travel

It was such a wonderful experience to arrive in Great Harbor Cay to soft warm breezes and brilliant sunshine. We had a couple of days of magnificent sunrises and sunsets—just what I needed. Since then it’s been gale force winds and ominous skies. Offshore the winds have been very high indeed, around 70 mph. Numerous friends have written to tell me about the cruise ship that got stuck in these winds and had to confine all passengers to their cabins while the ship returned to the US.

So, after getting somewhat used to this violent weather and calming down that Pandora was not going to rip herself right off the dock, I have picked up some projects again. I am about three rings and chains from finishing my little tatted lace trim. Maybe tonight I’ll be able to sew it to my t-shirt. Fingers crossed on that.

Yesterday, I took my copper pipe loom ashore to warp it (far too bouncy onboard for such a task). Bob rigged up a brilliantly technical, Rube Goldberg arrangement for clamping the edge of my loom to a picnic table. It involved two clamps, a length of webbing with a small clasp at one end such as is used for tying things to the roof of a car, and then a length of plain webbing and length of line (nauticalese for rope).

Can you see that Bob attached one clamp to the picnic table and then used the 2nd clamp to attach the corner of the loom to the first clamp.  So clever…. To minimize the torquing of the loom he has the car webbing running from the long bar of the 1st clamp to the other end of the picnic table.  The 2nd webbing is bracing the bottom corner of the loom to the picnic table.It was quite an engineering feat, and in the end, I was able to warp the loom all by myself while Bob walked to the market on the island. With my spool of seine twine in a bucket and tensioned by going over the brace of a picnic table nearby, I was able to use one hand to keep the tension on the warp while making wraps of warp with the other hand. I was done in less than hour!

All finished warping.  Then I sat down for a bit to space the warp threads evenly and weave a header that will support the beginning of the woven tapestry.  Does it look cold?  It certainly was!  The wind was blowing about 30 mph and the resultant wind chill was very un-tropical!

Here is the cartoon I’ll be using for this project. It’s the final line from one of my favorite Robert Frost poems, and it happens to be a favorite with our younger son as well. This tapestry is for him. In this photo I am measuring for possible border sizes.

Meanwhile, in my inbox yesterday I found a message from a friend alerting me to a post on Weavetech that she knew I’d be interested in reading. Now that internet is not a ‘given’ for us I have dropped the daily digest format, so I would never have seen this post without the ‘heads up!’ from my friend.

It turns out there is a new book out by Oxford Press about two subjects very dear to me: ancient Greece and weaving. Being a Greek student in college is what led me to weaving in the first place– 40 years ago. It was the connection between text and textile that brought me to weaving, and now 4 decades later a few people are looking at the connections between the words for various parts of early Greek ships and words used in weaving terminology. And now that I spend such a great deal of time living onboard my own little vessel (though not a ship) I am naturally curious to learn more about these findings.

The book is originally in German, and published by an English publisher (Oxbow) with a division in the US.  You can find it online here.  Surely it must also be available in English, especially since the title is translated –I am certainly counting being able to order an English translation.

Weben und Bewebe in der Antike: Materialitat–Reprasentation–Episteme–Metapoetick
(Texts and Textiles in the Ancient World: Materiality–Representation–Episteme–Metapoetics)
Henriette Harich-Schwarzbauer (Author)

What I got to read, through the post on WeaveTech, is an article taken from the book, written by Marie-Louise Nosch and published on a website called www.academia.edu

Though I could not find the article by searching that site (maybe you will have better luck), the woman who posted on WeaveTech sent me a pdf. I’d like to post it here, but will first find out if I need permission for that. Stay tuned. It is a compelling study of the words for various parts of a sailing and rowing ship being the same as words used in both spinning and weaving. Since textile production is an older technology, it is presumed that the words used in ship building and  sailing terms were borrowed from textile terms, due to textile’s prominent connection to ships, ship building, and the act of sailing or rowing.

And on a calmer day Bob and I took a walk on the pristine beach at Great Harbor Cay.

Life took a strange and dark turn 2 weeks ago, and I left Florida to fly home.  I went home to be with my oldest friend as she entered a very dark period of her life.  She has lost someone very dear, someone who was dear to me as well.

During the past weeks I have watched my friend navigate very troubled waters with a strength and grace I did not know she has.  You can always learn something new about anyone, no matter how long you’ve known them.  She has become an inspiration for me.  Life throws unspeakable challenges at us, but I’ve learned a lot from my friend’s deep, still waters.

