Arizona Hiking and Camping

6/24/09

The past two weekends found us hiking in and around ancient ruins during both a day trip to Red House Ruin and Loy Butte Ruin and an overnight camping trip to Sycamore Canyon where we saw the Two Roof Ruin. The ruin sites were really incredible the way they were all perched high up the mountainsides in overhang and cave-type areas. At the ruins in Red House and Loy Butte Ruins we were also able to see some pictographs which were fascinating. I got so many great pictures that I will try and figure out how to put a slideshow of them on this site - but, until then, here are just a few.

I did great with the hiking and the camping parts of the trip but had some trouble during our second day in Sycamore Canyon with my stupid “fear-of-falling” thing and just could not make my mind and body cooperate to get me to two ruin sites that David wanted to show me. These things literally are on the side of a rock face and you have to scramble up loose rock high up on the mountainside to get to them. I was on my way from one to another when I just froze and couldn’t go any further. I guess that’s something I’m going to have to work on. The good part was that it caused us to just sit where we were for a while and the views from that kind of vantage point are wonderful. David was kind and gentle and patient, as always, and managed to get me down from the perch safe and sound despite my lack of confidence in myself that I could ever actually move from that spot.

One of the most amazing things out here is how far you can see in every direction and then how beautiful and changing the view is from one moment to the next. Another amazing thing is how few, if any, people you encounter out in the park areas. A reason for the latter could certainly be the roads you have to take to get to the “really good” spots. We borrowed a 4-wheel drive Land Rover from one of David’s friends to make the trip to Sycamore Canyon and I don’t think we could have made the trip without it. The only other vehicles we saw way out near our camping spot were of the 4-wheel ATV-type and there were only two of them the whole weekend. Not to mention that the main access to even get to the park area was a narrow (used to be a railroad there) gravel road right on the side of the mountains with no guard rail! Lord have mercy. Try that in a jeep that has no doors!

Other than that it has been business as usual here in Jerome. David is busy with his job and home projects and I’ve been busy hacking away at the blackberry vines, trying out different recipes to use all the apricots that are ripening on the trees (the plums are just getting ripe also) and doing my funky painting thing in my own little “studio”. We are due to fly back to FL on Sunday and I can hardly wait to see my sweet baby kitties. I can only hope that they are not going to be too upset with me for leaving them for a month.

I’ve been learning the names of some new-to-me plants and flowers and I think my favorite name to date is a Fairy Feather Duster! Oh, and before I forget, here is a picture of an alligator juniper.

Jerome, AZ

6/9/09

Arizona is beautiful and Jerome is great. There are no pictures that I will be able to take and post on this site that will do the scenery justice. It is just amazing to me how every time you look at the mountains and the valleys here you see a completely different picture depending on the sun, the clouds, the time of day, etc. It is a continually gorgeous changing landscape and it feels as though you can see forever.

Last Saturday evening there was a Gallery Walk in Jerome and I was in art heaven. The incredible thing here is that at least every other store front is a gallery and the variety, intensity, and quality of the art in this town is spectacular. Other than art galleries, eateries and wine bars there is little else here other than houses for the few residents of Jerome. It’s a small place on the side of a mountain that is quite the spot for tourists on the weekends. All in all, a very cool place and it definitely feels like home already.

Last Sunday we took the day to hike around in the Prescott National Forest and, once again, saw some amazing vistas from the various overlooks. I’m also being treated to an entirely different vegetation landscape and was introduced on Sunday to one of the neatest looking trees I have ever seen called an Alligator Juniper. I’ll have to go back sometime soon and try to get some good pictures of these trees to show you. They are stunning in both their graceful beauty and their incredible age. The weather has been spectacular here with lows in the 50’s and highs during the day, depending on whether you are in the mountains or down in the valley, anywhere between the low 80’s and the mid-90’s.

The front porch of David’s house (one of my favorite spots just to sit) overlooks the valley and several mountain ranges and is visited all the time by all types of wonderful birds including constant action from the hummingbirds at the feeder. There are many different kinds of fruit trees on the property including apricot, peach, plumcot, and apple. Some of these trees were being taken over by way-prickly blackberry vines so I have been doing a slow constant battle with the vines and prickers so that we will eventually have a non-invaded orchard-garden space. I’ve also added to my skill set the ability to drill holes in steel plates and I’m now, if you can believe it, driving a big red pickup truck! What’s next is anybody’s guess. I say bring it on. David has set me up a little art studio space in one of his outbuildings and I’m having a great time getting back into paint and clay. And have I told you about David’s fantastic two kitties, Ace Cowboy and Fox Man? I do miss Cocoa and Puddinhead (and have reports that they are doing just great with their Sebastian Foster Mom!) but Ace Cowboy and Fox Man are making me feel right at home.

