A ship embarked on a voyage across water
is correctly said to be “at sea.” An
airplane embarked on a voyage through air is said to be “in flight.” This inconsistency puzzles me. It seems that an airplane underway should be
described as “at sky,” for the airplane is truly in the sky just as much as the
ship is in the sea. I think of this now
because of a journey that I made recently aboard a small aircraft which was
simultaneously at sea and at sky.
At 12:14pm on Friday, March 17, 2017,
with my son James at the controls, Miss Patty and I took off from Boire Field
in Nashua, New Hampshire, aboard a Cessna Skyhawk and proceeded toward
Biddeford, Maine. It was a bright,
sunny, and clear Saint Patrick’s Day, truly a beautiful day for flying. I had not travelled in a small aircraft since
the early 1980s, so this was a special occasion.
James taxied to the end of runway 32, and
we took off into the wind to the northwest.
Once airborne, he banked the plane as it continued to ascend and turned
sharply to the east. At about 1,500 feet
of altitude and in turbulent air, we passed over the northern part of
Nashua. I looked at our neighborhood
below with some trepidation as the little airplane lurched through the
turbulence. I sincerely hoped that Saint
Patrick was watching over us on his special day! James knew exactly what to do, though, and
the ride became more comfortable as he ascended into calmer air. At a cruising altitude of about 3,500 feet,
we flew east-northeastward towards Portsmouth and then into Maine.
Looking southward and seeing Portsmouth
and its environs from the air was a special treat, and it brought back many
happy memories. I had been assigned
aboard the Furman here in 1985 and
1986. She spent a lot of time slowly
loading subsea telecommunications cable at the Simplex Wire and Cable Company
dock in Newington. She also sailed up
and down the Piscataqua River many times to shift berths and go on engineering
trials. In later years, when I was no
longer sailing, we often brought the children to Portsmouth. They played in Prescott Park, hiked across
the Memorial Bridge, visited the lighthouse at Fort Constitution, and explored
the grounds of Fort McClary. They also saw
ships there. They toured the historic Bluenose II and the not-so-historic State of Maine at the State Pier. They also admired the submarine Albacore, the cable carrier Global Mariner, and the cargo ships Atlantic Erie, Alexandria, Rays, and Nel.
Continuing toward Biddeford, James
piloted the little aircraft overland and parallel to the coastline. The great Atlantic Ocean stretched infinitely
to the somewhat hazy horizon. At its
edge lay the beaches—Wells, Long Sands, and the Footbridge—that we had
frequented with the children when they were little. The lighthouses stood there, too, including
the old family favorites that James promised to visit more closely on the
return flight to Nashua.
Descending next for the approach to the
small municipal airfield in Biddeford, James maneuvered the airplane through
more low level turbulence and landed in a strong crosswind from the northeast
on runway 24, one hour after our departure from Nashua. After parking and securing the Cessna, we met
James’ maternal grandmother who was waiting for us with an automobile. A family reunion and luncheon at a nearby
restaurant followed.
At 3:15pm it was time to leave
again. James took off on runway 60 heading
east-northeast this time, still contending with the strong northwesterly
crosswind. Once aloft, as the small
airplane was again buffeted by the low level turbulence, James turned the craft
to starboard and headed seaward. Most of the haze had by this time disappeared,
and the view of the Maine coastline and the open Atlantic was magnificent. To port lay the sandy crescent of Old Orchard
Beach capped by the rocky peninsula of Cape Elizabeth. To starboard lay the assortment of rocky
headlands interspersed with short sandy beaches that stretches back down to
Portsmouth. Just offshore a scattering
of small rocky islands punctuated the coast.
Several of these islands sported lighthouses, and as he had promised,
James turned southwestward over the Atlantic and set a course for sightseeing.
The first waypoint was Wood Island Light,
just a few minutes’ flight from the Biddeford airfield. Flying high enough to avoid the turbulence
but low enough to see the lighthouses clearly, James next took the aircraft
offshore and out to sea around Goat Island.
The coastal communities of Biddeford Pool and Fortunes Rocks passed by
on the starboard side. The broad, blue
Atlantic stretched out infinitely to port.
This was my favorite part of the flight, and I enjoyed the ineffable
feeling of simultaneously being at sea and at sky gazing down upon the
sea. It was sublime, supernal, and
serene, despite the continuous hum of the motor. After passing Goat Island to starboard, James
continued southwestward toward Boon Island.
Kennebunk, Wells, and Ogunquit came into view on the starboard
side. The great, blue Atlantic remained omnipresent
to port.
