ArgoKnot

Not a photographic collage, although that would speak a thousand words. This will be a collage of the stories I’ve heard over the past two weeks, as things have changed on a daily basis, sometimes on an hourly basis.

Deserted Rodney Bay Marina on Wednesday, the day we left. The Customs Office was closed so we could not clear out of the country. Even the marina was closed so we left without a bill for their services. They promised to email the bill, which we now have.

When we got up on Wednesday morning, planning to sail to the USVI, things had changed enough overnight for us to reconsider that plan. We decided rather last minute that it might be better to stay in St. Lucia another few days or week to let things ‘finish’ playing out in this scenario. By noon, things changed enough for us to feel that we’d better get on our way to Antigua, not the USVI.

Antigua was going to shut down in some form, by midnight Friday. Today is Friday, and we cleared into Antigua this morning. We sailed through the night both Wednesday and Thursday to get here. We haven’t heard definitely if the island will close its borders tonight, we haven’t heard for certain whether enforced quarantines will begin to take place. All we know is what happened to us. We were cleared in this morning without quarantine.

Although the exact details of what restrictions each island is enforcing right now is often inaccurate, here are some of the real stories, both heartbreaking and inspirational. These are my friends and acquaintances, so I am not going to use their names.

One of our good friends got Dengue fever while we were all together this winter. She was probably bitten in Guadaloupe, but her symptoms became obvious once we’d all sailed to Domenica, the island with the least services. She was sick for a month, anchored in Portsmouth Harbor, Dominica. It was scary to watch her go through this without medical attention. I don’t know if she could have been helped. She did not feel normal again for 6 weeks. By that time, the covid 19 virus was spreading down here, and she was in a compromised state due to being so sick already. She and her husband made plans to get to Grenada as soon as possible, hopefully before those borders closed. They have yearly storage for their boat there so they would have gone there at the end of the season anyway. They cleared in to Grenada on the last day Grenada was open with no restrictions. They moved their haul-out and storage date up so they could close things down and get a flight back to the US. The boat came out of the water on Monday, a week ago, but their Friday flight home was canceled. After a few scary days wondering what to do, almost putting their boat back in the water to sail home, they were able to get a flight to Toronto this week (possibly today). They got a second flight into the US from there. When they arrived at the airport in Grenada today, they learned their flight from Toronto to somewhere in the US had been canceled. The last I heard was that they found a flight to get back in the US. I don’t know where and I don’t know how long they will be in Toronto before getting that flight. I’m relieved they will soon be home, and I hope that they are able to stay well during all this travel. I hope I hear they are safely home (mandatory quarantine) by the end of the weekend.

This is the most heartbreaking story I’ve heard. One of the men who had done the fall rally to Antigua with Bob has gotten into quite a desperate situation. At some point after the rally, the man’s wife flew home, and he has been single-handing their boat for the winter. His last port was St. Martin, where he began to feel quite ill. As of a few days ago, he realized he had become to ill to take care of himself. Either he contacted authorities on shore, or nearby boaters made the contact for him. The authorities came to get him off his boat in Simpson Bay, St. Martin. After checking his symptoms he was found to be quite sick with Covid 19, so he was air lifted to a hospital in Guadeloupe. Why Guadeloupe? Most likely because St. Martin could only send him somewhere French. His wife was on her way to meet him in Guadeloupe, but once there, the doctors found that his condition was critical, and he has now been air lifted to Florida, followed by his wife, who now also has the virus. He is in a Miami hospital, in ICU. This is a story so sad, it’s hard to get my head around it. How tragic that both of them were so far apart, and he was so far from home. Maybe we’ll get the amazing news that both of them recovered, but deep down I fear it all played out too late.

Today at the immigration office in St. John, Antigua, we listened to the stories of others who were attempting to find shelter here. First, I want to note that the Antiguans did a terrific job of making us all as safe as I can imagine being outside of a hospital. We arrived just after Immigration and Customs had opened, so there were already a few people going through the process. The government has installed a new floating dock and ramp for people on private boats to land their dinghies. The ramp leads straight to the immigration building, and access to the rest of the city is roped off. Guards greet you at the ramp to tell you how to proceed.

