I am willing to admit that I may not always be right. But I am never wrong.
-Samuel Goldwyn-
Personal Profile
I get a steady flow of feed back. Thank you. Thank you.
One request on the feedback was for some information about me, some history. I noticed that the link for Who is Lauri G ? is really only me babbling and carrying on about my philosophies and making statements about the world, not about me.
Here's who I am.
Born: Kätilöopisto, Helsinki, Finland, 24 November 1966
Name: Lauri Gustav Strengell
Family:
Mother: Aliisa, born 1926. Librarian and a lover of literature. A sagitarian idealist with anxiety and empathy for everything in the world. Aliisa died from her third cancer 24 Nov 1996.
Father: Ragnar, born 1927, alive and well. An engineer, a lover of knowledge and chess. A logical gemini with a fun-loving light hearted character which shines brighter as I'm growing older with him.
Sister: Minna, born 1960. A former world traveller come seminologist. A lover of all animals, a laid back and earthly woman who lives in a small town with her two teenage boys.
Sister: Anna, born 1958. A sensitive lover of Arts, a painter and a bohemian for whom the world was perhaps not the favourite place. Died in 1981. Much missed.
Sister: Silja, born 1956. An industrious, ambitious lover of music. A piano playing, opera listening woman come translator (finnish / swedish / english), a wife and mother of three youngsters. Lives in Helsinki.
(I apologise to my family for the above descriptions. How do I put a whole human being in twenty words? I love you all and how I describe you will tell more about my perception of you than the true character of you.)
Back to me, me me me...
I grew up in the middle-class Strengell family in Espoo, a satellite city of Helsinki. I Did nine years of compulsory schooling and started the extra 3 years of highschool. At the age of 16, in the beginning of year 11, I realised that the education system can not match the lessons of the real world. I walked out of school and went looking for a job.
In 1983 I started in Helios, a camera store in Espoo. Photography had been my hobby for some years and the camera store took the long-haired scruffy young Lauri on a 2-year apprenticeship. I stayed for 9 years, getting a degree in sales and nurturing my skill at customer service. During those nine years I dated the same girl, the girl I fell in love with at the age of 15. We grew up to be adults, together. Today Outi remains one of my best friends.
In 1991 I was the store manager, still in the same camera shop. I had enough money tucked away for a good electric drum kit, which would enable me to play without driving the neighbours mad - as I had done ten years earlier at the age of 14 with my first kit. I was 5 minutes away from spending $US 2000 on a professional setup, but the sale fell through because of a malfunction in the set. Out of a whim I decided to spend my money on a three month holiday in South Pacific instead.
The holiday was to mark the first bend in a total turnaround in my life.
My Family. All as different as the people on the planet. And all as similar as all people on the planet. My Planet of origin.
After some research, I flew to Tonga and spend the first months of 1991 there. I saw my first real palm tree and experienced the tropics for the first time in my life. I was 24-years-old. When I returned to Finland, I had only one thought in my mind; to return to Tonga, forever.
It was a crazy idea, but one that I was totally sure about. I had fallen in love with the Kingdom of Tonga and there was no stopping me. For a year I did palliative care to my relationship with Outi - a relationship that now had an eerie expiry date; 10 October 1992. Outi was brave and heartbroken. She drove me in our 20-year-old Fiat 600 to the airport. I spend some time in Cairns and Fiji before making a home in Makaha'a Island, off Nuku'Alofa.
The Tongan dream lasted for a year. During that year I learned that people - some crazy people - live in their yachts and travel around the world. I joined a research yacht from Tonga to New Zealand and back. I met two Finnish cruising yachts, Polarbear and Merivuokko. I left Tonga in September 1993 on board Polarbear, sailed to Brisbane and travelled up to Cairns to pursue a career in Diving.
I worked on dive boats and became a Dive Instructor in 1994. On the same year I fell in love with Sonya, the second Capricorn pre-school teacher in my life. Later, still in the same year, I joined the second Finnish cruising yacht - Merivuokko - and stayed on board for 5000 miles through Papua New Guinea, North Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Sonya travelled with me most of the trip.
In 1995 Sonya and I moved to England and got married. In 1996 we returned to Cairns. I had never really launched my diving career though I logged nearly one thousand dives. A mild case of decompression sickness turned me into other jobs in tourism; tour guide, reservations, sales & marketing, reception and administration. My marriage with Sonya ended in 2000. We remain friends without much contact.
The rest is on the web. Working on Fitzroy island, sailing to PNG with Phil, meeting Paula and finally sailing off, in July 2004.
