Category Archives: Paula

A smoke-shortened month

24 Thursday Sep 2020

Posted by in Oregon, Paula, USA

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Wednesday Sept. 9, I first noted smoke as part of our day. We continued to spend time outdoors as we learned about the AQI (air quality index) and began following it as closely as we do Covid-19 stats. We tried to go out at first, but the air was yellowish with smoke. Oregon’s terribly destructive forest fires are not near us, but the smoke cast a pall over the entire west coast from San Diego to Seattle.

Ecola State Park in the smog

Two days later, we knew we had to stay indoors all day. I had an eye appointment in Portland, but that involved ducking out of the car and into the office, then reversing the process. The days were still and smog-filled. If the sun was visible, it was a pale yellow circle, flat and distant. There was almost no wind at all, when normally the wind always blows, everyone setting up their windbreaks on the beach. The smog hung all around us. After five straight days spent indoors or in the car, we were pretty tired of the inside of our (cute, but small) house, reading books, cooking, cleaning, doing crosswords, and looking at each other. Daily fluctuations in the AQI only go so far in the world of entertainment. Finally, it began to rain and the air became breathable.

More than a week later, it was finally safe to go out, and we celebrated with a trip to Hug Point, where I found a piece of beach glass (surely a good omen), and we saw mussels of a good size for eating. Only Oregon residents can get a permit to collect these treasures of the sea, so I advised my sister Paula to get a permit before she arrived. We collected mussels, Jonathan cleaned them, then they steamed in white wine and garlic. We added salad and french bread, accompanied by more wine, and imagined ourselves in Brussels or Paris.

While we were sheltering from the smoke, the dry season in Oregon appears to have ended, and today there are strong winds and lots of rain. If it lets up we’ll go out, but if not we’ll be indoors once more, this time prisoners of the pelting rain and wind.

When it’s good, it’s really, really good, and the days we’ve been able to get outdoors have been priceless. Haystack Rock is the landmark of Cannon Beach, OR, but as we walk or drive south, we’ve visited Silver Point, Humbug Point, Hug Point, and we’re still going. There are beautiful offshore rocks and long beaches.

  • Haystack Rock
  • Hug Point
  • Sea anemones
  • Hug Point
  • Humbug Point
  • Necanicum Estuary
  • Necanicum Estuary
  • Musselling at Hug Point

One day, we skipped over a long stretch of coast to visit Tillamook, famous for dairy products. The line to get into the factory store proved to be too long for us, and we continued out to the coast to visit Short Beach, a wonderful beach full of driftwood and waterfalls. It is also a beach that people visit with buckets. When we inquired from the third group that passed us, we found that Short Beach is a place that is popular for hunting agates.

  • Waterfall, Short Beach
  • Windblown bushes
  • Waterfall, Short Beach

We have made the best of our outdoor days. With luck, the rain will let up and we’ll get back outside before the month ends and it’s time to move on.

About Aruba

06 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by in Aruba, Paula

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We don’t consider ourselves to be on vacation, but we had a wonderful two weeks of vacation in Aruba–it’s too hot to call it anything else. Here’s my advice based on our visit.

Airbnb

We rented a house in Savaneta that was quirky but worked well for us. I didn’t think a pool was very important since we were so close to the ocean in Aruba, but I had no idea how hot and humid it is just sitting still. A pool lets you sit around outside for a while reading or writing or whatever you enjoy and when you feel really hot you can take a dip and feel refreshed without a hike to the beach or drive in a hot car. We swam at least twice a day.

The covered patio and pool were a highlight, especially since there were shaded spaces at either end of the pool so you could be in the shade morning or evening. There were colored lights you could turn on at night..and a tiki bar….Jonathan did almost all our cooking on the grill in the tiki bar/kitchen on the patio. Air conditioning is the essential ingredient for a happy stay in Aruba, “One Happy Island”, and ours worked well. Only one bath had hot water though that was rarely an issue.

