Last update
10/5/2012
The sea has been a galloping herd of white horses, and the light passenger boats from Guatemala have been thumping through the waves. The water and sky were a deep blue. I've been saying goodbye to lots of people; tomorrow I go to Honduras, hopefully seeing another flying fish on the way.
This blog has not been updated regularly lately - my apologies. The little puppy was rehomed at 12 today to a house with a fenced in veranda which he will love, the world is a bit rough for a starved chihuahua puppy. Caring for him has been wonderful but took away the sea-writing time if not the sea-gazing minutes; he loved to sit on the terrace looking east at the horizon.
Leaving PG and the sea feels bittersweet, so here's a picture of a dawn from a few weeks back that shows that some dawns over the sea can be a little sad too:
And here's a photo to show how lucky I've been to live here:
Thank you for reading this blog, I hope you've enjoyed learning how the sea is in Belize and hearing about the 'coffee puppies' who live on the balcony. I've really enjoyed writing it, and gained from taking the time to notice the beautiful colours around, and seeing the Mennonites gazing at fish in the water.
Best wishes,
Robin
6/5/2012
Yesterday evening it was overcast and as threatening as the sea here can get. The tide is usually minimal but the sea was noticeably higher yesterday, with the moon being so close to the earth. A group of twelve pelicans flew over me in the evening light.
Today the air is fresh and the sea blue and glistening before the faint haze of the guatemalan hills. I have found a stray puppy called Espresso Machiato ('Maccie) who I'm trying to find a home for. Today he had his first shower, he squealed all the way through it and when it was over went bounding round in the sunlight wagging his tail and then washed himself all over, I don't think he'd felt able to do that before.
4/5/2012
The rain has been falling at night quite heavily, so although the days are bright and hot the plants are growing and flowering beautifully. Today the breeze of the sea smelt of flowers, and I wondered if that was the scent of the plants in Honduras, which might explain why one encounters butterflies fluttering miles offshore in the middle of the Bay.
The lush grass is covering up wheelbarrows and old foundations tumbled down in the lots of town, and those with strimmers are making good money cutting it back. I only have a week left here, so am valuing everything, like the chef who sells his lunches with: "It tastes better than it looks!" the coffin seller whose shed has the motto: "coffins that look so good you'll wish you were dead", and of course the sea, although I know I've been poor at posting things recently (I have 4 articles to do in my final week). One other thing; if anyone has a sea view and would like to continue this blog after I leave then just let me know.
2/5/2012
The sea was blue in the morning heat today, and while here and there white horses appeared on the waves, they slid lazily back into the water.
29/4/2012
In the evening the sea was dark and tumbling with waves beneath some clouds blowing in from the direction of the Cayman islands. There has been a burst of colour from flowering trees like a second spring, and the birds have been more vocal, perhaps cheered by the colour.
28/4/2012
The water is as choppy as I have seen it here, and yet the wind is mild. Waves produce surf from the shore to the horizon yet there is little swell due to the distant reef.
The shadows of cloud patches mottle the pitching sea. Schools of frigatebirds glide north without effort despite the onshore breeze, their wings remaining motionless.
25/4/2012
The sea is a faint blue, only a couple of shades darker than a hazy sky. It's only just gone 8am yet the air already has the warm, lazy feel of an English afternoon in July.
24/4/2012
There is a steady east wind and spots of surf are breaking out on the tumbling blue sea. Clouds have been blown shorewards all day, then blown further on to Guatemala leaving the town bathing in sunlight.
22/4/2012
Early this morning the sea was like a windblown lake, an expanse without swell beneath a brisk breeze. Across the bay only the first mountains were visible through the haze.
Then the sea was Prussian Blue, now it is turquois or navy, depending on the cloud-shadows.
I'm sorry for the long gap in posts, I have been in Guatemala. Yesterday I saw my first flying fish on the boat trip from Puerto Barrios, and then a lightning storm began uncomfortably close to us as we arrived at Punta Gorda.