Here’s an amazing thing about AZ for those of you, like me, that have never lived out this way. The kitchen sink sponge actually gets completely dry between uses! Every time I pick it up I’m amazed. It’s the little things, you know. Here’s another factoid tidbit for the newbies like me – out here they outline the first initial of the town in big white stones up on the mountainside over each town. Here is a picture of Jerome’s “J”.

We are planning to go camping with friends this coming weekend so perhaps I will have some interesting camping-type photos to share in the next post. The real deal will be to see just what kind of a camper I make since I haven’t been camping since I was a girl scout – an even then, I only did it once or twice and don’t remember being very good at any of it. I think all I was good at in girl scouts was selling cookies!

Bahamas to Arizona

5/29/09

Well, here’s the wrap up on our Bahamas trip. We stayed an extra couple of days anchored in White Sound off of Green Turtle Cay due to some really rainy/windy conditions. It was an excellent place to be for that kind of weather and a real plus since we continued to visit with our new friends in their house just off the Sound.

The weather cooperated toward the end of the week and we began our sail north to stage for a crossing to FL on Sunday. The days were filled with sailing/motoring and dodging intermittent thundershowers. We made it back to FL in the Port St. Lucie area late on Sunday, May 24th where we anchored for the night. Monday we headed up to Sebastian and anchored off of Captain Hiram’s and then spent Tuesday and Wednesday getting the boat secured in a dock space there, visiting with David's family and getting all our errands run before leaving early Thursday morning on a flight to David’s home in Jerome, AZ. The sweet babies, Cocoa and Puddinhead, are now with a wonderful Foster Mom in Sebastian for the month of June. We figured it might be better to spare them having to spend the month making the plane trip out to AZ to live in yet another new place – this time with two other cats – only to get back on a plane in just four short weeks. I think they were just pleased to be off the rolling seas for a while! Meanwhile, Carib II will be partying down at Captain Hiram’s while we are away.

We are now in AZ, David is back at work and I have already joined a gym for the month and squeezed in my first workout. Boy did that feel good. I’ve got exercise equipment on the boat but it just isn’t the same as really getting to work the machines, use the treadmill and the elliptical. I’ll look forward to getting some good pictures of the sites in this part of the world and the next installment will be brought to you from the mountains of Arizona.

Marsh Harbour, Hope Town, Man-O-War, Great Guana and Green Turtle Cays

5/17/09

David’s last entry in the Blog makes a hard act to follow, but I guess it is back to the travelogue now. While staying in Marsh Harbor we met up with several boaters who were getting ready for their summer season of taking groups Boy scouts (or Sea scouts, or something of the sort) onboard for a week at a time for 6-8 weeks. It sounds like quite the adventure but I’m not sure it would be the kitties’ idea of a good time. Two of these boat owners had built their boats by themselves and we got to talk to them at length about their boats and share stories. We also met the woman who champions the Wild Horses of Abaco and also runs the Marsh Harbour Buck-a-Book store (or storage shed, as the case may be).

It seems that the boating world here in the Abacos is, at least from what we have seen, much different than what we experienced in the Exumas and Eleuthera. In the southern islands there was quite an abundance of REALLY BIG yachts – the kind that have good size fishing boats travel along behind them for whenever they decide to go for a fishing jaunt. Here in the Abacos we have hardly seen any of the mega-yachts. The waters are populated much more with smaller sailing vessels, many of which are vintage boats not unlike Carib II. It has been very fun meeting other boaters who will stop by in their dinghies just to say hi and to ask about Carib II. One of the guys we met while we were in Little Harbour is an artist who works from his boat there and we got to see some of his work in a gallery in Marsh Harbour.

After leaving Marsh Harbour we did go back to Hope Town just to see the sites. It is such a quaint, quiet, walking town. Very picturesque. This, of course, is where we delighted in sighting Carib III! From there we skipped over to Man-O-War Cay which is just as picturesque but in a different way due to the less ornate style of architecture. There is a wonderful historical museum on this Cay which was great fun because everything on display was just right out in the open – no bars, ropes or barriers to keep you away from the artifacts. Man-O-War Cay is also still quite a place for boatbuilding and we had some great conversations with some of the long-time residents. Another thing I have to mention – the flowering bushes and trees here on every island are absolutely beautiful! I don’t think I have ever seen bougainvillea like this anywhere else.

