Chaz Sin: One Writer's Sojourn Through An Odd Life
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.
Yeah, I s’pose this could be any nice garden in the tropics, with bougainvillea, roses, and other plants, shrubs, and trees–whose names I remain blissfully ignorant of–lookin’ pretty. But no, this is Saba where such well tended gardens are rare. Scout’s Cottage is built into the hills of Windwardside below Mt. Scenery, a venerable cottage still visible in photos of Saba from late 1800’s/early 1900’s, and the current owner has really done it up, inside and out. Note that the wooden deck here is actually built around and on top of the main cistern for the house. That’s actually Maskehorne Hill in the background, whose views of Windwardside you may recall from this earlier blogpost.
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!
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.
Yes, I know. I’ve posted a lot of photos of the Captain’s Quarters ruins, but dang, it sure is beautiful. I took an infrared on CQ here, and dialed back the high white intensity to get the reflective photo you see here. Those mailboxes on the right are fascinating, as they have the old names from before Hurricane Georges still labeled: Sea Saba, Franklin’s, Juliana’s, et Al.
Views like this, though they hold sad memories for some, inspire me to write, because the earth and sky still create magical art together every day here on Saba. The novel continues to move forward, no slower or faster than my muse will allow, and I’m ok with that. Que sera sera, amigos y amigas!
I encourage everyone to dig back in the blog archives if you haven’t been following the blog on any regular basis; there’s lots of fun and beautiful pictures of Saba from many perspectives. Interesting to me is that all the sunrises have a different character about them to the point where they become a repeat subject, but I can’t help it; they’re gorgeous to me.
Brother and I dived this morning, and he did his first deep dive, saw his first reef shark and anemone. In the evening, we had pizza at Guido’s in Windwardside for Valentine’s Day din-din, shared with Andrew, a talented underwater photographer and Olly, two of our Sea Saba dive instructor pals, talking about diving, photography, music, and women to the pleasant fizz of El Presidente beer. The walk home was a night full of stars and a bladed crescent moon nestled in a shroud of glowing clouds. Not a bad day on this blissfully quiet island.
Can’t help it. Keep finding myself drawn back to the Captain’s Quarters ruins here on Saba, because so much beautiful stuff has grown over it. Do you agree?
Scuba divers new to a location, and particularly new to diving, as my visiting brother is, have no frame of reference for sighting (relatively) rare aquatic life around Saba. They simply think this is what those of us who dive often around here see nearly every dive. In any case, today, our bundle of smiles and energy Sea Saba dive instructor Kelly took us to the windward side dive site of Big Rock Market and 5 minutes later, we spotted bright yellow gorgeous seahorse wrapped around a rope coral, then he let go and started swimming around. Perfectly elegant and moving to be in the water with the little fella. Same dive had two eels (my first spotted and a baby green), stingray, bro’s first shark (nurse), and much much more. Of course, no one had a camera. Gaaaaah – sorry about that.
A Tangled Mind In Motion 