Climate

If you have delicate skin you might consider another destination for your vacation. We all got as much sun in two weeks in Aruba as we might in an entire summer in the US. Most activities involve being outdoors or in the ocean, with breaks to jump in the pool. The temperature is at least 80°F all day and night. After a week we all felt like human potato chips. Between the salt and the sun, your skin dries out completely. Liberal application of sunscreen and lip balm can ward off burns and blisters, but it’s really impossible to avoid the sun entirely. On the other hand, why would you visit Aruba and plan to stay out of the sun?

Driving

Driving our rental car was no problem in Aruba, it’s just like the US. Roads are narrow and not always in good repair. Rental cars need to stay on reasonable surfaces, they are too low for the really bumpy unpaved roads. If you are going to be in Aruba for a week or more you might consider renting a jeep or other high-centered vehicle for a day or two to explore the Arikok National Park and the north/east coast of the island. There are wonderful small beaches and inlets to visit. The mighty power of the crashing waves is remarkable. We were able to visit much of the area, but barely made it over some of the rough spots in our rental car even with two experienced off-roaders in charge.

Money

Aruba has its own currency, the Aruba Florin (AFL). Change a $20 but don’t bother getting more. You’ll only use it for the occasional soft drink. Local people do all their shopping in florins, but prices aimed at foreigners (restaurants, supermarket, gift shops, even the flea market) are almost always in dollars—vendors don’t seem to want florins and often charge double the dollar price in florins. That is, a $10 item costs 20 florins. The problem is that a florin is worth about $ .75, meaning that you just paid $15 for a $10 item by using the local currency. Not worth it.

Language

Aruba is united by the local language, Papiamento. All local people speak it among themselves and it’s a quick guide to who is local and who is not. If you can understand someone, they’re tourists, or working with tourists. People from Aruba are Dutch citizens and school children learn Papiamento, Dutch and English. Many people also speak Spanish, especially if their family came to the island from Colombia or Venezuela. It’s pretty impressive to find your average person speaks at least three languages. People working with tourists often speak five or six. Be careful what you say!

Shopping

There is a lot of publicity about shopping in Aruba, but it’s shopping for items imported from other places. This part of the Dutch Caribbean is a desert island. Its industry is tourism–there isn’t much that is made in Aruba itself. There’s some local white rum, including Palmera, there’s locally brewed Balashi beer, some aloe products, and a very few local crafts. Everything else is made elsewhere, stamped Aruba and brought in by the container-load.

There are no markets like there are in Central and South America because there are no local food products. We found fresh fish but it took some effort. There’s only fresh fish when someone goes out fishing and fishermen don’t go out every day. Some of the best known fish restaurants serve frozen imported fish and shrimp most of the time.

Water

Aruba has no natural surface water, and all water comes from an impressively large desalination plant that serves the entire island. Everyone drinks the tap water and it is very pure. We drank the water and put ice in our drinks from our first day and had no stomach troubles. It saves a lot of plastic bottles.

 

Snorkeling in Aruba

04 Saturday Aug 2018

Posted by in Aruba, Paula

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Our Airbnb house had snorkeling equipment and I found enough to fit, though Jonathan found that his knees don’t much like snorkeling any more. We went snorkeling at Rodgers Beach, in sight of the former refinery, and saw many small fish. We found even better underwater terrain right by our house at Savaneta beach. The shore is a mix of rocks and sand and it was a bit of a balancing act to put on fins. Once in the water, though, visibility was excellent and we saw clouds of tiny fish along with some bigger ones. The small patch of mangrove seems to have been home to the billows of minnows of several species. We watched tiny black fish defending the sunken tire or coral covered brick that was their home base from all kinds of larger interlopers. At Savaneta Beach we met a group of men who usually have lunch on the table we happened to be using. They ended up advising us to try Boca Catalina on the north end of the island, which is a lovely beach with bigger fish than at Savaneta.

