tag:barrynisbet.com,2005:/blogs/new-website-tobermory-harbourBarry Nisbet's Blog! Sailing, Music and Travelling2023-04-05T15:47:52+01:00Barry Nisbetfalsetag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/71829272023-04-05T15:47:52+01:002024-02-14T10:44:08+00:00South America #6 - Chile south to Tierra del Fuego<p>Across the bay to our right, the yellow ferry that plies the Magellan Strait was tied up for the night. The tarred road ahead of us led out of tiny Porvenir, the colourful buildings giving way to straw coloured grassland and low bare hills. The sky was bright but obscured by ragged clouds driven by a fresh, chilly breeze that rattled our straps and flicked hair across our faces. Ash and I walked slowly south with thumbs out, hoping we’d get a lift a bit further down the road before setting up camp for the night. </p><p>We were headed for the southern tip of South America – or at least to our own ‘ne plus ultra’ at the other end of Tierra del Fuego Island, after making our way south down the length of Chile. </p><p style="text-align:center;">*****</p><p>Three weeks earlier, a high-altitude four-wheel-drive road trip had taken us to the Chilean border through the remote south-west corner of Bolivia, first crossing the Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt plain, a place where all sense of perspective vanishes as a brilliant white surface stretches to the horizon under a blazing blue sky.</p><p style="text-align:center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/5a0ed943edfd800889948a4aecb12686ec66202f/original/img-20221211-161944-hdr.heif/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_center border_" /><span class="text-small">On the Salar de Uyuni</span></p><p>It took us a day of driving to cross the vast Salar; on the other side, flamingoes babbled on acid lakes amid bare mountain peaks as our guide drove rough trails and the weather worsened. Soon, thunder storms rampaged across the sky and angry clouds burst into frequent, heavy downpours. Domesticated llamas, and their wild cousins the vicuña, grazed and leapt on the grassy slopes of the Andean peaks as we passed through.</p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/0541d3cfef935a1d044ae68a1fec79c0524b0ced/original/img-20221212-115848-hdr.heif/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span class="text-small">Flamingoes in SW Bolivia</span></p><p> </p><p>Once across the Chilean border, a low-key collection of huts with a road that only led west, we descended a thousand metres down the other side of the Andes and into a completely different climate – the rain we'd experienced in Bolivian will never fall here, in the Atacama desert, one of the driest places on earth. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/e812679817d55186fa396aea52fe3e7e1fcac168/original/20221214-121043.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_right border_" />We camped in San Pedro de Atacama, a campsite in more developed Chile costing the same as we’d been using to paying for a room in Bolivia and Perú. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/c50b789eeb2c733fdcf251ed3d0956657d6a9dc4/original/img-20221218-174225-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_left border_" /></p><p>Making stops in the nitre port towns of Iquique and Antofagasta we bussed south as the landscape changed again from sandy desert with crystal clear starry nights to sparse green bush around La Serena and the wine producing Elqui Valley. Our surroundings grew greener still as we approached Valparaíso. </p><p> </p><div class="video-container size_s justify_left" style=""><iframe data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="fSleW6rZ5Mk" data-video-thumb-url="" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fSleW6rZ5Mk?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div><p>We celebrated New Year in edgy, gorgeous Valparaiso, <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/7599712e5bd627ecbdcdb56cedcd38291ff69c46/original/img-20230102-191630-hdr.heif/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_s justify_right border_" />where murals adorn every crack, step, and wall; buildings climb the mountainside in a multitude of colours and architectural styles, descending to the harbour where fishing boats lie alongside bulk cargo ships. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/e109232b152c723a2452f049688410f74d01097b/original/img-20230102-192746-hdr.heif/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_center border_" />Live music bursts from buildings, bars and upper-floor windows, and the city hums with life and creativity. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/451f71e068d7f0ebc993ad04690d84d10569f708/original/img-20221228-150923-hdr.heif/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_right border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/5362209f33cb255c2466e963521c52f260c8c336/original/img-20221229-235343-hdr.