As each of us arrived, we washed our hands with real water and soap, in a large basin with faucet. After that we got in line, 6 ft. apart from strangers. Captains and crew were kept together and entered the building for the medical check. Bob and I did that together. The table where we sat was sanitized between each visitor or group. The nurses who checked us wore full disposable gowns, masks and gloves. Even the pen we used to fill out the forms had been sanitized between uses. The only thing that the customs official touched that was not sanitized was our actual paperwork. Once this was finished, I was sent to a large waiting area, or I could wait outside, while Bob went into the office to clear in. The officials at both immigration and customs were behind glass walls. At one point I was asked to join Bob because he was having trouble hearing the questions through the glass partitions. The problem was that we did not have proper paperwork for exiting St. Lucia, which we knew. The customs office in St. Lucia was closed indefinitely when we left, and we were told that a copy of our marina bill which showed when we checked in and when we left should be good enough. In the long run it was. The official behind glass just wanted me to write a handwritten statement to the Controller of Customs about why we did not have the proper paperwork. About half an hour later, we were done with the process ( 2 hours in total) and were cleared into Antigua with no quarantine. I think the mandatory quarantine for boaters will start tomorrow.

During the clearing in process, the only problems I heard were from people who had been in any of the French islands during the last 2 weeks. Our last visits to both Guadeloupe and Martinique had taken place more than a month ago. What luck. I think I will always wonder about the Carnivale in Fort de France. The virus was already there then, but no one was aware. We spent days in the biggest crowds I’ve been in since my young adulthood. Still, I found myself listening intently to the others who were not so lucky. The saddest story I heard was from a family who was just sailing into St. John Harbour shortly after we did. There was a man onboard with his wife and two young children. They had spent a few weeks in St. Martin and were now bringing their boat to Antigua for it to be shipped back to Europe on a ship. The last I heard he was being denied entry. But I had the sense that the process was not yet final. He was describing his situation that the boat would get put on a ship, and he and his family would fly home. He was offering to quarantine his family on the boat until the day the boat would be shipped. Atlhough the official kept saying no, she also continued to listen to his plight and his offers to make this sitaution work. I do not know the outcome, but I hope it worked out for that family.

Also during our time in immigration process, I heard a young couple beginning their paperwork after the medical check. They were both from Italy. I have no idea if they had already been sailing in the islands for months, rather than just arriving from Italy. Perhaps they were just stating their nationality. Like us, as US citizens, we would not be allowed in directly from the US, but we were admitted since we’ve been down here for the whole winter. I hope all went well for them. I couldn’t help but wonder about their families and friends in Italy.

While making plans to sail north we had heard that not only was Guadeloupe closed but that they were policing the harbors to make sure that no vessels tried to shelter there. We’d heard that vessels on passage should not get closer than 12 to 15 miles offshore. We presumed this was hype, but in fact we experienced it last night. As we approached the southern end of Guadeloupe, heading north, we saw a French war vessel. Bob thinks it was a frigate. Slowly it began heading toward us, and night was falling. We had our AIS turned on, and I was hoping they would call us on the VHF radio if they wanted to shoo us away or ask our intentions. But there was no communication from them, and they just kept getting closer. My fear was growing. I did not want this ship to come close and blast a horn at us and threaten us over a loudspeaker. It was almost fully dark, and I knew I’d freak out to have a ship screaming at us with a bullhorn in the dark. So Bob called them. He told them we were passing through on our way to Antigua, that we had no intention of entering a harbor on Guadeloupe. Yes, they wanted us to move further offshore. They told us to cross their stern. We did, and promptly. It was a tense moment for me.

At home I am hearing stories of friends making masks for local hospitals. One of my friends said the local New Jersey hospital was giving out kits complete with everything needed to make the masks. Others in Connecticut and Rhode Island are supplying their own materials. One of my friends could not find 1/4″ elastic anywhere and had found that she could substitute cut t-shirt fabric for the elastic bands. Ingenious!

The sweetest story I’ve heard is from home. One of my friends has a granddaughter who turned seven this week. She cannot have a party. She cannot even see her local grandparents. What a sad memory this birthday would be. But her local friends made a plan to give her birthday parade! They drove by in cars, some of them decorated with birthday wishes for her, and she stood in her driveway to watch all these friends remember her special day. Even the police and the firemen made an appearance for her! I wonder if this will the best birthday of her whole childhood! What a terrific community!

