Summer 2021 - Spain and Portugal Part 2

 The Covid test required by Portugal worries me. You are supposed to need it unless you have your digital EU vaccination passport (pretty much the same throughout the EU). Well I am vaccinated, even if I don’t have the EU passport, so I figure it is time to take a stand, become an obnoxious American, and insist that my California record of vaccination be accepted. In short, I didn’t sleep so well and was up by 4:50 am. Showered and dressed I was on my way by 5:30 am, and got to the bust stop by 6:00 am ready for a long wait. Oh joy! At 6:20 the airport bus pulls in (I thought they started running at 7 am), and instead of the highway took this dinky narrow road that cut across the mountains and in 25 minutes made it to the airport. I had thus plenty of time to make a big stink about my Covid vaccination certificate.

I had pre-checked via cell phone, so I walked straight into the security line, got caught trying to smuggle my Swiss Army knife and a roll of electrical tape—which I just had to toss in the garbage—and without further ado got to my flight on way to Barcelona. No whisper of Covid, tests, or certificates.

A short layover in Barcelona reminded me of my favorite peeves about European airports. First, the departure boards do not list the flights by destination but by departure time, so I rushed to the first Lisbon flight I saw, only to find out it was with a different airline. My second peeve is that they publish the departure gate only 15 minutes ahead of the boarding time. In a small airport is no big deal, but in a huge airport like Barcelona you could be waiting at the A concourse and suddenly learn that you flight is departing from gate C23! No wonder there is a high incidence of heart attacks in European airports!

I was the first one to board the Lisbon flight (I have never been the first to board before), which got me to reflect on my third peeve: As always I got an aisle seat, so I was ready to get up and let my fellow passengers to get in. But time and again the people go past me and then say to my back “May I please get in?” So I have to stand up, push against the crush of passengers to create a small space for me to squeeze in while my fellow passenger takes the middle seat. Then the window passenger comes in and does it in exactly the same way! Arghh?

Landed in Lisbon without any trouble (again not a whisper about Covid, although I must tip my hat off to Europeans, who have taken the mask mandate to heart), rented a Fiat Panda, and despite the efforts of Google Maps to send me astray I successfully traveled to the port of Setúbal (SE of Lisbon and about an hour away from the airport) to meet my friends Maria Eugenia and Juan Ley Pozo, who I had not seen in nearly 10 years. I would normally meet them in Madrid, where they live, but they were doing a 3-day vacation here, together with Maria Eugenia’s sister and teenager niece, and I came to join the vacation party.

Got to Setúbal at about 3 pm, and they had a tasty bowl of rice and mariscos waiting for me. Then we all 5 piled into the Fiat Panda and went shopping. I had to buy a bottle of vinho verde, a tinto from the region, and a ruby porto to taste the local wines, but it may be a lot because everyone else is a water drinker. In the afternoon we went to visit the Fort of San Felipe, took a drive through the coastal boulevard, and walked along the peer. Reminds me of Veracruz.  One thing I have to say about Juan is that he is a dedicated tourist, eager to make the most of every tourist moment at his disposal.

For merienda we went to a seafood restaurant that was packed, and ate a delicious dish of almejas a la casa (clams cooked with onions and garlic, and garnished with cilantro, with much of the enjoyment coming from sopping the broth with pieces of bread) and a superb plate of grilled sardinhas with olive oil and coarse sea salt. Delicious!

We have rented an apartment in Setúbal for the next three nights and it was here that I rested my head to recover from a very full day.

The family woke around 8 am, had a typically sparse breakfast (a croissant, a tostada with marmalade, and a glass of milk; I am the only coffee drinker) and by 9 am we were ready to go. We took the ferry across the bay to a mouth barrier island (basically a sand spit) that is popular for its pretty Atlantic beaches and some rather exclusive condos. We waded and walked along the beach, but honestly if you are not committed to playing in the waves it grows old real fast. I did reflect that a tattoo might be sexy if artfully displayed by some sexy outfit, but when you see middle-aged women sporting a hodge-podge of tattoos all over their bodies it is not a pretty sight. I think that new tattoos should be added only after careful consideration of the existing ones.

We had lunch at the Museo del Arroz, which is an hacienda devoted to the growth of rice. It must be a tiny production, but they sell it well to the many tourists in the form of: arroz con mariscos, arroz con pato, and any other number of dishes based on rice. The arroz con pato was excellent! Lunch in Portugal and Spain is the main meal of the day.

Back in the mainland we enjoyed the rather warm afternoon visiting churches and walking down quaint, narrow, crooked streets. The Portuguese of the XVI-XVIII were very adept to the decoration of their public buildings with azulejo tiles, in which tile by tile a very complex scene would be depicted in blue-line against a white background. Very pretty, but I felt they had the tendency to depict Mother Mary as a rather stout woman. Perhaps this was the standard of beauty in the XVII century?

Juan is a regular paparazzi so while he continued down the street, taking pictures left and right, I silently glided into the tiny Museum of the Baroque (one room really) and an ingenious extra display of marine navigation instruments.

We got back home around 7 pm, with plenty of time to sit around the table and just chat. Maria Eugenia’s sister Beatriz and 20-year old niece Itziar are the other members of the jolly group. In a very Spanish/Latin way the 20-yeard old woman is always referred to as “la niňa”, and obvious indication that we all others are becoming old, old.

The following day we arose to the news that Juan had planned a full day of hard core tourist activities: First we visited the Mercado de Livramento, in downtown, which besides delicious displays of fruits and vegetables, has a full section devoted to fish and shellfish of every type found in the Atlantic, including skinny fish, long fish, fat fish, colorful fish, clams, octopus, a special type of eel that they call pez espada because it looks like the silvery blade of a medieval sword, squid or choco, …

Then we drove out of town to the estuary of the Sado River, to visit the Molino de Maré, a tide-operated mill that has been beautifully reconstructed by a non-profit. Just like I described for Neda in La Coruňa, they capture the high-tide behind a dam built across the mouth of a small muddy bay, and then let the water out during the ebb through four or five small openings, where it spins as many mill stones. The is tidal flats all around are big mires of mud, so the people there had to live in palaphite towns (or cidade palafita de marisqueros), where all of the tiny hovels were built atop poles, and where the different habitational units were connected by rickety walk-throughs where the kids would play (I wonder how many babies fell head down in the muck?).

An extra drive brought us up the sharp hill of Palmela, to visit its well kept and very impressive fort. I took the time to sip on a glass of chilled muscatel, a local product. By the way, I have also tasted vinho verde, a ruby port, and tonight will enjoy a regional red made of Syrah, Aragonés, Castelão and Alicante Bouschet grapes. With that I will complete my enologic tour of Portugal!

We headed southwest, toward remote Cape Espichel, but before reaching it decided to have lunch in Sesimbra, which Juan had described to us out of a tourist guide as a “pueblito de Pescadores”. Ha! It was a vibrant tourist trap, with giant hotels and thousands of sun seekers. We were looking for a small restaurant mentioned in in Trip Advisor, the Cantinho de Regina, as the best value for lunch. And it was! Regina is the owner, cook, and general factotum, and instead of offering the standard fare offers has her own menu of gourmet creations. We tried the Bacalauh o Cantinho and the spaghetti with clams and found them excellent and very reasonably priced.

Getting to cabo Espichel was a bit of a drive, and in the way there we passed a couple of pretty chapels, a dinosaur display, a couple of tasty-looking restaurants, and a lot of sparse forest. One we got to the cape we had spectacular views of the lighthouse, and precipitous cliffs that angled down to the ocean. The rocks exposed were a tilted sequence of tidal silts, limestones, and sandstones, and they reminded me of a photo I had seen a long time ago of the K-T sequence in Spain. So I took my professorial stance and explained what I was seeing to the others. The significance of the K-T boundary fell flat among my audience, but Juan was really intrigued by the 3-D geometry of the cliff, so I went ahead and explained about original horizontality, tectonic uplift and tilting, and coastal erosion. To help with the explanation I pointed to a particular dip-slope outcrop (a huge outcrop extending the full vertical extent of the cliff) and explained that the tilted surface we were seeing had been, in the geologic past, the surface of the tidal marsh that had occupied this part of Portugal at the time. We were a good 200 m across the cove, but I noticed a peculiar pattern of “tracks” on the dip slope, and on a lark I pointed them out to the others as possible dinosaur tracks formed maybe 80 million years ago. They were duly impressed.

The other attraction here in Cape Espichel is a small church, Santuario de Nossa Senhora do Cabo, notorious because this tiny church has a huge annex of two wings that were used until not so long ago to receive hundreds upon hundreds of pilgrims. We were in presence of one of the holiest places in Portugal, maybe in par with Fatima or Lourdes! So we read the display with care and learned that, according to the testimony of two separate witnesses, the Virgin Mary came out of the sea, riding a white mule, and that the mule had trudged up the slope leaving its footprints along the muddy slope. Imagine my surprise when I read that the tracks had been the object of veneration for well over four centuries, until they were finally examined by scientists who concluded they were dinosaur tracks! Man, am I good or what?

On the way back Juan wanted to visit the hermitage of the Convento de Arrábida, which is perched on the coastal slope of the Parque Natural de Arrábida, but it was closed. Pity, because it looked beautiful from the road. The return to Setúbal was spectacular given that the road climbs to the top of the limestone cliffs of the Sierra de Azeitao before dropping back down into the port.

The following morning we packed and tidied down the apartment, played a game of Tetris with people and luggage to make sure everything fit in my little car, and headed back to Lisbon. On the way we stopped to take a few pictures of the Lisboa Cristo Rei, who looks a lot like his counterpart the Cristo del Corcobado on the hills overlooking Rio de Janeiro.

