You could say that my Thursday was just like any other day on my Northwest OC beat. I swing by First Street beach, check out the action at the pier, cruise Main Street and Seal Beach Boulevard. The twist? I leave my usual ride at home and make my rounds in the $18 million Zeppelin Eureka.

On a blue-sky morning, the enormous — and remarkably agile — ship descends to the airfield at Long Beach Airport and is tethered to its mast vehicle. It is just returning from a first-ever Zeppelin-to-earth parachute jump at the Queen Mary. “There’s my baby,” says Airship Ventures CEO Alexandra Hall, whose personal passion for her ship and the joy-ride business bubbles through her talk about regulatory intricacies and technical specs.

“We’re in the joy business, for passengers and even for people on the ground. You can’t be grumpy when this amazing thing flies over you,” she says. Everyone in the press lounge smiles out at the white whale-shaped ship. Already, grumpiness is slipping away.

Soon we are climbing aboard the world’s largest airship for a ride down the OC coast to Huntington Beach and a loop over the Long Beach Port. The huge ship floats above the airport runway, held by its rope-men as we riders step up and off terra firma.

In the sleek cabin, lined with oversized windows, we find our seats, buckle up and are lifted with surprising speed into the air. It is a comfortable, nearly vertical, ride — with less G-force that an express elevator in a high-rise.

In two minutes, the pilot gives the signal and we are allowed to remove our seatbelts and move around the cabin. For a moment, everyone stays put, in a sort of stunned delight. The ride is so quiet and the view is so all-enveloping that we don’t know which way to look first. But then, everyone is up and out of their seats, pointing at familiar objects on the ground, asking questions about the landscape and the ship, chatting with the pilots, snapping photos and checking out the most scenic bathroom we’ve ever seen (it has a giant picture window.)

Soon we are traveling south over kite surfers at Belmont Shore, passing Alamitos Bay and coming up on Seal Beach. My first thought is how precious the town looks, small and lucky, surrounded by water, with its beautiful wide wedge of beach, the stately pier, the trees along Main Street and Electric Avenue. This is one of the nice things about the Zeppelin perspective: You are high above, but still intimately connected to the world. It’s not Google Earth; it is alive below you. The engines hum gently and at an open window, not even glass comes between you and all that’s going on below. As we glide by, I see families on the beach, homes of people I know, the white wakes of sail boats.

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Slowly we sail on. The dock at the Naval Weapons Station seems tiny, Huntington Harbour looks intricate, birds wheel over the green lagoon at the Bolsa Chica wetlands, ant-like dogs frolic at the HB dog beach. There’s time and windows enough for everyone to take in the vista of our corner of the world. They smile, ask questions, coo with delight. At the HB pier we turn for the port and unique perspective on the industry-scape.

Too soon it seems, we return to the airfield, drop deftly — without any sense of falling — to be snagged by our rope men and held while we exchange places — two-by-two to balance the ballast — with the next set of passengers. In five minutes, the exchange is complete and Eureka’s keepers let go of her ropes to let her float up and away with her new set of already-amazed riders. We watch her sail away, smiling.

The company ferries us back to the lounge in a van and offers us a glass of champagne to toast our adventure. It takes the edge off returning to our ordinary gravity bound lives. “It was like having your own cloud that you could drive around,” said my fellow passenger Nancy Cole, publisher of the Equestrian News.

The Zeppelin Eureka is flying out of the Long Beach airport through July 7. Have to fly for yourself? One hour tours are $490 per person, two hour flights are $990. A special flight to take in Southern California’s fireworks shows Saturday is $1,200. Airshipventures.com or call 650-969-8100. Airship Ventures will be returning to our area during the Labor Day holiday.

Want to spot Eureka from the beach this weekend? Click here to see her current location. Get a cool pix of Eureka? Send it to Airship Ventures, you might make the “Sightings Blog.”

Previously at SBD: The ultimate seat at the big show: Zeppelin Eureka in town, making fireworks flights