Bob and I are feeling a bit lost. We’ve made it to Antigua, which suddenly looked like the place to be in order to keep our options open. But what are our options? It’s too soon to know, and things everywhere are changing too rapidly. We would like to get to the USVI. We’d be on US soil there, maybe we can get some money because we are almost out. Today they would only take Eastern Caribbean cash from us, and we are almost out of all currency. In the USVI I have an absurd dream that Bob’s crew might be able to get down there and allow me to fly home. I am trying to wean myself off this pipe dream, but I haven’t quite given up. Our 2-overnight sail to Antigua was about as calm as these waters ever get, and yet I was miserably seasick for most of the 48 hours. I’ve been sailing for a bit over 45 years. I am not going to miraculous get over this just because I have long journey ahead. Meanwhile, the harbors in the USVI are over crowded at the moment and there is mandatory quarantine. I don’t mind the quarantine; we had begun doing that in St. Lucia and will definitely do it here. Although I’m not anywhere near home, I am now on the crazy emotional ride of trying to get home. I don’t want anything to stand between me and home now.

In a short while we will have a phone call cocktail hour with a dear friend from NY who is currently living in the midwest. I think he is in a much safer place in the midwest, and I am thankful for that. We’ll have a nice chat. Almost every day we speak to both our boys and their families, and most of the time it is by video chat. Sometimes there’s a lot of dropped calls during the process. At home this would be frustrating, but here it’s the best connectivity we’ve ever had. These islands have upped their game in connectivity. This would be unbearable if we could not talk to our family. Bob’s mother is in a nursing home in Connecticut, and the staff call us now and then to update us. The facility has been closed to outsiders for almost a month, so we would not see Mom, even if we were home. They’ve made an extra effort to help her have phone calls with us. She had an ‘episode’ this week, but it had nothing to do with the virus. We hope to get to see her by sometime this summer.

So this is our diaspora. It’s not like war, and we are not starving or lacking for any necessities. We just miss home and friends and family. A LOT. I don’t know how we’ll get home, or when. We rely on foreign governments for shelter in their countries, and I hope to allow me to get a flight home. I can’t even imagine what people in less fortunate situations are feeling because I’m rather fragile just wishing I could get back to my ‘land’ life. I hope all our water friends make it to their own safe harbors. Many of our friends live onboard year round, and they need to get to safe harbors out of the hurricane zone during the next two months. At the moment the safe harbors where they need to be are closed. I want everyone to be safe and well. It’s what all of us want for our family and friends. It’s a lot to ask, and we won’t all get it. All we can do is take care of those we can. All we can do is ‘go with the flow’–something I could be better at doing. Good luck wherever you are and whatever you are going through with your loved ones.

The best made plans… We were set to leave St. Lucia today to anchor in the outer harbor, and in the pre-dawn tomorrow begin our journey to the US Virgin Islands, where we would shelter until there was a plan for sailing back to somewhere on the East Coast of the US. Things are changing faster than I can keep up with, especially emotionally.

This morning Bob found the customs and immigration office closed. He came across a customs officer while walking and asked what we should do to check out of St. Lucia; the officer said, ‘just leave.’ Wow. Not getting officially cleared out of a country can make checking into the next country problematic, even impossible. We had considered stopping in Antigua on our way to the USVI, but that is the very place that would not look kindly on us leaving St. Lucia without checking out. These are unprecedented times, and maybe rules will be bent. It’s a long way to sail without knowing if we’d be allowed to shelter in Antigua.

Two other factors have come to light: the Bahamas is now closed, so our “Plan A” of sailing through those islands, which would afford me a chance to stop at night, is now off the the plate. Worse news is that the USVI may close tomorrow. We’ll have to wait and see. Perhaps it was a godsend that we could not check out of St. Lucia this morning. So…. we wait and see. Our weather router wasn’t too enthusiastic about the weather for the next four of five days either. The first two days would be would be fine, but after that we would have what he calls good weather for ‘salty’ sailors. He knows me well enough to know that I would be miserable. Bob called him with me in mind. So perhaps this is all working out in a way that will give me a better trip and better timing for getting back to the US. Who knows? If only we could tell the future. I feel displaced.

The marina where we are docked is closed. When we inquired about paying our bill and leaving, one of the few dock masters on duty said that they would have to send us a bill when the marina reopens–no clue when that will be. So far we still have electricity and fresh water. That is a big blessing. We cannot make our own fresh water in this harbor because the harbor water is too dirty. We could likely make our own electricity as our dock space gets full sun most of the day to fuel our solar panels.

Over the past few days I have turned my attention back to a small tapestry I intended to weave during this winter away. I got a good start in January, and then let too many ‘conditions’ drain my excitement through all of February and most of March. I don’t like the yarns I brought. Why didn’t I bring cottons? When I weave I enjoy it, but most days I talk myself out of weaving because I don’t like my constrictions. Why didn’t I bring more choices of grey? Well, because I didn’t know I’d want to weave the pillars in Nelson’s Dockyard, that’s why! I am so weary of the little voice in my head.