The Ley family was staying at the Hotel Canada, in downtown Lisbon, so I dropped them down before heading down to Loures, a small toen north of Lisbon but presumably close to the airport, where I found that the “hotel” I had booked was a scam. The address given was that of a supermarket. Fuming I drove to the airport, where I dropped off the rental car, and used Booking.com to secure a bunk in a local hostel. I walked 20 minutes there (it was hot!) and found out that I needed a numerical code from the owner, who lives in Porto, to get in. I called her using my European cell phone, and she wanted me to send her copy of my passport and vaccination certificate to give me the code. The problem is that my WhatsApp only works when I am connected to wi-fi, and the caretaker didn’t have the password for the wi-fi. Arghh! Grumbling I had to make my way back to the airport to use their wi-fi but on the way there spotted a restaurant where I managed to get an excellent lunch and use their wi-fi. At the end all was well, but I have to say that all this double checking  and double authentication procedures are a royal pain for the international traveler.

I went back to Lisbon to say goodbye to Maria Eugenia, Beatriz, and Itziar in downtown (Juan had promptly taken the tourist opportunity to visit the Museum of the Impressionists). We had an ice cream together, and I visited the “Oldest Bookstore in the World”, established sometime in the 1700’s, to buy a birthday present for my young friend Lucas, in Paris. I am sure there were bookstores before the 1700’s, but they are no longer operating so the lonely one still standing gets to claim the honor. Later I went back to the Hotel Canada to have a last drink with my dear Juan, to exchange the promise that we will see each other again sometime or another. We are all approaching retirement at about the same time, so who knows what the future has in store for us.

After a hot sleep at my barebones hostel I walked back to the airport for my early flight to Paris-Orly, where after a few false starts I finally found Géraldine and her son Lucas waiting for me. I was very happy to see them 😊 Both Faby and I met Géraldine in Germany, 34 years ago, and even if we don’t see each other very often I am always delighted to spend time with her and her family. It was a bit of a drive, but eventually we got to their beautiful house in Treil-sur-Seine, which as the name implies is one of the many ancient towns that border the Seine River upstream of Paris.

Dad Nicolas and older brother Theo were there waiting for us, and after the traditional round of hugs and double kisses we sat down to a delicious lunch in the veranda. Nicolas grilled and made sure to include a few of the local sausages (marguez (?) that are as famous as the Graf Voelsinger sausages of Frankfurt). Géraldine and Nicolas have a very large ancient house, on what used to be carriage house of the retirement home of the nanny of the king—grandiose as any other Royal gift would be expected to be—with a long wooded backyard that extends almost to the promenade along the Seine.

In the afternoon we made the promenade along the Seine! What a gorgeous place to live! Géraldine surprised me with her deep knowledge of the medicinal plants that grow along the shore, while Nicolas proved to be a bit of an amateur historian who had many stories to tell about the distinguished authors and philosophers who lived in Treil-sur-Seine.

Theo is now 18, and he is getting ready to go to college, a few hours drive to the east, to study computer science. He can’t wait to get out of the house. Like his Dad he is “Mediterranean” in aspect, with dark hair, brown eyes, and olive skin. He is a very handsome, tall, young man, so I prognosticate that he will break many hearts in his new college town. Lucas, who just turned 15 years old (and got from me Asterix Gladiateur, in French, as a present) is very different. He is blond and blue-eyed like Mom, and loves helping around the house. I suspect that moving out to college is very far from his mind right now.

On Sunday I didn’t have any plans, so even though they had just come back from holiday the previous Friday, Géraldine and Lucas offered to take me to Paris for a walk around. Paris in a day! Well, not quite, I was not going to go for a full tour, but thought it would be nice to visit Montmartre, walk along the Seine looking at what the Bouquinists had to offer (I don’t know why since I cannot carry an extra book), and walk around the Ile de la Cité to take a look at the renovation work of Notre Dame. Poor Géraldine. With her very chic shoes (she always dresses and looks very chic) the walk was a bit more than she had bargained for. For me and Lucas it was a great day.

Monday morning Géraldine and I once again took the train back to Paris, she to work and me to Gare St. Lazare. I was heading for Frankfurt using the TGV (Train de Grande Vitesse), which at 250 km/hr delivered me to Hanau (via Karlsruhe and Frankfurt) in less than 4 hours. Toll!

Summer 2021 - Spain and Portugal Part 1

The trip to Spain and Portugal started with a very odd detour to Seattle, so I could use the air ticket I had booked at the beginning of the summer. I was entering the European Union in Portugal, and the silly Portuguese required me to have a negative Covid test that was no more than 48 hours old. So I did it at the Seattle airport for the outrageous cost of $250!

From Seattle I took United to Newark (full flight), and then TAP to Lisbon in a huge AirBus where I had the four middle seats all for my own. Yipee!

As I recall nobody asked me to see the results of my superexpensive test in Lisbon, and when I landed in Madrid all they asked was the QR code of my own self-registration as being vaccinated against Covid. I imagine than in a few more months they will have the digital vaccination certificate worked down to an art, but for the time being it is a pain.

At the airport I rented a car and went down to Guadalajara, about an hour travel time, where I had booked a hotel. The manager there indicated to me the good walking streets and in no time whatsoever I found a cellphone store, where I went in to see if I could have my iPhone 5 unlocked. The young Asian man looked at it with pity, as if I had handed him a stone artifact, and bluntly told me that it would be worthless to unlock it and that I would be better off buying a new one. He offered me a used iPhone 6 for 100 euros, and a few minutes later I walked out with a new phone that two blocks down the promenade I loaded with a Vodaphone sim card. Ha, ha! I now have a European phone 😊

By then it was getting late, and the restaurants were starting to open, so I chose a Grill Restaurant where there were no menus (you are supposed to scan the menu). I didn’t really know how to do that, so I looked at the chalkboard and saw “Cabrito al Horno” (baby goat). So I ordered that and the young man went in to ask and came back to say that they had a back leg if that would suit me. Sure, I am sure I can get enough out of a back leg to make a good meal. They must have started it in the oven from a cold slab of meat because it took forever for them to get back to me. In the meantime, I noticed that a lot of people around me were sharing a dish between two to four people. How neighborly of them. Then came my cabrito. It must have been a giant cabrito, because the piece I got was huge! It overflowed the plate and would have been for at least four people. So I ate, and I ate, and I ate, not willing to waste an excellent dish. I finally asked for the bill, which was alarmingly steep, and rolled up the hill to my hotel, in as close to a food coma as I remember ever being.

The following day I used my brand new phone to navigate my way to Zorita de los Canes, the little old town by the side of the Rio Tajo where my maternal great-greatgrandfather came from. I had been there ten years before, and came to say hello to my only living great aunt, Tia Petra, and to my cousins Laura, Charo, and Miguel. Tia Petra looked remarkably well for being now 90, was as sprite and loving as I remember her, but is definitely living in a much more limited world. She entertains herself coloring, and the fridge door and any other free surfaces are covered with pages from her coloring books. My cousins Laura and Charo are happy Spanish women and share the care of their mom with good humor. We had an excellent lunch of Spanish tapas, rabo de toro, and cocido, and afterward we three cousins went down to the town pub by the river for a cold expresso and a coke. It is very hot!

I hung around Zorita for a couple of days. The first day I went to visit the towns of Almonacid de Zorita and the Albalate de Zorita, where I had a delicious breakfast of café con leche and a bocadillo de morcilla (delicious Blutwurst). Later I walked along the Rio Tajo, visited the archaeologic site of Recópolis, where cousin Angelica, the wife of cousin Miguel is in charge. Recópolis was established in the VII century by Visigoth King Leovigildo (whose reigning seat was in Toledo). By now my head is swimming on who was where, but as I understood it the land was occupied by the Iberians, who got conquered by the Romans in the I century, who brought in their allies from France, the Visigoths, to manage the Iberians. Pretty soon all Spain is being ruled by the Visigoths. In the VII century, shortly after Recópolis was established, the Arabs invaded Spain, formed the kingdom of el-Andalus, took over Recópolis in the X century and built a castle on the adjacent ridge (el Castillo de Recópolis), and remained the lords of southern Spain until the XII century, when the Catholic Kings, Isabella and Fernando, finally expelled them from Spain. El Castillo de Recópolis was then transferred to the hands of the Caballeros de Calatrava, who were an order of fighting monks that acquired much power over the Catholic world in the time of the crusades. Angelica guided me through the castle, which has its foundations on a limestone reef; the underlying lagoonal calcareous sandstone served as building stone (sillar) for both Recópolis and el Castillo itself.

After the hot visit to el Castillo Angelica and I went down to the river for a cold beer, and were pretty soon joined by Miguel, his daughter Martha and her family. I was introduced to the drink called Tinto de Verano, made with red wine, lemonade, and a spritz of vermouth, all within an glass filled with ice. Heaven!

Afterward I went to have lunch with my Tia Petra, followed by an escapade w made in the car to Lago de Bolarque. My intention was simply to take my Tia out of the house, and the way there was very pretty and enjoyable. Once at the lake, which is ensconced between deep barrancos, I took a wrong turn and we got lost in the mountains. I think my Tia felt the joy of adventure as we climbed and descended deep canyon slopes, and when we were at the crest of the mountains she got some glorious views over the lake to the left and the valley of the Rio Tajo to our right. Finally, in a God-forsaken dirt road we came across a Guardia Civil patrol, who very kindly guided us to the exit of the maze we were in. Imagine the surprise my cousins might have had if the following morning they were to read in the local newspaper that their mother had been rescued by the police!

That late afternoon, solo, I went to the town of Pastrana, which is one of the most beautiful towns I have seen in Spain. A real treasure.

