Category Archives: sailing

Scenes

It’s been a challenging couple of weeks in this part of the Caribbean, with lots of wind and lots of rocking and rolling. I have not been able to weave or knit, and sometimes not even able to read! Luckily I have a long queue of audio books that I often neglect. I was able to close my eyes and listen to a relatively new book, Stolen, recently published in English. It’s written by Swedish author Ann-Helen Staestadius and translated into English by Rachel Wilson Broyles. When I went to find the link I saw that it will soon be a Netflix film. It was good on a number of levels and it helped me pass the time. I am not a patient person when it comes to waiting out bad weather in order to get some work done! Basically, I am not patient when waiting for anything! It’s odd because whenever I demonstrate any kind of fiber work, people always say that they’d never have the patience to do any of that. Well, there are plenty of things I have no patience for doing! Waiting is just one of them!

My mood has gotten darker as each day passed with no way to work on any of the projects I brought onboard this year. Poor Bob. For two days, in Ste. Pierre, the rolling was so violent that we had to lock our cabinets and drawers so that the things inside, bashing against the cabinets doors in one direction, then bashing against the hull, and back again, would not come flying out of the cabinets. We’ve had that happen on passage in the past. One of our drawers once came flying out of its cabinet in the galley, sending forks and spoons and knives flying. We had not noticed that drawer when locking down everything before a passage. These are things we prepare for when we are sailing. This is the first time we’ve had to batten down our cabinets while at anchor.

But, on the bright side, we’ve had some beautiful sunsets. In the Caribbean it’s a tradition to blow your conch shell right after the sun falls below the horizon. Don’t have one? That’s a priority when you spend time in this part of the world. Bob got his during our first winter in the Bahamas. It’s nice tenor conch. Smaller conchs have higher pitches; bigger conchs have a lower pitch.

Since color on different monitors is so varied, I wonder if the green flash will look green on other devices than my own! I hope some of you will weigh in on what you see.

Back in Dominica, we took a tour of parts of the island with our friends from sailing vessels Kalunamoo and Roxy. It was an interesting day. I have always enjoyed taking photos of loved ones taking photos, as you may have noticed over the years. Here is Lynn from Roxy taking a photo in the foreground, as I took the same photo. Maureen and Bill from Kalunamoo are in the front, followed by Bob and Mark (from Roxy.) We’ve been cruising friends for more than a decade at this point.

This is the coast line we visited on the Atlantic side of Dominica.

The hard, smooth coastline here is hardened clay.

There is a rather interesting stairway carved into the rock. I can’t imagine it’s natural, but what do I know? Not much! Mark could not resist climbing down these steps. I was holding my breath too tightly to take a photo, and he got back up safely.

After Dominica we sailed to Ste. Pierre, and somehow managed to spend two nights there, which is where we had the worst rolling we’ve ever experienced. We decided to escape to Fort de France for the beginning of Carnival, but the anchorage was too crowded for us, and it was pretty roll-y there as well. We tried to anchor six times, and in the process bent our stainless steel spade anchor. That will cost a pretty penny to replace, and until we get to Le Marin to do that we have to be pretty careful about anchoring. So, we headed across the bay to Trois Islet. It’s been windy, but the three islands and shallow waters have lowered the waves to a chop. This is the village of Trois Islet–quite charming. This is the Saturday open air market in village square.

When Bob writes his next post there will be some stunning photos of the Martinique Yolo regatta which took place here in Trois Islet, as well as great photos of Carnival in Fort de France. We took the ferry there for Sunday’s festivities. Today is the last day of Carnival, but I’m happy to stay aboard. Our friends from Kalunamoo and Roxy have gone to see the last day’s parade.

And on Pandora, small things are happening. Our little unidentified succulent plant is making babies on the edges of its leaves. Can you see them on one of the inner leaves, to the right of center? Quite fascinating!

And here is my almost non-existent progress on my “Amphora” sweater from Purl Soho. It’s only grown about 3″ in length on the body, below the sleeve stitches that are waiting on spare needles. Slow and steady….can you see the swirls that create the increasing shape of the yoke? That’s what drew me to knit this design! You might have to ‘bigify’ this image to see the swirls.

When we get to Ste. Anne, the harbor should be reliably calm. Fingers crossed. In the meantime, we may stop at Anse d’Arlet for a night or two. I hope it will be calmer than where we’ve been the past two weeks.

News from home: the wonderful volunteers in TWiNE (Tapestry Weavers in New England) have been hard at work toward an exhibition of members’ works that will open on April 1, the day I fly home. I hope to get there shortly after the opening! If you’re in the area around Leverett, Massachusetts, I hope you will visit this exhibit.

So…although there hasn’t been a lot work accomplished here over the past weeks, there have been quite a few good scenes. Hopefully there can both from now on into March.

Two Weavers of Montserrat

It was a banner day when we got ourselves back to Montserrat and managed to visit the Sea Island Cotton studio. First, it was my birthday. Second, Montserrat is not an easy place to visit, even by ferry as we’d done the week before. It was a miserable sail there, and I suffered a bad case of mal de mer. Predictably, the anchorage had some waves rolling through, and getting on the small dock with our dinghy was less than ideal. But once I stepped ashore the possibility of getting to meet the mother/daughter team of Sea Island Cotton buoyed my enthusiasm!

Look what a charming place it is!

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Hey, Baltimoreans and bird lovers! Take a look at the local oriole.

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Anne Davis, the mother of the weaving duo, started this business in the early 90s, when her studio and home were in Portsmouth, the capital of Montserrat that was destroyed in the eruption. After that eruption, she lost everything and had to relocate and start again. About two-thirds of the inhabitants who lost their homes decided to take advantage of government funding to move to the UK. The island population still has not recovered from this large exodus. Anne never considered leaving the island. Her studio and house are now located in the small village of Salem, which is not particularly close to where tourists arrive by ferry or by their own boats.  You’d have to know about her from guidebooks and get a cab to visit.

Back to the start—Anne learned to weave from a local weaver resident who was originally from Canada. The government provided funding for this Canadian weaver to teach local women to weave. I didn’t get many of those details about that project, but Anne said she is the only student who continued to weave after the course finished. Anne and her daughter Lovena now have two looms: a LeClerc counter balance loom with a weaving width of about 36”, and what looks like an ancient 4-shaft Baby Wolf by Schacht. The identifying herd of sheep that is branded into the castle on the loom is mostly gone.  Perhaps it’s just the tropical climate that makes the loom appear older than it may be! Both looms were empty when I visited. Anne was planning to put a warp on the LeClerc in the next day or so. Lovena weaves on the Baby Wolf.