We returned to Savaneta for one last exploration because Wayne wanted to reach the barrier island that was a couple hundred yards off the Savaneta dock. With snorkel and fins that distance is no problem when there isn’t fast moving water or marine traffic, so we crossed with relative ease. I’m reminded that I don’t really like the deep water when I can’t see the bottom, but it probably took us less than ten minutes to cross. We’d both carried our sandals to do some exploring. There are a couple of houses out there and Wayne was curious about who would build out there and why, since a big storm would wash over the narrow gravelly strip. We saw that one house was abandoned but the other was someone’s summer home carefully gated across the entrance. A walkway lined with, beach glass, pebbles, and chunks of coral led to the dock! The entire spit of land was the big surprise—it is made of beach glass. Imagine sitting in front of your beach house at your cafe table and chairs amid a carpet of green and white glass pebbles. The entire barrier island is less than 50 ft. wide though it extends for about 500 ft parallel to the shore. We didn’t cover all of it once we discovered the carpet of glass. There is as much as at Glass Beach in northern California. I found a plastic bag among the usual shore detritus and picked up as much as I thought I could carry on the swim home. We laughed at how easy it was to collect pieces that we’d been combing the beaches to collect elsewhere on the island. It was a fantastic last day on Aruba. The swim back took two or three extra minutes as I carried my bag of loot to the other side. This was the perfect last day of snorkeling in Aruba. I now have jewelry-making supplies that will last a year or more.

Beyond the beach in Aruba

29 Sunday Jul 2018

Posted by in Aruba, Paula

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When we arrived, I thought we might spend two weeks making our way from beach to beach around the island of Aruba. We have been happily distracted along the way. My sister Paula and her guy Wayne are with us and wanted to see the California Lighthouse at the north end of Aruba. The lighthouse is on most tours for the view out over the blue, blue water to the west and crashing waves to the east. We got a kick out of the tour vehicles that drove up. One minute there would be eight tiger-striped jeeps with whooping passengers. Next came four wheelers on balloon tires and then The Party Bus, a retired school bus with a hippy paint job. Whether they screeched to a halt or eased slowly into the parking lot, every group had their own personality.The sky was brilliant blue and the guys cutting the tops off drinking coconut were very busy. All this tourism wore us out, so we headed home to rest up by the pool.

The east side of Aruba is honeycombed with caves. Many of these are part of Arikok National Park. We stopped at Fontein Cave to see the rock art.   Some of the stone is twisted in fantastic shapes. We also visited Quadiriviri cave, where an interior room with a hole to the surface is reached by walking down a dark path. A bat emerged from among those sleeping on the ceiling.

On our way out the south entrance to the park we passed the island’s wind farm, a row of turbines that catch the strong wind coming in from the east. Driving back to Savaneta we passed a number of houses with decorative painted trim. Houses range from tiny cottages, workers housing from the oil refinery days, to large walled compounds with beautifully landscaped gardens.

The hotels are a world apart in Aruba. Just north of Oranjestad is a signpost to the “low rise” hotels and beyond that, another sign to the “high-rise” hotels. These face Eagle Beach and the adjacent beaches and are the center of the Aruba tourist industry, where all-inclusive resorts, package tours, and destination weddings are held. Guests sign up for one day adventure tours, parasailing, kite surfing and other activities. When we went snorkeling at Boca Catalina, along the tourist coast, we saw all this going on just off the beach all at the same time: jet skis, kite surfers, windsurfers, parasailers, catamarans full of snorkelers, a two-masted sailboat, and a flat dredge-like boat leading a group using self-propelled devices to motor through the water in their snorkeling gear.

The cruise ship terminal is in the middle of Oranjestad and traffic slows to a halt when ships are in, up to three at a time moored and looming over the small downtown. One day on our way back from birdwatching, we saw three ships of very different sizes, from a Tradewinds vessel that holds about 200 passengers to a Fortune of the Seas that holds 4,000. We met a two men at the birdwatching site who had arrived that morning. Their ship was leaving again at 3 pm and they were trying to squeeze in some birdwatching and a trip to the beach. When I said we were only in Aruba for two weeks, they laughed at “only,” as their stop was “only” seven hours.

Oranjestad is mostly a single main street along the water, though we found interesting stops a block further inland as we searched for parking. The largest lime kiln still standing in all the Caribbean is the feature of a now-neglected park. The walls are almost two feet thick. A lot of coral was turned into lime for cement here.