Here’s the sketch I made back in early January. The Pillars are a significant landmark in English Harbor. They were part of a sail loft during Lord Nelson’s command of Antigua. The two rows of pillars, about a dozen in total, supported a wooden sail loft that has not survived the centuries. While in English Harbour, a ship’s sails could be lowered into a smaller boat, such as a gig. The gig would be rowed into the channel between the two rows of pillars, and a derrick would lift the sails up into the sail loft through a large hole in the floor.

As of a couple of days ago, I am weaving again. Once I finish the little image of the pillars, I have entirely new ideas for the rest of this woven diary. It’s been a memorable winter, so now there are more ideas than I ever imagined.

Every year as my departure date for home approaches I begin planning my spring and summer activities, mostly centered around weaving. This year I signed up for a long weekend workshop in Vermont with Rebecca Mezoff. The workshop was to be on designing for tapestry. Did you catch that verb tense?–was. Yes, it’s been canceled. The tapestry class I teach at a craft school in Connecticut has been canceled. As you well know, everything is canceled indefinitely. On the bright side, I learned that Rebecca offers that design class online. I’ve thought about the pros and cons for me. The pros are all obvious, having to do with learning. The cons are these: I’d need access to the internet. I would not have that at any point when we are making passages, but I might have it in certain harbors. I have no extra loom here to do any weaving exercises that might be required. I don’t have a lot of design tools with me, such as a color wheel, colored pencils or pens, tracing paper; all these are at home. I only have one pencil and a small sketchbook. Still, this morning I felt certain there would plenty of good ideas in this course, and I felt the contact with with other weavers just might save my sanity. I signed up this morning and have done the introduction and the first module of the lessons. The community of weavers is just what I needed. I feel slightly less displaced.

Now I’m ready to get back to my own little Caribbean diary piece-in-progress. I did some UNweaving yesterday, tried something new, didn’t like it. I’m not showing the trouble I’m having with those pillars! Too embarrassing! I am also going to re-work the dark green area as well as the columns. About the only thing I’m happy with at this point, is my maker’s mark! That’s rather sad, but now I have some enthusiasm, and that is more than half the battle going in my favor. Today I will unweave the bit I reworked yesterday, along with that deplorable green shrub. (I’m cringing a bit that I’ve even let you see it, so please don’t judge! It’s got to get better on the next attempt!) Hopefully, after the unweaving I’ll make forward progress. The best forward progress I can make is in attitude. I may be displaced temporarily from home, but I have found a weaving family online.

A brief update, sort of a post script at the beginning rather the end: March 22
All islands are now closed. We plan to begin this long journey home on Wednesday (Mar. 25), with a first destination of USVI. One of our small flotilla contacted the consulate there to ask to be admitted. The consulate believes we can clear in. At the moment, in many of the islands, legally cleared in cruisers are being forbidden from going ashore to provision, even after finishing a mandatory 2-week quarantine, in order to protect the locals. In Martinique, legally cleared-in cruisers are being evicted if they are not a EU registered boat. All American flagged boats will be evicted with no ability to clear into any other island. That seems unduly cruel. Once we leave St. Lucia, we cannot make landfall, even for a night of rest onboard, even without going ashore. So we will sail directly the to USVI and hope we’ll be admitted. We’ll rest and do the larger jump to the US, wherever we will be allowed to enter. We have plenty of provisions to make it to the USVI, and perhaps even enough to make it to the US. We don’t yet know where we can clear in on the East Coast, but one of our volunteers will start working with the State Dept. tomorrow. We are low on cash and no way to get more here. I am hoping, hoping, hoping for calm seas for this 2000 mile journey.

My good friends will know that I am not living at home at the moment. My husband and I spend our winters onboard our sailboat and travel through the Leeward and Windward islands of the Caribbean. Some people imagine us living a dream, floating about in calm waters with umbrella drinks amongst tropical scenery. For brief moments that can be true! The reality is that the sea conditions down here can be quite “sporty” since we are sailing in open ocean between islands, and those ocean swells have come non-stop all the way from Africa! Most of these islands do not have protected harbors, so we anchor in bays that have some ocean swell rocking the boats at anchor. Life on a boat is a step back in time. Things we take for granted at home, especially modern plumbing, is a distant dream onboard. Toilets, showers, laundry are all BIG issues on a boat. We ration fresh water and electricity, so anything having to do with water, and especially hot water is not a given. By the time I return home each spring, I am deeply in need of homelife! This year will be even more so.

