It seemed to me that I saw a lighthouse on a rocky promontory. It was old, but it was built strong and sure because it was built on a rock. Every night the lighthouse burned a bright light across the surrounding sea. The light both warned the seafarers of the rocky outcrops and cliffs, but it also guided the sailors through the narrow inlet between the cliffs into the safe harbor of home.

In the harbor home were safe mansions, warm beds, family, friends and neighbors never yet met. They waited to welcome all who could make it through the narrow inlet to find safe haven.

Out at sea were various types of sailors. Some were simple fishermen. Others were crewmen on huge container ships or oil tankers. Still others were castaways in rubber dinghies while some desperate souls were survivors of shipwrecks, clinging to the flotsam and jetsam and crying out for rescue.

But among them all was the grandest ship of them all. It was the Queen Mab– a great floating palace of a cruise liner. At night the Queen Mab was lit up like a glittering fairyland–a magical pleasure palace on the waves. All day long the food buffets were full. The gambling decks were busy. The live entertainment played on. All night the cruisers danced beneath the stars and all day they swam and played and enjoyed themselves fully.

The only problem was, the Queen Mab was headed away from the lighthouse and the safe harbor out into the perilous seas that were full of icebergs which would sink even a lesser ship. Consequently, even the survivors of shipwrecks, shivering and clinging to flotsam, but paddling towards the lighthouse were closer to home than the wealthy inhabitants of the luxury liner.

Finally, watching from the shore, the glittering palace on the waves got smaller and smaller as it sailed into the night until at last it disappeared over the horizon, and it was there that the old maps said,

“Here be dragons.”