Spacetravellers

Anytime I am about to hop on an airplane, awaiting my reappearance in a distant place, I begin a ritual marveling at the world we live in. Walking off a plane into a blistery humid climate wearing the same (albeit wrinkly) clothes I left my arctic new England home in, is one of the welcome miracles brought by the combustion engine, the fossil fueled existence we humans are so privileged to lead. But something always tugs at my heart in these moments of transience - the tension between my thirst for the 'faraway' and my concern for resource conservation. Transportation of this sort is an aperture to new experience, knowledge, and perspectives.

Today - as I head to San Salvador, Bahamas, (home to Columbus' first 1492 steps into the 'New World', and to coral reefs which my fellow Earthwatch volunteers and I will come to know more closely over the next 7 days), I welcome the beauty and complexity of trade-off riddled world in which I live.

Here's to finding out what my air travel, might have to do with a coral reef ecosytem off the coast of San Salvador. Toward blue skies, humidity, and field work I head!