Chaz Sin: One Writer's Sojourn Through An Odd Life
Unfathomable acronyms, part IX. YACSCASOV – Hmm, this’un sounds almost Russian or Eastern European….but it stands for Yet Another Charming Saban Cottage And Stunning Ocean View. Well, drink it in, friends, ’cause I sure am. The time is nigh, I leave tomorrow morning for San Francisco, and I’ve cherished every great moment or conversation turn on this island. C’est la vie. Life moves ceaselessly forward, and I ride the train to wherever it’ll take me. I’ll be back, l’il island…don’t know when.
One of the most stunning diving sites on the island of Saba lies literally in view of the harbor. A five minute boat jaunt out of Fort Bay gets you to Tent Reef, which has dynamic swim through channels, overhangs, deep walls, and abundant, brilliant beautiful reef and aquatic life. It remains a favorite of many of Saba’s dive instructors.
Saba itself shows its dry, rugged cliff sides from the Tent Reef dive boat; clicking to see the full sized picture, from left to right, you can see the triangular Tent Rock peaking above Great Hill, Paris Hill, Bunker Hill (the dominant foreground hill), a peak view of Thais Hill, the St John’s Flat with houses on the cliff, and finally, the lower Fort Hill above the harbor. You can also see the utility road that winds around from the harbor to the corner of the reef, the southwestern corner of the island. This is rugged, lovely country, constantly changing with the effects of wind, water, and other weather.
T-3 days, and not counting, honest. A final ramble up Mt Scenery via Bud’s Mountain Trail….it rained yesterday…a light long drizzle that didn’t fill cisterns, then harder last night, albeit a short rain. Bridge water until the rains of April, odds are.
Damn. I took this nice sunset photo from the desk of the main El Momo cottages office up on The Level, then saw the rug draped over the fence. Heck, it’s still a gorgeous view, let’s go wit’ it.
T-5 and I’m headed home to San Francisco. 82 pages to the novel in progress. Scars from numerous hikes here….but happy to have’em. This cartoon-like picture of The Road leading to the English Quarter section of Windwardside has vehicles in it, which is usually a no no, but hey, it’s real life in Saba. As you can see, colors are vibrant in the village still, though they’re quite brown on the slopes, guts, and ridges below as a result of the drought. Even looking at my Dec-Jan photos of the island reminded me how dry it is here now vs how green it was in Dec. Brutal.
The Dutch Coast Guard frigate HMS Friesland visited the island the past few days on a routine drug interdiction pass through the Caribbean Netherland islands; yesterday it dropped off around 40 hyper fit Marines to visit Saba, they all chose to walk or run up the steep road to Fort Bay, through The Bottom, St John’s, and into Windwardside.
Almost finished packing. Rounds of goodbye parties started. Rocked the Swinging Doors Open Mic night on Saturday. Not a bad weekend in Saba.
At the end of Fort Bay harbor’s longest pier is this boat bumper, which I thought looked kinda cool, all the worse for its wear. Not all of my Saba photos are grandiose visions 😉
A simple picture (converted to watercolor) of three old Windwardside cottages, lined up neatly in a row in the foothills of Mt Scenery. Something so orderly and cool about the way these villages sit on top of the Auld Rock just appeals to me, call me crazy.
Life moves at its steady pace here on Saba as I start collecting boxes to pack, plan a few last hikes, finish up my remaining dives to say goodbye to the aquatic life, and of course, make the rounds to thank the locals, expats, and friends I’ve made along the way. Life is good.
Everywhere on Saba lie these ubiquitous stair steps made of volcanic rock hewn from the isle, including the Mt Scenery trail and countless other pathways in the four villages. Of course, they often lead to nowhere, formerly to terraced farms that have long since overgrown. C’est la vie. They are still uniquely Saban.
The rise of Instagram on the Web has been interesting to me. The program allows ordinary folks to take their digital smartphone pictures and rough them up to look like old Instamatic or Polaroids, so its retro throwback all the way. In that vein of thinking, I kept looking at this picture of a Windwardside road with the telephone lines strung haphazardly to every house, which poses an artistic challenge. My final Jeopardy answer was to rough the picture up, heap some good old film grain on it, and now I’m pleased with the sort of surreal picture that results. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you’ll see it’s definitely a real picture, but when you pull back on it…this unusual image of the village emerges. In the end, its undeniably Saba, which is what I wanted. It could be nothing else in the world with this combo of colors, cottages, and tropical contours.
A Tangled Mind In Motion 