Atlas of Drifting Isles
Charting the drift 0%
Wind WSW, 12 knots · visibility excellent · all four isles in range
Sky passage since 1887 · Daily departures from Port Aubade
Four islands adrift above the cloud sea, reachable only by airship. We keep the timetable. The wind keeps the rest.
The only lighthouse in the world that has never seen the sea. Keeper Oona Brisk lights the lamp at dusk anyway — for airships, for swifts, and for anyone who has lost their bearings above the clouds.
The breadbasket of the archipelago: wheat that grows in thin air, a mill that has not stopped turning since 1904, and a river that runs off the end of the farm into nothing at all.
A forest lake that never empties, pouring over the island’s lip into two thousand metres of air. Nobody has found where the water comes from. Everybody agrees it tastes of rain.
A three-tiered temple whose cherry trees bloom every month the island drifts south. The monks ring the wind bells by hand when a ship comes in — you will hear Hanakumo an hour before you see it.
The fleet
Every Atlas ship is built in Port Aubade from spruce, copper rivets and eleven thousand square metres of waxed silk. They are not fast. That is rather the point.
Flagship · 24 berths
Observation deck, dining saloon, a piano that is only slightly out of tune.
Sleeper · 12 cabins
The Hanakumo run. Linen sheets, porthole bunks, cocoa at 2,800 m.
Six seats · any isle
Goes wherever the wind is going, which is usually somewhere good.
Timetable & fares
Berths open ninety days ahead. Every fare includes breakfast aboard, a wool blanket and a window seat.
Crossings are subject to wind. If your island drifts out of range, we refund in full and send a postcard.