Reflections of a stormy petrel

Once, when flying out of Barcelona, as the plane was banking and ascending over the Spanish countryside, I looked out of the window and saw Montserrat rising white and shiplike over the Catalonian plain. I had never seen the mountain before -- I had flown in at night, and intervening hills and lesser mountains had blocked my view of it from the city -- but in that moment, without knowing exactly what I was looking at, I knew I was seeing something singular. Google Maps and Google Earth do not really do it justice; unless you know what you're looking for, it is practically invisible there -- but to see it in person, even from the air! It is an improbable sight, a lonely vessel of jagged rock cut adrift from the mountain-shores of the Pyrenees.