The most memorable event? There were many- but one happy occasion took place back in 1988, years before they built the new Hong Kong airport and that big suspension bridge. In the late afternoon on a Sunday, after my Cathay flight from Tokyo touched down and I had checked into my top floor suite in a well known hotel in Central, it was time to melt into the beautiful view. Dinner time took me, via ferry chugging in vain to outrun the sunset, towards a fishing village way across the harbour on Lantau Island. Appetite satiated but chronically cash starved, I discovered that I could not use my Amex Platinum card in the village. Amazingly, I was able to pay for dinner with a check drawn on my bank in New York. 

Not every trip involves 12 time zones- living around the U.S. East Coast also brought a marvelous coastline within my reach and without all the jet-lag. In recent years, I was able to squeeze in boat rides to places like Catalina Island (think Avalon!) in between business meetings, as the West Coast opened up for me, as well. After a quick run to Catalina, all they could say that evening was, "Did you get some sun after our lunch meeting? Why's your face so red?" Dana Point had continued to elude me that afternoon, but the ferry terminal in San Pedro, under the Thomas Bridge, was just fine.

How do business and pleasure merge? Sometimes, nicely and unexpectedly. In the Summer of 2002, my work team took the Acela Express up to New London, Conn. for a presentation at the U.S. Coast Guard Research Center. What a delight, half way through my deck of Powerpoint slides, to be distracted by the an upclose view of the Avery Point Light, similar to the light house shown in the image below, out the back window of our meeting room. Or, consider a business luncheon where I was seated next to a banker who had a weekend place at  Fishers Island, so understated that it is known only to ferry trippers and summering socialites. Of course, being from the first  category, its lighthouse, shown further down the page, was quite well known to me. It was my knowledge of geography that got me an invitation to this exclusive enclave, a friendship with the banker, and possibly some business dealings among the Social Register set.

Take a look at the idea for an article, the sidebar and then the writing sample.

Hopefully, an Editor will let me bring my passion to his/ her pages

On this particular afternoon, the moist air has turned the sky into a palette of grays. A clearly bluish hue prevails above the horizon and a deeper blue, smattered with steely tinges interspersed with the glinting sunlight, is below. The line demarcating the sky and the Sound is a murky brownish band. On a crispy day, more typically later in the season when the leaves turn, we could see land, there would be towns with steeples and radio towers. But, today, as we set out from Orient Point, some 16 miles southwest of our landfall in New London, Connecticut, our destination is 90 minutes away, somewhere within that brown murk. Plum Island, a quarantined compound where the USDA develops vaccines against infectious food diseases, looms ominously on the right as we move into open water and approach full speed, 12 knots. 

The Connecticut shoreline, now beginning to emerge out of the muddy band that is the horizon, was settled in the 1630’s and 1640’s as the English colonies spread southward from Massachusetts. The Connecticut River, with its mouth at what is now Old Saybrook, was the focal point of a burgeoning fur trade for both the English and the Dutch who were moving east from their stronghold at New Amsterdam (now New York). The local Indian tribes, the Pequots (actually part of the better known Mohegan tribe) and  Nehantics were ultimately vanquished in the frequent skirmishes that occurred. By the early 1700’s, the towns of Old Saybrook, Madison, and Guilford, were linked on land by the Boston Post Road (now Route 1) and, more importantly, by water routes skirting the coastline. During the 1800’s, an active coastal trade flourished here. About halfway across Long Island Sound, almost eerily calm on this languid day, we will be able to pick some of the towns out of the haze, according to the old salts on the bridge. 

The crew on “Cape Henlopen”, led by Captain First Needhisname,  have the benefit of  a sophisticated radar and GPS system, precise to under 100 feet.  The sailors navigating the Connecticut coast in the 1800’s were guided by church steeples and by lighthouses, some of which are visible today from the top deck just alongside the boat’s huge yellow funnel. Captain Needhisname, with Long Island Ferry since the mid 1970’s, points his hand towards a spot still in the haze when I ask him where to look for lighthouses- many of which were built in the 1800’s. A few minutes later, the Saybrook Breakwater Lighthouse, built in 1886, is visible off our port (left) bow. Captain Needhisname tells me that on a clear day, it is possible to see the 40 foot tall beacon dating from 1802 at Faulkner’s Island, off the coast of Guilford, halfway  between New Haven and New London. On the homestretch of our ride, we veer further north, almost into Fisher’s Island Sound and  make our turn up to the Thames River,  the Sound’s oldest lighthouse (originally built in the 1760’s) looms on the precipice of the craggy western bank. 

Our final leg to the ferry dock just south of the State Pier reveals two more lighthouses- this time on the starboard (right) side.  Perhaps the most distinctive lighthouse, rumored to be  haunted by the ghost of an old keeper, looks like a small chateau circa 1909 perched  on the rocks of  New London Ledge. The Avery Point Lighthouse, on the grounds of what is now the University of Connecticut, now inactive but originally built in the 1940’s as a training site for the U.S. Coast Guard, stands a dignified watch over the eastern tip at the mouth of the Thames. Farther off to the east across Fisher’s Island Sound, on clearer days,   the Stonington Light, against the backdrop of the bluffs of Watch Hill, Rhode Island, is easily visible before the final thrust up the Thames.

Note to Editors: The idea above, tied to East End Long Island / Connecticut Shoreline, could be readily modified (with some logical alterations) to describe another locale, for example the towns of the North Shore (Manchester, Marblehead, Gloucestor and Cape Ann), Southern New Jersey (Cape May- that other Avalon), or Northern Delaware (Lewes – Rehobeth – Bethany Beach – Dewey Beach). The Outer Banks, the islands of the Low Country (Mrs. Siddons, are you online?), or even some of those barrier spits along the coasts of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana or Texas could also be fitted into the template. Our, with more imagination, to the outskirts of San Diego, Los Angeles/ Long Beach (that original Avalon), Santa Barbara, Frisco/ Bay Area or even Portland, Ore and the Puget Sound environs.

For an edgy approach to upscale travel writing, see The Nauticalian.