Exploring the Nautilus Grand Canal

Sailing languidly through the sims of SL on the other hand, allows people to actually take time to look around, and spend time visually exploring their surroundings. They are part of the environment, submerged in it, instead of hovering hundreds of meters up and looking at it from afar.

One of the dreams I have is of exploring little islands in a yacht, doing my research on native species while I sail serenely from one unexplored tropical lagoon to another. In SL I have the chance to do that, though obviously the SL experience is quite lacking compared to real life.

Nevertheless, the thrill of discovering something that I had never seen before, of finding something beautiful and fascinating in the morass of everyday things, can be just as deep and fulfilling. Call the SL experience a practice run, a harbinger of hopefully things to come in RL.

In SL of course people can TP and fly and do all sorts of things that we normally can't. But in some ways I think this detracts from the thrill of discovery. Flying over diverse landscapes and TPing from place to place creates a fast pace of life that may cause one to lose sight of little things in the environment that should not have been missed.

Sailing languidly through the sims of SL on the other hand, allows people to actually take time to look around, and spend time visually exploring their surroundings. They are part of the environment, submerged in it, instead of hovering hundreds of meters up and looking at it from afar. This makes sailing one of the best ways of seeing SL, in my opinion, and once in awhile I'd like to show people some of the places I visited while sailing the seas of Second Life.

The little island of Barbarossa sits by itself on the western part of the Blake Sea, just across from the Nautilus Continent of the Linden mainlands. It is the gateway to the Nautilus continent, one of the Linden mainlands.

The island itself is quite small, but with a lighthouse, beach chairs and outhouses, and some moors for the occasional seaplane and ships.

It is however a frequent passing point for ships and aircraft. The beautiful sailboat in the pic below passes an old vintage airplane, which is obviously below 70 meters in the air and thus breaking an formal rule between the sailing organizations and the flyers.

I had been sailing west and had stopped by the island for a rest stop, and happened to notice in the distance the outlines of a massive structure.

Intrigued, I set sail westwards towards it, passing by one of the coast guard vessels that patrolled the area for miscreants.

As I came closer I realized it was a massive tower, decorated with silver dolphins along its many decks and fronted by a golden statue from which spouted fountains of iridescent water.

In front of the gargantuan structure were plaques that commemorated the builders of the surrounding area.

And this was when I noticed a channel that led into the mainland proper, a canal that thrust into the continent and allowed passage to sea-going vessels like The Wallaby. So I sailed on into the canal, and noticed that the thin strip of land which was protected land held structures that looked like ancient Greek temples.

At the end of the canal I came upon the most massive gates I've ever seen in SL, flanked by tall walls made of stone.

The gates were made of some bronze-like metal, with elaborate dolphins embossed on the front faces. I sailed bravely through the gates.

Dwarfed by the immense walls that flanked my now-miniscule sailboat.

Until I finally came upon a circular area where the canal ended.

Above me loomed the walls of this citadel, and beyond them buildings of various types and history. I circled round the closed arena, still using my sails, but had to start my engine on the way back because the wind as usual was blowing east and it would be rough going upwind in such a narrow passageway.

As I passed the gigantic gates, I clicked on them and to my surprise they closed ponderously and with great dignity, sealing for now the secret passageway to the heart of the city.