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_s justify_center border_" />After a fun week here we flew from nearby Santiago south to Punta Arenas. </p><p style="text-align:center;">*****</p><p>A Toyota pickup slowed and flashed its lights. A lift! </p><p style="text-align:center;">*****</p><p>Hitch-hiking is the norm here in Patagonia and the far south, Eduardo had told us as the gas burning cast-iron range in his kitchen pumped out the only heat we’d found in Punta Arenas. A full gale blew outside, rattling the single-pane windows; occasionally a burst of rain blasted the glass. Maybe we’ll wait a bit to set up the tent, I thought, taking my time over my coffee. </p><p>“You might make Ushuaia in one day, hitching”, Eduardo told us. Everything felt different than it had further north <span> </span>– wilder, more exposed; the people different too. Eduardo was stocky, with jet-black hair and a hardened expression; but he smiled readily, and spoke with great enthusiasm about possible hikes – Cape Froward, the Magellan Strait, Puerto Williams. Or Tierra del Fuego and the Argentine border. I listened to the wind howl and thought of empty roads, remote campsites, sailors battling to round Cape Horn. “You’re lucky”, he said. “The rain will stop in the next couple of days. Then, a week of sun”. </p><p>“A week?” I asked. Always, he replied. Then a week of rain, then two weeks of westerly gales. Always. </p><p style="text-align:center;">*****</p><p>The pickup slowed to a stop, and we jogged to catch up; in the front were two tourists, Tanya and Luka, from Switzerland. We soon discovered we all had similar plans – find a place to set up tents; eat; continue south across the border tomorrow. On a sandy shore by an exposed lake, where a few ruffled flamingoes swam, we weighed pegs down with rocks as the wind buffeted our tents. I boiled some lake water to make rice, only later realising the water was brackish, producing a heavily salted dinner; we ate hurriedly then retreated to shelter in the tents, hoping the pegs would hold. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/e2cb759cf8a0a6af5275810b1108455958a7da19/original/img-20230105-205142-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span class="text-small">Our first campsite in Tierra del Fuego, a breezy spot.</span></p><p> </p><p>The next day, Eduardo’s prediction came true. The wind eased through the morning, and as we drove south the sky brightened. The road wound round ‘Bahia Inútil’, or ‘Useless Bay’ (definitely named by a sailor!) <span> </span>Occasional, tiny hamlets of wooden houses (these houses would always be the same colour – economising on paint?) in various states of repair – stood on the low, bare hillsides; then two such groups of houses by the shore, each with two or three yellow-painted wooden open boats, shore-bound today as the white-capped waves still piled in from the west. </p><p>Bahia Inútil has a King Penguin colony; we turned right down a dirt road and pulled up at a wood-stained building where the rangers met us. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/65e50ba48174b4b0e93da905b91e70e3d74ad3b6/original/20230106-120312.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_left border_" />We chatted in whispers as they led us to two hides, stayed staunchly to the ground with steel wire, and smelled the sharp guano smell mingled with salt spray, watching the penguins make landfall from a grey Magellan Strait to rest on the beach before walking back to their colony of fifty or so birds. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/de4c851d6eda64f04a3bf7709abffef6ab4eb060/original/20230106-121251.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_right border_" />Occasionally a penguin would throw its head in the air and make a throaty, clucking call – these yellow-collared birds do this regularly to locate and connect with their partner. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>A roadside lunch of stove-heated soup to warm up, and we drove on. Now the weather really improved; by the time we reached the Argentine border the sun was out and the temperature had risen to the point where we could cast off fleeces. </p><p>The border here took some time; over two hours to organise our departure from Chile, then another hour queuing and arranging our entry to Argentina. The border is a straight north-south line on the map, and divides the island of Tierra del Fuego vertically, and almost equally, between Chile and Argentina; it pays little regard to roads, geographical landmarks, or the convenience of travel. Plenty of time to consider how lucky we are (were?) in Europe to have freedom of movement, and to chat to the tattooed Argentine couple ahead of us in the queue, motorcycling south from Patagonia. </p><p>Moving on at last, the terrain began to grow more dramatic, the grassy steppe country left behind, and soon we were skirting a tree-cloaked mountainside looking down on glittering Lake Fagnano. A few backroad trails through the forest later we found a campsite by Lake Margarita, nestled in a valley just south of Lake Fagnano. The still water and tree-lined lower slopes were reminiscent of an alpine or a Scottish highland lake, but the grey jagged mountaintops high above were a reminder that we were far from home. We swam, cooked, and enjoyed a peaceful night under the trees.</p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/2621d57fd555c76bcdecdd93b234db8f1f7731fd/original/img-20230107-111545-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span class="text-small">Lake Fagnano</span></p><p>At Ushuaia the following morning we said goodbye to Tanya and Luka. Looking over the town, and across the Beagle Strait, we could see the peaks of Navarino Island; just beyond that lies Cape Horn. Crossing to Chilean Navarino is prohibited from here, and the only route to Cape Horn is aboard one of the fantastically expensive cruise ships that sail out of the harbour here, so this would be as far south as we could get. We hitched and walked west from town, having stocked up on food and supplies – lentils, Argentine chorizo, garlic, onion, rice, coffee, porridge, honey, tinned fish – and by 6pm we were at the entrance to Tierra del Fuego National Park.