It's nice to be back with the housemates and puppies. The larger puppy (Caffe Latte) is very happy to see me, and the smaller one (Milky) has had her nails painted pink by my housemates and been given a paddling pool on the balcony that she loves.
5/4/2012
The day is bright and the sun intense; the sea is an iron grey and the sky a very pale blue. The noise of strimmers floats across town as people try to complete their chores before the day becomes hotter.
Sorry for a recent gap in posts - I was away on a patrol, here are some pictures of dawn on Black Creek, just upstrem from where it flows into the Sarstoon River between Belize and Guatemala:
On the way by sea from here to the Sarstoon River we passed dolphins but I wasn't quick enough to get a picture. Here is a picture of the journey back:
4/4/2012
This morning I came out onto the balconny to see a crisp blue sea beneath a sky flecked with cirrus cloud, and long mountains of a darker and different cloud along the horizon. It was as if another continent had sailed close in the night and dropped anchor, and I imagined that similar optical illusions had given birth in past millenia to the myths of Atlantis, Tir-na-nog and Annwn. Here it is with massive zoom:
I made some coffee and thought of waiting to see if the rising sun could illuminate some whispy pastures and woods of this mobile world but work called. When I escaped later on to shop at market I saw that it was still there, but fading back into the haze. They were indeed mountains, from far away in the east, deep into Honduras. Some trick of the haze must have hitherto concealed them, and since then I have looked but it was as if they were never there.
26/3/2012
These pictures were taken minutes ago. Look at this blue:
This man is steering a dorey with a sail. The same winds and currents would have taken Santiago down the coast to found Barranco, sailing a similar boat (see below).
23/3/2012
The sea looks like a long fish with a dark blue spine, turquoise sides, and a paler tummy.
22/3/2012
The wind is gusting and the sky was full of dark swirls of cloud all day. The sea was as rough as it gets within the sheltering reef and tonight flashes of lightning illuminate the eastern night.
Here are the belated pictures of the schooner which was moored on the horizon a little while ago:
21/3/2012
The morning quickly warmed up after dawn. By 8 the sky was already a blazing haze, and the sea just a couple of shades darker. Now the moisture has burned out of the cloudless sky and the sea is a light blue.
A vulture and a black-headed tern kept me company on the coast road, the tern diving for fish and the vulture contentedly riding the warm air rich with the smells of cut grass and boat fuel, watching the people gathered at market.
20/3/2012
The sea is turquois on the edge of the hot, dusty town. I've become a refugee from the sun, and that cooler horizon is something beautiful.
17/3/2012
The day was still and sweltering soon after the sun rose, with mirages rising above the tin roofs and only butterlies in the gardens. Now a gentle breeze has risen and some light cloud is cooling things.
What a beautiful day!
16/3/2012
The weather is perfect: breezy and bright with some light cloud around. The sea is inviting (even to someone with a phobia of sharks) and it stretches away, Prussian blue and rippled, to below the mountains beyond the Bay of Izabal.
15/3/2012
The weather was unsettled through the morning, and the sea was darker than anything else, as if drawing all the colour out of the clouds.
In the afternoon the sky was clear and the sea a series of shades of turquis and blue. Further out a bank of haze concealed much of Guatemala and all of Honduras. I took photos of the schooner before it left which I'll upload soon.
13/3/2012
The schooner has sailed away, leaving a sea that with distant rain showers moving along the horizon, and wind and waves beneath a largely clear sky.
12/3/2012
There's a warm sun and a breeze waving the palms. The sea is a a mixture of turquois and green and blue.
10/3/2012
A brisk easterly is raising the sea. The schooner is still moored nose towards the north. Two days ago I met a couple of cyclists from Germany who had cycled down from New York en route to Buenos Aires. They were preparing to take the boat to Puerto Barrios in Guatemala, and were 6 months into their trip.
