Yet another century or more old shuttered house whose owners are probably abroad and may never return. I was doing my best itinerant vagabond imitation in the English Quarter, returning from a visit with a friend with a bad knee and a penchant for 1 pack a day kill sticks when I
I saw the fog rolling fast over Mt Scenery, and below it, this lovely place nestled within lush foliage and flowers.
I’m a hack photographer compared to so many others–even on this island–but if you put a monkey in a room and have him pound at the keys of the typewriter…or laptop, in modern adage…eventually, he types the Gideon Bible. I get lucky a lot, and I’m on a tiny island rife with explorable nooks and crannies that yield treasure views.
The island does its primary grocery shopping on Wednesdays, as that’s the day after the ship comes in and time to distribute all the goods out to the markets in each village. Yesterday, I picked up a case of water, hefted it onto my shoulder, packed my backpack chock full of groceries and started hoofing it home. No sooner had I stepped out of Windwardside when it started to rain. Usually, these are burst showers…five minutes max. Not my luck. It rained…hard…the whole walk home, my feet slipping and squishing for traction as I climbed the ascents. Ronnie Johnson, the owner of the Big Rock Market where I’d come from, offered me a ride a couple hundred yards away from the cottage, but by that time I was committed to finish.
Later that day, I meandered up the long mountain road above Windwardside, the skies threatening again, and this little fella was chirruping madly up there, all comfy on his wire. Even bird egos need their picture taken, I s’pose.
Sea Saba Dive Center German dive instructor Vicky strides along the Fort Bay Pier towards the the dive boats Giant Stride and Sea Dragon. I’m heading into dive number 20 this week, a blip on a dive instructor’s radar, but man, the zen of floating weightless in the big blue is every bit the thrill as the aquatic creatures and reefs around me. Underwater pictures soon, I promise!
This isn’t my favorite picture, but I keep coming back and back to it, intrigued by who its owners might be or have been. The shutters are closed, the whitewashed sides streaked brown with dirt and debris from Saban winds and rain. Looks like time has run past this Windwardside cottage with its great tree, its yard grown tangled and wild.
How long ago did children laugh and play in your yard, little house?
It’s easy on Saba to forget that the two primary transportation hubs to the island: the pier and the airport, are relatively modern conveniences. Though The Road was built in 1937-1953 the airport came along in 1963, and the Fort Bay pier was only completed in 1972, and it has been rebuilt and repaired from hurricanes several times since, due to its exposure. The current Fort Bay pier is huge concrete chunks as breakers, but I thought this picture kinda captures the vintage feel of it, complete with Saba’s dramatic cloudscapes. Enjoy!
“No living organism can be said to exist under conditions of absolute reality. Even larks and katydids are supposed by some to dream.”
Shirley Jackson’s immortal quote opens a classic horror story, but après pro of today’s go go go world, I often have the conversations with friends about how much we’ve migrated from human beings to human doings; at least in the US, in my humble opinion. We work our hours and chat with colleagues about getting away from it all, and plan with our families months or years ahead, and when the time comes at last, we revel in the vacation…a week…maybe two…then it’s back to the proverbial grind in a blink, a blip on a hungry soul.