Only Lovena was in the shop when we arrived. I called ahead, using the phone that the cab driver offered when I told him where I wanted to go.

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The hanging rods had many beach cover-ups, scarves and shawls, all woven in what looks like a gauze structure to me.

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Then there are shelves and shelves of table linens in many different structures. It was hard to choose, but I was not going to leave empty handed. All the table linens are finished with fringe, which is a bit of pet peeve for me. But they were all so beautifully woven, with great selvedges and in beautiful weave structures and colors, I had to overlook the fringe. I’ll deal with hems when the fringes begin to wear out.

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Unfortunately, there is no longer any sea island cotton to be had. The cotton industry died along with many other things after the eruption. Anne and Lovena order cotton yarns from Camilla Valley Yarns in Canada. Wow!—same company I’ve used on numerous occasions! Small world. Lovena didn’t seem to think shipping from Canada took long, but I imagine she has a more easy going outlook than I do! We have exchanged email addresses so I think I will give her links to a few of the larger US weaving suppliers– and maybe some of the not so large vendors that I enjoying using.

Bob surprised us all by inviting Lovena to come out to Pandora for a glass of wine when she closed the shop. She accepted the offer and decided to close early and get her mother to join her. I wasn’t sure what they’d think when they arrived at the harbor in Little Bay and saw how large the waves were coming through the bay. Anne showed some concern and wanted assurances from Bob that the dinghy would hold all of them! I’m impressed that both women braved the unknown to visit us.

The most interesting part of our conversation was when we told both women that we’d been on Montserrat about a week earlier and mentioned our disappointment that our tour guide would not stop for a visit.  Lovena remembered seeing both our faces in a passing van!  She remembered mine from the middle of the van–a woman who looked bugged eyed at her as we passed.  And she remembered Bob in the very back of the van, looking back at her as we passed.  She told her mother she was certain that they were about to get van full of customers….and then they didn’t….

I’ll post a photo of my treasures if I can get them loaded.  Everything about this post has taken ages (speaking of

We’ve definitely started an acquaintance, and I’m looking forward to a budding friendship with both women. What a birthday treat! It doesn’t get any better!

St Kitts, Thomas Jefferson, Batik

That’s an odd assortment of names in the title, yet that is the diversity of what we have seen on this island!

The weather has us pinned down off the southeast coast of St. Kitts. There are no harbors here for protection, which is the case for many of the West Indies islands in the Caribbean, and boy do I miss the protected harbors on Antigua. After sailing from Antigua last Saturday, we attempted to anchor off Nevis, but the best anchorage area was too rough! It was only 2pm in the afternoon, so we sailed about seven miles further to White House Bay on St. Kitts, and then had to move again for more protection. We were finally settled, although not comfortably, just before sunset. The winds have been quite strong, which is typical for this time of year. They are called the Christmas winds and usually last until the end of January.

The capital of St. Kitts is Basse Terre, and in the center of the city is a roundabout with a clock in the center called Piccadilly Square.

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Cruise ships arrive almost daily in Basse Terre, and we can see them come and go from our anchorage, a few miles to the east. There is a hospital ship in the same area that has to leave every time a new cruise ship arrives. We learned that this ship is a medical school and that since the destruction of the medical school on Dominica this ship has taken on the faculty and students from that university. We watch it come and go every day to make room for the large cruise ships. I wonder what the faculty and students think of that. I’m trying to wrap my head around the students practicing surgical procedures on a vessel that has to be rolling around even slightly, in spite of having stabilizers.  I contemplate over each evening as we watch the sunset from Pandora.

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Yesterday we hired a tour guide to drive us around the island. Normally Bob and I detest this kind of touring, but this island has many windy roads and switchbacks that lead through the mountainous terrain, and driving is on the left. It was a smart decision not to tackle it ourselves!

Alexander Hamilton was born on nearby Nevis, and Thomas Jefferson’s great-great grandfather had a large plantation here on St. Kitts. The plantation has become a historic site here, no surprise, as well as the site of a botanical gardens and a local business of women who make batik fabrics. I’m quite fascinated to learn—so late in life!—that some of our founding fathers had such exotic origins! Years ago I visited the home of George Washington’s family, Sulgrave Manor, that seemed to be ‘right down the street’ from Princess Diana’s ancestral home Althorp. Both these family manses are in Northamptonshire, in the UK, so not so exotic. Still, I was well into adulthood before I ever gave a thought to exactly where our founding fathers originated. I just vaguely thought of them all as English. History is far more interesting in the details, isn’t it?

Romney Manor was first the site of gardens for a man named Tegereman who was chief of the indigenous tribe of Caribs. By 1625 this site had become a beautiful Euorpean style home for Sam Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s forebear.

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The gardens are good mix of natural landscape and cultivated gardens.

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It would hard to ever leave a spot like this…..more lemonade, please!

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Along with the gardens, which are well cultivated and include beautifully landscaped areas of quite a variety of tropical plants, a group of women also run a textile business on the property of the plantation. The women make wonderful batik fabrics and their business, which started in 1976, is called Caribelle Batik. After 40 years, they must be on their 2nd or even 3rd generation of women keeping this technique alive and well. I’d say I was watching the 2nd generation of master batik makers demonstrating for the tourists, since all of them were about my age.

The shop was full of about anything you can dream up to make with batik fabric.  There were wall hangings, clothing, all kinds of little containers, pillow covers.  I bought a nice selection of things to bring home for friends and family.

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The designs are drawn with a stylus filled with melted beeswax.

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They do intricate designs, and the best thrill of all was walking through the gardens, surrounded by exotic plants, views of the ocean, and lines and lines of batik fabrics drying in the breeze. I think this will be the highlight of my winter!

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In addition to a rainforest full of exotic native and not so native plants that have found there way here, St. Kitts also has a large colony of green monkeys. They are everywhere! Our guide told us that they were brought to the island by the French, who brought them on their ships from Africa, along with their human cargo destined to be slaves. Some islanders have taken young monkeys for pets. I got accosted by a heckler, who came up from behind and just put this monkey into my arms. I didn’t mind, but I would have preferred to be asked. I guess he knows well that if he asks, most people will say no. It’s better to just throw a monkey into your arms and grab your phone before you have a chance to think. It’s the way of life in this part of the world, so it’s best just to go with it. Cute monkey, isn’t it?….wearing a diaper, thank heaven!