8/3/2012
The schooner is still moored out at sea. The sea was dark blue from morning until late in the afternoon, when it turned grey beneath oncoming clouds. In the darkness of evening bands of rain beat against the roof.
Farwell to little Choco, possibly the cutest puppy who ever lived. She shared the terrace and the sea view often with me, she died of a virus this week, despite receiving the best care in Belize City. Happy games in heaven
7/3/2012
It rained almost all day yesterday, and when it wasn't the sea was still the darkest thing, a charcoal expanse.
Today it is deeply blue and beautiful. The sky is mostly clear and although a low bank of haze and cloud obscures Honduras, the light is shining off the hills of Guatemala. I can even see individual fields above the vast bay.
A three masted schooner is moored over a mile out from town.
5/5/2012
The sea has calmed and cleared, you can see the seabed from the coast road. Whisps of mist hang on the first hills of Guatemala and obscure the rest, the rains have returned with a vengeance. A catamaran is moored a few hundred yards out to sea.
3/3/2012
The sea is a deep green, across which little white horses appear and dissapear. There isn't a cloud in the sky.
2/3/2012
The sky is clear apart from frigate birds and a half moon, and the heat burning. The sea is blue and choppy.
St David's Day
1/3/2012
The sea is as rough as it gets, sheltered behind its reef. The breaking waves have churned up the sea floor making a muddy band along the coast. Beyond that the sea is a deep green.
29/2/2012
The sea is flat and silver, mirroring the overcast brightness. The humid air is filled with birdsong.
28/2/2012
Yesterday when I woke up leaves were flying past the windows, the sea was scattered with foamy waves, and strong gusts of wind shook the house. The hurricane season finished months ago but I was advised to leave the windows open so that the house wouldn't blow down if there was a suprise one. But after more wind and some rain it passed by the afternoon.
Today the sea resembles a soft word spoken by the sky, lying green beneath the clouds.
26/2/2012
The sea was a gentle blue this morning, and one of my Japanese house mates was on the balcony playing 'Scarborough Fair' on a melodeon.
As I've said before I'm reading Joseph Palacio's book about the history of land ownership in the Garifuna village of Barranco, and today I learned about Santiago Avilez. He was born in Honduras just seven years after the Garifuna people were expelled by the British from Saint Vincent, probably arriving here in Punta Gorda in the early nineteenth century.
Oral history tells us that he would travel by dorey down the coast and set his turtle nets where a red ridge served as a landmark. He later wandered ashore and found fresh water and fertile soil, and gradually set up a camp and grew beans to support his short visits to the area. Others began to accompany him, and eventually they stayed, creating the village that gave to the world the music of Andy Palacio and the poetry I quoted a few days ago.
The bay you see in some of the photos was a freer place for travelling then and sadly Santiago was unfaithful - he fathered children by four women in Honduras, Punta Gorda and Livingston (Guatemala). He established a farming area across what is now the international border of the Sarstoon River, which was later farmed by John (Bangi) Avilez, one of his sons who subsequently became a shopkeeper in Barranco in 1906.
Thinking of Santiago in his dorey with his nets and a mind full of women, softly singing songs in the now fast-disappearing Garifuna language, made me think of this poem by Waldo Williams. Here it is translated from the Welsh:
Remembering
Before the sun has left the sky, one minute,
One dear minute, before the journeying night,
To call to mind the things that are forgotten
Now in the dust of ages lost from sight.
Like foam of a wave on a lonely seacoast breaking.
Like the wind's song where there's no ear to mind,
I know they're calling, calling to us vainly-
Old unremembered things of humankind.
The exploit and skill of early generations,
in tiny cottages or mighty hall,
Fine tales that centuries ago were scattered,
The gods that now nobody knows at all.
Little words of old, fugitive languages
That were sprightly on the lips of men,
And pretty to the ear in the talk of children -
That no one's tongue will call on again.