The following day I left early for the town of Alcalá de Henares, famous for having been the Roman city of Complutum, and for being the seat of one of the oldest universities in Spain, the Universidad Complutense (during the Guerra Civil, in the 1930’s, the administration of the university disbanded it, and Madrid took some of the faculty to form the Universidad Complutense de Madrid). During the 1970’s a group of citizens created a non-profit to revive their university, as “dueňos conjuntos”, but Madrid refused to return the name, so the current university is simply named the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares). They still hold that it is them who have the oldest university.

Another important claim to fame for Alcalá is to have been the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, and to be the cradle of the Golden Age of Spanish Literature, where Cervantes was joined by other grandees such as Lope de Vega and Quevedo. The city crackles with the spirit of academia and the fine arts.

After a lunch of paella and calamari, generously irrigated with a glass of Tinto de Verano, I was ready to change gears and immerse myself into the history of Complutum, by paying a visit to the little-known archaeologic site where the public market and public baths used to be, and the Boy’s College now named the “House of Hippolytus” after the artist who laid down the mosaic decorations and who, with a clear lack of modesty, signed his work in big bold letters. The mosaics were beautiful indeed.

The following morning, at 4 am, I left Alcalá to catch the 7 am Air Europa flight to La Coruňa, in the northwesternmost part of Spain. The airport is high in the surrounding mountains, so I had to walk down the hill to take the bus that would bring me down into town. The bus left me at the long-distance bus station, where I was able to stick my heavy backpack in a locker and thus turn tourist. La Coruňa is really two harbors separated by a narrow neck of land. The one to the east is the port (where I bought a pocket knife and a flashlight), and the one to the west is where the beaches are. In the grand scheme of things, La Coruňa is at the west end of a very large bay, and for the next few days I was going to walk along the east side of the bay, from Ferrol to almost Santiago de Compostela. The Spanish and the French fought many sea battles, and the bay of La Coruňa saw a lot of action. I walked along the waterfront for several kilometers from the port to the north, until I got to the Torre de Hercules, first built by the Romans in the I century, and was destroyed and rebuilt many times as both a lighthouse and a watchtower.

 La Coruňa was established by Roman Emperor Claudius in the I century, and is now within the autonomous region of Galicia, where they speak Gallego (which to my untrained ears sounds a lot like Portuguese). It is a lovely town and I had great fun walking through it, but at some point I had to get back to the bus station to pick up my backpack, which I did by a felicitous combination of bus transfers.

Loaded like a burrito I took yet another bus to the university campus of Zapaterias, where my guesthouse was located. I met a young couple and after explaining where I was going she quickly directed her boyfriend to walk me to my destination. If he was disappointed by cutting short his time with his girlfriend he didn’t show it, and we had a nice chat as I huffed up the hill to Rialta Residence, a student dorm that was going to be my home for a couple of days. When I got there and complained that I had to walk up the steep hill, the young woman at the desk looked at me with some astonishment and with a dead-pan expression explained that we were in Galicia, and that here the only way to go was uphill.

Rialta has its own bus that goes down to town every morning, noon, and afternoon, so that afternoon I went back to town for a couple of hours, and the following morning went down for the day, keen on making the most out of my tourist day. I cut across the narrow neck of land where downtown is located and followed the waterfront of west bay. Very pretty.

I stopped at the Museum of Science and Technology, which had little more than a sample of the technologies that had been used in Spain from 1900 to 1910, from 1910 to 1920, …, and from 1990 to 2000. An interesting walk down memory lane.

I also visited the house where Pablo Picasso had lived between the ages of 13 to 15, which had a display to his very prolific sketchbooks of the time. At 13 he was already a fantastic artist! After a couple of years his family moved to Barcelona, and he never came back to La Coruňa.

Where is everybody? It was noon and the city was decked for the celebrations of Maria Pita (a councilwoman who saved the citizens from the threat of a massacre of one type or other) but there is no one to be seen. Being Sunday I thought all cafes would be packed, but nothing was open. At last I found a little “chain” restaurant by the beach and managed to get lunch. It was OK. Only later did I find that everyone was jammed packed along two narrow streets where all sorts of tapas bars had good end expensive food to offer.

Monday. Up at 5 am and ready to go. Breakfast at 8 am and shuttle bus to the bus station to take the 9:30 am bus to Ferrol, where I arrived an hour later. I was here to start walking the Camino Inglés, one of the many routes of the Camino de Santiago, which conveyed pilgrims from England to the famous sanctuary. I had been duped into this adventure by my mal amigo Raúl, who had committed to it months before the pandemic, confirmed two months before, and only last week had bailed out on me because “he had to work”. What a lame excuse. Well, maybe “lame” is not the word I want to use, because as I was trudging along in El Camino, my mal amigo Raúl tripped and broke his ankle something awful. Pobrecito.

Arriving in Ferrol I made my first two amigas del Camino, Susana and Nea, who fortunately knew where the official starting El Camino Visitor Center was down by the port. We got there, got our passports, and to my great delight I found out that there was a backpack shuttle service, that for 5 euros per stage would take my heavy backpack from one station to the other so I could just enjoy walking with my staff and little bottle of water. I was very worried that I would not be able to walk 100 km with my big backpack! I stayed at the Hotel Aurora in Ferrol, walked around the port and had a delicious dinner of salpicon de marisco, and braced myself for the long walk I was starting the following day.

I woke up at 4 am for what seemed like an easy walk of 15 km to Neda, simply following the shore of the bay. At the very far end of the bay there was an interesting tide dam, where in the 1800’s water would be let in at high tide to replenish the reservoir, and then was allowed to flow out through narrow tunnels to turn 8 mill wheels to turn wheat into flour. An early application of tidal power, which I also saw in Portugal at a later time. Fortunately when I got to Neda the small hotel where my backpack was dropped off had an empty room. The available beds in this route are very limited because of the pandemic. And so are the eateries for that matter. I was lucky to found a supermarket where I bought the makings of a bocadillo de jamón serrano for lunch, and an empanada de bacalao and a bottle of wine for dinner.

The following day I resumed my circumnavigation of the greater Bay of Coruňa, which apparently is what I will be doing for the next few days. Something like walking from Marin County to Vallejo to Oakland to Hayward to Milpitas to San José. I finally crossed the medieval bridge over the Eume River to get to Pontedeume (Get it? Puente del Eume). Pretty town that reminded me a lot of Sausalito or Ginebra. I stopped at a supermarket and bough a bottle of hard cider which I enjoyed siting by the waterfront. Unfortunately I missed the window for having lunch (11 am to 2 pm), and by the time I thought about eating something at 5 pm I was informed, with some astonishment at my obvious ignorance of the basic facts of life, that dinner would not be served until 9 pm. Looks like I will go to bed hungry tonight.

The next stage of the trip was going to be a killer, finally saying goodbye to the bay and trudging painfully along the steep climb to Hospital de Bruma, so I decided to cheat and take a bus to Betanzos, and from there a taxi to Hospital de Bruma. Best 30 euros I have ever spent. So I got to the public hostel at 10 am, in front of anyone else, and 30 minutes later a group of 7 young hikers came puffing along. They had left Betanzos at 3 am to make sure they got a place in the only hostel, which because of the pandemic had reduced its maximum capacity to a maximum of 7. Aha, but there I was waiting for the hostel to open at 1 pm, first in line, which meant we were 8 and one of them would not get a place to sleep. Over the next couple of hours many more hikers came along, just to be greatly disappointed and being forced to keep walking to the next town. When the manager came at 1 pm he gave my fellow travelers a little grief, but then he smiled and assured them that all would be well, and we all sighed with relief. Nice old man who, after all paperwork was done, sat with me for a couple of hours discussing everything and nothing in particular.

For no reason in particular I started walking at 5:30 am, in the dark, and enjoyed the full benefit of daybreak at 7 am. Pretty fields all around me. Today was going to be my longest walk, so I had booked a hotel 10 km short of Sigüeiros, but I was too early once I passed it, so I figured out I could complete the walk to this town and then get back. Waste of good leather, really, because the road paralleled the toll highway first and then went through the Polígono Industrial, so I was quite tired by the time I reached the town. I rewarded myself with lunch at a pulperia, where of course I had to have pulpo a la Gallega. Unfortunately it was a ration, rather than a menu, so it was quite expensive (35 euros for the pulpo, 5 euros for the wine, and 5 euros for the dessert). Not that I am complaining, but Spain is no longer the good deal it used to be.

I was too tired to walk back to my hotel, so I took a taxi and arranged for the same taxi to pick me up the following morning to bring me back to Sigüeiros to resume my walk.

The next leg was to bring me into Santiago de Compostela, in what was to be an easy walk, but the approach was through the Polígono Industrial, and later through the suburbia of the city, with no breath-taking views of the cathedral or the old town. But eventually I got there, and once again ascertained that the cathedral is beautiful and I was excited to join the Misa de Peregrinos at high noon. It was not to be, however, because Covid and the reduced numbers allowed in the church. So I missed the mass, and had to ay hello to JC in one of the small chapels that are peppered across the town. I did later visit the cathedral, but skipped the tomb of Santiago, even though 2021 is an Aňo Jacobeo and the tomb is open to the pilgrims.

Santiago is a pretty town, but I am feeling lonely and not inclined to waste money buying souvenirs. I did find a menu restaurant away from downtown where for reasonable money I had an entrée of pulpo and the best fish ever (Dorada al horno).

The following morning I took the long-distance bus to Finisterre. It was a beautiful drive through northwest Galicia, but Finisterre is a good 65 km away (almost all the way to La Coruňa!) so it took a goodly amount of time to get there. The coast, which goes by the ominous name of Costa o Morte, is fabulous and there are many towns on the shores of the ria bays that have very pretty beaches and would be perfect for week-long family vacations.