</p><p>For four days, Ash and I camped wild in the park – pitching our tent by riversides where fish leapt and we cooked lentils one night, rice the next, bathing in the rivers, following the trails along the Beagle Channel shore, climbing the grey scree-slopes of Cerro Guanaco at 973 metres for a stunning view west towards the snowy Chilean peaks, east towards Ushuaia, and south across the white capped Beagle Channel to the Murray Channel and the end of this continent. The long evenings of the southern summer meant that we rarely made camp before 10pm, eating dinner by the twilight before darkness eventually fell sometime after eleven. </p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/f3da626339b2e467edf356380bba7b198add40b7/original/2023-01-10-16-29-16-679.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_left border_" /></p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/1bce620f8748b1c92e72fe831ddcd244416bad57/original/img-20230107-200551-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span class="text-small">Atop Cerro Guanaco, apparently wishing I had a cutlass…! - Idyllic campsite by a river, Tierra del Fuego National Park</span></p><p> </p><p>Back in Ushuaia on our seventh day on Tierra del Fuego, and ravenous for something that wasn’t rice or lentils, we found the best mutton I’ve experienced outside Shetland in a small restaurant. Then, thinking we might have left it too late, we set about trying to hitch out of town.</p><p>As we stuck our thumbs out on the road north, Miguel, a young guy who fits kitchens and interior carpentry stopped; he’d take us to the edge of town, he said; much easier to get a lift from there. </p><p>He was right – as we were debating where best to stand to hitch a lift onwards, a white van slowed and a head emerged from the side window. “Río Grande?” shouted a voice exuberantly. Yes! Río Grande was further than we’d ever hoped to get this evening. We jumped in – a long-wheel-base transit van with the interior totally stripped out. Jorge, the man who had shouted, sat in the back – an energetic guy, early twenties, slim with fashionably trimmed hair. His friend, another Miguel, drove – more reserved, with an easy smile. Within five minutes Jorge had given us oreos and a glass of Fanta, and had asked us where were from, where were headed, and if we’d watched the World Cup. “I love this place,” he whooped, as the views down into the deep valley whisked by the van and the lake appeared. </p><p>North we flew, chatting about football, forest fires and conservation (the Argentine government has recently banned fires in all national parks – a decision not taken lightly, as the <i>asado, </i>or barbecue, is a fundamental way of life for Argentinians. But a necessary one: Tierra del Fuego is plagued by forest fires at the moment, having gone through one of the driest spells in its history. Even as we drove north we passed three fire vehicles heading the other way, their sirens blaring – “they’re fighting a huge fire just over that hill”, Jorge told us, adding that his friend is a fire fighter and suffered bad burns recently. </p><p>Jorge talked at a hundred miles an hour, flipping from topic to topic. He seemed quite impressionable; having in his mind that we are Scots, he brought up the film Braveheart. “We don’t like English people here”, he said – “we say they are always drinking tea.” He showed me a meme on his phone – a shamrock with a pro-IRA message. I said that people in Ireland these days see these conflicts as better left in the past; that peace is better; that ordinary people from Scotland, Ireland, England or Argentina normally get on and it’s politicians that mess things up. “Yes – peace is always better”, he said, “never war.” But he was already showing us pictures of large joints of meat; you know when you’ve made friends with someone from Argentina or the south of Brazil as pictures of half-sides of sheep and huge steaks, sizzling on <i>asados, </i>are shared and drooled over. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/4c93231345632549680055bdabb926404ffe00db/original/20230110-202404.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_right border_" /></p><p>We left the mountains behind, the landscape turning to flatter grassland once more; we passed a cyclist who appeared to be making heavy weather against the wind. The van slowed; Jorge shouted out the window again. Soon he and I were helping hoist a laden bicycle into the back of the van. We drove on; the cyclist, down from Buenos Aires to cycle the length of Tierra del Fuego, was glad of a boost on his long journey. </p><p> </p><p style="text-align:right;"><span class="text-small">In the back of the van!</span></p><p>Miguel in the front invited us to his house in Río Grande for breakfast the following morning. But we were looking for a place to wild camp. “OK, then it’s best we drop you here – there’s nowhere else to camp until you get past Río Grande,” said Jorge. We hopped out by the river Ewan as the sun set, a lot further along the road than we’d expected to be tonight. The river Ewan was stagnant and muddy, but the banks were flat and dry; we spent a decent night in the tent a few hundred metres along a path from a small forest fire monitoring station where the guard was friendly and allowed campers to use the shower and bathroom. </p><p>We still had 300 kilometres to cover; if we didn’t make Porvenir in a day, no problem – we had tent, supplies, cooker and sleeping bags. Hitching was fun, friendly and a great way to learn about life or ordinary folk in Tierra del Fuego, while improving our Spanish. We cooked porridge, made coffee, had breakfast and made for the road once more.</p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/2e74930efa6650a1dc2ebf30d4d0275b78d432e5/original/untitled-design.