Oh, generations on the earth unnumbered,
Their divine dreams, fragile divinity-
Is only silence left to the hearts' affections
That once rejoiced and grieved as much as we?
Often when I'm alone and it's near nightfall,
I yearn to acknowledge you and know each one.
Is there no way fond memory can keep you,
Forgotten ancient things of humankind?
Such sentiments enter your mind when you get up to 'Scarborough Fair' and the sea. Here is a dorey, photographed last week, that Santiago might have built:
24/2/2012
The sea is a deep green again and the dry season has belatedly arrived. The temperature is steadily rising and flowers are in bloom. I took this photo a few days ago.
23/2/2012
At first there was a mist over the sea and a pale sky, then the sun came out and the moisture rose like a column from between the shore and the horizon. By midday the sea was as green as a copper roof.
22/2/2012
I'm back by the sea and it's warm and humid. A breeze raises the waves but the water is clear and bands of blue and turquoise sea spread away from the shore.
17/2/2012
The wind is warm, blowing off the cayes and raising waves that shine white sunlight so the whole sea becomes a milky blue.
I'm off to inland Belize, so check back on Tuesday for my next update on the sea.
15/2/2012
Today is beautiful and clear with a strong onshore wind. Herds of little white horses are out on the ocean.
This photo I just took shows the view to the northeast, where beyond the boat you can see the first cayes marking the reef which stretches all the way north to Mexico.
14/2/2012
The sea was listless and pale this morning beneath an overcast sky, then this afternoon became blue and joyful beneath the sun and a brisk wind.
At lunch I could help a Garifuna sculptor sandpaper some driftwood that might turn into a seamonster. He's reading the Mabinogion and loving it, so I'll post a translated Garifuna poem contained in his cousin Joseph Palacio's recent book on land tenure in Barranco:
How Beautiful the Sunrise
How Beautiful the sunrise
Giving light to the Earth
The sea grins, happily showing its teeth
The leaves on the trees happily frolic
The writer says
"They are all speaking"
What do they say? What do they say?
13/2/2012
The sea is lighter than the clouds hanging low over the horizon. Beneath their grey, almost purple shades the sea appears the palest turquoise.
11/2/2012
The water is very clear today following a few days of calm. Some light is breaking through the clouds onto the sea. The mountains of Honduras are unusually clear today, as you can see in the photo.
10/2/2012
The sea is streaked with different shades of blue in soft lines; darker, lighter, darker, lighter... Yesterday's story got published in the end, so no more interruptions to the beautiful sea.
8/2/2012
It is hazy but the glare from the sun sparkles of the sea. The air is humid, it is market day and the streets are full of shoppers and campaigners for the political parties.
7/2/2012
When the sun first rose it was the same colour and size as a streetlight next to it, still alight in the town centre. Within half an hour it was illuminating the whole sky flecked with cloudlets and shining off the waves. Now the day has become overcast, and the horizon lies dark grey beneath the sheepswool sky.
6/2/2012
The sea was a deep dark blue when we were cycling to lunch, now we're totally soaked from the cycle back. Such is the weather in PG at the moment, and the poor sea doesn't know what colour to be.
5/2/2012
But for a couple of whisps the sky is without a cloud, the sea is a pale grey beneath the glare with the waves reflecting the sunlight.
Today people will carry umbrellas to protect their skin, and some will swim to the north of town while keeping an eye out for the crocodile said to live by the creek mouth.
4/2/2012
A day of sun and cloud and rain again.
This morning in Punta Gorda, Belize:
This is a dorey hoping to miss downpours this morning. All little boats around here are called doreys, although they can be totally different from each other.
Mennonites looking at fish in the water.
3/2/2012
Yesterday I was off to Belize City at 4.30 in the morning, so only saw the sea when I got there. Liners were moored by the reef in the distance. The toursists are brought to the city on small boats as it's shallow thereabouts, which is why the British pirates first used the area as a refuge from the deepwater Spanish ships that couldn't follow them.