Galician towns are very attractive, in a Guanajuato style as almost all of them cling to impossibly steep slopes. Lots of houses are built out of blocks of granite and most have cost a fortune. What does this people make for a living, and where had they come up with the money for this expensive style of construction? Spain has definitely taken its place as a part of beautiful Europe.

The bus left me in the town of Finisterre (which incidentally is built on a beautiful porphyritic granite), and from there I had to walk the 2.5 km to Cape Finisterre, where the Lighthouse at the End of the World is located. Because it is the end of the world there is really not much to see past the lighthouse, but it was a good feeling to finally stand there, imagining the travels of bold mariners into the unknown.

Back in town the offerings of enticing seafood were legion, but all of them were superexpensive. On retrospect I should have made it a two-day excursion, spending the night in Finisterre, where there is a very large number of hostels. But alas, I headed back to Santiago, where I arrived at 7 pm. A taxi (7 euros) brough me from the bus station to the huge hostel in Monte de Gozo. It is a bit on the outskirts of Santiago, but it is the best deal in town (20 euros for a bunk bed), and I lucked out by being the only guest in my four-bunkbed room.

My last day in Santiago was a bit of a wash. I spent a good time checking in into my flight the following morning via my cell phone (what a pain, particularly with all the Covid requirements). Afterward I walked to my new hotel in the suburbia of Santiago (in retrospect I should have spent a second night at Monte de Gozo), found where I could take the airport bus (for only 1 euro!), and then walked aimlessly through the university area, which is where my new hotel was located. Pretty part of town. I had my last pulpo a la Gallega dinner before heading to bed!

Summer 2021 – Cozumel, the West Coast, and the Schooner Zodiac

I need to fast forward through several adventures, mostly because I didn’t take any notes and may not remember them very accurately.

Cozumel

After landing from the Ketch Angelique in Camden my travel mate Tommy dropped me off at the Rockland airport, where I took a puddle jumper to Boston, crashed Brad’s birthday party that night, and the following morning departed from Boston to Cozumel, where I joined Faby, DJ, Ronnie, Bekah, Connor, and Keira for a week of R&R at an all-inclusive resort. Mexico is still very paranoid about Covid, so I am glad to report that the resort employees were very good at wearing their masks and maintaining social distance.

It was a good, relaxing week, where going snorkeling in the beautiful reef was one of my highlights. Ronnie, the little fish, snorkeled like a pro and was delighted with sightings of colorful fish, starfish, eels, and rays.

Another highlight was a trip to Isla Mujeres, which I instigated with the sole purpose of spreading the ashes of my parents in the waters of the Caribbean. My thinking was that after more than 65 years of marriage they should rest together, in a place that had brought them (and all of us as a family) great happiness. The two places that came to mind were Tecolutla, in northern Veracruz, and Isla Mujeres, whish was one of the stops in one of those epic family journeys that one only get to take once in a lifetime. I had the additional constraint that my Mom had many times said that she wanted her ashes to come to Veracruz, the town where she was born (but my Dad never really enjoyed going to Veracruz), so I put on my oceanographer thinking cap, and figured that if their ashes were scattered in the Caribbean, then the Gulf Stream would carry them into the Gulf of Mexico, past Veracruz and later Tecolutla, where we used to visit as a family every other year. A little scientific knowledge can carry you a long way!

I had some misgivings when we landed at the ferry terminal in Isla Mujeres. The place was packed with unmasked tourists! I had the memory of a bucolic fisherman’s hamlet, but in 50 years the place had changed into a tourist mecca. How were we supposed to find a quiet stretch of beach for a very private family moment? As I recalled the island is long but very narrow, so to try to escape the crowd we walked 100 meters from the south to the north shore of the island (the Caribbean side), and found a solitary walking path atop a rocky cliff. It was lunch time and we were lucky enough to find a small bar along the path, where we had a tasty lunch of fish and chips, accompanied by very cold beer. Afterward I explored the cliff, found a path down to the seashore, and there, in complete solitude and privacy, returned the mortal remains of my parents to the sea and nature they had loved so well.

Here is a photograph of the spot, so you too can imagine the beautiful setting

Road trip from California to Oregon to Washington to Alaska

As soon as we got back from Cozumel, Ronnie, DJ, and myself packed the truck and the pop-up trailer to start on a road trip adventure to northern California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. The plan was to drive slowly north all the way to Salem, Oregon, where DJ’s brother and family have just bought a home, and at that point split with the boys driving the truck back to California, and myself continuing to Seattle to visit Ceci and family, and then further on to exploring the Aleutian Islands (as it happened I had to cancel that last leg, because due to Covid it is almost impossible to move from one island to another).

Our first push brought us to Chico for a night, where DJ introduced his son to the haunts of his youth (including enjoying a cheeseburger and pitcher of beer at The Bear), and then to Red Bluff, where we visited with Erin and Josh for a couple of days. They are made of real pioneer stock, and their 10-acre property is a very respectable self-sufficient farm. But the real treat was “the pond”. Now, I know Josh and what he can do with a tractor, so I imagined he had just scooped a wallow and filled it with water, and that in this hot weather it was probably more a mud puddle than a pond. Oh, no … this was a properly engineered, 8-foot deep pond, with retaining walls, a plastic liner, a recirculating system, and a few lotus for artistic reasons. It was wonderful, and Alton, JoAnna, and Ronnie had a blast swimming to their heart’s content.

From there we headed to Mount Lassen, which was open and pretty well sponsored by tourists. This was going to be the 4^th of July weekend, so people had come from all over the place to escape the brutal heat of the valley, the confinement of Covid, or just to have a few beers in the middle of nature. We were lucky enough to secure a camping place for one night, and DJ had to do some glib talking for us to keep it for a second night, but at the end we had a very pleasant time in Lassen. Ronnie was suitably impressed by Bumpass Hell, but fairly neutral about Chaos Jumbles and all my tales about how this is what many Martian landscapes look like. We all enjoyed the hike around Manzanita Lake.

Our next stop was Burney Falls, precisely on the 4^th of July, which was completely overrun with visitors. We ended parking outside of the state park, right under a highway sign that sternly stated “No Parking Anytime”, and then just went over the levee to find ourselves right in the middle of the campground. Burney Falls is not only a beautiful waterfall in its own right, but the cirque around the waterfall weeps groundwater, which in turn creates a myriad of additional waterfalls. This may be the only place in the world where you can see a groundwaterfall!

We pushed farther north that day, but because of the forest fires we changed our destination from Mount Shasta to the Modoc Plateau, in the most northeastern corner of California, where we stopped at Lava Beds National Monument. It was hot and dry, but the campground was practically deserted so we were able to pick the most convenient spot, with as much shade as the sparse scrub pines could provide We were trying to spend at least a couple of nights at every place, just so we didn’t have to pack the camping pop-up trailer every morning (by the way, the pop-up trailer is great, with plenty of space for us three).

Lava Beds was one of the highlights of the trip, because in this mal país, formed by basaltic lavas that issued from the north flank of the Medicine Lake volcano, there are dozens of lava tubes that we explored with the gusto that only a 6-year old can experience when entering a dark and chilly cave. Ronnie had his headlamp, and although he was a bit apprehensive in the first couple of caves he pretty soon got the explorer’s bug, crawling in narrow spaces and taking shortcuts to surprise us at the deep end of some caves. He even relished the moment when we would find a place to seat and then turn all lights off, to experience the sense of absolute darkness inside the Earth. DJ found an audio kids version of Journey to the Center of the Earth, which we all enjoyed the following day, when we went to Medicine Lake. The trip to Medicine Lake was great, as we went into the central part of Medicine Lake volcano, where one can find spectacular glassy rhyolite flows. We did a hike to look at obsidian, and Ronnie dutifully flaked an obsidian arrowhead and cut himself in the process; he was so proud of his bleeding cut! Our only regret is that Mommy was not here with us, so we have bowed to return in her company.

On the geologic observations side of things, I am convinced that Medicine Lake volcano has some parallels with Los Humeros, where I did my PhD research and dissertation, and perhaps also with the pateras of Venus. In addition, just as at Los Humeros, some of the surrounding basaltic cones erupted through groundwater-saturated sediments to form hydro-magmatic maars and tuff rings. Something to look further into.

Pushing into Oregon we drove past Klamath Lake and from there headed for Crater Lake, where we were superlucky and found a nice camping slot in the almost full Mazama campground, where we also stayed two days. Incidentally, all this visiting National Parks and National Monuments allowed me plenty of opportunities to flex my Senior Citizen life pass, so for most of the nights we only paid a modest fee of $10 per night. Yes, there are benefits to becoming old 😊

Crater Lake was beautiful, as always, and we made some very good hikes. Perhaps the most strenuous was hiking down the north rim to reach the water, swimming for a bit in the cold water, and then hiking back the 700 m high cliff. Ronnie did it without complaint, which is the sign of a stalwart character. He also “unpacked” the bicycle we were bringing to his cousin Amelia, and had a very good time terrorizing the campground and making occasional friends. The lack of friends to play with weighed heavily on him, but I guess that goes with the whole experience of taking a road trip. He did make friends, and for half hour they played like fiends, but by the following morning they were gone, or we were going, so the poor kid was back in square one. He has now formally expressed his desire to have a little brother or sister.

From Crater Lake we cut across to the Oregon coast, where we had a good time flying the two-handed kite, wading into the nearly frozen water, and having clam chowder for lunch. We stopped by at the Dilles-Grunder homestead in Philomath, but they were in their own road trip so we got to spend the night on their front yard before heading for Sheridan (near Salem) where Reina and Ryan have bought a new home.

