Summer Solstice

I am sitting alone on our veranda with a hot cup I just brought from the coffee mess. No one else is awake yet. I had forgotten the intoxicating joy that comes from the faint smell of diesel and the laughter of seagulls. Some boat’s engine a hundred yards away is humming softly, and hot coffee burns my tongue. A distant vessel’s horn sounds like a dove softly cooing. A green and yellow commuter train growls as it crawls across the top of the Ponte Luís I. The sun too is just now arriving for the longest day of work he will ever do. This is June 22. The summer solstice. The longest day of the year.

This is why we cruise. This is why we travel. And when I was a young man back in the swamp, I never dreamed it could be so good.Read more