Along the way I’ve finished reading The Paper Garden, a biography of the 18th c. female artist, Mary Delany.  The author, Molly Peacock, was known more for her poetry than her prose, until she wrote this book.  The book is so popular now that the British Museum has had to limit access to Mary Delany’s paper collages in order to preserve them from the sudden rise in people requesting to see them.

My friend has been an artist since before I met her.  Growing up together, she painted and drew while I wrote things and dabbled in handwork.  Later she began sculpting and got her fine arts degree in that medium.  This quote from The Paper Garden makes me wonder where my friend’s artwork will go next:

Black pigment is made from charred organic matter—and that includes burnt bones. This chilling fact contributes to the black background of Mrs. D’s Rosa Gallica… Not that burnt bones necessarily produced the pigment that Mrs. D. used to create the black backgrounds of her flowers—her pigment could have been made from tar, pitch, lampblack, pine soot, anything charred to get a noir so deep it looks as if it came from the mouth of Hades. But whatever the composition of the dry crystals she ground with a mortar and pestle, then mixed with liquid and adhesive, its source is something burnt. Carbon. Organic. Ashes. Is being burnt a requisite for the making of art? Personally, I don’t think it is. But art is a poultice for a burn. It is a privilege to have, somewhere within you, a capacity for making something speak from your own seared experience.

So, for me, regular life begins to lurch along once again.  I am back in the Bahamas with Bob, in a beautiful spot that we have not visited before called Great Harbor Cay.  When we left the harbor for a short sail yesterday, three dolphins found us and played in our bow wave.

The sunsets have been stunning, the Bahamians are the friendliest people I have ever met, the cruisers have been pretty friendly too, and Bob is letting me rest.  The days are warm and slow.

My biggest wish is that my friend could switch places with me.  I would take a couple weeks of her grieving and the growing responsibilities she has taken on to care for others in her family, while she could spend some time here– healing.  Life is so thoroughly unfair….

The past few days have brought some nice surprises in meeting new friends and reconnecting with old friends.  A woman who sometimes leaves comments on this blog let me know that she arrived in Ft. Pierce on her boat.  We just missed each other last year, and this year we almost missed each other again.  Bob and I had already left Ft. Pierce, but as luck would have it, we had to return to revisit the yard that did some work on Pandora that did not get finished.  After a half day there we decided to spend a night at the marina where Laura is spending the winter.

Laura is a weaver who also writes a blog called Laura’s Loom, where she chronicles her weaving and living aboard their 44′ SeaRay each winter. The tapestry weaving community might be an even smaller world than the sailing community, so I should not have been surprised to learn that Laura knows Don Burns (from the Wednesday Group) and had taken a class with him years ago.  When I visited Laura on her boat Dream Weaver I found her spinning some handpainted silk roving on her sweet Hansen electric spinner.  That gave me quite a pang that I left my spinner and some new silk roving at home.  Sigh…

That evening she and her husband stopped by our boat and I had a great time learning more about Laura’s weaving getting to know her and her husband a bit.  I don’t really want to show this photo, where for some reason I am wearing the ugliest shirt I own!  Egads!

 Yesterday morning I met another Wednesday Grouper, Rita, who spends her winters down here.  She and I were the only groupers who did not make it to last week’s WG reunion.  We commiserated a bit over that, but mostly just enjoyed catching up with each other.  Rita recently finished a wonderful tapestry for her granddaughter — the New York City skyline at sunset in beautiful oranges and golds, with her granddaughter leaping over it in a bright red dress and black Chuck Taylors with red shoe laces!  It’s a fun piece—sorry I don’t have the image!  You’ll just have to trust me on that!

Then last night we had old friends from New Jersey onboard for dinner.  Bob used to work with Linda, before she retired and moved down to Florida with her husband.  Now that Bob has also retired we try to see them each year as we head south.  It was a beautiful night, though a tad breezy, for watching the sunset behind West Palm Beach and then to see all the lights come on in the buildings.  It was a dramatic sight! –although this image came from the internet, not our camera.  Good wine, good conversation and a stunning view made for a great evening.

This morning I visited my favorite fabric store on the ICW–Mac Fabrics in West Palm Beach.  What a shop!  I had a great time there last year, which resulted in a tote bag that I take everywhere.  This year the plan was to find fabrics for new throw pillows for new Pandora.  I love what I’ve put together–only possible at a place this great!

The small monk’s belt weave will be used for the piping on both fabrics.

As  I write this Bob is buried in the back ‘workshop’ of Pandora, storing all the things he’s bought over the past couple of weeks.  We have a replacement part for just about everything onboard—from engine pieces to hoses for the sinks, filters for every item that has filters, belts—you name it.  It’s a lot of stuff and everything has its place.