Ronnie was very glad to see his cousins Amelia and Emma, their joint Nanna Sandy, and Aunt Reina and Uncle Ryan. The house is very spacious and is located along the small bluff of a stream that obviously floods its banks every other year. So their backyard can be as narrow as the run of the  staircase that goes down the small bluff, or as wide as the flood plain (200 feet) and the walls of the channel (another 50 ft). The flood plain is where the grass is for the girls to play in, at the shade of a couple of centenary walnut trees; the channel, in contrast, is the playground of Ryan, who is an avid fisherman and crayfish enthusiast. The perfect house, with something for everyone!

A couple of days later DJ drove me to the Greyhound station in Salem, for I was pushing forward to Seattle. The following day DJ, Ronnie and Sandy started on their way back to California driving the truck and the pop-up trailer.

I wanted to visit Ceci, Greg and little Evan in Seattle, partly because they are a lovely family, and partly because I wanted to meet their new daughter Elisa. Ha, silly me, I had completely forgotten that two years ago I had taken a weekend trip to Seattle to meet the new baby! It is very sad when a bright mind goes. In any case, I spent a delightful three days with them, while at the same time trying to figure what I was going to do with myself over the next 13 days. I had by this time realized that this is not the year to go visit the Aleutian Islands, so with that part of my trip blanked out I needed to find something else to do. I though about renting a car and spending the time driving across the Columbia River Flood Basalts, but the car rental rates are absolutely crazy these days! The cheapest you can find is $200 per day! I also wanted to look into flying to Winnipeg, and from there taking the train north into Churchill, along the western shore of Hudson Bay, but Canada remains tightly closed against tourism, so that plan was a wash. Let me see … what else is there around here … oh, look, the San Juan Islands. This exotic and faraway group of islands are tucked at the end of Vancouver Island, thrusted between the Washington mainland on the east, the Olympic Peninsula in the southwest, and Vancouver Island in the northwest. To the north one would approach them through the Strait of Georgia and to the west through the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Surely there is a windjammer sailing those waters!

I did let my fingers do the walking, and found out that indeed there is at least one windjammer, the Schooner Zodiac, that had a four-day cruise departing Bellingham the following day. I called and my sheer miracle was able to secure the last bunk, looking at a 10 am departure. I quickly looked at my options, which included a midnight Greyhound ride to Bellingham, and four days later a puddle jumper from Bellingham to SEATAC, and from there an ignominious return to California to “cool my heels” (more like roast my brains) for a week before proceeding to the Europe part of my meanderings.

So I said goodbye to my lovely niece and her family, took an Uber to the Greyhound station, and at 4 am was in Bellingham marking time for the 10 am embarkation.

Zodiac is an older lady, built in 1924 as leisure yacht able to undertake world travel. In her heyday she probably had a crew of 10 to 15 sailors, a captain, and enough capacity for maybe 10 guests. A few years back she was rescued by a non-profit organization, and now provides a very nice opportunity for adventure travelers to explore the San Juans and for future sailors to train in the art of sail navigation. As you can see in the photo below, she is a schooner, because her tallest mast is in the rear, which gives her that characteristic profile of a shark’s fin. If you compare her with Angelique, you will notice that she does not carry gaff topsails, on either the main mast (the tall mast in the rear) or the foremast. As I understand it, schooners do not have a mizzen mast.

I am not going to try a day-by-day description, simply because I didn’t take good enough notes, so I will just have to record random stretches of the sailing, and some of the colorful characters I came across.

On the first day we motored out of Bellingham Bay past the tip of Lummi Island, and the threaded our way through Rosarito Strait to reach Lopez Island. We didn’t get to sail that day, which was a pity, but we wanted to reach Lopez Island by early afternoon because we had a wine tasting arranged for us. But maybe I need to back up a little. Our four-day cruise is called Wine, Seafood, and Sailing, and part of the draw is that we would have the opportunity to savor the wines of the region. Washington is a wine producing region? Well, yes. It turns out that the northern climate is not that very different from the climate of northern France or central Germany, so some of the “noble grapes” of the Old World are doing quite well in the climate of Washington. Furthermore, eastern Washington, with its dry climate “challenges” the grapevines to mature into flavorful grapes. Add to that the fact that the modern vintner can buy grapes from far afield to practice his/her craft, and you have all sorts of opportunities for boutique wines that, with the right marketing, are sold to the cognoscenti for prices that got from $50 to $100 per bottle. With those prices a vintage of say 1,000 bottles (about 3 or 4 barrels, at an average of 300 bottles for a 60-gallon barrel) can actually bring in a tidy profit. Our Wine, Seafood, and Sailing cruise was significantly enhanced by the presence of Rob Newsom, owner and vintner of Boudreaux Cellars, high in the Columbia River Plateau, and his cellar manager Audré Kelley. So the two of them joined us as regular guests, but as part of their dunnage they brought along six cases of Boudreaux wine, which we enjoyed over the next four days, getting in effect a short course on wine tasting!

But getting back to my story, we landed on the northeast end of Lopez Island, and were picked up by two “taxis” (actually a truck and a regular car that perform the taxi service in the island) and after a short drive landed in a tiny little farm (not surprisingly called the Lopez Island Vineyards), where we were treated to the good stories of an older island couple who out of the blue decided to produce some wine out of 10 acres (one acre can produce from 2 to 4 tons of grapes, and a ton of grapes can produce 2.5 barrels of wine, so you can figure that they have an annual production of maybe 25 to 50 barrels of wine, or 7,500 to 15,000 bottles). Not bad for a Mom and Pop operation.

I don’t remember where we spent the night, probably because I was befuddled by wine. I do remember that it was a very nice cove, and that the crew took this opportunity to go out in the tender and drop some crab pods all around the boat. Speaking of the crew, the crew of Zodiac was different than that of Angelique. For starters, Captain Tim is a very quiet and subdued personality, quite in contrast with the personality of chatty Captain Dennis, who talks non-stop. Captain Tim is glad to be in the background, issuing all his directives through Cyrus, the First Mate. He sits on the Captain’s Chair behind the wheel, but mostly lets his current trainee make the decisions. If he is not on deck, he can be found in the chart house, quietly reading. But there is no question that he is the absolute skipper, and that he is deeply committed to the education of his crew and his passengers. He will walk all the length of the boat to talk quietly to one of the hands and explain why, in the course of such-and-such maneuver, the sail has to be held in such particular position. He also holds daily crew meetings, where he instructs them in the particular modality of sailing he has selected for the day, and why he has made that decision. Finally, the guests are invited to take turns doing bow watch, learning about the charts, and piloting the boat. I did the latter when we had to tack, and Captain Tim was very good at explaining the role of the rudder and the timing that he wanted on changes in steering to tack effectively.

Cyrus is the First Mate, and for all practical purposes he is the one running the minute-to-minute operations. Knowledgeable and personable, he is a fun person to talk with. Margaret and Tanith are our female sailors, and they are as amazing as our female crew on Angelique. Margaret is training for the post of First Mate, and Tanith has the long term goal of becoming a shipwright. The comes my friend Ron, a smiling bear of a man who is trying to learn the craft of the sailor as efficiently as possible, because he would like to be selected for the 100^th anniversary trip in 2024, through the Panama Canal and up the East Coast. He is a retired military airplane mechanic, easy-going, and loves every task he gets assigned; he was also the captain of the Fore Staysail, which was my sailing station, so we spent quite a goodly amount of time heaving on lines, sweating the lines, securing lines, and then coiling the tail ends into handsome Ballantine Coils. Finally, we had the benefit of David and Brian, both of them hobby sailors in their late 50’s, who volunteer to come along just because; I very much enjoyed talking with them about things maritime. Oh, wait, I forgot young Brandon and our cook Mary. Mary was the only kitchen staff and, although others might help her with washing the dishes, she was pretty much a one-woman show who produced absolutely delicious meals for us, apparently with little effort.

Back to the first evening, Rob Newsom took over the proceedings, and broke open his first case of wine, to regale us with the story of his Pinot Noir. Rob is tall and lanky, and has a wonderful Cajun droll. He started us by telling us that his winery is named after Boudreaux, an infamous Cajun folklore character known for his brilliant sense of humor and pursuit of high adventure. Boudreaux’s best friend is Thibodeaux, and the two of them together get into all sorts of funny situations that are actually a biting social commentary on Southern culture. For example: Boudreaux and Thibodeaux were out on the golf course last weekend, when they caught up to two ladies a little bit ahead of them, who were playing really slow. After a couple of holes, they couldn't take the slow game anymore, and Thibodeaux says, "Dammit, Boudreaux, I'm gonna go tell dem wimmen to either play faster, or get off de golf course." He walks toward the two ladies, but after going only about halfway, turns around and comes back without saying anything to them. Boudreaux asks him why he didn't say anything to them. Thibodeaux tells him, "I can't go talk to dem. One of dem is my wife, and de other one is my girlfriend." Boudreaux says, "Mais, never mind. I'll go tell dem sumting." He walks a little way but also turns around without saying anything. Thibodeaux asks, "I tought you was goin' tell dem to move." Boudreaux says, "Mais, I couldn't let dem see me, Thib. I got de same problem you had !"

