Last year I finally went sailing, blue water sailing. It was unexpected, spontaneous. Three months of beautiful deep blue seas, storms, icebergs. Antarctic, Atlantic and Caribbean islands. Dolphins, whales, seals, penguins. Albatross, petrel, shearwater and the scary-looking forked-tail Frigate birds. Daughter Marina met me on the dock in Antigua, Lesser Antilles, Caribbean and we decided to try for yet another Atlantic crossing -my 3rd for the year.
Then the exhilaration of long distance, blue water sailing with drop dead dawns and sunsets, wonderous clouds and starry skies. The camaraderie and challenges of tacking through headwinds, doldrums and tempestuous squalls. Six weeks from St Maarten to Madeira. After six months of sleeping on floating boats I strengthened my land legs moving around the Atlantic Canary Islands, the Mediterranean Balearic Islands Ibiza and Mallorca to the south of France.
Arrived in Charles de Gaulle International Airport and followed the crowd past a very long line of primarily Asian people. I assumed they must be queuing up for a flight to Asia but this was the immigration queue. An hour later, after an already 29 hour flight, I walked into France. However, exiting from a Paris metro station it was clearly worth it.
Blinding blue sky and people everywhere. In a good way. I wended my way, tram and walking, across to my friends Gert and Sofie in the 15th arrondissement, shared a quick lunch with them the I re-took to the streets.
I stopped in Paris to catch up with Gert and Sofie but welcomed the opportunity to spend street time in this city. Being a spring weekend I decided to focus around the Seine and walked north till I hit the river. It is a spectacular piece of engineering still years later. In particular, it is appreciably tall, towering. The Statue of Liberty behind me on the end of my island behind me reminds that not all icons are as sizeably iconic as you would imagine.