Ecolodge’s Michael, Bernt, and Elizabeth
Today’s local Saba profile and pictures are the Ecolodge, a charming mountain retreat a hundred or so stone steps up Mt Scenery, immersed in the tropical forest above Windwardside (but notably, not visible from the village). Proprietor Bernt Groenendijk (shown in the collage with his two children Dylan and Alexis) got the idea from his father Tom van’t Hof, a noted ecologist/naturalist who still gives Wednesday night presentations at the Ecolodge Rainforest Restaurant about the unique ecosystems and ever changing forces of nature on Saba, particularly its cloud forest on Mt Scenery. Tom had seen other ecolodges in his travels but didn’t want to focus on the hotel business. Bernt was in culinary school in Holland at the time, and had traveled to Saba in the 90’s on a couple occasions; eventually he came to the island to start the hotel, they began building in 1998, opening in 2002. The Ecolodge is a group of cottages built up a sloping plot of land that had been used as farming for centuries by the local Sabians before falling into disuse. The herb garden I tilled the other day was up at Ecolodge, and the volcanic stones around are intact the way they were a century or more ago. Bernt and his team of Michael, Elizabeth, and Johnny (not shown here) also happen to be crack chefs, and the Rainforest Restaurant is celebrated island wide for its excellent meals, including Bernt’s Curry Shrimp. I regularly wake up at 0-dark-30 and hike up through the lush tropical forest at the base of Mt Scenery to have breakfast there as well. The locals who live and work on the island work hard to be here, and Ecolodge is no exception. Getting water and supplies and keeping logistics smooth while making guests feel welcome in this relatively remote location is a non-trivial exercise for the four Ecolodge employees, but they do it with panache.
I’ve obliquely referenced this issue before, but Saba has its devout folks who’ve labeled the signs for the community settled all around the descent to the airport as “Zion’s Hill”, while just about any Saba tourist map and trail signs ref to “Hell’s Gate”, the more colloquial and common name every local I’ve met calls it. And hey, let’s face it, a little more naughty and fun for the rough and tumble among us. In fact, one local who lives in Hell’s Gate took a moment to process when I said, “You live on Zion’s Hill, eh?”, to which he then replied, “I keep forgetting that’s the official name o’ this place.” You’ve seen this stone church as a watercolor in earlier blogposts…here it is looming over the top of Hell’s Gate…errr Zion’s Hill…like a pious nun warning me not to get hit by a car on one of the many blind switchback corners when I go to visit my landlady Tricia. Tres magnifique!
I’ve got a burn on my heel from hiking in thin socks, farmer’s elbow and finger blisters from hoeing a little herb garden that dates back hundreds of years, and I couldn’t be happier. Go figure. Til tomorrow…Bon soir, friends.
A ramble down the twisting Hell’s Gate descent to Flat Point and the Saba airport, a path I unwittingly took in sandals that ended up with me scrambling and climbing up onto super sharp volcanic rock to see the little blue grottos teaming with life, a miniature ecosystem with aquatic life and teeny crabs and such….so close to the big blue, but so far, I s’pose. Finally, when I walked out of the path onto The Road and began my 1400 foot ascent back up to Windwardside, I noticed the blood streaming down my legs from fine cuts. Perfect! A beautiful day on Saba.
I take pictures of the signs on Saba….the village signs, the trail signs. It’s a little goofy, but there’s a charm to it. The magic of the hiking here is that it’s not only traversing lushly adorned tropical terrain, but it’s quite safe in terms of creatures. The snakes here are completely mellow, and unlike San Francisco/Bay Area where poison oak and ivy often mandate long pants, about the worst things you’ll get here is the occasional stinging nettles and a wasp nest. On the other hand, being cautious on the lichen slippery rocks is important, as folks injure themselves and their noggins from time to time. The Saba Conservation Bureau is diligent–albeit undermanned–in their efforts to keep the trails accessible for Saba’s visitors. This picture is just a sampling from my go-round on the island the other day…more to come, but I love hiking here by myself. It’s a joy.
Cranking the picture colors of Saba on this pic taken on the way to diving 100 feet down to the Pinnacles yesterday–fantastic underwater site!–got me this ominous shot of the island to share; I suspect the Auld Rock is picking up the blue water reflections the naked eye doesn’t necessarily see by the bright light of the Caribbean morning sun.
Pictures of stingrays and sharks? Uh, no, not yet, although now that my buoyancy underwater is decent enough to confidently float inches above the reefs to look at the l’il critters and do swim throughs under hanging formations, I’m planning on the logistics of taking pics underwater soon. The dive sites down here have names as cool as their aquatic denizens: 3rd Encounter, Babylon, Hole In The Corner…
A Tangled Mind In Motion 