Local Fisherman Off Giles Quarter, Saba, Dutch Caribbean
Another early morning hike down to the harbor, meander along the coastline, and voila, snapped this fellow doing what his family has been doing for more than a hundred years. Came up the Dancing Place ridge to Windwardside and started collecting boxes for shipping.
With three weeks remaining, guess I’m finally winding down. On the other hand, many folks would give an arm or leg just to have three weeks away from the frenetic pace of their lives, so no melancholy me ’til I’m off the rock and in the city once more.
Road To Fort Bay Winds Down Below Thais Hill, Saba, Dutch Caribbean
“The greatest gift of life on the mountain is time. Time to think or not think, read or not read, scribble or not scribble — to sleep and cook and walk in the woods, to sit and stare at the shapes of the hills. I produce nothing but words; I consumer nothing but food, a little propane, a little firewood. By being utterly useless in the calculations of the culture at large I become useful, at last, to myself.”
― Philip Connors
Though this quote is in reference to hiking and camping on the mountain, I still think it sums up the essence of my coming here, particularly that last bit. I love the city I live in, but equally do I love this rugged rock, the peace and tranquility of its folks and its setting, above and below the water. People ask me if I miss the city, and my general answer is no, I’m focused on wringing out every bit of distraction free relaxation until the day I leave, and on the plane, I’ll get excited about where I’m going; I’m so much better at living in the moment at this stage in life, no apologies or regrets.
When you walk down the steep and sidewinder curves of The Road down to Fort Bay, you can take a mild detour to climb onto the hill above the harbor, across from Bunker Hill. Rather than looking towards the sea, where the Dutch Navy frigate was bringing in 60,000 liters of relief water to the hospital, the government building, and the old folks home due to our current drought, I looked back up at Thais Hill, which looms over the road, and up to the edge of the St John’s Flat, close to where I live. Never a shortage of new angles, and this one really shows off the rugged nature of this auld rock, forever subject to the wear and tear of weather, the thin wisps of stratus clouds high aloft and skimming the atmosphere. Not bad, Saba, not bad at all.
Bless any of you who actually get the bizarre reference in the blogpost subject 😉
It’s hot here in Saba, and no wind this morning made my day an exercise in sweating. I walked down to the Fort Bay harbor, climbed up the rocks above, then headed back up The Road to the The Bottom, where I frightened some people with the sheer amount of moisture dripping off of me, then took the Crispeen Track trail back up to St John’s, where this l’il guy was on my mailbox post, cool as a cucumber. He’s an anole lizard, indigenous to Saba, plus he’s an excellent poser.
Just because the fallout of 1900 metric tons of sulfur ash from the perrenially active volcanic isle of Montserrat downwind of us made for one of the best sunsets many recent locals can recall, doesn’t mean I wish for that kinda thing. Sabans tell me it happens around 3-4 times a year. The whole day, Saba was hot hot hot and a bluish haze hung over the island, smelling like rotten eggs. But when night approached, I was having dinner at Scout’s Place in Windwardside and this is one of the sunset images I captured off the terrace.
Today’s photos and video are of Rachel and Marlies and what is currently the Eden Bakery associated with Restaurant Eden in Windwardside, and soon to be Bizzy B Bakery. Rachel–the bakery founder and owner–is striking out with her own shop across from Saba’s legendary Swinging Doors saloon. Marlis came from Holland in December, and I met her on my New Year’s Eve walk to Windwardside just days after she had arrived to help Rachel. These two ladies are a hoot and a holler to hang out with, having sunny dispositions, great senses of humor, and fast bakery hands to turn out high demand bakery items for most of the restaurants and grocery stores in Windwardside as well as a steady influx of walk-in customers who come by in the early AM hours to get fresh hot bread and croissants straight out of the oven for the working day. So what motivates someone to open a bakery on a five square mile island in the Caribbean? The short video below has Rachel and Marlies telling their own story along with ample shots of the goodies and process of their current ovens. Enjoy and make sure if you’re on Saba or planning to be here to look them up…your taste buds won’t regret it!