The sea today is a gentle grey, lighter than the sky filled with rain clouds.
1/2/2012
Early on the sea was splashed with dazzling sunlight while rain fell on the town. Fresh downfalls roam across the area, water fills the potholes around which cyclists peddle while holding umbrellas.
People are beginning to get worried about the weather. A ten-day weather forecast shows ten days of rain turning into thunderstorms, and this is supposed to be the dry season.
31/1/2012
The sea is a suggestion through the rain, shades of grey are everywhere. Yesterday I met an old couple flown in from Canada, going to Guatemala to find yachts to crew. They want to make their way to Panama.
30/1/2012
The sea is the palest turquoise, the sun hasn't cleared a low bank of cloud over the horizon, so can only edge the higher clouds with gold.
Yesterday people were collecting all the seaweed washed to shore by recent choppy weather, taking out the litter, and putting it in sacks. Almost every plant is used here.
27/1/2012
Yesterday evening the sea was calm and the sky clear of clouds but full of frigatebirds, which usually means something will happen. Then at night a long and soundless lightning storm erupted in the west, giving flashes of unguessed clouds. Living in a small country means that most lightning is international, that was striking the hills in Guatemala.
This morning I got up to the sound of drums, a Garifuna funeral was happening on my street with lots of singing and incense.
26/01/2012
Dawn is breaking over the sea in pink and orange. A far bank of cloud hangs purple over the southern horizon, and the sea is a very dark blue.
25/1/2012
I was away from the sea yesterday, but today was the most beautiful weather that has happened since I've been in Belize. A strong breeze making the sea fairly rough, and the seagulls and pelican sat on the quay at lunch were having to work at staying there. There was lots of sun but never too hot, and the sea in the afternoon was more than blue, there was purple in it.
23/1/2012
There's a brisk onshore wind and lots of sun, so the sea is a sparkling blue with a thousand flashes of silver.
22/1/2012
Inland the dawn clouds don't want to leave the jungle on the mountains. The morning is humid, there is high pressure and a feeling of listlessness fitting for a Sunday. The sea is strangely dark, but paler closer to shore.
21/1/2012
So much for settled weather: bands of heavy rain passed over here during the night. This morning the haze in the east is so thick that - apart from a couple of patches of sunlight glistening on the waves - the sea is invisible. The rest is the same hazy brightness as the sky.
Here's a playlist for sea watching:
Bob Dylan, Sara
New Model Army, Marry the Sea
Mazzy Star, Blue Light
Jack Johnson, Constellations
Bic Runga, Precious Things
Jodee James Evans, Ffarwel i Aberystwyth
20/1/2012
Over the last couple of days the weather has changed so fast I haven't known what to say about the colour of the sea. Yesterday the sky was a threatening brown at dawn, then grey beneath the rain an hour later, then laced with stripes of green and glistening silver beneath windblown clouds by midmorning. By late afternoon the weather had played tricks that brought the coast of Guatemala closer, and the Gulf of Honduras resembled an inland lake.
Today it is a pastel blue beneath a morning that is sunny but not too bright. The rain has left a haze but the empty horizon promises settled weather ahead.
18/1/2011
Today is sunny and breezy. I went for a cycle that took me back past the sea where a group of Magnificent Frigatebirds were circling low over the coast road. They were huge and as fascinated with me as I was with them; they don't see many cyclists out on the Atlantic. An isolated rainstorm stood like a wide column of darkness on the horizon, otherwise it was all brightness.
Today is the anniversary of Ruben Dario's birth in 1867. The Nicaraguan father of Spanish language modernism, Guatemalan paper Prensa Libre has published one of his poems, that begins about the sea. It's filtered through Google Translate so apologies for the formatting:
A Margarita Debayle
Margarita, the sea is beautiful,
and the wind
carries subtle essence of orange blossom,
I feel
in my soul a lark sing
your accent.