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We had stopped for this view when the ‘monkey man’ approached me.

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How about a monkey in its natural setting.  They are pretty shy so we haven’t gotten close to the wild ones.

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In the middle of our day our tour guide took us to a local restaurant–just a couple of picnic tables under an awning, with a ‘kitchen’ in an attached shed.  No refrigeration.  Our guide said all the food was prepared daily so no need to refrigerate anything.  Well, hmmm.  The choices were pretty varied, so it’s hard for me to imagine that they used everything up everyday.

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Yeah, I know!  It looks pretty rough, and I’ll admit that I was nervous about the food.  It was all delicious–barbecued pork ribs, rice and pigeon peas, green salad, and Caribbean mac n cheese.  Others had baked chicken, or baked mackerel with same side dishes.  No one got sick.

I am staying onboard today. The wind has abated, although our weather guru says it’s best not to change locations until the weather is more settled at the beginning of next week. Sheesh! It’s only Wednesday! I plan to spend some time working on a small tapestry that is getting embarrassingly old, and then I will spend some time on my little Norwegian woven band. Later we will meet our cruising friends for sundowners at the beach bar, SaltPlage, where the view of the sunset will extraordinary!  Well, as you can, we already had our sundowners…I could not get this post online yesterday.

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So, that’s my report. St. Kitts is an interesting and unusual mix of history, lush flora and fauna, and beautiful local textile work.  All good for me.

Antigua, Ho!

My trip to Antigua went smoothly.  Once I arrived at the airport in Baltimore, I connected with another sailing friend, Judie.  We made our connection in Miami, and even enjoyed a couple of leisurely hours in the American Airlines member lounge!  There is a saying among sailors that “nothing goes to weather like a 747.”  It’s certainly true!  While Bob had his easiest passage this year, there was still one long day when he and his crew had to schlog through 20 squalls.  My passage was much shorter and much smoother than Bob’s!  His journey took 9 days, 23 hours.  He had estimated 10 days, so how’s that for accuracy on something as hard to predict as sailing conditions and boat speed?

It is shockingly hot here, but lush from all the rain during hurricane season.  Antigua has had little damage compared to its close neighbor Barbuda whose entire population has now been evacuated.  We spoke with a waitress who is from Dominica who said that the rainforest, the best in the Caribbean, has been flattened.  No one here has gone untouched by this year’s violent weather.

I have made things as cozy and homelike as I can for the moment.  I’ve put out the little woven table mat that I bought from Chris Hammel during the Greater Boston Open Studios a few weeks back.  It is just right for our dining table aboard Pandora.  I hope she knows how much I love it!  Bob got fresh bougainvillea for the table to greet me when I arrived, as well as a vaseful of pale pink oleander.  He knows I love flowers!

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The day before I left home I visited the Hartford Artisans’ annual weaving sale with my friend Jody.  We both bought some great treasures, and I bought this kitchen towel to put onboard to help me remember fall at home….there are no naturally occurring autumn colors in the Caribbean, so this feels a little like New England in November. It’s the towel on the left.

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Our mascot, the little sailing mouse, French Louie (who came from a shop in St. Martin, but is originally from Denmark!), has a new hammock.  My friend Mary made it for me when she was trying out her skills at net making.  She did a fine job, and Louie and we love his new spot for relaxing! Thank you, Mary!  Sadly, we will not be visiting St. Martin this year due to the hurricane damage suffered there.

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Before he left on the long passage, Bob made a lot of entertainment plans for the boats arriving here.  There has been cocktail party one night, and a ceremony by the Antigua and Barbuda Royal Navy Tot Club last night.  We were guests at their daily meeting, where in historic fashion one of the members reads from the logbook various events that took place on this day over the past 700 years or so, then toasts enemies and lost friends (Thursday’s toast-there’s a different one for each day of the week) and the health of the Queen, and THEN we each take a tot of rum, all in ‘one go.’  For men, a tot is an 1/8 of a pint.  That is 1/4 cup of rum, straight, all in one go!  For women guests the tot is half that.  Well, let me tell you I failed at getting it down all in one go, and I decided not to attempt the rest of it.  I gave it to Bob, who was successful at his own full tot.  Sheesh!

Here is Bob in the white shirt at center, thanking the Royal Tot members for their hospitality in hosting us for their daily ceremony. It’s a beautiful setting in the Copper and Lumber historic site that is now an inn and restaurant.

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Tonight, Saturday, Bob has arranged another dinner, the first of three. Tonight we will be having fresh sushi, Caribbean style.  There is a traditional Caribbean dinner coming up on Monday to welcome the rest of the arrivals–boats who had various equipment problems and boats that are simply slower or had weather issues getting here.  One of the restaurants here in Falmouth Harbor is hosting a Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday for all of us who will not be home for that holiday.  There are plenty of English and Canadians in our sailing group who will join us for this holiday dinner. Other boats in the harbor are flying home port flags from Sweden, Holland, and France.  As the weeks go by there will be more and arrivals from many other places.

For the moment Pandora is in Falmouth Harbor, where we spent a few days on the dock, enjoying the ease of stepping ashore for me, in addition to being plugged into electricity so that I had some air conditioning to help acclimate to this tropical climate!  Now we are off the dock and anchored out in the harbor.  There is plenty of breeze, but it still takes some getting used to!

This lovely water garden is near the entrance to English Harbor, just a short walk from Falmouth.  I would love to add something similar to my own garden next summer. I know I’ll have to settle for something far less interesting than this giant iron pot that might have been in use when Lord Nelson was stationed here.

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My last post had a photo of Pillars Restaurant where we had dinner after my arrival.  Pillars is equally beautiful before the sun goes down.

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Before I left I had three wonderful days with our son and his wife, and our adorable granddaughter Tori.  She is getting cuter and cuter as well as bigger and bigger! I’m so glad we will see her again over Thanksgiving weekend.

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In fact she will be our Princess Tori when she has her christening day on Sunday after Thanksgiving.  And speaking of royalty, we have been hearing for days that Prince Charles will be visiting Antigua today as part of a tour to see the hurricane damage among islands that were once British subjects.  I am keen to see him!  Wish me luck!

 

Summertime Weaving and other Arts

This is the summer of regional weaving conferences all over the US, and I enjoyed a day trip to Northampton, Massachusetts a couple of weeks ago to visit the exhibits and vendor hall of NEWS, the New England Weaving Seminar.  This is always a great way to rekindle and rejuvenate my love of weaving.  There are so many weavers, even just in New England, who are doing inspiring things!