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><p> </p><p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/71700822023-03-13T13:20:27+00:002023-04-03T01:46:02+01:00South America #5 - Bolivia<p>We crossed into Bolivia, following the shore of Lake Titicaca by bus. Reed-yellow landscapes, angular vilages and scrubby hilltops interspersed views of the blue lake.</p><p>At Tiquina, the bus pulled up next to the lakeside and we were ushered out. Here, the main route to La Paz crosses the Tiquna Strait, a narrow section of Lake Titicaca. We followed the other passengers in buying passenger tickets across the strait, watching in wonder as other buses were driven across planks onto wooden flatbed boats which were poled away from the shore.</p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/f53bfa7596a3a7e0f5707a1142582af0c39f477d/original/img-20221119-134832-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><p>At the other side in San Pablo, the waterfront was a buzz of activity – buses and lorries lined up awaiting their ferry in the other direction; half a dozen of the scow-shaped flatbeds lay moored bow on to rock-and-wood ramps on the shore, some being poled, pushed, pulled or driven by a meagre single outboard motor, rigged through a fourareen-style ‘well’, into position.</p><p>The fact that we had to cross by different means than our bus made me wonder how many lorries and buses lie at the bottom of the Tiquina Strait! Today, however, these expert boat-handlers, masters at achieving much with little, got our bus and the other vehicles safely into position and across the strait with skill, laughs and good-natured shouts.</p><p>Back aboard and after several hours driving across the flat altiplano, we reached El Alto – (which translates directly to ‘Da Heights’ in Shetland). From this bustling, busy city of almost a million, perched right by the chasm that drops off towards the ‘skyscrapers’ of La Paz, we saw the famous flagship Teleferico – the cable-car public transport system that apparently moves over 240,000 people per day across the plateau of El Alto and the vertical city of La Paz.</p><p style="text-align:center;">*****</p><p>La Paz is bustling, steep and vibrant. A taxi took us to our hostel in the heart of the area known as the ‘Mercado de las Brujas’ or ‘witches’ market’, on a steep street that leads down to the basilica of San Francisco; the flat-capped driver nodding his own impressions of Scotland en-route – a love of freedom, music and whisky, kilt-wearing and brave… at least the stereotypes are positive ones!</p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/afee5fc0c231297d420f6ac078e5ed6c7d1f5aa9/original/img-20221121-141216-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><p>From here it took little more than an hour to sling our way across town and up to the Villa Fátima district by cable-car. Here, outside the office of the Trans Totai company, the roof of a battered and muddy bus was being loaded high with bags of cargo and tarpaulins, bound for the jungle within two or three hours. With seats secured aboard the following day’s bus, Ash and I made our way back to our end of town, where we bought some rock talismans from a Graciela, the shelves of her shop crammed high with herbal teas, remedies, charms, carvings and colourful objects, each imbued with its own meaning.</p><p style="text-align:center;">*****</p><p>The bus pulled out and chugged up the hill amid the tooting traffic; we were settled in for the long haul, with trave time estimated at between twelve and eighteen hours, depending on the weather and the condition of the roads. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/dc64370226344ae461e3a3d4914c0558f7ce0ce1/original/img-20221121-162759-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_right border_" />Had we taken this trip sixteen years ago, it would have wound up the Yungas Road from La Paz. Now, a new road has replaced this stretch that was once known as the ‘Death Road’, once one of the most dangerous roads in the world. Clouds filled the valleys and mountain peaks rose starkly against the sinking sun.</p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/ce6eb922553c95a80b1de55bafe2382487bfb0c9/original/img-20221123-181110-hdr.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><p>Once clear of the city we still climbed and switchbacked our way up and down the side of mountains, death road or no death road, stopping regularly for long minutes as we allowed traffic to pass in the other direction or negotiated crumbling road surfaces, before moving off again with a twisting motion that continued after dark and into the night. In the early hours, the temperature began to rise and the movement finally settled as we descended the east slopes of the Andes.</p><p>We were lucky – a little over twelve hours after leaving La Paz, our bus pulled into the terminal in Rurrenabaque. It was 5am, and pitch dark – the sounds of jungle birds mixed with barking dogs surrounded us as we walked through the growing dawn, and growing heat, into town.</p><p style="text-align:center;">*****</p><p>Rurrenabaque, a small town of a few thousand inhabitants, is a gateway to many of the densest jungle areas of Bolivia. The Beni river winds north through the town, towards regions where tribes live with little contact with the outside world, flowing into Brazil and eventually finding its way to the Amazon east of Manaus. To the west is the Madidi ecological reserve, one of Bolivia’s richest areas of wildlife and untouched forest. But it was on a different river, the Yucama, that we learned the most about this region.