Port City

While I have lived on a tiny island in the middle of the Mozambique Canal and on the coast of the Atlantic in southwestern France, I have never had a view overlooking a port city.  Along our northernmost view of the sea, a line of ship-to-shore gantry cranes stand sentry; and despite their huge size, from our distance, they seem more like red and blue toy giraffes set in a row by a playing child.  It is quite fascinating to see the huge cargo ships coming and going, the giraffes lowering their necks to unload the shipping containers.  Smaller military boats lurk grayly along, always making me wonder if they are going to intercept a ship and deny them port.  I would have liked to see the days when white sails grew larger and larger on the horizon. Alas, those romantic-looking days are long past. 

Still, no matter the ships that ply it, the sea is a marvel to behold.  While Homer's "wine-dark seas" are a debated term and applied to the Aegean more than the Mediterranean, I have been witness to a myriad of hues from purple to bruised green to tropical-turquoise as storm and sun play over the waves below. And with the binoculars we brought with us, we get to see flocks of white birds diving into the water, only to resurface like so much white spray before falling back into the waters.