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Five hundred feet above the ground, he can smell the fresh dirt of a newly plowed field. Powering back the throttle, Murdock says he can hear the wind whistling through the wires, singing a song that has captured his heart in a way matched only by his wife and family during his 61 years.

This summer, the alfalfa, so green Ireland weeps with envy, assaults his senses in a way he has only dreamed of since he first flew in a cantankerous old Stearman PT-17 biplane in 2000.

“Flying at 500 feet, the scenery changes all the time,” Murdock says. “Looking through a couple of pieces of glass from a commercial jet at 35,000 feet just isn't the same. When you see the colors, the textures and the tapestries of the earth from low elevation, well, it's just incredible.”

This summer, if you need to find Murdock, just look up.

“Susie and I want to fly around the Midwest, land on grass fields and see the countryside from low altitudes. We'll do some air shows and maybe just take some friends for rides,” Murdock says. “We can't wait.”

Contact Murdock at murdockl@purdue.edu

Among the nautical set, you are known as either a fast boat person or a slow boat person.

Rado Gazo is a slow boat person.

“Fast boats are great,” he says, “but I quickly realized that with fast boats, you can never carry enough fuel to leave sight of the land.” The fact that Gazo, 37, is any kind of a boat person at all is somewhat surprising. He grew up in the geographic center of Europe in the landlocked town of Liptovsky Hradok, Slovakia. The town of 8,600 people is so far from water that the distance is better measured by days, not miles.

“When I was young, it was a two- or three-day trip by car just to get to the Black Sea,” Gazo says. About the same time it took him to read Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

“I loved that book,” Gazo says of his first nautical adventure.

“After I finished reading it, I wanted to read every pirate book I could get my hands on.”

But it would be quite some time before Gazo would stand on a ship's deck and breathe deeply of the salty sea air that would fill his lungs and wrap around his soul.

Gazo came to the United States in 1989 to continue his postgraduate research at Mississippi State's School of Forestry in Starkville.

He befriended Hugo Ector, a teacher who was just one good crewman short of fulfilling his own dream of sailing from Gulfport, Miss., through the Gulf of Mexico, around Florida and Cuba to the Cayman Islands, a trip of some 800 nautical miles on a 36-foot sailboat, the Zangra.

Gazo signed on as the mechanic, navigator and cook. And in June of 1992, he found big adventures in small spaces.

“The great thing about being on a ship is that everything on board has a purpose,” he says. “It is a very small place with huge, diverse equipment. You not only learn to use all of the equipment, but you learn to become a master of all disciplines. I learned to use all of my skills in math, engineering, electronics, geography … almost everything I ever learned has come in handy on a ship.”

In warmer climes, Gazo helped steer the Alexa S on her maiden voyage in 2003.

Gazo was hooked. He decided he wanted to get his captain's license. But not for the obvious reasons. He liked the woods as much as he liked the sea. Gazo had put too much work into his career as a professor of forest products to wantonly cast his career overboard to take up the life of a nautical wheeler.

For Gazo, getting his license would be like his maiden voyage aboard the Zangra, a long, beautiful journey. The destination was important, but only in marking the end of the voyage. It was the journey, like the high-seas adventure, that intrigued him.

Besides, on his income, any ship Gazo would deem worthy of piloting would be way out of his price range.

Getting the license would require taking classes on boat safety and navigation and passing an extensive exam. No problem for a life-long learner like Gazo. The difficult part would be in accumulating the required 365 days served as an officer on a boat.

Gazo hatched a plan that would allow him to serve the hours at sea required by the U.S. Coast Guard, without actually owning a boat.

He worked the Internet and found Joyce Gauthier, who ran a charter boat service in Seattle, Wash.

In May 2002, Gazo signed on as a captain-intraining aboard the Ursa Major, a 65-foot wooden trawler ferrying tourists from Seattle to Sitka, Alaska, traversing some of the most stunning American real estate this side of Pamela Anderson.

As fate would have it, the other captain-intraining aboard the Ursa Major was Rob Wright, Commander, U.S. Navy (ret.). Apparently, being a commander in the most powerful fleet of sailing vessels on the planet is not enough to earn a captain's certification from the Coast Guard.

Lucky for Gazo.

The two shared quarters on the Ursa Major, and in the quiet moments before each surrendered to sleep, they shared their hopes and nautical dreams. Last year, Wright received his certification and landed a job as captain of a brand new 95-foot yacht, the Alexa S.

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