I love being up before sunrise. It’s my chance to see the world before it wakes up.
Contrails Just Before Sunrise over Waterford
Those half dozen contrails are airliners that left the NE U.S. last night. The groggy passengers just now being woken for their early morning juice and coffee. As the cabin crew scurries down the aisle, with their drink cart, the smell of freshly warmed bread waifs through the cabin.
Now, the warm rolls are for the Business Class passengers. One must admire the airlines ingenuity. Business Class was born when more and more companies in a cost cutting mode back in the early ‘90’s stopped employees flying on company paid travel from flying First Class.
The airlines that scrambled the best and were the most adaptive survived. Since most of their revenues came from those business people flying on someone else’ dime. Thus, Business Class was born.
I miss the time I was flying on someone else’s money. But not too much; well truth be told, not at all. It was only for a short time during the last 30 years, all the rest of the time, money spent on my travel, mostly to Europe to see friends, came out of my pocket and meant that I had to do without something else.
But, in watching those contrails this morning, I also remembered the numerous times I’d be looking out the aircraft window and wishing I was “down there”.
Sunrise over Waterford
And that’s pretty much the story of my life, always wishing to be somewhere else.
Dauntless changed everything. The world now passes by my living room window. Feeling wistful like a gypsy before; now I am truly a gypsy and loving every minute of it.
Thanks for coming along for the ride.
Coming soon to a theater near you: the Post Mortem, Finding the Right Boat, Weather or Not, Hijinks on the High Seas, It’s Showtime Two.
I’m an eclectic person, who grew up in New York, lived overseas for many years and have a boat, Dauntless, a 42 foot Kadey Krogen trawler yacht. Dauntless enables me to not only live in many different parts of the world, but to do it in a way that is interesting, affordable, with the added spice of a challenge.
Dauntless also allows me to be in touch with nature. As the boat glides through the ocean, you have a sense of being part of a living organism. When dolphins come to frolic, they stay longer if you are out there talking to them, watching them. Birds come by, sometimes looking for a handout; sometimes grateful to find a respite from their long journey.
I grew up on the New York waterfront, in the West Village, when everything west of Hudson St. was related to shipping and cargo from around the world. For a kid, it was an exciting place of warehouses, trucks, and working boats of all kinds: tugs and the barges and ships, cargo and passenger, they were pushing around.
My father was an electrical engineer, my mother an intellectual, I fell in between.
I have always been attracted to Earth’s natural processes, the physical sciences. I was in 8th grade when I decided to be a Meteorologist.
After my career in meteorology, my natural interest in earth sciences: geology, astronomy, geography, earth history, made it a natural for me to become a science teacher in New York City, when I moved back to the Big Apple. Teaching led to becoming a high school principal to have the power to truly help kids learn and to be successful not only in school but in life.
Dauntless is in western Europe now. In May and June, I will be wrapping up the last two years in northern Europe, heading south to spend the rest of the year in Spain & Portugal.
Long term, I’m planning on returning to North American in the fall of 2017 and from there continuing to head west until we’re in Northeast Asia, Japan and South Korea, where we will settle for a bit.
But now, my future lies not in NY or even Europe, but back to the water, where at night, when the winds die down, there is no noise, only the silence of the universe. I feel like I am at home, finally.
View all posts by Richard on Dauntless
Dauntless at Sea 