Unnatural Beauty

Night light at the Point A Pitre Port, Guadaloupe.

How can two tree-hugging sailors seeking small eco-footprints still find setting anchor in industrial ports undeniably cool?

But we do.

There’s something connective, witnessing the supply chain flow to and from all corners of the globe, monstrously large ships filling our cockpit view, great arteries pumping the lifeblood of supply and demand.  There’s something incredibly sexy about watching cranes working cargo ships, real-life tinker-toys for giants, robotically loading and unloading boxcars. There’s something magically surreal about artificially illuminated night skies, upapologetically burning more electricity than it would take to power a third-world country. 

Morning rainbow over Point A Pitre Port, Guadaloupe,
from our cockpit.

There is no temptation to stick a toe in the water much less swim in industrial port waters.  We wouldn’t dare run our watermaker in port.  Nor would we settle downwind.

We will leave, yielding to our yearning for clear water, clean, sweet air, dense,  starry skies, free from light pollution.

Dusk at Point A Pitre Port, Guadaloupe.

Yet, we’ll be back, drawn by the very inhumanity of industry, reveling guiltily yet unabashedly in our inexplicably perverse voyeuristic pleasure, hovering, like moths to light.