One of our Connecticut guild members, and a good friend from my local weavers’ group, has made a fabulous doll this year. This is not her first miniature figure, and she is definitely honing her skills as time passes! In her travels she acquired a porcelain doll head of a Japanese male.  She and her husband began sculpting hands and feet out of polymer clay to go with the head.  Then they began the daunting task of making a soft-sculpture, pose-able body for the figure.  And then came the weaving!  This fellow has a full set of traditional Japanese undergarments in white, all handwoven!  His kimono is a dark indigo plain weave, and his obi is also handwoven–even the thongs on his handmade shoes are woven!–in the same pattern as his obi.  It’s an amazing piece, and I’m so glad it got such a prominent place in the gallery.  Being in the front window you could easily view from all sides.

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The lighting is challenging for getting a photo that shows the details of his woven garments.  He is holding an origami crane, also made by Sally.  Really, isn’t he fabulous??  I doubt the judges knew what to make of this!  And I wonder if they opened up his kimono to see his handwoven undergarments.

The guild exhibits were quite good this year.  The space was light and large so that each guild table could be seen well from multiple directions.

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Maybe it was not the most creative use of space, but the displays themselves were quite inspired.  Very enjoyable.  This is the display for the Weavers’ Guild of Boston.

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It was a wonderful day for me, and far too short.  By the time I caught up with friends and had a dash through the vendor booths it was past time to head home.

My favorite place in the vendor hall is upstairs, where Vav Stuga and Pro Chem share a space.  I always find way more than I meant to buy in these two booths.  This year Pro Chem had a deep basket full of stamps for printing fabric, and Vav Stuga had a bundle of past Vav Magazine calendars at a discount.  Who could resist either of those?  Not me!

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There was a new vendor this year, Lofty Fibers from New Hampshire.  On top of selling some wonderful linens and the Jaggerspun wool/silk blends, they have developed a small gadget called a “Tempo Treadle” that keeps track of your treadling sequence and will alert you if you make a mistake.  Isn’t that a handy thing to have?  I would like to have one for my AVL mechanical dobby, which has a very bad habit of not lifting all the shafts that are pegged or lifting one too many.  It’s a mysterious –and pervasive– problem, and I would love to have an alarm system for this! Barry said he’ll look into making one for AVLs.

There was a wonderful 3-woman exhibit of works by Norma Smayda, Jan Doyle, and Antonia Kormos.  All three women are Rhode Island weavers, although my small area group in Connecticut claims Tony too, as well a number of other Rhode Island residents who regularly come our meetings.  Tony is in her 90s and still doing fabulous work in many complex weaves as well as bobbin lace.

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Changing gears a bit, but still celebrating inspiring works of art, the next photo is of a gift that Bob and I recently gave each other.  Back in June we celebrated our 40th anniversary.  Pretty amazing to both of us! We enjoy looking at art together, although we are not wealthy enough to actually as much art as we’d like. We count ourselves  lucky to have some accomplished artistic friends….because of that we heard of an artistic exchange between the US and Russia, where a group of Russian painters came to the US last spring to paint plein aire along the coast of Maine.  Bob and I sailed coastal Maine for 16 years before we started sailing in the Caribbean for our winters, so images of Maine bring back some wonderful memories of summer travels during our increasingly long marriage (I mean that in a good way!).

One artist in particular captured one of our best memories with this depiction of a lobster pound near Stonington, Maine.  Almost every summer we would stop and anchor near Stonington, just off from Billings Marina.  We’d take our dinghy ashore and walk into town, which included walking right by this very spot.  It’s the still water of the pond that just undoes me.  It looks wonderful close up and at any distance.  We have hung this in a spot where we can view it from close up as well as all the way to the other side of the house, and we love it from all the vantage points.

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The artist is Olga Karpacheva, and she has an impressive background of achievements in Russia.  She has work in five Russian museums, and I found images of her work online that make me think she has special ties to the Volga River.  She is also well known for her work in restoring art.

But this is the best thing I found about her online!  –a photo of her painting the piece we bought!  She is on the left.  What a thrill for me to see this!

The summer offers a couple more exciting venues for seeing artwork, both woven and not woven.  Here is my list!

I regret not posting this before the opening….but it’s still on, so try to get there!  It was quite a thrill to reconnect with Helena after six or seven years.  Her students included about a dozen Swedish weavers, one Icelandic, and two US weavers.  No one lives near Washington Depot, so it was impressive that these students organized the event from so far, and almost all of them managed to get to the opening.  The exhibit has been at two venues in Sweden before coming to New England, and the students organized these exhibitions as a tribute to Helena.  What a wonderful event, and I’m so glad I was able to attend.

It was there that I learned of this exhibition, currently at the New Bedford Art Museum.

The couple who own Brown/Grotta were at the tapestry opening.  They are quite excited by their current show of works which you can read about here.  As luck would have it, Bob and I are visiting the New Bedford area in a few days, so it will be easy to add this to our itinerary.  Yes, I feel lucky!

And I also met a pastel artist at the Nordic exhibition who shows work annually at the Lyme Art Association during their annual pastel exhibition.  It’s interesting that I’ve seen this woman’s work for several years before now getting to meet her.  The opening for the Nordic Tapestry Group was a convergence of how interwoven our artwork and relationships are.  Lucky, indeed!

 

 

 

 

 

When Weaving and Sailing Converge

The month of June is shad season all along the East Coast of the US.  This is the time of year when many communities have shad festivals.  Our festival in Essex took place over the weekend, although Bob and I were not able to take part in it.  The day after the festival, we happened to be visiting the Connecticut River Museum, where Bob enjoys volunteering.  We visited the new exhibit on shad fishing along this river, and  I learned that the town of Moodus, just across the river from us, used to be the twine making center of the US. Amazing that there is such a thing!  The twine making center of the US, in quaint Moodus. There were numerous mills for making gill nets, the type of nets used to catch shad.  These nets work by trapping shad right behind the fish’s gills, in a way that they cannot free themselves by swimming either forward or backward.

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Many tapestry weavers use cotton seine twine for warps, and it is getting harder and harder to find. Most of us rely on a Swedish brand of twine that comes in several sizes.  I had no idea that this very type of twine was made in this part of the world.

Here is the gill net making machine invented by Wilbur Squire around 1872.

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A close up of the knots

The twine made in these mills was also used for warps for rag rugs that were woven on industrial looms in this area, for sewing sails for boats,  and a finer cotton yarn was used in commercial sock making, and even the cotton string used inside yo-yos!  If this kind of history intrigues you, you can read more here.