Margaret, I'll tell you a story.
This was a king who had a palace of diamonds, a tent made of the day and a herd of elephants, a kiosk of malachite, a large mantle tissue, and a gentle princess, so beautiful, Margarita, as pretty as you.
One afternoon the princess saw a star appear, the princess was naughty and wanted to go to catch. He wanted to make decorating a pin, with a verse and a pearl, and a pen and a flower. The dainty princess look a lot like you: cut lilies, roses, cut, cut stars. Are. For it was the beautiful girl,under the sky and the sea, to cut the white star that made her sigh.
And he went up the road, by the moon and beyond, but the trouble is that she was without the permission of Dad. When he was already back in the parks of the Lord, he looked all wrapped in a sweet glow. And the king said, "What have you done? I have searched and not found you, and what's on your chest, that you look on? "
The princess was not lying. And thus spoke the truth: "I cut my star to the blue immensity. "
And the king cried: "Did not I tell you that the blue do not touch ? crazy! What whim!The Lord is going to be mad. "
And she says: "There was no attempt, I was not sure why, by the waves and the wind went to the star and the Court. "
And the father says angrily: "A punishment you must have: back to heaven, and the stolen go now to return. "
The princess is saddened by her sweet flower of light, when then appears smiling the Good Jesus. And so it says " In my countryside that rose I offered: are my flower girls to think of me dreaming. "
Wear bright clothes the king, and then paradedfour elephants on the banks of the sea. The princess is beautiful, it already has pin they look, with the star, line, pearls, feathers and flowers.Margarita is beautiful sea, and the wind carries subtle essence of orange:your breath. away from me Because you'll be, guardian, child, a Gentile thought that one day you wanted to tell a story.
16/1/2012
Yesterday the sea was invisible behind curtains of rain, but this morning it is a deep turquoise with white breakers. Brisk gusts of wind come ashore and the air feels like that of Aberystwyth as vultures are transported sideways across the sky. The frigatebirds look at home, however, hanging above the town as motionless as they would over the middle of the Atlantic.
14/1/2012
The sea is all a light shade of turquoise, and I can just make out the waves on the surface. Above it a bank of dark cumulus threatens more rain, although the rest of the sky is clear and pale blue.
13/1/2012
The sky was filled with storm clouds at dawn and the sea lay all meek and quiet below. Some clouds were pointed and purple like stylised representations in Japanese painting, others were thick blankets of grey and blue wool, forboding rain despite some yellow stretches of clear sky.
I cycled to the shore before starting work and the tiny waves could barely muster a noise.
Sorry for no post yesterday, I was too impressed to write anything after the 219th meeting of the American Astronomical Society determined the exact colour of the Milky Way: "If you looked at new spring snow about an hour after dawn or an hour before sunset, you'd see the same spectrum of light that an alien astronomer in another Galaxy would see looking at the Milky Way", said Professor Jeffrey Newman of the University of Pittsburgh. Sounds like something Donald Barthelme wrote.
11/1/2012
There was soft dawn light when I came onto the balcony this morning, everywhere glowed softly except the sea. The sun itself hadn't yet risen, and so a cumulus cloud in the east was dark beneath the silver and yellow sky, appearing the same shade of grey as the water.
Now the sky is clear and the day has heated up, but to the south there is a wall of haze. Guatemala's mountains have disappeared, there is just a faint outline of its coast that looks more like a fold of mist on the sea.
10/1/2012
Early this morning the sea was silver with a few stretches of cloud shadow. Now the sky is blue, the air is hot, and a schooner from Canada is moored 200 metres from the shore.
9/1/2012
The wind has produced a choppy sea and the sun is breaking through in patches. Half-way out there is a streak of glistening silver, then more shady grey, then a light horizon.