I have always felt my own homes to be good shelters, safe havens from the outside world. I have relished those safe havens and perhaps taken some of the conveniences there for granted. For some time now I associate this word–shelter– with yarn. Yes, yarn….specifically Brooklyn Tweed’s yarn called ‘Shelter.’ I made a sweater once with a beautiful color of green Shelter called ‘Bottle.’ I knitted it one fall while Bob and I were making our way down the ICW (intra coastal waterway) in mid-autumn weather. I finished it and got to wear it when we arrived in chilly St. Augustine.

Actually, this shows the color more accurately–a lovely, beer-bottle green.

Now our boat is looming large–actually, looming smaller and smaller– as our shelter. Sorry for the pun. Can you tell I miss my looms? I admit I am a bit envious of my weaving friends who are sheltering at home. I know they are weaving. Sigh…

I don’t often talk about sailing because this blog is not a travel blog, and it’s certainly not a sailing blog. That would be my husband’s domain, and you can find him here. I stick to textile techniques, and I try to search them out wherever the wind takes us while we are living aboard. But today I need to talk a bit about sailing.

Yesterday we learned that the Secretary of State announced that all Americans currently out of the country have to get home immediately, or shelter in place wherever they currently are. He said this situation could last a long time, perhaps 18 months. That narrowed our decision about whether to stay down in the Caribbean to wait out the pandemic or sail almost 2,000 miles to get home We were lucky to check in to St. Lucia before they closed the island, but now we see that we must begin the long journey home unless we are prepared to stay here for an indefinite amount of time. We are not. Most of the islands in the Windward and Leeward chains are now closed to visitors, and some of them have implemented severe rules that cruisers may not come ashore to provision, even if they have cleared in with immigration. They are protecting their own citizens from exposure to us who have been visiting many islands countries over the past few months, and they are ensuring that their own citizens have access to the limited food and supplies in the shops. All good. We, on the other hand, cannot live somewhere indefinitely without the ability to restock our provisions.

The list of islands now closed to visitors is almost all of them. The few that are still open, either require quarantining visiting cruisers onboard their boats, or rejecting them due to the places they may have visited before arriving. Because the incident of the virus has risen dramatically in the US, boats from the US are being excluded from some of the few islands still accepting visitors. I feels a bit like a diaspora, although I know we are so much better off than people left homeless on land.

This is the marina tucked inside Rodney Bay, St. Lucia. We are so lucky to have gotten here before the island closed. The marina is full at the moment. The water is too dirty for swimming, and we cannot make fresh water here. But there is good water on the dock, and we have electricity!

Bob knows my level of concern. A good deal of it is based on the kinds of malfunctions and near-disasters he has encountered during his and others’ past few voyages to and from the Caribbean. Amidst all the prep he is doing to get us ready to leave, mostly involving the water maker and the new fridge unit, he bought flowers! Yes, that went some measure to making things feel normal for at least the next few days. To quote the Queen, “Stay Calm and carry on.” Flowers onboard do lend a sense of calm!

Here is our current plan. I apologize in advance for getting into more sailing jargon than any non-sailor should have to endure. We will sail up the chain of Windward islands, starting sometime next week, when the winds and sea swell should be down a bit. We will rely on our excellent weather router, Chris Parker, to advise on the calmest time to leave. Although all these islands are closed to us, for the sake of my inexperience, we will stop each night in a bay on some island to anchor. We will be on our way again the next morning. This is technically illegal, and some islands, like St. Lucia, are policing their bays and shooing away visitors. If this should happen, we plan to plead my lack of qualifications for this journey and our need to rest.

Our first destination is St. John in the American Virgin Islands. We should be able to get there in 10 – 14 days. Before we arrive there we hope that land-based volunteers from our several blue water sailing groups will be working to get the State Department to understand our plight and designate some American ports where we can shelter. We have heard that harbors along the East coast are closing. We need to have some places open for our arrival. We need to know where we can go. Our land-based volunteers also plan to ask the Coast Guard for help in tracking our routes, or keeping track of us in some way. We will have a list of boats making this journey to give to both the State Department and the Coast Guard. Most of us have transponders onboard for keeping track of our location.

