The sea flat and calm from so many windless days, felt greased. In between strokes, my

rowboat carried on of its own accord by gliding on ice.

This is Bernie Harbors.

Bernie is a veteran slow traveler.

He travels by donkey, by small boat. And he wrote this incredible essay about these

weeks that he spent in the middle of the sea. I was hung between the sea and sky, suspended among blue shafts of

sunlight that bored into the inky abyss. Now this was alone.

Because in 2003, Bernie was in the middle of a month-long sea expedition.

He was traveling from Cape Town South Africa to St. John Virgin Islands. And 31 days after leaving Cape Town, he

found himself in a place that most sailors are pretty desperate to avoid.

The Doldrums. It is officially known as the

Intertropical Convergence Zone, but the Doldrums refer to this place, this belt

around the earth near the equator where sailing ships just get stuck.

They get stuck on these windless waters.

It is one of the quietest places in the ocean, this spot where just everything is totally still.

And I'll tell you folks, it's a funny feeling being out here.

Look at this.

Water, water, water, clouds, sky.

I feel in many ways like an astronaut or a space man, out in space.

I'm Dylan Thurris and this is Atlas of Skira,

a celebration of the world's strange, incredible and wondrous places.

Today I'm talking to Bernie about the doldrums,

...