From Man-O-War we moved on to Great Guana Cay where our friends from Cocoa, Bob and Chris, stay for several months out of the year on their boat, Leap of Faith. It was such a rare treat to get to see them and they even surprised us with a big homemade welcome dinner! Our second night on the island we went with them to the infamous Nippers which was great fun and good food. The next morning Chris tracked us down around breakfast time and presented me with one of their new Sea Glass jewelry designs – a fabulous ankle bracelet! That night they were able to join us for a tour of Carib II and a dinner aboard. It is such a blessing to have good friends and makes me miss those of you I am not seeing now all the more!

Today we left Great Guana Cay and traversed the Whale area but instead of going off shore around the Whale (for those of you who have not traveled this way – it is an area that can be somewhat treacherous and you have to wait for just the right weather, wind and sea conditions) we went through what is known as the Don’t Rock Passage. This is an area where you also have to be very careful about weather conditions when traversing this passage but it is also very shallow. The good news is – we made it with no problems at all and the sweet babies didn’t even get seasick today. Yeah!!! So tonight we are anchored off Green Turtle Cay and we just got back from a short walk around the New Plymouth settlement. Once again – a very picturesque place with beautifully maintained old homes, some of which date back to the late 1700’s. We saw an interesting site here – they are actually using old cannons placed end up in the water next to the shoreline as a place to tie off your boat line. We also came across what appeared to be a “wishing tree” with old floats hanging from it painted with things like “Get Well”, “Thinking of You”, etc. Since it is Sunday the vast majority of the town was boarded up for the day so we will go back in the morning to take tour of the Albert Lowe Museum and the Model Ship Store and Gallery.

5/18/09

Yesterday some guys came up alongside of us in another older boat built in 1934. They traded stories with David and invited us to their house today for hot showers (yippee!), use of a strong internet connection, dinner and drinks. This life is just blowing me away. For those of you who might be interested, the house is one they also rent out when they are not here. It is a beautiful, spacious place with a great pool and barbeque deck overlooking White Sound in Green Turtle Cay. The whole place opens up to the outside and the breeze is just delicious everywhere in the house. Kind-of-like being on the boat!

A Bolt Out Of The Blue

5/13/09 - A message from David

A most wonderful thing happened today. While walking around Hopetown, Lisa and I came to the north end of the island where the footpath ended at the water with a view of the harbor entrance and the bay beyond. Off in the distance I could see an old U.S. Army landing craft approaching, a smallish one about 50 feet long known as a LCM-8.

Remembering my last trip to the Exumas and Staniel Cay 3 years ago when my friend, Flo, told me that the natives needed a freighter because the mailboat was charging exorbitant freight rates and that her people could not afford the materials needed to maintain their homes, I said to Lisa, “That is what we need for our next boat”.

Not that we would ever let go of Carib II, no way, only that it was the correct craft to assist us in following our inspiration to help out the native population in the spirit of the brotherhood of man that we feel so evident here in the Out Islands of the Bahamas.

It would also be the best boat to freight in materials to build our own place when we finally are ready to commit to an island home here in the nearest thing to a paradise that we have found.

As the landing craft rounded the curve in the channel, the stern swung into view and revealed the name painted there upon it,,,, “Carib III”. The powerful shockwave of such a blatant affirmation washing over my consciousness was immediate and continues yet within me, moving me to sweet tears as I write this. I have to take this event as ratification by my Creator of the rightness of such an idea.

As one who has spent his whole life looking for clues about my largest Purpose and sifting my experience for them, it is beyond my ability to imagine being delivered a more powerful message than for me see Carib III written on her stern. It was one of those soul changing moments of God manifested on this plane, jumping up and down and yelling, “Yes!” in my face. It blasts the mind out of thinking that we are anything but a connected piece of an Infinite Perfection that is usually more subtle but will on occasion come out and yell at us about something important. It comes to me as an instruction, that the doing deserves the effort to make it happen.

The Out Island native Bahamians started their existence as slaves newly freed in the 1830’s. They were given their independence and encouraged to settle on the uninhabited islands of the 700 total Bahamian islands, but had very few resources or tools. The hardships continue to this day. In a nation where food costs twice what does in the US and ways to generate money are few, merely living simply is an ever present challenge.

The genuine friendliness of this native population has always impressed me deeply. It comes from an ability to rise above what could be suffering and to live with an appreciation for what they do have. There is a spirit more in evidence here than in any other place I have traveled that accepts me as another fellow human member of the Brotherhood of Man. The usual greeting is a sincere, “Hey, how you doing?”