</p><p>Elvis was twelve years old when he learned there was another Elvis, a musician from overseas. His family is from a tribal village far from any roads or communication with the outside world, barring the river, which could bring a boat to the bright lights of Rurranabaque within three or four days travel. He grew up hunting monkeys with bow and arrow, or piranhas with spear, unaware of his famous namesake. Now he carries tourists on boat trips on the river Yucama. </p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/09d77ce422ee8cf718e264fa3998a406c4167260/original/img-20221126-180720-hdr-1.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span class="text-small">Elvis shows off a brace of Piranhas</span></p><p>These boats, long enough for about 10 people to sit two abreast, have a lower part dug out of a single large tree; bulwarks are attached to give freeboard, stiffened by wedge-shaped ribs, and sealed with pitch tar. An outboard motor on the stern is ubiquitous.</p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/b71ab2011661ea24bf8ea4513256c5e45862e7ea/original/img-20221125-145545-hdr.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_m justify_right border_" /></p><p> </p><p>We motored through the opaque coffee-brown water, shocked at first to see alligators, and their larger, meaner cousins the cayman, taking the shade under trees by the river banks. Small turtles swam along with their heads held high – or stacked themselves like tiddlywinks on semi-submerged branches. Vultures waited by the river banks; Herons stood sentinel – herons like I’ve never seen, at least four different species of them, ranging in colour from white to a vivid blue. Families of Capibara browsed or wallowed; capuchin monkeys swarmed through the trees watching us go by. The next morning I was woken at dawn by the sound of the jungle coming to life around us – howler monkeys marking their territory with a blood-curdling roars, birds waking, cicadas hissing. I stood for half an hour recording this incredible chorus.</p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/d013662f7880e47d9df96926bf860f1a62207d38/original/img-20221125-144616-hdr.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_s justify_left border_" /></p><p>Elvis’s tribe still lives a very traditional life downriver, he told me. It was a great place to grow up, he says – perfectly safe, despite the jaguars that prowl the jungle around, despite the caymans and other wild creatures. They fish there – not with hooks, he told me, but with meat-laden bones that can be pulled out of the water, dozens of avid piranhas still attached by the teeth. Hunting is forbidden in Bolivia but is allowed for tribes living a traditional life; children grow up with bow and arrow, but go to school in Rurrenabaque when they reach age twelve, which is very hard – their families can come and visit but it’s not easy, generally only once or twice a year. Most children return to the village once they finish their schooling.</p><p>He does not think the Beni river dam project, championed by President Evo Morales and still under consideration by the current government, will go ahead. “It would cover this whole valley”, he told me. “All the tourism would be gone; Rurrenabaque itself would be finished. The pink dolphins would go extinct. Six tribes would lose their entire historic lands. There’s much opposition.” I hope he’s right.</p><p style="text-align:center;">*****</p><p>Our next stop in Bolivia was Cochabamba; the journey was going well, until the moment when it wasn’t.</p><p>Our comfortable bus wound through eight hours of flat roads across the altiplano; then, as we started to descend, about two hours from our destination, the driver pulled over. “The air compressor has failed”, he told the forty or so passengers. “No air means no brakes; so we have to stop here; you all have to get off the bus. Maybe another fleet will be able to take you to Cochabamba”.</p><p>Some passengers were furious; one man seemed on the verge of punching the driver. We lugged our packs across the road to join another group of passengers who were already starting to hitch. A lorry pulled over and the driver opened the tail door just in time; it was starting to rain.</p><p>Soon Ash and I were seated in the lower level of a stock trailer with ten Bolivian passengers. Some of them looked cold; rain started to blow through the slatted sides of the trailer. We dug through our packs and dished out anything we could find – a rain jacket for the old man to my left; a ground mat to cover the backs of three people seated on the other side; another ground mat for a lady to sit on. Rain dripped through the gaps between the boards above, and we laughed with our fellow passengers at the absurdity of our transport. But once we reached our hostel at Cochabamba that night, I spent three hours scrubbing our packs, ground sheets, rain coats, guitar case; and threw away my hat, all permeated with the smell of the sheep that had trickled down with the rain from above.</p><p style="text-align:center;">*****</p><p>From Cochabamba we travelled to Sucre, the constitutional capital, most memorable to us for its incredible Christmas-lit Plaza de Armas (main square) with Christmas dinosaurs, crowds of people, food vendors, Spanish rap-battles and traditional music groups<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/367d591bfaafc4ee877f4774ff9a9baeb235a01e/original/img-20221205-201155.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_right border_" />; then onwards (and upwards) to the town of Potosí, at the head-spinning altitude of 4,100 metres.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In Potosí we fell asleep to crashing thunder and the sound of rain lashing out of the darkness against the single-glazed windows of our chilly colonial-era tower room. A few hours later, at dawn, we awoke to the sound of dynamite echoing through the hills.