The Moodus River is a tributary of the Connecticut River. It’s a small, fast flowing river that feeds into the Salmon River, which flows into the Connecticut River at Haddam.  In the hey day of twine making there were 15 mills along this small river.  If you happen to be in the area and want to take at look at the remains of some of these mills and the dam that used to harness the power, travel along Rte. 149 to the East Haddam Land Trust’s Hidden Valley Farm Preserve, and also  Grist Mill Road off Route 149 just east of its intersection with Route 151. The Bernstein Preserve is on Falls Road/Route 149.

Here is some of the interesting information about the  twine mills and net making on display at the Connecticut River Museum.

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These are netting shuttles that are used to make nets by hand.  The very day that the shad festival was taking place in Essex, I was at the monthly meeting of my Connecticut lace group, and one of my good friends was teaching herself how to make netting with a shuttle just like one of these–an interesting coincidence!

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Another member of our lace guild made several small pieces of netting for Mary to for use in the centerpieces for our annual lace retreat on Cape Cod.  That little piece of netting makes just the difference, doesn’t it? It is just the right size to go with Mary’s driftwood sailboat with lace embellished sail!– and the tatted the tatted sea turtle!  Pretty impressive! Mary takes making these centerpieces very seriously! Each year she makes five or six centerpieces for our annual lace retreat that takes place on Cape Cod.  There is always a beach or seaside theme.

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I am intrigued by the interesting history of my new home along the river.  Ship trade in the Caribbean gave Connecticut it’s name “the nutmeg state,” and the area around Willimantic had a number of silk mills, where local farmers tried their hand at raising silk worms for a few years in the hey day of the Industrial Revolution.  Although it’s not unusual to have textile production and ship trade coexisting in a community from that time period, it is interesting to me to live in such an area now, where I can enjoy the textile history and Bob can enjoy the maritime history.

I took this phoe of the Onrust at her new home on the river,  from the 3rd floor shad exhibit at the Connecticut River Museum.

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A walk along the river at any time of year is beautiful, but maybe June wins because of the wealth of spring flowers. In early June azaleas and rhodies are at their height.

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Peonies and iris are a fleeting burst of color in late May and early June.

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And the first roses of early June along the river.

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Dominica, Our Final Destination

This is the final week of my Caribbean winter.  When we left home in January, we had no idea how many islands we’d get to visit.  As it turns out, it was less than we imagined, but what a trip it’s been.  We have only been through the Lesser Antilles, or Leeward Islands so far. Dominica is our final destination before turning north to return to Antigua in time for my flight home this Sunday.  It is magical place that has entranced both of us.  We will be back again next year.

In the past Dominica had a reputation as a trouble spot for cruisers.  A group of locals realized that Dominica is such a gem with so much to offer tourists, as well as so much of traditional island lifestyles that could support the locals, it was worth making an effort to make this island a safe place to visit.

Bob and I arrived just a day before the weekly Saturday market in Portsmouth.  We learned that almost everyone on the island has a little plot of land, a small ‘farm,’ that may be only a small fraction of an acre, but is bountiful in supplying so many crops and a few chickens.  The market is full of tropical fruits and veggies, like pineapples, bananas, sour sop, Caribbean pumpkins, coconuts, nutmeg, along with plenty of European vegetables like carrots, onions, corn, peppers, eggplant, and even some cold weather veggies like lettuce and cabbage.  Many people also have jobs in tourism or government offices, but they all get up extra early each morning to tend their farms.  It is quite impressive.

Look at all these coconuts!  There were several trucks like this at the market on Saturday morning. We learned that Dominica used to be the biggest exporter of coconut related things until coconut oil took a serious downturn years back during the ‘fat scare.’  Now there are more coconuts than the locals can keep up with, and every time a coconut falls to the ground it germinates into yet another coconut palm.

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The tomatoes and cucumbers here are beyond belief–even better than home grown.  How do they do it?

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This woman was selling flowers along with food.  She would not allow us to pay for the flowers, and when we added a few ECs (Eastern Caribbean coins) to her total she threw in a few bananas.  She is stunning in the traditional madras head covering.

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The next day we hired Faustin Alexis to take on a river tour of the Indian River.  He is an excellent guide, so if you find yourself on Dominica you should ask for him.  All the guides through PAYS (Portsmouth Association of Yacht Security) get training, and in Faustin’s case, he has become very committed to the traditional way of life and wants to return to it himself while also helping others preserve it for future generations.  His enthusiasm for the plants and animals of the rainforest was moving, and it was impressive to see his knowledge of plant life, birds and bird calls, and fish.  He says he’d like to return to living in the rainforest when his children are grown.

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No motors are allowed on the Indian River, so after Faustin picked us all up from our boats (8 adults and 2 toddlers, plus Faustin which made 9 adults) he walked to the front of the skiff and began rowing into the river.  In spite of rowing upstream, he kept up an ongoing conversation, pointing out plants, birds, and bits of traditional lore.

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As we entered the river, another tour boat was exiting.  I think these tours are highly organized so that there are never more than two boats on the river at once.  We could not resist getting a shot of these adorable kids on the other skiff.

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We had our own adorable kids onboard as well.  They belonged to two Dutch families who happened to meet just before their Atlantic crossing in the Canaries.  I hope someday we can share this wonderful experience with our own granddaughter, Tori.

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These amazing trees were all along the river.

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There was lots of bird life that we saw and sometimes only heard.  There were parrots in the upper story, although we could not see them.  But we saw the shore birds feeding along the river’s edge.  Here is a white heron looking at the little crayfish at the water’s edge.

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And a green heron.  There is even a type of duck in Dominica, but I missed the name.

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And there were so many plants that Faustin identified for us that are used for food or medicine or for general health.  He often jumped off the boat to peel some bark from a cinnamon tree, or to pull a branch of bay for us to smell, or a nutmeg laying on the ground, or to show us plants used to make poultices to heal wounds, and the bright magenta leaves of another plant that would be used to wrap as a bandage around the poultice. His knowledge seemed quite encyclopedic.  He told us that the older person on record came from Dominica and was a woman who lived to be 127.  His own great uncle lived to be 115. Faustin showed us which trees are used to build the traditional houses and which trees are prone to termite infestations.

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At the farthest point of the tour upriver we stopped for a bit of a walk, and explored a set of traditional buildings where a couple of men served flavored rum to the tourists and demonstrated how they make it.  Here is a big batch of gooseberries being boiled down to flavor a new batch of run.

