Fine Craft

This has been such a productive week while home alone.  I’ve made progress on my current tapestry, which has been neglected for the past 9 months.  I finished plying the saffron mohair and am contemplating ideas for a striped fabric with some kind of warp-direction float pattern in the brighter stripes, like a rose path or other twill.  Nothing has yet to strike my fancy.

Yesterday was the last statewide Connecticut weavers’ guild meeting, and I was thrilled to get there!  It was my first meeting since last May when we moved up here…  during the morning, I got a call from Bob (in Marsh Harbor, in the Abacos) to say goodbye and use up the last of his Batelco minutes on our Bahamas cell phone.  He and his crew were planning to leave mid-morning to sail the few miles to “the Whale,”  the eastern inlet just north of Marsh Harbor.  He’ll be using the transponder on board to mark his progress up the eastern side of Abacos as he heads north toward the Gulf Stream.  With luck, they will sail in the Gulf Stream, well off shore, all the way to Montauk at the top of Long Island.  That is 1,000 miles!  Thank heaven I don’t have to do that trip!  If all goes well he will arrive home in about 7 days, in time to celebrate Memorial Day!  (He missed that last year doing the same trip.)

If the weather does not smile on them, there are any number of places they can bail out, either south of Cape Hatteras or north of it.  Doing that will mean that he won’t be home as quickly.  He’ll be communicating with his weather router via sideband radio, and he’ll be sending me emails over the side band.  As of late last night Pandora was here.

Here are some Bob’s last photos of the Bahamas.  It’s already hard to believe that I was ever on beaches like this, with powder soft sand and aquamarine water!

We spent so much time looking for orchids and hardly found any.  What a difference a few weeks makes!  After a month in the wet season, Bob told me the Abacos are blooming with lots of these epyphytes (which I think are epidendrum) with pendulous flower stalks hanging down from trees.

I hope his trip home will be completely uneventful!

We are awaiting the coming storm at the stunning resort at Highbourne Cay.  We had a lovely afternoon and evening here yesterday, and today promises to be equally nice in spite of the rising winds.

I am having my morning coffee now while looking out at the palm trees that are bending dramatically in the rising wind.  This is the first truly cloudy day I have seen in the three months I’ve been down here.  In that same three months we have had only one brief, 10-minute rain squall.  Later today should bring some squalls, but many times there is no precipitation, so I’m curious to see what will happen later.  We’d love a little rain to wash away some of the salt on our decks!  Right now we have ‘deck shoes’ and ‘going ashore’ shoes, and we try very hard not to wear them into the cockpit and certainly not down below!  Keeping Pandora ship shape and salt free is always the top priority!

I feel very lucky to be here right now, and when we arrived we were the only sailboat here in a snug harbor full of mega yachts.  Later in the day another sailboat arrived, so now there are two of us.  And that will be it since the docks are full.  We definitely feel like the country cousins here!

Everything on this island is meticulously groomed by the resort, so although the island is covered in native plantings, it has definite look of being beautifully maintained.  People arrive here by either helicopter or seaplane.  In fact, as we entered the harbor yesterday a seaplane was landing right beside us!  That’s the first time we’ve given way to a plane rather than another boat!  There is a little launch that goes out to meet the plane and pick up the passengers!  Wow…

The beaches are also groomed here.  Someone rakes the beach every day (must be in the middle of the night though because you’ll never see them) and there are umbrellas and Adirondack chairs every few yards, spaced just far enough apart to give everyone their privacy.

In early evening we took our cocktails, a gin and tonic for me and a Dark and Stormy for Bob, to the beach and sat in the Adirondack chairs watching a gaggle of adolescents ride their ‘skim boards’ in the surf.

We had dinner in the restaurant, Xuma, that overlooks the Bahamas Banks.  There was a film crew making a promotional video for the resort,  taking footage of the sunset from the best table on the balcony.  They set up their Go-Pro on the railing of the balcony, and then the table was ours!  It was a stunning sunset with the coming storm clouds massing in the sky.  And dinner was delicious!   Bob and I shared some conch fritters, a roasted beet and goat cheese salad, and a Bahamian risotto dinner of prawns, scallops and a spiny lobster tail.  I did get another lobster dinner!

Today is cool and very humid with coming storm.  We will walk to the ocean beach today.  It is 2 miles long and gets raked each day.  I will probably take my latest knitting project and we’ll bring a picnic lunch.  I have finished the body of my ‘Mary Tudor’ and will probably put it aside until I get home.  It is time to cut open the front and the armholes, and I haven’t got any sharp scissors on board.  Better to wait until I have the proper tools.

Knowing that whatever I work on now will probably end up on the plane with me when I fly home (in 34 days!!), I looked through my stash with an eye for something portable.  About five years ago I started a traditional circular shawl from the Orkney Islands in an online workshop led by Elizabeth Lovick (http://www.northernlace.co.uk/).  I put it down for what I thought would be a brief hiatus, and then I lost it!  I did look for it several times over the years, but I didn’t find it until we moved to Connecticut and I began unpacking my stash.  I was happy to find it and put into the bins I brought onboard last fall.  It’s time has come!  Although I am not using the traditional Shetland lace yarn for this shawl, I am using something that seems very appropriate to me!  Quite a long time ago my English friend Lesley took me to Uppinham Yarns in ….  and among the many things that tempted me was a stunning cone of fine wool and cashmere in a wonderful shade of heathered claret red.  I’m happy to be reunited with this project!

Dinner tonight won’t be Xuma, but it should still be memorable.  We bought some Strawberry Grouper filets yesterday from a fisherman cleaning his catch on the docks.  There are fresh veggies at the resort market, so we will also have a salad! …the first in about 2 weeks!  What a luxury!

We hear that the weather has been quite challenging along the East Coast of the US, but here in the Bahamas spring is hardly different than winter!  We have had some challenging winds down here this winter, and since that has not yet stopped perhaps that is our ‘lion.’

During the most recent week of strong winds, we have been in a little archipelago of islands that include Compass Cay, Pipe Cay, Little Pipe Cay, Thomas Cay, and Joe Cay. These little islands are either uninhabited or privately owned by very wealthy individuals, so there is no going ashore and no provisions. Everyday we visit at least one new beach, each with its own marvels. There are more beaches than I can count, as well as a beautiful mangrove swamp that we explored at low tide.  Pandora may have a more pronounced starboard list due to my shell collecting!

Now aren’t you just dying to see these starfish in more detail??  The local name for them is ‘cushion star,’ and they come in differing patterns of gold and deep red.  The patterns and colors strongly remind me of stitched shibori on fabric first dyed a light Brazilwood , then stitched and dipped into a deep madder bath.  They are truly stunning!

While we’ve been here I have spent my mornings knitting or weaving  baskets, then after lunch Bob and I go exploring.  We relax in the evenings and often share dinners with our friends aboard Ariel.

My basket collection is growing…. I have given away the bigger basket in this group, and I plan to continue making a number of the smaller ones.  They are just the right size for a votive candle, and the candlelight makes interesting patterns as it shines through the coiled stitches.

I am just a few rows away from the shoulder shaping on “Mary Tudor.”  Then it will be time to cut the whole thing open and try it on!…. before starting the sleeves and front bands.

It’s almost Easter, and that feels very strange.  During this time away I have missed both my sons’ birthdays as well as Easter.  It’s the first time to miss these occasions with family, and I have to say it is decidedly a drag…  Well, I guess there has to be a little rain on our parade…