</p><p>The famed Atlantic treasure fleets; the ‘Manila Galleons’ in the Pacific; the world’s first global currency; and one of the earliest examples of European brutality in the New World all stemmed from this place. Named the ‘Cerro Rico’ (Rich Hill) by the Spanish, and the ‘Mountain that Eats Men’ by the native population, over 40 megatonnes of silver were taken from the mines here between 1545 and 1800. Some estimates suggest that the number of indigenous forced or enslaved labourers who died at the mines during the same period number into the millions.</p><p>The silver brought out was forged into coins at the Potosí mint, each with a value of eight Spanish reales – the famous ‘Pieces of Eight’ that were familiar to every Chinese silk trader, Dutch or British privateer, and even to Long John Silver’s parrot; that went down with Armada ships on the Scottish coast, that purchased spices in Indonesia, ivory in India and elevated the rulers of Spain to possibly the most powerful in the world.</p><p>We had arranged a visit to the mines, although I was suffering with a headache from the altitude. Sol, our guide, introduced herself; about five-foot zero tall, she smiled when we first arrived but a very direct manner took over as she kitted out Ash, me and the Peruvian couple who were also coming along with welly boots, waterproof trousers and jacket, helmet and miner’s lamp.</p><p>In the miners’ market, she bartered in Quechua with stall holders, buying (on our behalf) gifts of coca leaves and soft drinks to grease the wheels with the miners. Then we made for the mountain.</p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/c71550c1b3217b62b6feeac8189051ea48235fea/original/img-20221208-151340-hdr.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span class="text-small">Sol and Ash at the mine entrance</span></p><p>Pausing to allow a couple of mine carts to rush by, Sol led us through the mine entrance and into the mountain. <span> </span>Soon the only light came from the lamps worn by the five of us. We followed branching rail lines deeper and deeper; occasionally a rumbling sound would indicate the approach of another cart and we stepped aside to let it pass. Sol was clearly a match for any miner here – she explained to us the process of buying a claim (the miners here are all self-employed, working for a co-operative); of finding a seam, digging it out, bringing it to the surface. She strode through the mud, greeted miners and joked with them, passed packets of coca leaves or bottles of coke where appropriate (most miners clearly had a cheek full of coca leaves), and sat down and chatted with favourites Miguel and Jorge. She showed us shafts and chutes and answered all my questions with a clear pride and respect for the miners.</p><p>“Now I will take you to the ‘tío’, the guard of the mine,” she said. ‘Tío’ is Spanish for uncle, and I wondered what she meant; but she soon explained. When the mine was first dug, the Spanish forbade the indigenous population from worshipping any god but the Christian god. “Named <i>díos”</i>, she said; “But the language here has no sound of ‘d’, so the name of the god changed to ‘tíos’, then ‘tío’.</p><p>“The first miners here were enslaved”, she went on; “often they were not allowed to leave the mine for months at a time. Many died. So they built the tío, to keep them safe. And here he is.”<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/01010b94d97ae3f38d0832cde82bdb426a9a3db2/original/img-20221208-163957.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_s justify_right border_" /> The tío sat at the end of the chamber, a grotesque idol with runny-egg face of red, blue and black, apparently in a crouching position, with enormous protruding penis; almost covered in offerings of coca leaves, cigarettes and bottles of the 90-percent alcohol spirit sold at the miners’ market. The face is original, she told me, dating incredibly back to the early days of the mine; the body has been rebuilt.</p><p> </p><p>Sol laid down some coca leaves; tidied up some plastic bottles around the feet of the tío; then opened a small bottle of the alcohol, pouring some over the body of the idol before taking a small swig herself. She offered some to me – it burned in a very cheering sort of way.</p><p> </p><p>Back in the daylight, and in the town, my battle with altitude didn’t feel so bad. We went out, met some Potosians drinking aguardiente and coke. Soon we would move on to the remote southern corner of Bolivia, exploring mountains and salt plains, headed towards the Chilean border; tonight we celebrated life, music and conversation in good if slightly drunken company!</p><p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/305446/7bcf398b4ef5ace746cd663c8ffab1eaf311f846/original/bolivia.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/71481412023-02-03T17:24:42+00:002023-03-13T05:37:08+00:00South America #4 - South Perú and the Uros Islands <p>18 days after we left Perú, on 7th December, President Pedro Castillo moved to dissolve Congress in his country, a Congress which was about to take a vote on his removal due to corruption charges. Almost immediately, Congress did vote to remove him, as a result of the dissolution, and he was arrested by the Peruvian National Police. He was replaced, as per the country’s constitution, by his vice-president Dina Boluarte, who denounced Castillo on taking office. </p>
<p>Castillo’s detractors say he was attempting a self-coup in taking charge of the country’s democratic institutions – and Perú has hard experience of self-coups, military coups and dictatorships. </p>