4-1-17a 080We all enjoyed the day’s drink offerings which were a coconut rum drink or an ‘ultimate’ rum drink.  I also had a small taste of the medicinal rum that Faustin had– flavored with ginger root, nutmeg, bay leaves (a very pungent type of bay that must not be bay laurel), a few ingredients I’ve now forgotten, and ganja!  What a surprise!

The next day we arranged for Faustin’s nephew Fitzroy to take six of us on a walk through the rainforest up to an impressive waterfall.  There were Carol and Bob from Oasis and Dave and Chisholm from Pantine, along with Bob and me.

Fitzroy had a similar respect for the wonders of Dominica as Faustin has.  He was an excellent guide.  He recognized many bird calls and pointed out to us that the main birdsong we were hearing was that of parrots.  They were all around us!  After straining and straining to see them in the canopy of leaves, two parrots took flight and shocked all of us with their bright flash of color.  No one got a photograph.

This is the forest we walked through.  Sometimes there were openings to the sky as here, and sometimes we were in deep shade with the canopy of the trees about 150 feet above the ground.

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Looking up into the upper story where plants get the most light, we could see many orchids and bromeliads growing on the tree trunks, as well as huge vines.

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In the deep shade there was plenty of plant life too.

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There were places with great vistas–

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And places so deep in the understory that it drew our focus into the details.

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There are even wild amaryllis in the sunnier parts of the rainforest.

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Bob and I were particularly on the lookout to see orchids and tree ferns, and there were plenty of both.  There are traditional uses for tree ferns in Dominican culture.  What we know it best for is a planting material for epiphytic orchids.  Fitzroy was surprised to learn that is all we used it for back home.

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Tree ferns are very ancient plants, older than humans.

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There were plenty of orchids too.  Bob was thrilled to find a few brassavola nodosa in bloom on his previous walk, and plenty that would soon be blooming.  We saw lots of orchids on our walk to the waterfall, but none in bloom.  There were some very tiny orchids and some very large terrestial orchids.

The goal of our walk through the rainforest was a large waterfall.  The path we followed crossed the river several times, the final time involved swinging across the river on a large vine, Tarzan style.  Here is Bob swinging through the air.

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And we’re on our way to the waterfall along the relatively dry river.  The rainy season will come in another couple of months. That is our guide Fitzroy in the distance.

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You can see how high it is based on how small our fellow travelers are!

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Along the edges of the forest there are houses and small farms, places where the locals have burned a bit of the rainforest to create a small plot for growing their own food.  Here are lots of banana trees, coconut palms, and plots of vegetables.  This plot which was labor intensive to start is for a type of yam vine.   Each tuber was planted into its own mound of soil.

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And the locals are growing coffee plants and cocoa plants.  This is a branch of unripe coffee beans.

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–and a branch of rather ripe cocoa seeds.  Inside these pods are strands of thick cocoa.  I bought some in the market and they have a deep chocolate aroma.

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At the end of the day Fitzroy asked me what I use all the plants for that I grow.  I was left a bit tongue tied by that.  Use?  I grow a few herbs and vegetables, but mostly I grow plants for the sheer enjoyment of it.  That is all I could tell him.  He was surprised by this.  What a very different culture we were experiencing here on Dominica.  This is my lesson from visiting this place.  Perhaps I can figure out how to be a bit more conscious how I can be more self sustaining.

Yesterday we began the trek northward so I can catch my flight home on Sunday from Antigua.  We have returned to Terre de Haut in the Saintes and treated ourselves to a wonderful dinner out last night at Bon Vivre.  We were happily surprised when Judie and Phil from Rum Runner walked into the restaurant shortly after we sat down.  We shared a table together, and tonight we will have them aboard Pandora for a last dinner before we each head our separate ways.

 

 

 

Textiles in the Caribbean

Time to get back on track a bit and talk about textiles!  It IS the driving force of my visits to any location, so I’m always on the lookout for any kind of textile handwork.  And I have not been disappointed this winter!

Some of the places that are well known for handwork have not fallen in our path this winter.  They will be on my list for future visits, but I’ll still mention them here.  Perhaps the most intriguing place is the island of Saba, which lies off the coast of St. Martin.  It is one of the many volcanic islands that make up the Lesser Antilles, and may be the mmost dramatic.

It does not have a good harbor, so sailors must carefully choose a weather window for visiting.  That did not happen for Bob and me this year, although we could have taken a day trip by ferry to visit.  This island has underwater volcanic mountains with coral reefs, so it is also known as an excellent dive site.

In our sailing guidebook (Cruising Guide to the Leeward Islands) I read that Saba is only 5 square miles but rises to 3,000 feet in that small area.  It was settled by Dutch, Scottish, and English farmers, along with their African slaves.  Over time they all worked side by side to eek out a living on this steep and rugged island.  These settlers became fisherman and farmers and boat builders.

Until the 1940s, all ships came into Ladder Bay, on a dangerous shore that provides little shelter from ocean swells, where access to land was via an 800-step track that was cut into the rock.  Really!  I’m almost afraid to visit and be found to be the biggest cream puff the Sabans may ever encounter!

In the 1950s, some Dutch engineers determined that the island was too challenging to build roads, so one elderly local took the initiative to study road building via correspondence class and shortly after, with his knowledge, the Sabans hand-built their road, finished in 1958. I guess they don’t easily take ‘no’ for an answer.  The women have become skilled in needle lace which they originally learned from lace makers in Venezuela.  Since living on Saba is very isolated, over time their designs have taken on a specific nature that makes it truly theirs.

I found some images online and links to information about lace making on Saba, but most of them will not open since we have slow internet here.

The inactive volcano on Saba is named Mount Scenery, and I bet it is quite a scenic place!  There is a museum on island that I look forward to visiting someday. You can read about the museum here and their collection of lace here.  And, lucky for me, since it is a Dutch museum, I bet the information will be in English!–a nice change from the French islands where English is not an option.

I should mention that although Iles des Saintes and Marie Galante (the islands just south of Guadeloupe) were discovered by Columbus, they have been French since very shortly after they were colonized.  Until recently, the fisherman here used boats like their fishing forbears from Brittany used.  I am sorry I did not get to see a fleet of those boats. When we arrived on Terre de Haute a few days back, I took some photos of the textiles inside the church in the center of town.

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From the back of the church seeing this altar cloth drew me right in.