Moonlit Sunset Over The Airport, Saba, Dutch Caribbean
A Short History On Saba’s Airport
From Wikipedia: [Saba] airport’s risky reputation arises from the airport’s physical position: it is flanked on one side by high hills; and on the runway’s other side and both ends, cliffs drop into the sea. Additionally, the runway at the airport is extremely short (400m ); this creates the possibility that an airplane could under/overshoot the runway during landing or takeoff and end up in the sea or dashed on the rocky cliffs.
For those of you who saw the video blog a couple weeks ago with the plane taking off, the description above may amplify the concern about landing or taking off in Saba, but the airport’s had no fatalities or crashes in its 50 years of operation. This is the second or third incarnation of the airport, as the first couple terminal buildings blew down in hurricanes, most recently Hurricane Lenny in 1999. Flat Point was cleared of rocks by Saban folks in 1959 for a landing by pilot Remy F De Haenan to prove Saba could support aircraft, and it officially opened in 1963. Due to its length, it only supports a couple commercial short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft and helicopters, of course. The airport is named for Juancho E. Yrausquin, a prominent Dutch politician for the Antilles in the 1950’s.
There are normally only 4 WinAir flights a day, except during major holidays, when the students from the university fly out and they ramp it up considerably (10-12), but the net of it is, the sound of planes over Saba is generally rare, except at 7am, 10am, 1pm, and 5pm. Moreover, I can’t recall having ever heard a jet overhead. This contributes the the general peace and quiet on this isle I cherish.
Old Booby Hill stands off on its own between the Windwardside Level and Spring Bay. It’s an absolutely wonderful diversion off trail hike from the Spring Bay trail saddle, and a mere 20 minutes of scrambling up low scrub nets you fantastic views of Saba’s south coast that you can’t see without an airplane or being on a boat offshore: a full view of Hell’s Gate all the way from the airport up to Mt Scenery, as well as the rugged sea cliffs directly below The Level. I rambled up the summit earlier this week with UK Bob the builder and his artsy crafty French wife Marie. This picture captures just a smidgeon of the many grand views from the Old Booby Hill summit, as well as the short, but steep little climb to get there. I recommend this hike strongly, as a surprising number of locals and long term expats have never done this fulfilling side excursion in the many years they’ve been here. It was Bob and Marie’s first time in the seven years they’ve been here.
By the way, New Booby Hill (simply called Booby Hill) is on the way to The Level, and has many expansive homes with fantastic views.
Weekly Supply Ship At Fort Bay, Saba, Dutch Caribbean
A Short Treatise On My Photographic Approach
My commitment to a new picture each day on the blog until I leave this tiny island in the Caribbean demands a degree of photographic creativity; I’ve rejected a number of pictures that look too much like direct repeats…same color palettes and/or too similar views from a particular location. Saba is five square miles of paradise, but any creative photographer like me still needs to keep an eye out for transforming even the mundane aspects of their surroundings into something new, fresh, or dramatic for a compelling image, and that can happen in a few different ways:
Macro or Micro Zooming in much closer than the level of detail the brain normally pays attention too or vice versa, zooming out for a far wider perspective than most photographs.
Geometric Perspective Much is written about having a photographic”eye”, and while some talent is undeniable, I still believe certain aspects of pleasing visual geometry can be taught or learned through the glory of digital image trial and error, myself as one example. The trick for me was learning how to flatten the 3D my brain perceives the world with into the 2D world the camera sees, then take a boatload of pictures and figure out why I did or didn’t like a particular image, which in my reptilian simplicity, was figuring out how my brain was reassembling a 2D image back into 3D perspective. A big part of that is geometry within an image frame, and how it leads your eye to construct depth.
Digital Post Processing Folks who’ve been reading my blog a long time know my philosophy on images, and opinions of images…you either like a picture or you don’t, you either hold on it and take it in longer than a few seconds, or you move on with a Ho-hum. “Did you Photoshop that?” seems to be a question that implies something about the image is false, or faked, and therefore either too good to be true or not worth looking at. But that’s at odds with images as art, which is that digital post is part of today’s creative imaging process. Leave the f-stop and technical discussions to photographers who feel that’s important stuff. In any case, digital post might be as simple as taking the clutter of colors on a photo competing for eye attention and making it black and white and shades of gray, which gets immediate oohs and ahs. Lots of creative options in the post.
