ArgoKnot – Page 32 – A journal of my weaving, spinning, and knitting life

Dominica, Our Final Destination

April 4, 2017 | Leave a Comment

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

These amazing trees were all along the river.

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.

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

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.

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.

We 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.

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.

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

There were places with great vistas–

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

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

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.

Tree ferns are very ancient plants, older than humans.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

–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.

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

March 29, 2017 | 1 Comment

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

March 29, 2017 | 1 Comment

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Colore Jardin de Botanique en Deshaies

March 26, 2017 | 3 Comments

This is the most scenic place we’ve visited so far this winter. The mountains rise all around us, and there is the pristine little village of Deshaies nestled against the protective shore in this northwest corner of Guadeloupe. The pretty church tower rises above all the other buildings in the village, and the whole vista seems like an illustration from a fairy tale. I must not be the only one who thinks this, since this is the place where the popular crime series, “Death in Paradise,” is filmed. I haven’t seen any of the episodes yet. Isn’t it cruel that I will have to wait until I get home to watch a tv show about the place I am currently visiting!

Guadeloupe is two islands sitting very close together with a small opening between the two. One island is very steep with volcanic mountains, and the other island is quite flat. Seen from above the two island together look like a lopsided butterfly. Ironically the mountainous island is called Basse Terre, and the flat island is called Grande Terre.

Guadeloupe is one of several island called “the islands that brush the clouds,” along with Antigua and Dominica. The clouds are full of moisture which contribute to daily rain showers and lush greenery that includes rainforests. There are some significant waterfalls on Guadeloupe.

When we found out that there is a botanical garden in Deshaies, we were determined to visit. You can walk up the very steep road to the garden, or you can call them and they will send a van to pick you up. Since we do not speak French, we were lucky to have a shop owner call for us. The van met us at the main crossroad that heads out of the village.

It was quite an experience! The gardens are well maintained and wonderfully designed. There are tropical plants in abundance, and also plants from other exotic places around the world.

We met some fellow cruisers, originally from Colorado, who live aboard their boat Hi Flite. It turns out we have many cruising friends in common, and have been hearing each other on various SSB networks–that is, before our SSB died. It was nice to finally meet them, and they took this photo of Bob and me standing in front of a large specimen poinsettia!

The same was true of rex begonias and angel wing begonias–they grow as big as hedges in their natural habitat! There were all kinds of large specimen growth plants that I’ve only ever known as potted plants…. deiffenbachia, schlefferia, phalaenopsis and paphiopedilum orchids, bromeliads–well, if I named them all I’d never stop typing. The plant that impressed me most is a vine from some region of Africa that I see every time I visit the New York Botanical Gardens (the one in the Bronx, not Brooklyn). It is a lush vine that has long drooping flowers in a truly nasty, unnatural shade of aqua. But, of course it is perfectly natural. Whenever I visit the gardens in New York someone always has to have their photo taken in the midst of these strangely colored flowers.

There were some beautifully designed landscapes.

some with secluded places to sit to admire the views.

The water features were run by electric pumps, but the water came from a natural spring and was wonderfully icy cold in this tropical climate!

We made plans to meet our new acquaintances from Hi Flite for lunch at the restaurant at the top of this waterfall and spent some time getting to know each other and finding all the connections we had in common.

The coi match the plants at the edge of the pond–a familiar potted plant in northern nurseries. At the moment I can’t remember the name, but you will know it.

All through the gardens there were stands of this bromeliad that is well known for it’s colorful flower stalks. The flowers were all spent but the plant is better known for the stalk than the flowers anyway.

Here is a banana in flower and starting to make fruit.

There were several stands of these large plants, and you could walk into them, like walking into a grove a bamboo. But these were not anything like bamboo. They were starting to flower with large pink flowers on tall stalks–chest high. I wanted to make a point of remembering the name of this impressive plant, but now that name is long gone! It’s a ‘rosa something.’ The flower is larger than a baseball….maybe larger than a grapefruit. Stunning.

Here is Bob standing in the midst of a kapok tree. Remember kapok?

There was an entire arbor of red passion flowers, just coming into bloom.

And there were so many phalaenopses and bromeliads growing on trees. Some of the phalaenopses were clearly meri-clones of new hybrids that have become so popular–with strange color breaks that have never occurred in nature. It did not seem natural to see them in a garden setting, but then neither did that strange aqua flowered vine that does occur in nature.

This is the healthiest staghorn fern I have ever seen. I wanted to take a piece…actually, I was terribly tempted to take many things. I don’t have any plants onboard this year and I am sorely missing a little greenery. There was plenty to choose from here, but I could not do it! I was holding out that there would be plants for sale in the gift shop.

And the birds! What a feast of color! There was a large aviary full of ‘parakeets’ like these. They were such a delight flying all over and around us. They’d swoop down right next to anyone on the path–no fear at all. They sang beautifully too. Very mesmerizing.

Then there were very large parrots outside at another part of the garden. What keeps them in the park? Having their wings clipped? What amazing colors. I thought of all the feather tapestries I saw at the pre-Columbian textile exhibit at Yale last summer. How many birds would it take to make one of those tapestries?

And there was a flock of not so colorful flamingoes. Maybe there aren’t enough live shrimp for them on this island? Still, they are beautiful birds, whether deep coral or slightly off-pink.

At the end of the day, when the van returned us to the crossroads, we found a local woman who set up a small folding table behind her car in a parking lot to sell ice cream. She had two buckets of freshly churned ice cream that was selling fast as you’d expect on a tropical afternoon. The choices were something off-white and something deep raspberry red. I asked what flavors and she replied “coco” and something that sounded like ‘rose,’ (with an accent on the final ‘e’). I asked again about the rose. I asked if maybe it was framboise since it looked so raspberry colored. No, she said rose again. She said it several times, and others who were waiting in line piped in too with more and more hand motions. I guessed cerises, and fraise, and everyone continued to say what sounded like rose to me. Bob got his double scoop, one of each flavor, and we headed off to sit on the rocks along the beach. I had a few tastes and thought the tangy red flavor was wonderful. Suddenly I realized she had a small chalk board next to her table and the word on it was ‘griseille.’ Why did no one point to that sign during all my chatter? I swear I never heard anyone pronounce that ‘g.’ I guess I have a lot to learn if I’m ever going to understand spoken French! It was red currant! Yum!

Everything about Deshaies is about as colorful as the botanical gardens, and I’m loving it! In the end, when we got to the gift shop there were only four very sad looking cacti for sale. As desperate as I am for a green plant onboard, cactus doesn’t even come close to tempting me. That gift shop was the first place I noticed that everything with the word “Guadeloupe” machine embroidered on it as a souvenir, was made out of a bright madras fabric, or was printed to look like the same madras fabric that was on all the textiles. It seems to be the national fabric of Guadeloupe. Maybe their flag is even madras. I don’t know because they fly the French flag, but surely they have their own flag too. Madras is big here, and it made me realize that this is part of the history of the West Indies. It is not only influenced by the flavors of their food, but also the textiles from India. It’s all very colorful.

Antigua to Guadeloupe, from English Charm to French Shabby Chic

March 26, 2017 | Leave a Comment

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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

–especially at sunset.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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….

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.