Not far away in a restored colonial building is a shop called “Cosecha,” which means “harvest” in Spanish. They carry items made locally and of local materials. There were some lovely things to see and the young woman managing the shop was pleasant and able to talk about the artists.

No trip to Aruba is complete without a visit to one of the fish restaurants, and we decided to give Jonathan a break on cooking to go to the Flying Fishbone. Not only is it down the street from our house, it was part of the directions to get here. I didn’t realize that the tables in demand at the Flying Fishbone are the ones in the water. Yes, the tide comes in and surrounds the legs of the tables up about 12 inches. The restaurant provides racks to hold shoes, though part of ours was submerged–it was high tide at 8 pm. Since Aruba is very warm, even at night, sitting with my feet under water resting on the sand was not uncomfortable. The high tide tables are not the only feature, our seafood was delicious and generous. We had another meal at home of the shrimp, fish, mussels, and scallops that we carried off when we were done. We only had room to share one creme brulee among the four of us. During dinner there was a bit of disturbance at a nearby table when a crab scuttled over the diners’ feet. As we got up to leave, a circle had cleared around another table and people were peering into the water at the base of a post. A waitress told us that there is a moray eel that’s become habituated to the diners and comes out to scrounge. The diners are not used to the eel, however, and there was lots of eek-ing and peeking.

 

Aruba’s Beaches

25 Wednesday Jul 2018

Posted by in Aruba, Paula

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Aruba is justifiably known for its white sand beaches and turquoise water. Directly across the road from our house is Savaneta beach. Sections of white sand beach are punctuated by small stands of mangrove. Snorkeling takes you into clouds of minnows and the occasional foursome of little squid. From here we skipped over the huge extent of the old refinery area. It may not be in use but it is thoroughly fenced off. Within sight of the tank field we snorkeled at Rodgers Beach, the next in our counterclockwise tour of the shore. The fish are tiny, but captivating, mini-angel fish, parrotfish, wrasses and the elegant spotted trunkfish. It looks like it should be carrying a Chanel bag.

At Baby Beach, a deep U-shaped stretch of calm water, we walked out to the far end and looked back to where the thatched beach shelters are almost invisible. The beach combing was very good among stubs of ancient coral as big as tree trunks. It’s easy to imagine they are the bones of whales or turtles that washed up and are now petrified.

We moved on to the Santana di Cacho, a beach of shelving rock that is bordered by a huge pet cemetery. When the oil refinery was working, this area was started by employees. The tradition continues. The pet cemetery beach is at the southern tip of Aruba. Our exploration headed up along the eastern Atlantic side of the island. When you look out over the ocean, the next land mass is either the island of Grenada or Guinea, Africa. The waves are larger, though broken by shelving rock. We walked from Bachelor’s Beach to Boca Grandi (in Papiamento, the local language) where kite surfers take lessons and practice. All day long ten or more kite surfers can be found zooming across the bay. We passed a deeply tanned young man sitting on the beach in conversation with a newcomer (pale skin) while his kite flew above him, tethered to his safety vest. From Boca Grandi we visited Grapefield Beach, another long rocky stretch. We had traded beach combing comments with a young man we met at the pet cemetery. He was collecting driftwood and dried coral fans for his mother in law. When we showed him our beach glass, he directed us to the northern end of Grapefield beach where there is an abandoned settlement and a newer settlement. He said the turnoff was marked by a boat on the roadside, and sure enough, it is. It felt a bit strange to beach comb among houses right on the shore. Most are empty during the day. The young man we spoke to said that it would be fine to collect things there. “The people live here and so they don’t need to collect things to take back to the US. To them it has no purpose.”

From Grapefield beach the route enters Arikok National Park. There is a visitor’s center in the center of the island that tells how the park was started and identified some of the many paths and sights. Our visit ended at a “boca,” an inlet eroded into the shore. This one, Boca Prinz, is not the smallest but it’s less than 100 yards across. We scouted for beach glass (none) and admired the pink sand.