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and from the back entrance I thought the pulpit drape might be filet crochet.  I’m glad I took a closer look because it is needle lace.  I have no idea how Saban needle lace differs from other needle laces, such as this, and hopefully I’ll learn a bit more about that on future visits.

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Along the road to the church there are many shops, and one of them is a clothing and accessory shop, called Maogony where everything is dyed blue.  The two owners, Annie and Chakib, use three colors of blue dye to create garments that reflect the colors of the Caribbean waters that lie right outside their store.  Annie and I talked a bit, and I tried my best to understand her excellent English.

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When she described her process, using blues she called cobalt, indigo and turquoise I began to think she and her partner might be using Pro Chem MX dyes.  She said they set the colors in the sun and then finish with a hot mangle before washing them. Their mangle is against the back wall in this photo. They work with garments made from cotton, silk and linen.

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Just east of Iles des Saintes is an island called Marie Galante.  According to legend, Columbus had already used the names of all the saints that he cared about, so had to resort to some other source for a name for this island. Marie Galante was the name of one of his ships.  There is an indigo dyer on Marie Galante, and I believe she uses the natural plant dye for her work.  I know nothing about her, but am certainly hoping that I’ll meet her next year!  She has a website and a facebook page called Maison de l’Indigo.

Another island we did not get to visit this year is Montserrat, which still has an active volcano on it, Soufriere Hills–the only active volcano in the Leeward Islands, and perhaps in the Caribbean. The original settlers were Irish, and today Montserrat is known as the ‘other emerald isle.’

I have heard there is a mother/daughter weaving team here who weave with sea island cotton. I found Sophie Bufton’s description about her visit to the weavers. This photo is from Bufton’s site.

What I learned from this limited and torturously slow internet search is that the sea island cotton on Montserrat had the longest fibers of any cotton in the world, and that was due to the volcanic soil on this island.  The cotton plants and the spinning factory were destroyed in 1995, the first eruption of Soufriere Hills which destroyed the capitol city of Plymouth where the spinning mill for the cotton was located. This eruption not only destroyed the cotton crop, but also two-thirds of the island.  In the early 2000s, the dome of the volcano collapsed, after a few more years it seemed that the volcano had become inactive.  In 2006, there began to be activity, and another eruption in 2008, has put that theory to rest.    Yet it appears that the weavers are still working with sea island cotton.  I’ll write more when I can get better access to the information.

The internet can be such a treasure trove.  I found this stamp with an image of a spinning ginny and a young Queen Elizabeth.

Madras fabric, originally from India, is considered the national dress of several of the islands in this area — Guadeloupe, Martinique and Dominica.  You can buy almost any kind of souvenir in madras, including plastic key chains and serving trays.  Our granddaughter Tori will be getting a madras sun hat in a couple of weeks.

This part of the world holds a fair amount of geographical confusion for me.  We are in the Caribbean at large, but the particular area we have traversed this winter is known by several labels:  the West Indies, the Lesser Antilles, the Leeward Islands (as opposed to the Windward Islands).  It’s a lot to comprehend, and I just keep looking at the charts to orient myself.  We are in the southeastern part of Caribbean island chain, just before the chain heads due south ending at Trinidad, near Venezuela.  These islands are known as the West Indies because there were slaves brought here from India, and that culture has lived on in West Indian traditions such as food and music.  There is plenty of African cultural influence which melded with the India culture to create something entirely new.  There are so many labels that include ‘west’ and ‘east,’ and also also ‘leeward’ and ‘windward’–how can I keep up??

A few days in Iles de Saintes

We sailed to the archipelago of the Saintes that are just south of Gaudeloupe, about five days ago and have spent time in a couple of different anchorages among these idyllic islands.   It’s no lie that the farther south you go the more pristine the islands become!  For the past several days we’ve been on a mooring off this charming village on the island of Terre de Haut.

The town is nestled into the shoreline with mountains rising up all around it.

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There are several markets and boulangeries, so we’ve been able to buy French cheeses and olives and plenty of baguettes!  There are wonderful restaurants as well.  As with most of the villages we’ve visited, the church tower dominates the skyline.

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Typical island structures are brightly painted homes with a bit of gingerbread trim.

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3-26-17a 030 Just above the village is one of the highest points of the island, so naturally that was a good choice for a fort.  It is Forte Napoleon and it has been very well preserved and houses a museum.  Yesterday we rented a golf cart with fellow cruisers Corey and Dale aboard Hi Flite, to visit the fort and tour the rest of this small island.

Here is the dry moat that used to protect the outer walls of the fortress. The inner castle is dated 1867.

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The museum that is housed in the inner castle has very little information on the fortress itself, and focuses on island history instead.  I would like to know a lot more about this fortress so I’ll look into it when I can.  Meanwhile, although the building is barely more than 150 years old, the techniques used to build this impressive structure are much older.

The grounds within the keep.

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I can’t resist windows and doorways and views from both–

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–especially this view through a narrow gun slit that looks across the way into another narrow window.

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Here are some of the interior rooms now used for displays.  This is the hearth in the kitchen.

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The grounds were beautifully kept, and there is now a project underway to create a botanical garden of ancient native plants.  Here is one flowering tree.

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There were plenty of bromeliads and epiphyte orchids with large bulbs and very long flower spikes.  Bob thinks they are encyclias, but we could not find any nursery personnel to answer our questions.

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The views from the fortress covered most of the shoreline of Terre de Haut.  It would have been easy to defend this island from this vantage point.  Here we are looking down into the mooring field where Pandora sits off the village of Bourg des Saintes.

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The rest of the day we drove along all the roads we could find through island.  Terre de Haut is ringed with beautiful beaches. Here is our chariot of the day.

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We had lunch on a vibrantly colored pink and green patio cafe overlooking this beach.

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We stopped along the road to take this panorama. You can click on it to ‘biggify.’

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We ended the day with a collection of driftwood and sponges from the beaches for me, which I hope will help my friend Mary create some beach themed centerpieces for our upcoming bobbin lace retreat.  Corey got a great cache of sea glass, and we both picked up a few shells and sea urchins.  We returned tired and happy, and got together for sundowners with Carol and Bob from Oasis, who left this morning to sail to Dominica. We hope to follow them tomorrow.  It was a very full day of sightseeing that left us wanting to know more about the history of this place, but well sated in beach combing and good food.