3 Original Images Used For Today’s Final HDR Blog Picture
Today’s photograph takes on a mundane subject–the 60 meter 681 ton supply ship Mutty’s Pride
that arrives in Saba’s Fort Bay harbor weekly with essential food and supplies. I’ve taken a bunch of pictures of the ship over the months, but never had one that rung my bell. This time I took 3 pictures exposure bracketed for the different light…the dark mountains, the clouds, and the brightly colored ship, and combined them to create a High Dynamic Range (HDR) photo that attempts to balance the contrast that our eyes can see, but cameras can’t, then played with exposure and saturation to rebuild the true colors washed out by the intensity of the Caribbean sun. The result takes on an painting quality I like, and I hope you enjoy it as well. I won’t always yak on about process like this, but for the new and learning photogs out there, maybe this will be a helpful post. Cheers!
Michael Chammaa Summits The Whale Tail, Saba, Dutch Caribbean
Day Off, Mr. Chef? Nothing A Precarious Climb Can’t Cure
Michael Chammaa is the Lebanese born chef and proprietor of the Brigadoon restaurant, along with his wife Tricia. He also happens to be a bit of a fitness freak, a divemaster, and as readers of my blog may remember, he also knows some rather challenging off trail excursions that really put me up close and personal with Saba’s rugged volcanic terrain.
A couple days ago, I asked Michael to return with me to Great Hill and the Saba whale, in an attempt to tackle the tail, which I didn’t do on my own when I came last. One side story: the great whale tail is also the namesake for Saba’s celebrated dive sites Tent Reef, Tent Wall, and Tent Deep, as the rock, covered with red lichen, is clearly visible from the sea below, and looks like a three pointed tent (or maybe a teepee to me).
The Chef Descends Rain Slicked Rocks
It rained like crazy on our way up Paris Hill to get to the whale, and as usual, Michael had other plans as well; we popped on headlamps, climbed up some boulders and came across a cave entrance straight out of Indiana Jones, with hanging vines at its mouth, a dark cavern beyond. For the next hour, the Chef challenged my fat butt with corkscrew and cliff hanging moves and descents into the belly of the whale. The good news? It was a dry, dusty cave, no goat droppings, threatening stalactites, and no signs of insect life. (Slightly) bad news? When we had penetrated roughly 120ft (38m) in and 40 ft (12m) down into the volcanic nether regions, we came across a main cavern room that had dropped rocks on an entrance hole since the last time Michael had been there, 18 months earlier, which had me momentarily uneasy, if a few more rocks decided to drop. But it was solid in there, and we climbed our way out with no issues, and I had another unique Saba adventure under my belt. No pictures…too dusty and didn’t want to risk dropping the camera along a shelf into the darkness.
We came out and it was still raining and blowing with gusts up to 30-40mph (50-60kph). I told Michael I needed a better day to tackle the tail, and of course, he ignored me and went straight there, where I filmed his rapid 2:12 second ascent. I hope the pictures give you a scale and perspective on how intimidating this climb is up close, with its dropoffs. I’m sure it’s a pithy effort for bouldering/rock climbing specialists, but for big Hawaiian dudes, its a challenge for another drier day. But if you’re interested in seeing a quick, crazy climb, check the short video out to watch Michael use weak weed roots to climb up in his tennis shoes, up volcanic boulders shining slick with rain. Yikes. The things we do on Saba when we’re bored. D’Oh!
Sorry ’bout the missed post yesterday. I was diving all morning…two months of diving and I finally see my first green moray eel at dive site 3rd Encounter, sitting at the top of The Needle, then we spotted an even bigger green moray–a big fat boy–at Babylon. Rock the house! Saba diving is awesome. Anyhow, I came back from the dive and walked directly over to Windwardside, running around doing errands and forgot about the blog until I got back home late, then I was so tired I conked out as I was posting. Alrighty then.
Snapped this tranquil afternoon from my front yard when I got home from the dive. Byootful, eh?
A Tangled Mind In Motion 