Because of my lack of experience (frankly, I am so unqualified for this journey it is frightful), we will be taking a route that keeps us relatively close to islands where we can bail out as necessary, even though these islands will be closed to us. We don’t have an exact sail plan yet, but it’s likely that we will go to Puerto Rico (closed for entry) and possibly through the Bahamas (also closed). Then perhaps to Florida or Georgia. From there we can go up the Intra Coastal Waterway. The only remaining ocean passages would be the coast of NJ, always horrible, and perhaps the outside of Long Island. I cannot think about that part of the trip now. It’s a long way off, and who knows how things will be by then.

My worries are:
–Normally Bob would sail home with two or three experienced crew members, but no one can get to us right now.
–We are currently in St. Lucia which is part of the forbidden hurricane zone, starting on June 1. Our insurance will be voided if we don’t get north of Cape Hatteras or south of the Grenadines by that date. Considering how slow travel by sail is, we need to get out of here soon, either north or south.
–since we will not be permitted ashore during our travels, we need to make sure we are completely self sufficient in food, water, and mechanical necessities onboard. We have just had a new refrigerator/freezer installed since our original one died in Dec. It took all this time — 3 months! — to get the new equipment shipped and installed. In order to fit this new appliance onboard we had to move our water maker. The installation of both these items is still not complete, so we have not been able to test that they are in good, working condition. I am very worried about this. We need to make our own water and we need to keep some of our food cold…..for quite a long time.
–I will be out of meds in April, so I hope I can get help with that in St. John since we’ll be on American soil. Fingers crossed. I also do not have reliable seasick medicine, and as the only crew member I need to be able to do my share.

We hope to be home by mid-May. I have never been at sea for such a long time. This will be very different than the island hopping we’ve done in past winters. We should have moderate connectivity through our trip to St. John in the USVI, but after that I have no idea. It’s hard to be so far from home with little or no ability to keep in touch. So, fingers crossed and holding my breath that I’ll get home and be weaving in a couple of months’ time.

The last couple months of 2019 brought some unexpectedly sad surprises. Archie Brennan left this world on Hallowe’en, followed closely by one of my tapestry students. I did not know her well, but she was instrumental in helping me realize how important it is to share our knowledge with others. She was new to tapestry, and after a lifetime of beautiful work in other areas of handwork, she was serious and committed to learning a new skill in weaving tapestry. I was so sorry that we didn’t have more time together. The final shock came when a close friend of mine died unexpectedly in early December. She had not shared her situation with anyone but her closest friend, another tapestry weaver and mutual friend. The mutual friend made sure that things were in place as well as they could be. I’m still reeling from this loss. Of course, it was cancer, one of the most likely causes of an early demise.

I am still thinking of these friends– Archie, Nancy, and Anna– every day, repeatedly going over my memories and shared experiences of each of them. It’s a treasure trove of learned insights, experiences, and shared fun. Sometime over the past few years I came across these quotes about grief–

“I’ve learned grief is just love. It’s all the love you want to give but cannot. All of that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”

“Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.”

I’d like to think that during the next few months I’ll begin to enjoy my memories without so much pain attached; I’ll learn to swim the tides and currents. The important thing is to take these dear friends with me, to remember them, to keep working, knowing that in some way they are at my side.

And through all this the holidays were insane. We spent time on both coasts, which meant a lot of travel, and this occurred after deciding to spend 10 days with Bob in Antigua, in mid-November. It was a great distraction to be with family. My last few days at home before traveling to Maryland and then California, were spent in a frenzy of knitting and weaving presents I wanted to give. In most years, finishing projects is a stressful time, and of course it was stressful this time around as well. But, it was different in a significant way. It was therapeutic to be at my loom for hours on end. It was therapeutic to sit in my favorite chair, with my feet up on an ottoman, knitting for someone I love. I realize how essential handwork is to my well being. Duly noted for future.

So, my new year’s resolution is do more handwork. I made a good start yesterday by warping one of my copper pipe looms and even starting to weave. I worked on the idea for my image, and I felt so proud to get such productive work done on the first day of the year.

Here are some photos of those projects that calmed me during this time of loss. I didn’t finish everything I’d hope to do, but I made peace with that. I had bigger fish to fry for sure.

Here are two of a set of napkins that I wove for Chris and Melody. I barely had time to weave just the two and get them hemmed. I knew they’d understand, and of course they did. I was so touched by how much they like them.

Before I left I stayed up late retying the loom so I could get back to it when I return in April.

I had a long warp of deflected double weave on the loom for a good part of the year. Of course, when November rolled around I thought what great gifts cowls would be. There are six of them, in differing lengths. I gave five of them to friends and family. I loved seeing Melody wear hers, which is the one all the way to the right.