For the rest of our stay we are going to work our way up the boca, boca, boca indented east coast until we reach the California Lighthouse (more about that next).

We visited beaches on the south/west side of Aruba from our house northward to Mangel Halto. There is a fish supplier near the inlet to Spanish Lagoon where we bought red snapper that was delicious on the grill. Jonathan and I took a multi-visit detour to the bird refuge around Spanish Lagoon and enjoyed seeing new species. Across the inlet is the industrial part of the shore with the extensive desalination plant that supplies all the drinking water for the island, and adjacent to that, the landfill. (I’m pretty sure these two go to great lengths to avoid contact with one another.) We started along this road looking for the marina where visiting trawlers would moor. Since Aruba is valued as a harbor for private yachts during hurricane season, we know there’d be a big, big marina and we found it behind the airport at the edge of the industrial area. It’s an excellent location for yacht owners, you can fly into Aruba and be on your boat in under an hour.

A neighbor told us to see Eagle Beach, a long, long stretch of white sand the borders hotels. It is lovely, but there isn’t anything to do but swim or sit in the shade. The sandy shore has no driftwood or beach glass and the water was cloudy for snorkeling. After some floating around, I went inside a nearby resort and got my hair cut, a great treat. Then we moved back toward Oranjestad to Divi Beach, smaller but similar. The beaches at the far north/west end of the island are still on our radar. A group of “old-timers” having lunch on Savaneta Beach told us not to miss Boca Catalina in the northern zone. It’s now on our list.

The story of Aruba: So many beaches, so little time.

Aruba, The A in A, B, C Islands

21 Saturday Jul 2018

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I’d never heard of the A, B, C islands and like people of a certain age, when I looked at the map I saw that west to east, the islands of Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire are not in ABC order….

People who visit these Caribbean islands have their favorites. Some prefer Aruba for the well developed beach of high rise hotels that looks a bit like Waikiki. Others like Bonaire for its dive sites. The islands are south of the hurricane zone, appealing to anyone fearful of bad weather. Aruba is mostly desert, too. Though the air is humid, not much rain falls and the temperature is in the 80s all day, all year, with sea breeze to stir the air and dispel the heat. I’m not sure how anyone managed to sleep before the invention of air conditioning. The blue water and white sand make you forget everything but floating.

Aruba is a small island (8 x 21 mi) of volcanic rock covered with coral. The rocky coast is cut by numerous sandy beaches, though the east side of the island facing out to the Atlantic is rockier than the west side.

It was a pleasure to find our house on the “far” south part of the island meant it was about a 15 minute drive from the airport. We are in Savaneta, a residential community of beaches, bungalows, restaurants and small markets that each sell a little of a lot of things. When we drove into the only large town, Oranjestad (the capital), we visited the “American-style” supermarket. Ling’s has a larger selection, stronger A/C, and higher prices than other stores, and its where we found peanut butter, half and half, and a big wine and liquor department.

All of our subsequent stops have been beaches, working our way from Savaneta south around the tip of the island and up the east side. We snorkeled at Savaneta Beach and Rodgers Beach (top), beachcombed at Baby Beach, Pet Cemetery (Santana di Cacho) beach and Bachelor’s Beach. We watched kite surfers at Boca Grandi–what strength they possess! An Amazon swooped up out of the water about 20 feet, hung upside down for a moment and landed back on the water.

Harry Clarke, stained glass superstar

27 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by in Ireland, Paula

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Harry Clarke isn’t a name well known outside the world of stained glass, though he should be. An Irish artist who died at age 42 (in 1931), at the time of his death he had completed 40 commissions, including one in Dingle for the convent of the Presentation Sisters. In the 1990s, the order decided to reduce its presence in the region and The Diseart Center of Irish Spirituality and Culture formed to take over the space, including the chapel with 12 individualistic, dramatic stained glass windows of Bible scenes. They are very much worth visiting.

Clarke lived during a period of artistic upheaval. After the Pre-Raphaelites, but during the Celtic revival in Ireland, Art Nouveau in France, Arts & Crafts in the UK, Art Deco, too. He used elements of many styles in his work. Clarke also illustrated works of Edgar Allen Poe and Hans Christian Andersen. Some of his drawings resemble the work of Aubrey Beardsley.