8/1/2012
It has only just stopped raining: The sky is mottled grey next to a yellow glare filtering through by the horizon. The sea is a weaker yellow with grey shadows made by the waves.
This picture is of the sea by Barranco, which I visited a few days ago.
7/1/2012
The first really cloudless morning and I was up at dawn: the sky was yellow and the sea the very palest grey. Within an hour the air was hot and the sea a line of dancing silver on blue.
6/1/2012
The sea is a heavy and monochrome grey beneath a luminous sky filled with light and dark. The sun is just concealed behind a slab of thick cloud; stray cloudlets above that are a bright gold, as if speaking of the sun's frustration. Above the sea the sky is brown; rain is falling near the horizon - perhaps its raining on Jamaica and Cuba away to the northwest, beyond the curve of the earth. The air is cold, a tropical chill, and a flock of pigeons make the morning strangely remeniscent of home.
5/1/2012
The sea is grey and turquois below a grey sky. The air is fresh, with a cool onshore breeze.
4/1/2012
This morning is one of those rare times when the sea is lighter than the sky, creating the dreamy atmosphere of a stage set.
As if the grey arc of clouds and the darker gardens and houses were illuminated by some gentle and concealed lighting.
3/1/2012
The sea is a stripe of white oil paint behind the tracery of palm fonds and phone lines.
The heavy atmosphere of New Year was followed by two nights and a day of rain. Water flows along ditches between gardens, below the songs of birds perched in branches. Above them pale clouds hang motionless.
New Year's Day
1/1/2012
Overhead it's sunny and the light is burning. Plantain leaves stir in the gusts of humid air that cause palm fonds to whisper.
Towards the coast many types of cloud bank against each other, white fading to grey above the sea making the horizon indescernible. The sky is empty of birds and the heat, humidity, and the undecided wind suggest a storm.
Yesterday I watched pelicans swim through a choppy sea off the town of Barranco; their pale forms against the dark waves overshadowed by the mountians of Guatemala close and high behind them.
30/12/2011
The sea is sparkling, each wave blown by an offshore breeze catching the sun in hosts of flashes.
Rainclouds drift in an otherwise blue sky, sometimes showering the town that had baked in the morning glare, sometimes, spent, allowing it to bathe in sunlight again.
29/12/2011
The sea is a heavy grey beneath a blanket of cloud.
The trees in the garden are lit up with dampness; the night's raindrops still balanced on the wide banana leaves.
28/12/2011
By the shore the sea is as slick as oil; lines of silver ripples come soundlessly to the seabank. The breeze plays on it further out, darkens it, except for the blaze of light below the sun.
Then looking back from a distance, the whole sea is silver; a shining belt seen through the waking streets.
27/12/2011
An honest (or unimaginative?) painter would colour the sea and the sky immediately above it in tones of grey. The light is blinding and you feel it burning your skin in under a minute, but the blueness above through which a host of vultures soar - so high as to be as small as sandflies - is not reflected beneath.
Another painter might choose white for the glare of heat, or fleck it with purple or indigo for its suggestion that out there on the waves is some release from the sun, from the discomfort on land. It's a morning that gives you the desire to be on a sailing ship, watching the high vultures dwindle into invisibilty before the cluster of houses in their mangrove coast dissapear over the horizon.
Boxing Day
26/12/11
A hummingbird is flitting between the banana trees looking for a flower to drink from but they are all wilted.
A wall of pregnant cloud approaches from the sea lying jade green and muted beneath.
Frigate birds circle high above the town, and butterflies pass through the gardens in yellow and white.
Christmas morning
25/12/2011
The sea is shining beneath a bank of rain clouds that stretch along the horizon.
The sky is otherwise clear, though a paler blue than normal; the dampness that fell last night as rain has not completely gone.
Cockerels are crowing and hymns are floating across the tin roofs. Children are releasing fireworks that are exploding invisibly in the daylight; they speak to me of the downpour that halted the Christmas Eve festivities before midnight.