Lastly, there are the knitting projects: a sheep named Spud for our granddaughter Tori who just turned 3, and a tunic sweater for our 18 month old granddaughter Emme.

Emme is adorable in red, and I loved making this sweater pattern.

When we celebrated Christmas with our grandchildren and children I brought Rhett a sweater that I knitted for his father Rob, more than 30 years ago. You can imagine what this photo means to me.

So we are at the start of a new year and a new decade. Admitting to myself the importance of working with my hands every day, I hope this will be the start of some good things. Grief never leaves, but it can certainly be put to use for healing and celebrating the wonderful times and learning experiences that have come from those who meant so much to us. I know that sounds quite sentimental. It is what it is.

It has been a month since Bob and I returned from France. We are hurtling through time, getting ready for our winter living onboard, and I am attempting to do something textile-y with every day I have left on land! So, in some ways it feels like our trip to France happened about 6 months ago! In other ways I feel like I’ve just returned.

A friend of mine alerted me to the fact that Paris has wonderful shops for notions and fabrics. I had experienced a bit of that two years ago, when I found a fabric shop in Fort de France, Martinique. I couldn’t wait to see what a shop full of buttons, ribbons, and trims might offer–in Paris!

My friend had mentioned Ulta Mod, which has two shops on opposite sides of the street on Rue de Choiseul. It might be the oldest haberdashery in Paris since it opened in 1832.

Rebecca Devaney has some wonderful descriptions of the history of Ulta Mod as well as its current offerings in the newer store–and great photos! You really should take a look at all the great interior shots of the store on Devaney’s website. I think it vies with French boulangeries as a compelling reason to visit Paris! While I was there, a woman had her tweed coat spread out on a counter and was choosing new buttons. I thought the buttons that were already on the coat were quite nice! I don’t think I would have considered changing them, but then I am not French, let alone Parisienne. This woman, and the saleswoman waiting on her, clearly understood that the coat could be so much better with new buttons! How they got through the wall of buttons to make a choice was mind boggling.

I got lost in the section of trims. I was thinking of braiding as I looked through bins and bins of offerings. There had to be about a 100 color choices of just one type of cording that caught my eye. As often happens to me when there is too much choice, I couldn’t pick anything! My loss….

I had done a bit of internet searching ahead of time and wanted to visit Maison Sajou. Oh my! This is an embroidery shop where every project, every spool of thread, package of needles, and every fabric on display made my heart race. I don’t even do embroidery anymore, but I wanted everything in this shop! Actually, I wanted to live here.

Now I plan to give embroidery another whirl. It’s certainly an easy thing to take onboard for the winter. After much deliberation, and after putting various spools of linen embroidery thread and some cute packages of embroidery needles in my cart, I added this project kit. Tres adorable!

I think I missed a great opportunity to see some fabric shops in Paris. We were leaving the Cathedrale Montmartre, walking down a street of fabric shops, all closing for the day. I have no idea if this is the hotbed of French fabric shops since I didn’t get to check them. On another day, I went searching for a fabric shop I’d found online in the area where we were staying, the 11th arrondissement. I found a Japanese fabric shop called Jhin.

Of course I envisioned returning home with French fabric, perhaps outdoing the beautiful linen print I found in Martinique. But fate took me to Jhin and I came home with two beautiful Japanese prints for me, and another two for a friend. Serendipity can be so much fun!

I’ve begun embroidering the cute little tote from Sajou. It’s a restful way to spend time–perfect for days in tropical harbors in the Caribbean. I’ll be there soon.

The most famous tapestry in the Western world is not, in fact a tapestry, but that does not diminish its incredible workmanship or its place in history. I’m referring to the Bayeux tapestry. A visit to Bayeux to see this work was high on my list of things must-dos while in France last month. (It was 2nd only to seeing the Lady and the Unicorn.) It remains in excellent condition after almost 1,000 years. I don’t think it’s ever been stored away in an old barn as many woven tapestries have been, so it is in remarkable condition. At the museum in Bayeux, where it is housed, you can walk along the length of this epic embroidered tale, and marvel. I marveled that the background was entirely handspun and handwoven. I marveled that all the embroidery threads were handspun and hand dyed. I thought about those nuns who sat together and wielded their needles one thousand years ago. In some fundamental ways we are so similar to those women. Nihil novi sub sol.