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One of the features of the windows is the fine-line painting on many of the individual pieces of glass. There are details that make some panels seem like a game of Hidden Pictures. I don’t know whether Clarke ever created any non-religious images, but I would certainly be interested to know what he might have created. He created 9 stained glass panels illustrating a poem by Synge, “Queens”. Originally created for a library in a Dublin area estate, the panels were sold to a private collector in 1996 and their location is no longer known. The price was a record for Harry Clarke’s work. Since most is located in religious structures, it is rarely for sale.

Check the link below to see whether there is any of his work near you.

List of Harry Clarke stained glass by location

The Diseart Center, where the stained glass windows you see here are located, offers classes in Irish culture, language and themes related to spirituality.

Summer came on Monday–at Great Blasket Island

22 Saturday Jul 2017

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The boatman made the quip as we left, “Tell them this year summer came on Monday!” That’s because the weather is never forecast to be as fine as it was on our trip out to Great Blasket Island last Monday. The sun shone all day long. The boat ride from Dunquin to Great Blasket was smooth and the 35 passengers smiled and chatted all the way.Great Blasket Island was an independent community lived there from early in the 19th century until Nov. 17, 1953. They were completely Irish speaking, cut off from the mainland as they were. The distance is short, but the water can be rough, and boats were the traditional naomhog, or currach, rowboats framed of wood and covered with tarred cloth.

As the Irish language fell into disuse in the 19th century, linguists and writers discovered the community on Great Blasket and visited to study the language or expand their proficiency. Visitors such as the poet Robin Flower encouraged the islanders to write about their lives and several did just that. The strong tradition of storytelling among people who have to entertain themselves on long winter evenings seems to have eased the transition to writing stories in a book. Best known are: An tOileánach (The Islandman) by Tomás Ó Criomhthain, Peig by Peig Sayers and Fiche Blian ag Fás (Twenty Years A-Growing) by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin. The remains of each author’s house is marked on the visitors map.

Most houses lie in ruins today, though one was being renovated during our visit. That’s puzzling because there’s only seasonal ferry service, no central water source, no electricity, no store, all part of the reason the island was evacuated years ago. We looked at the ruined community and hiked up the spine of the island. At the peak of the island, I could see the faint outline of  the Skellig Islands on the horizon to the south.

Blasket harbor–tiny
At the harbor

We waited for our trip home just above the tiny boat landing on Blasket. Arriving at Dunquin we struggled up the steep incline from the beach.                                               (This is an internet photo–see the upturned naomhog boats in the lowest bend of the ramp.)

Jonathan takes the Prize–at Féile an Phráta

18 Tuesday Jul 2017

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Months before we arrived in Dingle, Jonathan read about a local potato festival and decided that he wanted to participate. He emailed the organizers, sharpened his potato peeling knife, and marked the date. It wasn’t as easy as jumping in the car, because all the publicity for the festival was in Irish. Diligent work with Google translate and the map led us to a pub in Ballydavid (only shown as Baile na nGall on signs). The roads are pretty small, but we emerged into a seaside community centered on a small beach and a pub, Tigh TP. Quite a crowd turned out for the potato festival, and it seems that everyone other than the three of us understood Irish.

We found the organizers, who were delighted that we actually made it there. Jonathan submitted his dish for the cooking competition. He made causa, a potato and fish terrine that is a popular appetizer in Peru.

Causa–Peruvian potato-fish-vegetable terrine

Jonathan’s causa is on the far right.

It took him a few minutes to explain to everyone that potatoes actually come from Peru–there was some skepticism. There was more skepticism that he was from Peru, so he had to tell the story of our retirement travels. After that, we went to find a seat to watch the festivities. There was a tasting of boiled potatoes (no salt, no butter). The judges were heroic in tasting about eight different potatoes submitted by growers from Dingle as far as Tralee. There was a separate panel of judges that tasted the prepared dishes. While we watched the dishes being introduced and tasted, we shared a picnic table with a couple from Dublin who come to Dingle every year. Mary and John were excellent company. The afternoon passed rapidly. The results of the cooking contest were held until the very end. In the mean time was the peeling contest.