Tonight we will have dinner in my favorite place along the entire ICW—a French bistro called Pastiche.  I’m sure it will be the best dinner of our whole trip because it always has been!  Bon Appetit!

In the serendipitous way that living onboard can be, Bob overheard a woman talking about cruising in Cuba last spring while he was in the marina laundromat a couple of days back.  You just never know what you’ll find when you go ashore in a cruising community.

The woman’s name is Jules, and she and her husband have cruised the world in their Ingrid 38’ ketch named Bounty from their homeport in New Zealand.  They are interesting people (obviously!) and generously willing to share their knowledge with us as we make plans for Cuba. YET it’s never a good thing when Bob meets people who have done such extensive sailing.  Look out!

Jules and her husband Gary visited us that evening and carefully went through our charts of the southern coast of Cuba, giving us valuable information on various harbors and how to fit into Cuban culture while ashore.  There were some significant things that differed from what we have read.  There is nothing like information from people with first hand experience!

On the other hand, there is a lot of scary stuff (Bob would say ‘exciting’) hurtling toward us.  Where do I begin??  Like the Bahamas, we will only approach a shoreline in daylight hours with the sun high overhead.  This is good news to me because I really don’t like night sailing.  Even so, there will be a fair amount of night sailing—just not when we go into harbors.  Ugh.  The swells will be large, but the wind should be mostly on our backs, which is more comfortable than other directions.

We will need to be tucked into good harbors at night because Cuba is a mountainous country, with katabatic winds at night–quite strong katabatic winds.  (from the Greek: katabaino – to go down– is the generic term for downslope winds flowing from high elevations of mountains, plateaus, and hills down their slopes to the valleys or planes below.)

And speaking of winds–we have heard from good friends who have already crossed over the the Bahamas that there have been terrible winds there lately.  In particular, there was a cold front earlier this week that brought sustained winds of 105 mph through an area of the Exumas.  Our friends were anchored between Great Exuma and Stocking Island where the winds were 65 mph.  A number of boats were thrown ashore and badly damaged in this blow.  I was horrified to learn about this.  We’ve had some bad winds there the past two years, but nothing like this! At least there are protective harbors in Cuba, unlike in the Bahamas.  So—we will want to be well tucked in each night, or well offshore.  I’m hoping for the former!

Also, we will need to be sensitive to situations onshore.  Sometimes we will be welcomed and sometimes not.  We need to read the signs of whether we should be in a particular shop buying items that the Cubans want to buy or whether we’ll be welcome to eat in particular restaurants that are for the locals.  I’m so sensitive in this regard that I often over react.  I’m certain that Bob and I will run into differing impressions when these situations arise.  All in all, Jules and Gary gave us a wealth of advice and information.

A sobering bit of info is that our visas, which will only be good for 30 days, really cannot be extended.  We have to leave Cuba for at least 24 hours in order to get a new visa for another 30 days.  Since it’s impossible to sail the coast of Cuba in only 30 days we will have to face this dilemma.  I was hoping that we could just anchor off the mainland someplace safe, but that is not acceptable.  We need to check out of Cuba and check into another country to prove that we left.  The most obvious choices from the southwestern end of Cuba are the Caymans or Jamaica.  Either of these will involve another overnight sail in big ocean.  Can you imagine the kind of dreams I had last night?

So the next few days to a week will be focused on finishing up our repairs and provisioning.  High on my list is getting my cartoon sorted for my next tapestry.  I am going to weave the final line from a favorite Robert Frost poem called “Mowing.”  The culmination of that poem is “The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.”  This is moving to me on so many levels, and I envision that weaving this phrase will be quite enjoyable.  The piece will go to my son Chris when it’s finished, so I asked him to work on the font and the spacing of the letters.  After trying a couple of fonts, we both decided on Adobe Caslon.  Here is a small version of it.

This is what it look like printed out full size, spread out on the floor at Staples in Vero.  Don’t you like Bob’s foot for scale?

I made a little sample of the text in a different font some time ago.

In the real piece the background will be lots of blended neutral colors woven in small shapes.  I hope that will have an interesting visual effect, as well as being interesting for me to weave.  I hope to get warped soon!

It is now Saturday morning, and there is a large farmers’ market here in Ft. Pierce, so we’re off to check that out.  We’ve been told it’s the largest, and best, market in the state.  It takes place every Saturday all year long.  Also, it seems we had a new guest onboard last night:  a raccoon.  That’s a first!

I’ll end with this silly photo Bob took of me yesterday as we walked around Ft. Pierce. I could have fun with my own jewelry store!