The museum in Bayeux has done such a clever job of displaying the tapestry that I never even missed the fact that I could not take photos. The “tapestry” is displayed in a dimly lit glass case that flows in a large circle in the center of a darkened gallery. Everyone is given headphones to listen to an audio description of the work and the story of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. Like everyone else, I was compelled to keep up with the narrator so that I could see the bits of the story illustrated in the embroidered piece, as well as taking some time to enjoy the lovely colors of the dyed threads and examine the stitches.

The piece is 224 feet long. It tells the story of the Conquest, from King Edward’s death, through the envoy that went to France to alert William of Normandy that he was the chosen successor to Edward, to cousin (or some kind of relative) Harold usurping the English throne for himself, through William’s amassing troops and building ships to sail to England and claim his place. It’s intriguing to ‘read’ this story in the imagery of the embroidery. It’s hard to pick any part of the piece that stands out above the rest. The building of ships caught my eye, with all the details of cutting down trees and the depiction of the tools used for shaping the stem and the planks for the boats. I think this was part of the work that captured Bob’s attention.

The scenes of the ships sailing across the channel made me realize how much I’d enjoy weaving the various men onboard and the colorful sails. A few years ago, one of the Wednesday Groupers decided to weave a small section of the Bayeux tapestry as woven tapestry. I totally understand. I’m feeling pulled to weave those ships under sail. I hope the nuns enjoyed their creative interpretations as they stitched.

The battle scenes were equally well executed, and I found the depiction of horses in battle quite moving.

Standing in the presence of something so well preserved and so beautifully made is quite emotional. It’s impossible not to think of the women who made this piece, the men who commissioned it, the men who lived the story being told. It’s impossible to ignore the long projection of time that brought us to the 21st century, how our native tongue is now a mix of Norman French and Saxon and Old Norse, how our way governing spread through the world through England’s vast expansion of colonies. Here is one story, told at the beginning of this long history of evolution and progress of the English language and English justice, worked in embroidery by women.

A Short Tour of the Normandy Coast

Normandy is a beautiful area of France, known for cheese, for apples and pears and Calvados, for damp foggy days along the shore.

We were quite lucky to have clear, dry days while we were there. The beaches were stunning, but it was easy to imagine how difficult that D-day landing was over 75 years ago, on a far less beautiful day. That was another memorable part of our trip that lies outside the subject of my post. Still, after seeing the amount of work in the Bayeux tapestry, telling a 1,000 year old story, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities in the various battles fought along the same coastline, during the past 10 centuries.

We ate cheese each day, and each day we sampled some apple cider and a few times some Calvados. My compulsion to make lists of must-sees/must-dos included having sole Normandie. I couldn’t wait to have the same meal that Julia Child had on her arrival in France so many years ago. I was shocked that I could not find it on any menu in Bayeux, Honfleur, or Etretat! That was another little disappointment, but the cheeses surely made up for not it…and the bread!

In spite of the fact that the coastal towns along the Normandy shore are famously scenic, I found Bayeux to be my favorite. It may have been the light. We were blessed with dry, clear days.

The streets of Bayeux are festooned with colorful balloon type decorations, and many shop windows have been painted with images and slogans of gratitude for saving French culture during WWII. There are French, British, Canadian and US flags everywhere, and even a few German flags.

We stayed just outside Bayeux in a farmstay, and it was an excellent choice. This place is as charming as a fairy tale, and we walked along a country road at the edge of several farms and into a tiny nearby village.

From Bayeux, we traveled north to Honfleur and Etretat. Honfleur is incredibly scenic as touristy, and Bob enjoyed a day of looking at boats. I think he took about 1,000 photos. For lunch we sat under one of those umbrellas to the left of this photo.

If I were to start writing about the gardens….well, it would be a deep rabbit hole. Gardens, window boxes, and florists were so lush everywhere we traveled. The roses I saw everywhere were as perfect as roses in June in New England. Can I limit myself to one photo? Maybe….just for this post.

I hope I never forget the view of the shoreline in Etretat, seeing the very view that Monet painted on several occasions. It made me realize how fluid time is, that I could stand in the same spot that someone immortalized in art a century (or 10 centuries) before I stood in that very place.

We could even see this memorable landmark from the tiny balcony of our room at one of the highest points in town.

We celebrated Melody’s birthday in Etretat and then began our journey back to Paris, stopping in Rouen and Giverny.

I think I need a post about the bounty of French markets’ fresh vegetables and fruit, perhaps touching briefly on gardens which of course includes Giverny, and all the lace I saw throughout Normandy. Next time…