Salvador, Brazil
We arrived in the New World this evening, just on dusk, with Salvador’s big-the city skyline basking in the last rays of the sun. The six-day sea voyage from Cape Verde is over.
It’s been a grand crossing. Along the way, we’ve encountered killer whales and pilot whales, sperm whales and dolphins. We watched flying fish spurt from the bow wave, and booby birds dive into the water to catch them. We watched clouds scud along the horizon and tropical sunsets. Those up early in the mornings saw the Southern Cross sparkling low in the sky. One evening we witnessed the green flash – the curious atmospheric phenomenon sometimes observed at sea when the upper rim of the setting sun sparkles green for an instant as it slides beneath the horizon. We crossed the Equator.
Books were read, crossword puzzles solved, card games shuffled and dealt; each day’s progress marked out by a succession of lectures and the timing of meals. We’d stroll out on the deck now and then to take the air, and come back in again when we felt too hot.
These were magic days – and not just for their restorative slowness and the beauty of the sea. When strung together and accompanied by that steady twelve-knot throb of the engines, they become rich in meaning, restoring the world to its rightful size. Here in the Broadband Age, when even the South Pole is only a mouse-click away and Singapore just fourteen hours by air from London, it’s easy to lose track of how grand and large a place our earth really is. How wonderful it is then to have the far-away restored to us, to be reminded so eloquently of the romance of distance and the restless longings that propel us to travel.
We arrived in the New World this evening, just on dusk, with Salvador’s big-the city skyline basking in the last rays of the sun. The six-day sea voyage from Cape Verde is over.
It’s been a grand crossing. Along the way, we’ve encountered killer whales and pilot whales, sperm whales and dolphins. We watched flying fish spurt from the bow wave, and booby birds dive into the water to catch them. We watched clouds scud along the horizon and tropical sunsets. Those up early in the mornings saw the Southern Cross sparkling low in the sky. One evening we witnessed the green flash – the curious atmospheric phenomenon sometimes observed at sea when the upper rim of the setting sun sparkles green for an instant as it slides beneath the horizon. We crossed the Equator.
Books were read, crossword puzzles solved, card games shuffled and dealt; each day’s progress marked out by a succession of lectures and the timing of meals. We’d stroll out on the deck now and then to take the air, and come back in again when we felt too hot.
These were magic days – and not just for their restorative slowness and the beauty of the sea. When strung together and accompanied by that steady twelve-knot throb of the engines, they become rich in meaning, restoring the world to its rightful size. Here in the Broadband Age, when even the South Pole is only a mouse-click away and Singapore just fourteen hours by air from London, it’s easy to lose track of how grand and large a place our earth really is. How wonderful it is then to have the far-away restored to us, to be reminded so eloquently of the romance of distance and the restless longings that propel us to travel.