 

 

 

Antigua to Guadeloupe, from English Charm to French Shabby Chic

We left Antigua more than a week ago, and I have not had internet until now.  Bob has had better luck than with that than I have.  Isn’t that weird??  He’ll be sitting next to me able to get email and write a blog post while my computer will not connect.  The mysteries of cyberspace…. especially the mystery that his ancient clunker of a PC works so much better than my moderately middle ages Macbook.  Hmmm…

Guadeloupe is the most beautiful island I have ever seen!  Some of our cruising friends have told me that Antigua is the beginning of the ‘real’ Caribbean, and that every island gets more and more beautiful as you head south.  I really cannot imagine that.  We spent almost a week in the small harbor of Deshaies (pronounced DAY ‘Eh–reminds me of a certain Caribbean song made famous by Harry Belafonte…how about you?) on the northwestern coast of Guadeloupe, and I was thoroughly enamored of the charming seaside village.  As we sailed in the mountains rose up all around us and a tiny bit of shoreline was dotted with colorful buildings, all with red roofs.  The scene was dominated by a white tower with a red roof that rose above all the other buildings.  No surprise that it is the Catholic church for the village.  We had arrived back in the land of baguettes and wonderful vegetables!

But before I talk about Guadeloupe, I should finish up with our last days in Antigua.  We rented a car to take Chris to the airport, so after we said our tearful goodbyes (for my part certainly), we took the rest of the day to explore parts of the island we could not get to on foot.

Betty’s Hope is a well known tourist attraction.  At some point in Antigua’s past there were about 600 stone windmills on the island, used to power the processing of sugar cane into sugar.  All these windmills were built by the hard labor of slaves and oxen.  There are still about a hundred windmills in various stages of decay on the island, but two at Betty’s Hope are beautiful examples. One has been restored to working order and is used to demonstrate grinding the cane on certain occasions.  While we were not there on one of those occasions, it was still very impressive to see the windmills.  Just to move the arms to face into the wind requires a lot of manpower and oxen power.

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Betty’s Hope was named for the daughter of the landowner.  I was disappointed to learn this.  I had hoped that the name was in honor of a slave woman, possibly the wife, mother, aunt, grandmother of several of the men who had built these windmills.  Well, so much for my romantic notions about the history of this place.  What on earth was this Betty hoping for?  A big sugar yield to make her family wealthier than they already were?  I can imagine so many more interesting hopes for a Betty who lived and worked the land with her family than for the real Betty.  Still, I bet there is some pretty interesting history here.  I would know more if we had internet!

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Betty’s hope is now home to a large herd of goats, which Bob and I enjoyed most of all!  There were lots of kids frolicking, even some newborns.  Baby goats are about as cute as babies get! Our new baby granddaughter, Tori, would have enjoyed them too!

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We have been so entertained by all the goats on Antigua.  There is large solar farm in the middle of the island where we saw goats eating the weeds around the panels.  This is their day job. Late in the afternoon the goats somehow know it’s time to go home.  They head out with no shepherd to guide them.  They know the way.

Bob and Chris encountered this mother and kid heading home after a day out.  Bob said the kid whined the whole time he and Chris were behind them.  Makes you wonder if kids complain about the long trip home, or the heat of the day, or even the two creepy humans following them, just like our kids might. The goat mother bore it without comment.

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And speaking of kids, here is a scene from our last full day with Christopher before he headed back to his new home in San Francisco.  We took a cab up to Shirley Heights, right outside of English Harbour.  It’s a great place to watch the sunset, and every Sunday hundreds of people show up to do just that.

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With a view like this, you can see how popular it would be–

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–especially at sunset.

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Back to the day that Chris left– at the end of the day we drove out to the northeastern corner of the island to see something called “Devil’s Bridge.”  I had no idea what this might be, and so I was pretty awestruck to see this natural wonder.  It doesn’t look like it will last much longer, but that’s just conjecture on my part. Maybe it’s been in this almost crumbled state for a century already.  I know that people walk across this bridge, but I certainly wasn’t going to try it.  Bob didn’t either!

When we returned our rental car to a parking lot in Falmouth just around sunset, and I was feeling a bit sorry for myself to return to Pandora sans Christopher, we found that the local liquor store was having a tasting of French wines hosted by a French importer who lives on St. Martin.  It was a very nice distraction to an evening I was dreading!  All in all a wonderful last day on Antigua.

The next day we sailed about 50 miles to the pretty harbor of Deshaies on Guadeloupe.  Here is a bit of what we do when we have a long day at sea.  Bob fishes!  This time I was quite lucky that he caught a small tuna!  It’s no fun at all when he catches a king mackerel, and hardly fun when he catches a giant mahi mahi because we have to deal with a very large fish on a rather small boat!  This tuna was perfect for our appetites and our size boat!

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I worked on my orange linen sweater while we were underway, which sometimes includes winding a ball of yarn (Shibui linen) on the steering wheel.

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At mid-afternoon we arrived in Deshaies.  It was wonderful to be back in the land of French food.  There are plenty of tourists here, but also a big fleet of local fisherman.  The next morning we were given a first hand view of fishing with a purse seine right behind Pandora.

First the men dropped the net in a wide circle between Pandora and the boat behind us.  One of the crew jumped overboard wearing his shorts and t-shirt and snorkeling gear.  Perhaps he was checking on how the net was laying before the rest of the crew began drawing in the purse.  3-22-17b 006

As the crew began to draw in the circle of net at the water’s surface, the diver stayed at the opening.  We are guessing that by being there, he discourages any fish from trying to escape at the opening of the net.

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The crew began drawing in both the perimeter of the net on the surface as well as the purse at the bottom to trap the fish.  As the net closed more I could tell that this was very hard work. In fact, once both the top and bottom of the net was closed, the diver got back on board to help pull it in.

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There is a pelican inside the net, helping himself to a bit of the catch.

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It was a good catch! My friend Maureen (Kalunamoo) told me that these fish get fried in strips and served like French fries.  I have not seen this yet in any restaurants. But, when we were ashore yesterday, we came back to our dinghy to find several pelicans diving right around the dinghy dock and three dead fish in our dinghy, just like the fish in the net.  There must have been a school of them being chased by larger fish and some jumped right into our dingy to escape certain death from the big fish– only to find themselves stuck in our dinghy.  Out of the fire and into the frying pan, as the saying goes….

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Experienced cruisers in this area, including Bill and Maureen from Kalunamoo, have told us that once you get to Antigua the islands just get more and more beautiful as you head south.  It’s hard for me to imagine this!  Both Antigua and Guadeloupe are so charming and scenic and dramatic with their ancient volcanic mountains–how can it get better?  I guess I will have to wait and see.