On Boats...

Being back from Istanbul, I am longing for boats. Journeys by water. One funny anecdote. As we were ferrying up the Bosphorus to the Black Sea, I heard a man next to me say in Italian. "Istanbul reminds me of Brooklyn." I couldn't resist. "Brooklyn?" I asked him, laughing. Here I was in the most exotic place I could imagine and the guy next to me says it looks like Brooklyn. But then we chatted and in fact it does with its bridges and waterways and ferry boats. Istanbul did remind me of home. And if I could, I would only travel by boat. There is a wonderful passage by Henry Miller in the Colossus of Maroussi when he flies to Crete and has deep regret. He wishes his journey had been longer. He wishes he'd traveled by boat. Below I'm sharing several images of boats. I especially like the last one, not as a photographic image, but for its content. Two horses are being transported on a small Turkish ferry. You can see modern-day Istanbul, looming in the background.