So, by the time he finishes the first joke we are mesmerized, and then Rob proceeds to give us a lesson on grape-buying in Walla Walla, how he chooses “his acre” in the vineyard, how he visits his acre and thins it out to achieve grape perfection, and finally how he drives his couple of tons of grapes to his mountain facility, presses the grapes, and starts the whole wine-making process. All along Audré is passing along these beautiful large glasses (which they also brough in cases), dispenses the wine, and under Rob’s direction we see the wine, swirl it, smell it, sip it, and savor it. Heavenly. The only thing is that we had to compare and contrast with a couple of cabernets also from his cellar … and please feel free to have another glass of your favorite wine … and that night we all slept very soundly

On the second way I woke up to see random pieces of clothing spread all over the cabin. Clearly the party had continued long after I went to bed, which in my case is a lower bunk along the sides of the big cabin. I imagined this was where the junior guests slept, while their elders played at cards, smoked cigars, and sipped Port on their trips around the world. The cabins for the officers and the married couples are either in the stern (that is pirate talk for the back of the boat), and the crew bunks are normally to be found near the bow or front of the boat.

I remember the second day because of “breakfast” and as our first sailing day. True breakfast was actually coffee and scrambled eggs but, while we were having our second cup of java, Brandon and Ron hopped on the tender to go around and collect the crab pods they had set the previous afternoon. In the meantime, Cyrus brought a setup like I have for frying a turkey, and got some seawater boiling. At about 10 am the boys came back with the pods wearing big grins: They had 42 Dungeness crabs, 2 to 3 pounds each, for us to feast on (I am a crab connoisseur only thanks to DJ, who has taken us many time crabbing to the San Francisco peer, where you can only keep the brown rock crabs, “Dungees” being an absolute no, no. But we were on a boat, and there were plenty of fishing licenses aboard, so we kept them all! Cyrus gave us a short lecture on how to “pop-off” the outer shell of a crab so the whole offal fell into the water, and for lack of any volunteers shelled and halved all crabs into the pot of boiling water (actually, Tanith tried it, but she was too squeamish to do the dastardly deed in one fluid motion). And then we had our true breakfast, munching on our freshly caught and steamed crab right by the side of the boat, as so many hamsters chewing on sunflower seeds. It was dee-lee-cious!

We also got to put the sails up, which was a lot harder than I remembered from Angelique. First, we got our sail positions, and I was glad I drew out the fore stay sail, which is a lot smaller than the main or fore sails. But the joke was on mee, because what Cyrus did not say aloud was that we had our sail assignments and general heaving and furling assignments for the big sails. Man, all of a sudden those gaffs look like they were sequoia trunks! So we heaved, huffed, and puffed and pretty soon the sails were catching wind and we were on our way. I love this business of being on a tall ship 😊 The only thing is that we were sailing down wind, so the booms were far to the side and the sails were simply pushing us forward.

Eventually we worked our way through the strait between Orcas Island to the north and Shaw Island to the south, and we headed for the north end of San Juan Island, where we spent another tasty night enjoying a variety of white wines enjoying additional Boudreaux and Thibodeaux stories. I want to believe I learned from my mistakes, so I retired early, but from the debitage the following morning I can infer the party extended into the wee hours of the morning.

The third day was the best, as far as sailing was concerned. For one, this time we were sailing against the wind, which is the best point of sail for a windjammer. Zodiac is a bit more ponderous than Angelique, maybe because it is a bit longer and wider, so tacking down the strait between San Juan Island to the west and Shaw Island to the east was a more deliberate, technical zig-zag, which gave Captain Tim plenty of opportunity to school his crew into the fine points of sailing. Me, I was simply in Heaven. Our target for the day was Friday Harbor in eastern San Juan Island. We were there to go to a tasting into a gin distillery (fancy gins in very long and thin bottles that sell for $75 a bottle), followed by a leisurely promenade through the marina, to watch how the rich and famous spend their extra millions. I need to play the lottery more consistently and buy me one of these yachts!

We finished the day by reaching the southern end of Lopez Island, which tomorrow will make for a straight shot north back to Bellingham Bay.

The fourth and last day was a bit sad, both because we knew that the cruise was coming to an end, and because there was not a lick of wind to move us along. Knowing we all wanted to sail, the skipper executed a hairy maneuver and with all sheets to the wind made a very slow turn inside our narrow cove, in the hope that we would catch some wind at the mouth of the cove. No cigar. So we motored to the southern end of Rosarito Strait, caught some wind from the south, and sailed downwind at a snail’s pace toward Billingham Bay. It was “nice”, but about half way to our destination the Cap gave us the order to furl the sails (which means taking the sails down and folding them nicely for the next cruise) and we motored back to port. In true style the skipper didn’t say a word while Cyrus brought the boat to port and turned it around.

We docked at exactly 3 pm, as promised in the brochure, and the cook and I scampered like rabbits, she to do whatever, and me to catch an overpriced Yellow Cab that brought be to the Bellingham airport in the nick of time to take my puddle jumper to SEATAC, from where I flew to Oakland airport where Fabiolita picked me up.

I have been here home for almost a week, getting some work done in my sabbatical project, and lining up flights, hotels and rental cars for my travels through Europe. Fortunately the car rental agencies in Europe are not gauging travelers the way American companies are doing, so my next adventures might be a little more gentile. We will see what the next newsletter has to offer 😊

Summer 2021 - Maine and the Windjammer Angelique

 

I have not been good about keeping up with my travel log, but this time round I am finding out that hauling along a computer adds unnecessary weight to my already overburdened shoulders. So instead I have taken a few notes, hoping that between legs I will have a chance to write about the beautiful places I have seen, and the wonderful people I have met, during the summer and fall of 2021.

You might remember that in early June 2021 I flew to Boston to visit for a few days with Sonya and Brad before heading north to the coast of Maine. Sony and Brad are a wonderful young couple facing the challenges of demanding jobs and a completely crazy housing market in the Boston area. They have a comfortable two-bedroom duplex apartment, but the rent is steep. Brad works as a construction manager for a Canadian engineering firm, which means that he has to deal with contractors on a daily basis. Good job for someone with his height and powerful build, but a downer for someone who is friendly and light-hearted. Fortunately while I was there he got offered a promotion to Project Manager, so with any luck he won’t have to fight with unreliable contractors much longer. Sonya has a PhD in Molecular Biology and works in a research enterprise that is tackling some pretty heady cancer-cure research. She is very good at what she does, but sometimes her workday stretches to 10 or 12 hours!

I may not have told you that Sonya and Brad are “slackers”, which means that they enjoy balancing on a slack line (as opposed to a tight rope) and traversing in this way chasms several hundred feet deep. It is of course completely insane, but they have a tether linking them to the slack line, so if they were to lose their balance, they would get to dangle upside down until they gather the force and balance needed to get back on the line. One interesting factoid about this crazy pastime is that they have connected with a youth group in Lebanon and have taken their slack line to poor parts of this country to share it with youngsters there. Needless to say, the local kids were eager to take on the challenge, so the “slackers” have made wonderful friends among the Lebanese youth. I have told them that I would like to join them next time they go there, which might happen in summer 2023 (but I intend to keep both of my feet firmly planted on solid ground!).

After a visit that extended twice as long as I had initially planned, Brad drove me to Camden, Maine, for the next leg of my trip. Poor guy. New England is small, but not that small, and still took three hours to drive from Boston to Camden (and three hours to get back). It was a very pretty drive, however, and we rewarded ourselves with a satisfying dinner of raw oysters and lobster. Yumm!

 I came all the way to Maine to take part on a 6-day sailing trip aboard the Windjammer Angelique, which I believed to be a schooner only to find out that I was wrong: it is not a schooner but a ketch. And what, you might well ask, is the difference between the two? Well, both are sailing vessels with two masts that are almost as tall as the boat is long, but in a schooner the tallest mast is aft (that is sailors talk for the rear) (aka as the mizzen mast), which when the sails are up gives them the profile of a shark’s fin. I contrast, in a ketch the tallest mast is fore (pirate talk for forward) (aka as the main mast) and the characteristic profile is that of a mountain peak. I kind of like the latter, and with its rust-colored sails I thought our boat was the prettiest of the fleet (the fleet is composed of nearly a dozen of boats that make a living by welcoming adventure travelers to be part of the sailing experience for a few days).

We boarded that afternoon and got assigned to our cabins. Because of Covid we were to sail with only about 16 guests, rather than the normal compliment of 24 guests, so I lucked out and had a two-bunk cabin all for myself. The accommodations were positively luxurious for a 100-foot sailing boat with a sink within the cabin, and two communal “heads” (that is pirate talk for “toilette”) and showers.

Day 1. Where are we going?

Everyone wanted to know where we were going, so our garrulous Captain Dennis had to explain over and over again that we are a sailing ship, and thus at the mercy of the prevailing wind. We were to be sailing among he hundreds of islands of the Gulf of Maine, specifically coming in and out of West Penobscot Bay and East Penobscot Bay, so the skipper’s plan was to make the best of the prevailing winds and find a convenient cove to spend the night. On day 1 that ended being Carver Cove, but the name is immaterial.

It took us a while to leave Camden, because we had to turn the ship around, which is easier said than done for a 100-foot long boat. We had three sailors with us: Fern, Anne, and Ryan (and all female crew!), Bradley our two-stars chef, and the two kitchen/mess assistants Meredith and Nathan. Fern was the First Mate, so she got to push the bow around with the motorized tender while Captain Dennis backed the ship with the motor. Once in the right orientation we threaded our way out of the harbor, and right away got working on setting the sails. The main and mizzen sails are huge, so it took our collected heaving to raise them (plus the gaff, which is a tree trunk that forms the top edge of the trapezoidal sail; try it … see if you can raise a tree trunk dangling at the edge of a rope … oops, I meant at the end of a “line”). In addition w had to set the fore staysail, which has a boom at the bottom, and the outer and flying jibs, which are free flowing triangular sails that billow to either port of starboard (that is pirate talk for the left and right sides of the boat) depending on the side the wind is coming from. By now we were a beauty to behold, but the Cap was still not satisfied, so Ryan climbed to the top of each mast (swaying at 100 feet above deck) to loosen the main and mizzen gaff topsails. Now we were awesome! A tall ship with billowing sails rushing toward North Heaven Island!

