Of all the creatures in the sea, dolphins, hands down, win the popularity contest.  We are inexplicably drawn to them, we personify them, we see ourselves in them!

They appear playful, curious; they show off, display a certain joie de vivre, and even look us right in the eye – all personality traits we claim as our own!   Like us, they’re mammals, and are therefore warm-blooded, have lungs that breathe air, give birth to their young and nurse them.  Add these facts - they have large brains, live in complex societies, help one another, learn from experience.  It’s no wonder we’re intrigued. Continue Reading »

The Green Flash, not a comic book character, but an atmospheric event -  that startling glint of neon green that appears just for a second on the upper curve of the sun just as its last little sliver dips under the horizon.  An optical sunrise or sunset atmospheric phenomenon, it lasts but a second or two and is the piéce de résistance of an etheral event, if you are lucky enough to see it.    

So elusive and mystical, it’s the stuff of movies and books.  It’s the soul released in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End; an indication of true love in Jules Verne’s 1882 book Le Rayon Vert (The Green Flash).

Florida Keys Sunset

Key West, the southernmost point in the United States, with its awesome sunsets and unobstructed views of the flat ocean horizon, is an ideal place to try to catch it…if you can. 

Sunsets all over the world are glorious phenomena – firery orange over a tropical sea, cool mauve, blue and silver streaks over a northern sky, golden hued haze through desert sand, saturated shades of coral overpowering for the moment the silhouette cut-outs of majestic mountains.  Sunsets, wherever they are, are magical, mysterious, unpredictable, yet consistently there, and the human response to them is universal.   

They have the capacity to hold us spellbound.  Regardless of who we are, or how many we’ve seen, we never tire of them. Never the same twice, each contains an element of surprise.  We may know precisely what time they’ll occur, but what they’ll look like is a mystery even as they unfold.  

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