Dream Trip 2009

Great Travel Moment

The feeling of the afternoon captured in this photograph has traveled with me through time and across continents. I believe it has been so enduring because it was the most complete stillness I have ever felt, both inside and in the world around. On an island of sand dunes off the coast of Australia, I was helping with a study of dugongs, a marine mammal similar to the manatee. Every day we would travel one hour by boat to find the group feeding amongst sea grass. Our boat was a platoon and as we drifted, I would lie on the ceiling to see the clouds turn. On this day we were returning from hours of listening to the dugongs softly surface and breath deeply. I have never seen the ocean as still, reflecting the clouds so flawlessly that it seemed a desert mirage. That stillness flowed through everything and everyone.