All real boatmen also show me this higher sense of human conscious evolution too. It manifests as a willingness to help another who is personally unknown to them. The willingness to risk one’s own safety to assist another in imminent peril is a beautiful thing that I first experienced while serving in the US Coast Guard as an engineer on their small boats running search and rescue duty in the late 60’s in Florida’s Gulfstream.

There seems to have to be a scarcity of fellow inhabitants on this planet nearby in order to assist in the manifestation of this spirit of involved concern for an unknown other human. It is a demonstration of the inclusive nature of our earth tribe. Too much exposure to large populations quenches this drive for most.

Gregory Town, Spanish Wells, Little Harbour, Hope Town and Marsh Harbour

5/9/09

Staying an extra couple of days anchored in Annie Bight just off Gregory Town was really great. The Laughing Lizard Café not only had an excellent lunch menu (yumm – a big green veggie laden salad covered with a mound of jerk chicken!) but it also had free internet and lots of interesting local traffic and conversation. It is right across the street from where Lenny Kravits (sp?) has his place. We took that afternoon to walk all around an old family compound that was on the bluff overlooking Annie Bight. The views were quite spectacular from all different areas of this spot and we got some great pictures of the boat in the bight.

At one point during our stay in Annie Bight a guy named Adam and his big dog swam up to the boat to just ask about it, came aboard for a tour (fortunately the dog went ashore because I’m not sure we could have gotten him on the boat) and it turns out he is a former competitive sailor. He is a local native from Nassau and realtor who also happens to work tending Lenny Kravits' organic vegetable farm. He asked if he could hitch a ride with us as far as we were going the next day so he and his French wife came aboard for the sail to Spanish Wells. They were really a great young couple and it was lots of fun to hear all about the local culture, land deals, history, etc. all along the way. During this trip David caught a Barracuda which was much better than the string of Lizard Fish he had caught during previous sailing days. As we came into Spanish Wells Adam gave us the local take on the Spanish Wellsians (always makes my mind go to the Ellen Jamsiens from John Irving’s The World According to Garp just because my brain is weird that way) and it really is quite different from the Bahamian Islands we have visited to date. It almost puts one in mind of a small New England fishing village. Adam and his wife also were very generous in their gift to us of several grocery bags full of freshly picked vegetables, fruit and herbs. What a treat! We found out later that night that Cocoa has thing for dried Coriander. Go figure!

The next day we left Spanish Wells and went to the ocean by way of Gun Point which was really quite beautiful with loads of coconut palms and wide sweeping vistas of both the harbour and the ocean. It was a beautiful day with a light breeze and big, easy, evenly spaced ocean swells. At least the swells seamed OK to me until I went below and found out that they were definitely not OK with the kitties. Poor babies. I really need to get better at determining just when to administer the Dramamine. But, we made it safely to Little Harbour in the Abacos, after a 60 mile run across the open Atlantic, passing along the way the visual spectacle of the “boilers” which is where the big ocean surf runs into a reef just off the coast of the southern part of the Abacos. It looks as though there are just huge bursts of water being spit directly up into the air out of the ocean. We anchored for the night just outside of Little Harbour and then moved this morning into Little Harbour where we picked up a mooring for the day and went ashore for lunch at Pete’s Pub and a tour of the Randolph and Peter Johnston Gallery – beautiful sculpture! We took a little dinghy tour around the harbor and found on the far side away from Pete’s Pub what looks to actually be a cave for sale. Do you suppose that is anything like having swamp land for sale in Florida?

5/11/09

Yesterday we took a quick tour through Hope Town and saw the sites from the Hope Town Lighthouse. It was a beautiful day and the views were spectacular. The lighthouse itself was pretty impressive, as well. Since it was Sunday there was not much open in the town so we are hoping to go back there in the next day or two to take in the galleries, little shops and hopefully, a coffee house before moving on to Man-o-War Cay and Guana Cay.

After Hope Town we came into Marsh Harbour to anchor for the night and today we have done some wandering around town. It is quite different here in that it is like a real town with real shops, grocery stores, hardware stores, etc. I feel as though we have come in from the outback. David and I were just wandering around one of the grocery stores like we had never before seen fresh produce or fresh packaged meat. It is quite amazing what we get used to and take for granted every day in the States. We have met some folks here that spend the summer months taking boy scouts out for a week at a time on their vessels and they have some great stories to tell. The kitties are happy that we are anchored in a calm harbour and right now it is all hands and paws on deck to enjoy the sunny afternoon. It is another fabulous day in paradise!