Three dimentional sailing

Me at Dublin Airport

How very different air travel is from sailing to a destination on a cruising sailboat. Here I sit in the airport having struggled with baggage from car to train to bus to airport. My flight is 4 hours from now. At least the airport has wifi to entertain me. And I have everything in reverse to look forward to at the other end after traveling in three dimentions across thousands  of miles in few hours.

Groups of children are huddled in corners with their iPads waging their next intergallactic war. I am surrounded by tourists of various shapes, sizes, colours and tongues. There is the rather large German Zha Zha Gabor wanna be who never was. The aging American flower children stuck in the California of the 70s. The vast Canadian ordering multiple triple decker sandwiches. The African immigrants making a pilgrimmage home. And on it goes. The world is vastly multicultural and airline travel accentuates every aspect.

Sailing in two dimentions along the surface of the earth is so very different. Sure there is much time spent waiting for a weather window but that's in the comfort of your own home. Then you travel at the speed of knots not sound, so you can actually see something along the way. And when you land, you are in a community not a holding tank for transients.

I think the reason I hate air travel so much is because I have had the great luxury of sailing from place to place on my own boat wthout the need to unpack along the way.  And it was truly bizarre to have sailed across the Atlantic without experiencing jet lag.

Viva la difference! Viva la voile.

Ms. Wannabee Zha Zha at the next table. I'm being surreptitious.