Once we got to the wind-shadow of North Heaven Island Bradley produced the first of a series of memorable lunches, this time consisting of a fish stew, walnut arugula salad, and in my case a peanut butter and jam sandwich. In the afternoon we plied back-and-forth along East Penobscot Bay (we pirates would call that tacking, where all the hands have to help turn the sails around so the vessel can zig-zag against the incoming wind) until we reached Carver Cove. On the way we were joined by several schooners, because today was the day when a goodly portion of the fleet gets together for “a jam” (which apparently comes from the word gam, which in turn is a contraction of the word gamming, the paying of a visit to another ship for chatting and gossiping.) In better years they all lash together so you can walk the gang plank from ship to ship, but in these Covid times we kept a few hundred yards from each other. So Dennis came up with the idea of sharing some grog around the fleet, by making the right mixture in a big cooler (rum, water, and lime juice) and then delivering a pitcher to each ship. Ay, ay, ay … this is going to get ugly.

Then we had to have some fun, so each boat put down their oar boat, which on average would accommodate eight rowers, and we were supposed to go around the fleet, solving a riddle to identify the different boats in the fleet, and rowing to the right boat to collect a token. And we were encouraged to wear costume. So Fern was at the helm, dressed in a pink unicorn onesie, Rick was wearing a pirate bandana, and I wore a crab hat. The other boats cheated (both by staring early and not wearing costumes), but we made a good show and came in as fifth out of eight. Most significantly, we all had a good time laughing and rowing with all our might. And at the end … a healthy serving of grog!

Day 2. Rain and fog

It rained hard last night, and in coming out unto the wet deck I couldn’t help but notice we were surrounded by a thick fog. Fortunately, the coffee urn was already on deck, and after a hearty breakfast we were ready to set up the sails. I am very impressed by our sailing crew: All three are young women, maybe in their 20’s, who figure they might pursue an actual career as sailors. Fern, our First Mate, is definitely training to be a skipper so she is soaking knowledge from Dennis about anything nautical. She is short, maybe 5-foot 2, but is a bundle of muscle and technique who has no problem hauling a line; she is also bossy in a good sense, and has no problem getting together a party to raise the sails, lower the oar boat, or lift the anchor. She will make a great Cap one of these days.

Even with the sails deployed, we had to leave the cove under motor, blasting our foghorn every minute or so (one long blast and two short ones indicates a sailing vessel with right of way, but since we were under motor we gave up our right of way and used a simple long blast as our signal). We were hoping the fog would lift, but by lunch (mushroom soup followed by cous-cous) it became clear that today was not going to be a sailing day so my fellow adventurers furled the sails. I sneakily avoided the unwelcome task to take a shower and enjoy a nap.

In the early afternoon we docked at the small town of Castine, which is the poster child for beautiful New England homes, as well as a contended peninsula of Maine where wars were fought by the French Acadians and the Brits in the 17^th century, the Brits and their rebellious colonies in the Revolutionary War (1779 to 1783; in fact, it was the final British port to surrender), and the Brits and the Americans during the British War (1817 to 1818).

Back in the boat we had an appetizer of Pigs-in-a-Blanket, and then motored a short distance to Smith’s Cove, for a made-from-scratch lasagna dinner. At which point Anne, a woman of many talents, regaled us with a selection of classical music played on the on-board piano! She was amazing! As I was congratulating her, we fell in conversation, she learned that I was a geologist, and told me about how she was half-way hiking the Caledonian Trail. You have heard of the Appalachian Trail, haven’t you? Well, clever Anne learned in her Geology class that in the Paleozoic, the Appalachian Mountains extended into the Acadian Mountain of eastern Canada (and had a complimentary half in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco), into the Caledonian Mountains of Ireland and England, and the Caledonian Mountains of eastern Greenland (with a complimentary half in Scandinavia), so she decided she is going to hike the whole thing! She has finished with the Appalachian and Acadian segments of the hike, but had to take a break due to Covid, and next year she plans to do the Ireland and Britain segments, and the following one the Greenland and Scandinavia segments (at this point it is unclear if she will get to do the Atlas/Moroccan segment). Pretty cool plan, isn’t it?

Day 3. Stepping down the mast

The day was glorious, so we hurried to set up the sails, and by 9:30 am we were on our way. We are still getting used to working as a team, however, so we missed stays trying to get out of the cove and had to motor out in shame. But the wind was blowing, so we got over it and we really enjoyed turning the point of the peninsula and heading down Eggemoggin Reach. There was only one small problem that we were going to have to contend with: The Reach is a narrow passage between the peninsula and Deer Isle, and the two are connected by a handsome bridge that is about 5 feet too short for our main mast to fit under it. We were thus going to have to step down the upper extension of the main mast, which is a regular tree trunk about 15 feet long. This time it was Anne’s turn to climb up to the top of the mast, and hook the lines that would allow the ground crew to first pop it out of its socket, and then lower it down. It is a bit like pulling the bayonet out of an old rifle, using the rim of the rifle as the attachment point of the block (that is pirate for pulley) and the lines that extended to the deck, where we were all waiting to pull. Wow, what a maneuver aloft, but we managed to slip under the bridge unscathed, and after reversing the procedure set up the top mast again, deployed the main gaff topsail, and continued in our merry way to Burnt Coat Harbor in Swan’s Island, which is one of the epicenters of the lobster-trapping industry.

I made friends with one of the passengers, Tommy, who is pretty savvy about New England and its ways, although he too was for the first time enjoying the pleasure of traveling in a tall ship. We exchanged expertise, and after I explained to him the intrusive relations that could be observed between different generations of granitic dikes in the lobster pen (a stockade by the shore where the co-op lobster boats brought their catch in times of old), Tommy gave me a crash course on lobster trapping using a “chum” mix of pig hide, water, and salt; enlightened me about the superiority of hard-shell versus soft-shell lobsters (the latter, having recently molted, are not as densely packed with meat as the former); and explained the escape hatch used in lobster traps, so small lobsters can escape.

A short row brought us back to the boat, where we had a delicious dinner of codfish baked with chives and capers, and a side dish of grilled linguica, green beans, and small potatoes.

Day 4. Lobster Bake

Another delightful sailing day, with spectacular landscapes all around us. In the first three days we had moved north and east away from Camden, so it was time to start moving west across Jericho Bay and East Penobscot Bay to ultimately anchor on the east side of North Haven Island. The day was so perfect that it was hard to take time to go to the head, for fear of missing out on some spectacular views.

Shortly before lunch Captain Dennis opened the Angelique Boutique, so I of course bought myself a cap. It turns out that there are several guest that have come back for the second, third, or even fourth sailing with Angelique. I thought that was a bit too much, but I also have to acknowledge that this ship is a lot of fun, so I will not rule out a repeat in the not-so-distant future. There is an older guy, Mike, who is here with his grownup grandson, so maybe in a few years I will drag Ronnie to come sailing with me.

After some hours of wonderful sailing, the highlight of the afternoon was going to be a lobster bake on the easter beach of North Haven Island. The skipper had it all arranged and a lobster boat delivered an unknown amount of live lobsters as we arrived, and we all headed to the beach on the rowboats. Bradley and the Cap were in charge, and brought with them armloads of firewood, a big tub of the type people used to wash clothes, a stand, and little else.

I have struck a friendship with Rick, who is about my own age, and a photography and nature enthusiast. He must be retired, because it seems he spend every moment sailing in one of another of the Windjammers, working as a volunteer sailor (he actually gets in the way of the crew, but everybody loves him), and taking hundreds of photographs of the ship, the crew, the guests, the islands, the trees, the rocks, the flora and fauna, and … He takes his passion for photography farther, and has self-printed a series of photographic guides to each of the Windjammers, the trees of New England, the mushrooms of Maine, and … as his current project … the rocks and minerals of Maine. He was thus elated to know I was a geologist, and had picked my brain about plate tectonics, the geologic history of Maine, and lastly the rocks. The shore of North Haven provided an excellent lab for my dissertation about rocks, with a cool metaconglomerate that had been first metamorphosed and the intruded by a diorite, and then cut by a basaltic dike, so while the other went to visit the lighthouse Rick and I happily jumped from boulder to boulder along the shore.

By the time we rejoined the others Bradley had already started the fire, and was bringing some seawater to a boil. Meredith—for once allowed to leave the galley—and the rest of the crew were scooping huge piles of seaweed, while Captain Dennis lugged a big ice chest filled with lobsters to the fireside. I jumped at the opportunity to feed the lobsters to the pot. Fifty lobsters! Once they were in there the tub was filled with the seaweed as a kind of leaky lid, and 20 minutes later the Skipper and Bradley scooped out the seaweed to form a bed on the beach and upon it poured the fully-cooked lobsters. “Oh, no” complained the Cap, “they again turned all red!”  There are no words to describe the extent and deliciousness of the feast, which amounted to about three lobsters for each of the people present. What a wonderful treat!

Day 5. Becalmed

The sea is absolutely still, without a ripple or hint of a swell. Not only was there no wind, but we were at  high tide so there was not even a tidal current. Well, when life gives you lemons … and our Cap decided that this were perfect conditions to motor across the narrow channel between North Have and Vinal Heaven islands, which is normally not navigable because of its shallow depth, and thus got us into West Penobscot Bay, where we caught enough of a whiff of wind to allow us to tack to Rockland Harbor, and from there to tack back to Pulpit Rock and Pulpit Harbor, where we spent the night.

