Reading Joel’s beautiful Keeping Your Sanity with a Sense of Awe posted on October 4th 2021, with its mention of the sun reflecting off the kelp beds of Monterey Bay, I couldn’t help thinking of a similar experience I had.

I learned how to scuba dive off the California coast, particularly in the waters off Catalina Island. Kelp plants grow to spread their leaves on the ocean surface, but it’s underwater you experience their true beauty. They rise from the bottom rocks of the shallow ocean floor near the coast as a forest, and when the sun’s rays shine through them, it is a magical sight to see them turn the color of gold.

The first time I saw this on a dive off Catalina I was transfixed in a true moment of absolute awe, in a transport of appreciation of the Creation in which we are privileged to exist.

The photo you see is not mine as I did not have an underwater camera, I could only take a picture with my mind’s eye which I have never forgotten. So the photo is an approximation of what I saw, yet it brings back that memorable moment of awe I had almost sixty years ago. Thanks, Joel. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #162)

Bukhara is the oldest city on the fabled Silk Road. You’ve seen Glimpses of The Well of Job, where legend says Job of the Old Testament struck the ground with his staff, creating a well bubbling with fresh pure water that still flows today.

And of The Ark of Bukhara, the palace-fortress of Bukhara rulers since 500 BC. The ancient Silk Road oasis has a history of 5,000 years. I was first here in 1963, a 19 year-old teenager with a summer job of filming fabulously exotic places in Central Asia unknown to the West for a Hollywood stock film company.

I was not much older than these teenage ladies back then. I took this picture of them when I was last in Bukhara in 2019. It was so extraordinarily lucky of me to experience such magical places as Bukhara when young. It’s enabled me to stay young at heart so many decades later.

If you remain young at heart, please consider joining me on my next exploration of Central Asia this September. And perhaps you have a teenage child or grandchild with whom you could experience its wonders together. It will be a life-long treasured memory for you both. Carpe diem: The Heart of Central Asia – Sept 18-Oct 4, 2022. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #214 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The grape vines of Pico Island, one of nine islands of the Azores in the Atlantic, are enclosed within walls of black basalt rocks called currais (corrals). For over 500 years, the Portuguese villagers have been constructing thousands of miles of these currais wall enclosures to protect the vines from wind and sea spray.

The vineyards of Pico are so extraordinary that they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And the wine is uniquely good! You can order a bottle here. Best, though, is to experience Pico and its viticulture yourself. That’s what we did last week on our Atlantic Paradises adventure with your fellow TTPers. We had a wonderful time – and you will too.

(Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #213 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

June 15, 1961. It was quite a shock to me when I was the surprise guest on Ralph Edwards’ famous television show. My “Life” at age 17? How could that be? The show’s producers were intrigued by a recent Life Magazine story of my swimming the Hellespont as did Leander in Greek mythology (December 12, 1960 issue) that also had photos of me on top of the Matterhorn and with a Jivaro headhunter.

Without my knowing, they flew my guide for the Hellespont swim, Huseyin Uluarslan, from Turkey to LA, the same for my guide on the Matterhorn, Alfons Franzen, from Switzerland, to be on the show. Most amazing of all, they got the Chief Prefect of Police for Ecuador, Jaime Duran, to pick up Tangamashi (the Jivaro who adopted me) and his brother Naita by helicopter from their Amazon encampment, then fly them from Quito to LA.

I was dumbfounded. So there we are in the photo, left to right: Ralph Edwards, Jaime Duran, Tangamashi, Naita, a very young yours truly, and Ralph Ferguson, son of medical researcher Dr. Wilburn Ferguson who translated for Tangamashi. Quite a moment for a 17 year-old boy – and no doubt for Tangamashi! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #10)

Famboun, Cameroon. This is a Ndiki Drum. It is used by the Sultan of Bamoun to call his subjects to their end-of the-year Nguon festival over which he presides. It can be heard for miles.

The carved wooden forearms and hands propped up at the drum’s end are not the original drumsticks. They are symbolic for what the real drumsticks used to be. Until the British and French put an end to the custom in the 1920s, the Ndiki drumsticks were human arms, amputated at the elbow off captured slaves. Four drummers were needed to properly pound the drum, each requiring two drumsticks: eight amputated human arms in total.

The horror of slavery in Africa was ended by Western colonialists. In its place they introduced roads, railroads, electricity, an impartial rule of law instead of law favoring one tribe over another, and other benefits of civilization. They did a lot of stupid damage to African cultures, true.

But that is vastly outweighed by getting rid of slavery – exemplified by how this drum was pounded until less than 100 years ago. If you have a child or grandchild in school with woke teachers, you might have them bring this picture to class, and explain how the benefits of Western Civilization so greatly outweighs its liabilities. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #124 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is Temple IV at the ancient Mayan capital of Tikal, now in northern Guatemala. It was from the top of Temple IV that the shot in the original 1977 Star Wars movie was filmed of the Millennium Falcon landing (at 44 seconds) near jungle temples (Temples II and III) at the Rebel Base on the moon of Yavin 4.

Built in 740 AD, at 230 feet it is the tallest pre-Columbian structure in all the Americas. While Tikal’s earliest buildings date to the 4^th century BC, it was from 300 to 800 AD that Tikal flourished as one of the Mayan Empires most powerful kingdoms.

Then decline set in, with drought, deforestation, overpopulation, and constant warfare with rival kingdoms. With Tikal abandoned by the end of the 900s, it remained covered by rainforest jungle for over a thousand years. American archaeologists began excavations in the 1950s. Today with its major temples restored, Tikal is the most impressive example you can visit of Mayan civilization. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #118 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The Antarctic island of South Georgia is home to a million King penguins, plus countless fur seals, gigantic elephant seals, staggering numbers of seabirds such as albatrosses, amidst a backdrop of towering mountains with massive glaciers spilling off them.

Nothing can prepare you for the incomprehensible size of the penguin rookeries here, densely packed as far as the eye can see (all those white dots on the hills behind are penguins). Nor for the size of bull elephant seals weighing up to 8,000 pounds, especially when they rise up and crash their chests against each other in mating challenges emitting deafening bellows. Nor being surrounded by a thousand fur seals unafraid of you. The density of wildlife combined with the magnificent beauty of the island is completely overwhelming.

Here also is the abandoned whaling station of Grytviken where the heroic explorer Ernest Shackleton is buried. You can only get here by expedition cruise ship. South Georgia is one of the great experiences on our planet. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #96 photo ©Jack Wheeler)