the handsome little island town of Korčula in Croatia. It’s known as a mini Dubrovnik with it’s forted old town surrounded by the blue Croatian sea. Cobbled streets take you up to the old church and the images above which summed up a little of what I am talking about and also some of my thoughts on cruising.
On my first visit here last week (today is a return trip with new passengers), I went for a wander and stumbled into a little church which on quick glance you would think very nice, very church, moment of quiet and move on. However, I decided to read the plaque on the wall which explained the stone sarcophagus sitting in the entrance. It made me pause. And laugh a little. As I stood and read it and took in the message, tourists poured in and out for mere seconds to take pictures clumsily on their phones then continue on their allocated hours of seeing a place. This piece of artwork by Simon Beer speaks to that exact thing of tourists, and particularly cruiseships, and how they descend to devour a place in hours. But how can you ever see beyond a surface level and really understand the people, the culture, the land… and is this industry helping or hindering? I am guilty enough of this as a crew member of just stumbling out and finding the nearest coffee shop and wifi and forgetting where I am… and the result is a kind of malaise, a sort of depression in a nice place, a numbness, a passing through but never truly feeling. And this all got wrapped up in my thoughts on how I’m sharing photos and how we move with social media in our mind. I’m pretty fed up of it, and I’m pretty sure you are too. We are slightly trapped. Until that is, we take a moment to read something, to think about something and to really be here. Then things might just change.
Another remedy to all of this is connection. As it happened, someone I had met last year when doing a songwriting camp in Berlin was here on holiday with his friend. I seized the opportunity to escape the ship and join them for a little boat trip to one of the smaller islands nearby. We walked, sat on a beach and screamed at big spiders and insects attacking us, and didn’t look at our phones for a few hours. It can make going back into the fantasy world of the ship more difficult after some real life time, but also makes me appreciate how this job gives me the chance to have such little moments of joy. And as I sit starting this blog or whatever it should become, I am grateful to that and this. Even when we feel like we are sleepwalking, we can shake ourselves awake with people, art, the ocean and the here and now.