The time seemed to slow down as I stared at the open Atlantic on this leg of
the flight. I could have looked at it
all afternoon and been very content. But
then, suddenly it seemed, we reached Boon Island. James turned to port, rounded Boon, and
headed next for the Nubble. Long one of
the family’s favorite spots, we had visited Nubble Light often when James and
his siblings were younger, and from that vantage point had sighted the Boon
Island Light on the horizon several miles
distant. Seeing both lights from the air
was a new experience, a broader and more breathtaking perspective. At the Nubble, James turned the aircraft once
again to port and followed the sea to the Isles of Shoals on the Maine-New
Hampshire border.
Once again, I looked out to port and imbibed
the view of the wide, blue Atlantic. It
was tremendous, but unfortunately we would fly over it for only a few more
minutes. We came upon the Isles of
Shoals all too quickly, and James circled around them so we could see the small
white lighthouse on White Island. This
beautiful little archipelago lies only about seven miles offshore. The time was not slowing down now; it
suddenly seemed to be going by much too fast!
After a very brief further interval of blissfully looking down at my
Atlantic, the little aircraft came over Hampton Beach in New Hampshire. My view of the wide-open ocean was then
replaced by a view of the densely built up seaside resorts of Hampton and
Seabrook. From this point westward, we flew
overland back to Nashua.
My mind remained at sea, however. Today’s flight over water reminded me of two
previous journeys that I had made, one long ago and one fairly recently.
The first of these two flights took place
aboard The Portlander, a small Bar
Harbor Airlines Beechcraft 99, on Friday, December 16, 1977. Enroute from Bangor, Maine, to Boston, it
flew just offshore and paralleled the coastline from Penobscot Bay to Winthrop
Neck near Logan Airport on a clear and sunny afternoon with excellent
visibility. The views of both the snow-covered
New England coast and the cold, blue Atlantic Ocean were magnificent beyond
description. I’ve made many airline
flights over the years, and this one ranks high on my list of favorites.
The second flight took place aboard a Tam
Airlines 767 enroute from Sao Paulo, Brazil, to New York. In the very early morning of Mother’s Day,
May 8, 2016, I opened the window shade next to my seat on the port side of the
aircraft and gazed contentedly down at the western Atlantic between 20 and 30
degrees of north latitude. I had sailed
on this stretch of ocean many times aboard several ships, and it felt good to
be back. I would have been perfectly happy
to sit quietly and look at the Atlantic Ocean for the rest of the flight to New
York, but this was not to be. After a little
while a cabin attendant came to my seat and asked me to please lower the
shade. It was letting too much light
into the darkened interior of the airplane, she explained, and the cabin crew
wanted the passengers to sleep as long as possible before they served breakfast. I lowered the shade as requested. As I did so, however, I glanced around and
felt bad for the other passengers. Very
few of them had window seats, and I supposed that even fewer had any interest
in looking at the great Atlantic Ocean.
And here, after all my voyages, I felt like a plank owner of the
Atlantic!
As our homeward flight drew to its
conclusion, James descended to about 1,500 feet and passed directly over his
old school in Hudson, the Presentation of Mary Academy. Then he brought the little Cessna back across
the Merrimack River and over downtown Nashua.
At 4:15pm he landed on runway 32 at Boire Field, and our journey was
complete.
In two hours of flight, we had seen the
beauty of the sea and the sky, two of the primordial elements of the Earth. The aerial voyage brought to mind the words
of the psalmist:
They
that go down to the sea in ships,
that
do business in great waters;
These
see the works of the Lord,
and
his wonders in the deep (Ps. 107:23-24).
This applies to airmen as much as to
seamen, for both traverse the vast stretches of sea and sky in their voyaging. Whether on a ship looking out at the sea and
up at the sky, or on an airplane and looking out at the sky and down at the
sea, these magnificent elements speak to the human soul and touch the human
heart. The psalmist further asserts, “The
heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1), and more recent revelation
informs us that, “The elements are the tabernacle of God” (D&C 93:35). Whether at sea or at sky, then, the
opportunity to experience Divinity and commune with Deity is at limitless as
the elements themselves.
A few photographs from our journey:
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| Portsmouth Harbor. The Piscataqua River separates Kittery, Maine, on the left, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the right. Several local landmarks are clearly visible: the Navy Yard, the three bridges, Albacore Park, Prescott Park, Fort McClary, Fort Constitution, and downtown Portsmouth. |
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| Boon Island, about six miles offshore from Cape Neddick and Nubble Light. This is a very isolated spot, despite its proximity to the mainland. |
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| The Atlantic Ocean. This view is to the southeast from a point between Boon Island and the Isles of Shoals. As I looked out on the wide expanse of the blue sea, I also observed the wing of our aircraft, and I marveled at the fairly recently discovered principle of physics that enables air to support the weight of the airplane, and its passengers, cargo, fuel, etc. |
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| A few of the Isles of Shoals. Depending on how one counts them, there are about ten islands in the cluster, which is bisected by the Maine-New Hampshire border. They are easily accessible by ferry from Portsmouth. This places them far enough from the madding crowd without being too isolated. They look like a great location for my retirement home! |