Dinner that night was a tasty dish of beef fajitas, but for once Bradley faltered and made the common gringo mistake of not the tortillas hot enough, so they fell apart (and of course it didn’t help that the guests did the other common gringo mistake of overstuffing their tacos).

Day 6. Back to Camden

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and the crossing of West Penobscot Bay, from Rockland Harbor to Camden, was all too brief. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I am sure I will come back for more in years to come. Captain Dennis made the sailing all the more enjoyable by his inexhaustible treasure trove of stories. He started as a carpenter/shipwright during the off season (he still does that today) and sailor, worked his way to First Mate, and eventually bought Angelique from her old owner and captain less than 10 years ago.

Of course there are other windjammers out there, as I had occasion to find out a few weeks later …

Summer 2021 – The East Coast

Summer 2021 – East Coast - Day 1. Taking flight.

I am not quite sure if I will be able to keep a daily blog this time round, but we will see how it develops. After a particularly trying pandemic and house arrest, I have a lot of destinations in mind, so I will have a lot to talk about. To start with I am heading to Boston to spend a few days with Sonya and Brad. You may remember that it was last time I went to Boston, in December, that I slipped in black ice and broke my right leg, so I am going back on a double-dare spirit, to show Boston and Somerville that I am not afraid of them (at least not in the hot summer).

Relatively simple day. I spent the morning tidying my house and emptying the many science experiments that I have been running for the last few months inside my fridge, and then tried to eat all sorts of leftovers just before they went bad. I like living on the edge 😉

DJ and Ronnie came to pick me up at noon, took me to the Sacramento airport, and after a modest wait I took off for Phoenix, and from there took the overnight flight to Boston.

Summer 2021 – East Coast – Day 2. Boston.

I landed at 6 am, and by 6:20 am Brad had collected me and brought me home to Somerville. There he handed me to Sonya and their little one, Rocket. First order of business was to take Rocket to the vet, for teeth cleaning; he knew something was amiss and didn’t want to stay behind, but there is only so much a small dog can do to show his displeasure.

Boston/Somerville is so pretty when the sun shines and the flowers are in bloom. Sonya and Brad have a small but very productive back garden, with all sorts of herbs, tomatoes, string beans, and peppers. Lots and lots of different types of peppers, which I hope will translate into tasty home-made salsas and grilling rubs.

After we took Rocket to the vet Sonya had a few Zoom meetings to attend to, so in the spirit of living of the land I cooked us a tasty mushroom pilaf for lunch. Immediately after lunch she had to go to the dentist (for the fun-filled activity of getting a root canal) and afterward pick up Rocket, so I spent the afternoon window shopping in the town when, all of a sudden, I found a well-stocked butcher shop. Yummy! At the end all I bought was a package of turkey necks that I plan to cook in a bean soup tomorrow.

Brad got home early, with the exciting news that he is getting a promotion at work! Woo-Hoo!

Summer 2021 – East Coast – Day 3. The Museum of Fine Arts.

I got up early because I wanted to go for a walk through Tufts University, which is only a few blocks from the house, and to start cooking my turkey necks. Let me see, I will add some mushrooms, garlic, pepper and … a few chiles. They have jars and jars filled with dried chiles, so I chose three small wrinkly ones, tore them into small pieces with my bare hands, and pretty soon had my broth simmering on the stove. I will add some tomatoes and pre-soaked beans in the afternoon, a couple of hours before we sit to dinner.

Then it was time to take a shower and dress up, because Sonya is taking me to the Museum of Fine Arts, where they were having a special exhibition of paintings by Monet and other Impressionists. At that moment I had an urge to wipe my eye, and I immediately experienced a searing pain. The chiles had left an aggressive residuum in my fingers! Gingerly I brought my fingertip to my tongue and … jeez! … these chiles are hot!

The museum is extraordinary, and we had a lot of fun meandering through the Nubian and Egyptian displays, the old masters, the Tang dynasty ceramics, and old American artifacts, furniture and paintings.

Sonya had to stop by her company, which rents lab space from MIT, so while she went to work I bummed round the campus, walked along the Charles River, and had a very good time being a tourist (except for the fact that all campus buildings were closed to non-MIT people and I had to go!). Sonya was delayed and Brad picked me up, and at that time my anxiety about the turkey stew started to mount. Will it be too spicy?

It was raging hot! Even I had trouble not shouting in pain, so I knew the super-tasty broth would have to go ☹ So I dumped the whole pot of broth, rinsed the turkey necks, and quickly created a new soup with some vegetarian jambalaya Brad and Sonya had in storage, a bit of tomato soup, and a generous serving of beans. It ended being delicious, but the dish was still too spicy, and we all ended the meal sweating and sucking air through our teeth. “Say Brad”, I asked, “what are those wrinkly chiles you have in the jar?” “Oh, those are Ghost Peppers (aka Bhut Jolokia Devils), some of the hottest chiles on Earth.” “No kidding?”  

Summer 2021 – East Coast – Day 4. Puttering at home.

I am sorry to have to acknowledge that due to the pandemic I am carrying a few more pounds than I used to carry a couple of years ago. That was also the last time I tried the pants I normally carry in my traveling adventures, so I could not be surprised when they felt a bit tight until … rip!

So while everyone was gone to work, I sat in the living room mending and reinforcing the seams of my two pairs of pants, in the hope that I won’t need to buy duck pants from the captain’s locker abord Angelique.

Then I went to the basement, with the good intent of repairing Sonya’s bike so we can go for a bike ride tomorrow. The back wheel was off, and needed both the inner tube and the tire, so there was plenty of opportunity for me to scrounge for tools, huff and puff, and finally reach the conclusion that the nuts that secure the wheel to the frame were nowhere to be found. No problem. Rocket and I took a walk downtown, and a friendly bike mechanic provided the needed piece and didn’t even charge me for it!

Sonya was very excited to have a working bike again, so she suggested we rent a Blue Bike (they are all over the greater Boston area) and take Rocket for a bike ride. She put saddlebags on the bike, bundled Rocket into one of the compartments, and off we went to visit the reservoir that provides drinking water to the city of Cambridge, It was a lovely ride and everything was going perfectly until Sonya spotted a … a weird mushroom? … a weird vine? It was a vine, clinging with red tendrils to the trunk of a tree. “Hmm, what is this”, she asked herself, “let me see if my app can identify it. Oh no! It is Poison Ivy!!”

Now, it turns out that Sonya is fairly sensitive to Poison Ivy, and she had been kneeling right in the middle of a pretty healthy patch. So it was with a certain sense of urgency that she lathered herself with alcohol goop and we headed back in hopes of reaching the shower before the toxin had a chance to kick in. We made it on the nick of time! As far as we can tell the shower did the job, but we should wait until tomorrow before claiming victory.

Sonya and Brad have splurged on a giant TV, at least six feet wide, so for the last couple of nights we have sat mesmerized in front of it, admiring the high-definition rendition of the movie Avatar. What a fantastic experience!

Summer 2021 – East Coast – Day 5. Walden Pond.

One of my favorite part of visiting friends is the time visiting with friends, rather than running around checking off a list of must-see attractions. However, I had to make an exception when Sonya mentioned that the local bike path, if you followed it for 25 miles, would end at Walden Pond. This I just had to see, so we had planned a bike ride there, which was abandoned in favor of a car ride because of weather. So Brad and I got on the road, and by 10 am parked in the Walden Pond State Recreation Area, ready to admire the starting point of the American Conservation and Environmental movements.

Walden Pond is a kettle lake, formed at the end of the last glaciation, when a small mountain of ice got buried under sandy till, melted, and caused the collapse of the overlying sediments to form a bean-shaped “kettle” about a half-mile long and a quarter-mile wide. The floor of the collapse pit is 100 feet below the water table, so the lake surface is the actual water table, and the lake varies its stage but little in the course of the year. It is an interesting geologic curiosity, but there are hundreds like it all over New England and the northern states. Its true claim to fame is that it was in property owned by the famous American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, who gave his permission for his young friend Henry David Thoreau to live in the surrounding woods for a period of two years, from 1845 to 1846. Thoreau was as tough as they come, built himself a small cabin, and for two years lived simply off the land, spent a lot of time mulling over his personal philosophy about the importance of living in harmony with nature, and made keen scientific observations about the plants and animals that lived in Walden Pond and the surrounding area, as well as meteorological observations regarding the pond. He can be regarded as one of the forefathers of limnology, a subject in which I have been highly interested lately. Thoreau summarize his observations in many unpublished journals, and in his famous book Walden; or Life in The Woods.

When we got back from our delightful walk, we found that Sonya had acquired a baby! She is babysitting little Caden, who is four and a half months old, so the whole spirit of the house has shifted to spin around the happy little guy. Seeing him makes you think about our responsibility to hand a clean and healthy world to the next generation.

Summer 2021 – East Coast – Day 6. Camden

Sonya is staying home with Caden, so Brad and I are driving up the coast to Maine. Easier said than done, because the 190 miles easily translate into four hours of driving, but we had a lot to catch up on so the time went by quickly.

Once in Camden we went to have a late lunch/early dinner at a seaside restaurant in Camden. Sonya is not too keen on seafood, so this was our chance to bask into fishy, smelly delicacies, so we went for a dozen of fresh oysters and two delicious lobsters. Yum, yum, yum! Afterward we went for a brief tour of the very quaint town, and afterwards Brad had to get on his way to make sure he made it home on good time.

I was by then ready to board the Angelique and meet our Captain and my fellow passengers. The crew was there as well, to help us to our cabins and show us the full extent of the boat (we are only 100 feet long, so we don’t call ourselves a ship). There will be 19 passengers, 6 crew members, and of course Captain Dennis. Today we are sleeping onboard, but we will be sailing on earnest tomorrow.