<p>His supporters, (including the governments of Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina and Colombia), claim that economic and political elites were obstructing and maintaining an environment of confrontation and hostility against him, being threatened by his progressive left-wing policies; and that he was backed into an impossible corner by these and a hostile right-wing press. </p>
<p>It is so sad to see the effects of this on these places we visited so recently – and to imagine how the situation will be affecting the lives of the warm, welcoming and gentle people we met there. And it’s tragic to consider the 48 people who have been killed, and the hundreds injured, by police and security forces brutally suppressing the large protests now taking place. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">*** </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small"></span><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/c74010a943d9c8c23673d642bd6429675826b583/original/img-20221115-064344-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>From incredible Cusco, we bussed east towards Lake Titicaca, through the region now at the centre of the protests and blockades. In the lakeside town of Puno we stopped. The town spills down the valleys to the lake, where a harbour holds a fleet of small white boats, along with a larger, riveted steel steamer – on looking this up, I learn that the ‘Ollanta’ was built on the Humber in 1929, disassembled, shipped to Perú and transported over the Andes by rail. Her predecessor, the ‘Yavari’ was constructed in England in a similar way in the 1860s - but back then, the packages of iron plate, rivets, boiler and machinery parts were broken down into 160kg packages to be transported to Titicaca at 3,800m above sea-level by pack mules. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/c638f60502aa8a9334f627f40c6974fb8193951b/original/img-20221118-173858-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">Ss Olanta in Puno Harbour</span></p>
<p>I climbed to the large Inca statue that overlooks Puno and this western corner of the lake. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/51d106004ae04748b5bbb721369dc768a0e919c6/original/img-20221115-170757-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_right border_none" alt="" />The town extended beneath me looking like a Kodachrome panorama, with red roofs, buildings brown and white, and the cyan lake, surrounded by yellow reeds and grassy hills. The sun had not quite set, so I climbed higher, despite the thin air and the slight temple headache that never seemed to leave me while at altitude, reaching the large condor statue for the wider view. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/ba5ed5bb48c29ed25bc680e9768e3be1b7f0e651/original/img-20221115-173354-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">Puno viewed from the giant Condor on the hillside</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">*** </p>
<p>I had read of the Uros people and their floating islands, moored out in the lake.</p>
<p>Keen to see something of these, we had arranged to spend a night on one; so we were instructed to be at Puerto Kalapajra at 1200, and to wait for Nestor, who would pick us up.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/b1b736056e55158dd37332c222ac1990ecb4f165/original/20221116-110122.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_left border_none" alt="" /> The pace of life slowed immediately when we arrived at this tiny pier among the reeds – small boats came and went, heavily skirted women loaded small boxes out of taxis, people stopped to chat with others. </p>
<p>A blue fibreglass open boat appeared, a man in a bright textile waistcoat and straw hat grinned and motioned us over. This was Nestor! </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/803f5d04876707d4334210b4e1321a4719a35479/original/2023-02-03-14-11-58-301.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>He piloted us through the reeds, a channel wide enough for one small boat, stopping occasionally to clear the outboard propeller of weeds,a nd slowed as the water opened out, showing us the football field – on the mainland – where the islanders gather for a game once a week, and the clinic where once a week a doctor holds a surgery. On our starboard side was the first floating island we would see – a yellow thatch of reeds forming a metre-high island, with a hut, a shoulder-high sign reading ‘UROS’, and a lady in bright textile dress and bowler hat ready to receive the minimal fee charged to visit the islands. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/ea1ce5dfdb14e8b5230fbbb63984b9d9b9b01180/original/img-20221117-115237-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>My Kodachrome sensation continued as we motored out into the greenish-blue lake, the line of islands ahead growing closer in vivid yellows. Occasionally we passed a reed boat under construction – bundles of totara bound together with the raised stems that remind me vividly of the process described in Thor Heyerdahl’s ‘Ra Expedition’. Nestor eased the engine so he could hear my question – and answered that yes, the tradition continued and every islander still learns to make boats this way. </p>
<p>“But the ‘Mercedes Benz’” – he indicated towards a larger boat, still with the traditional appearance and shape, but painted an even brighter vintage yellow, with cat heads woven into the stems and a covered platform built on the midships area – “we make a different way”. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/8707104aa235ca7f17495a1d0b7f7c0dd5e1d959/original/img-20221117-114532-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">The boats know by the islanders as 'Mercedes Benz' alongside the islands</span></p>