Jonathan discovered that he had to use a standard knife given to all contestants, he couldn’t use his nicely sharpened knife. He protested to the judges (L), but they insisted that everyone use the same knife. He was up against one other man in his heat and both of them qualified by completely peeling two potatoes in under one minute. In the end, though the winner was a woman in the first heat. She was able to peel both potatoes with the greatest “post-peel weight”. The best was yet to come, however.

When the results of the cooking contest were announced, Jonathan won second prize! There was mention of the original intention of the Wild Atlantic Way to reveal the connections between the sea and the land. Jonathan’s coming all the way from Peru to Dingle in order to participate in the potato festival and his dish with seafood and potato was widely appreciated, and he will treasure his prize plate.

Sponsors included the local radio station and the national Irish potato board, Bord Bía. Féile an Phráta is held every year and is well worth a visit.

An Epic Day: Star Wars and Puffins in the Skellig Islands

15 Saturday Jul 2017

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Had my sister Paula not read in her guide book about an offshore rock group with an ancient monastery at the top, we might never have visited the Skellig Islands. We considered hiking to the top of the 600+ steps to see the domed stone cells that may date back to 600 AD. If that weren’t enticing enough, the site appears at the end of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and in the trailer for the next Star Wars movie.

Skellig Michael in the trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi

It’s an intimidating place. 12 km off shore, a jagged triangle juts from the water. After reading about landing, where there is no dock and heaving seas may toss you in or out of the boat, we decided against it (Tours are sold out for the entire season, too). We decided to take a ride around both islands to see the steep steps and birdwatch. It was a wonderful tour!

We had total weather karma. The day dawned sunny for the first time since we arrived in Ireland and stayed sunny and warm ALL DAY. It took us just over two hours to drive from our house in Dingle to Port Magee, mostly along the Ring of Kerry drive, so you could say we were multi-tasking in the tourism department. Our boat left at 11:45 am and we were asked to arrive at the dock by 11:30 am. A friendly young man named Brendan, dressed in a dirty tshirt and jeans strolled out and ticked our names off a list on his phone. He led us to the boat where there were 12 outward facing seats hung with life jackets. Dressed, we took off, heading straight out to sea for 45 min. The islands, two triangular chunks of rock, stick up out of the sea and are easily visible from shore. Cliffs and hills line the coast on the way out to sea from Port Magee, then Puffin Island off to the south, then sea birds zoom alongside the boat or bob on the water. (What are they doing, just hanging out in the middle of the ocean?) We saw gannets and then puffins, the world’s cutest birds.

7.12.17 Skellig Islands-0287.12.17 Skellig Islands-027crMore steps wind up the face of the rock. Made of slabs of the island rock, it’s a long hike. The path on the right is not used today, though rock climbers can access the top this way. The safety video that is recommended for people considering a landing on Skellig Michael shows what the climb looks like in wet weather. (As I write this, the fog is so thick that we can see nothing beyond the front yard of our house. I wonder whether the Skellig boats will go out today.) The safety video shows the stone steps.

Skellig Islands safety video

One reason to make the climb to the top is the archaeological site, a tiny monastery of stone beehive huts enclosed by a wall that was in use at various times from the 8th century until the 13th century. Monks rowed out to the island, climbed to the tiny settlement and lived their hermit existence. The island was finally abandoned when the climate began to shift toward colder weather after 1300. There are beautiful views of the archaeological site on the Heritage Ireland website.

Skellig Michael history and photos

From Skellig Michael we went on to Little Skellig, a bird sanctuary. The entire surface of the island is alive with birds. This is home to one of the largest gannet colonies anywhere.Up close, you see the white area is all birds, calling, flying, wriggling and doing what birds do. The majority of the birds are gannets, but in the lowest most sheltered crevices we could see puffins.So many birds, so little time.

From Little Skellig, we sailed back to Port Magee, delighted by our brilliant day.