<p>“We use empty plastic bottles”, he explained. “Five thousand per ‘Mercedes Benz’. The reeds are woven only on the outside so they look the same. And the yellow paint is necessary to keep the reeds from rotting – without paint, the boat only lasts two years. But when we do rebuild, we re-use the bottles... “ </p>
<p>I looked around and saw one of these ‘Mercedes Benz’ boats tied alongside every island; this is at least an inventive way to make use of a modern-day waste product, and to perhaps help locally to slow the plastic litter problem that is now choking our whole planet. </p>
<p>Each island appeared to be about 40 metres in diameter, with a dozen or so huts, some two-story wood frame buildings, and a central tower with water tank atop. Each island sports a huge condor, a wading bird, a large arch, or similar centrepiece, all woven and bound from reeds.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/8267123b7d0121311f350d761b0887c590a9dbb0/original/img-20221116-173847-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_right border_none" alt="" /> The islands are arranged nose to tail, almost appearing connected; Another line of islands lined the horizon half a mile further out into the lake. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Arriving at our island, Nestor put the boat alongside the metre-high patch of reeds, we tied up and climbed ‘ashore’. The reeds are spongy underfoot, making walking a little more laborious than usual. “We lay down a fresh top layer every two weeks”, Nestor explained. “But underneath, the island is made from blocks of a different reed; these last thirty years or more. They are moored to those poles - ” I saw a large tree-branch stuck into the lake-bed where he indicated. The smells of the reeds fill the air with a pleasant, citrus/fresh hay odor that islanders must miss terribly when away from home. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/b0deed49e9156395528369b7446669673ce97f30/original/img-20221117-090947-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">Fully traditional reed boats are still built and maintained on the islands </span></p>
<p>The Peruvian government in the early 2000s provided a solar panel/battery system to each island, so each hut has electric lighting, and each island has hot water and refrigeration. Repairs and construction are done as a community, with about 30 inhabitants on each island pulling together to carry out necessary work. Children go to primary school on the islands – either to the Catholic school or ghe seventh day adventist school. For high school they go across to Puno where they lodge during the week, returning to the islands at the weekends. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/71d5a181561cf474ff66cf6a283255bd9462a773/original/20221116-114856.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">Exploring our island</span></p>
<p>On our island we relaxed, eating lunch (a muddy-tasting trout, of the the same enormous portion size we’ve found all across Perú), chatting to the other islanders (they are Aymara speakers, but speak Spanish as well); and strolling round the island (which takes about five minutes). After a run in the boat with Nestor, taking us down the chain of islands, we headed back to our hut once darkness fell. The violet sunset faded to stars behind the mountains, and the lights of Puno twinkled through the large windows of our hut. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/c0bf7163261fd5b10675604e41ff9eef2554e786/original/20221116-183646.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_none" alt="" style="margin-right: 25px; margin-left: 25px;" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The sun beat down again the next morning, and we spent our time chatting with the neighbours, Annabella and Jorge, who were passing a pleasant morning in the shade outside their huts. “we prefer it here, very much”, Jorge told me. “in Puno it’s all ‘plata, plata, plata’” (money, money, money). </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/a4ea3dbbc2a2c6400f141195a95e556cd6a2587f/original/img-20221116-111957-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_right border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>Soon, we were on our way back to the mainland with all its hills, neutral spaces, plata, anonymity and noise; and organised our bus ticket to La Paz, Bolivia. We crossed the border at the lakeside town of Khasani the following day. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">*** </p>
<p>I messaged our friend Josefina in Ica, South Perú, yesterday, asking how things are now in her region. She tells me that, thanks to God, everything is fine at work and in the city; there were many riots but things are calm at the moment, and people are hoping for a speedy recovery. Peruvians are nothing if not copers, and are grimly used to political upheaval.</p>
<p>They, like we, must survive despite the actions of our leaders and hope the fish will keep biting, the travellers will keep coming, the seasons will be kind, and that politics and violence will not disrupt our best-laid plans!</p>
<p>Till next time... </p>
<p>Barry </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/379cbfaa43feefa5a689eafc02be87c476911f99/original/2023-02-03-13-56-12-899.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/71247492022-12-18T17:52:58+00:002023-02-03T17:10:50+00:00South America #3 - Mountains and into the Inca Heartland!<p>Mountain roads carried us through valleys, across streams, then traversed mountainsides; our bus followed the six-metre strip of rubble that separated the sheer cliff face that climbed to the heavens on one side from the plunging drop into oblivion on the other. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/106a90ebd36ff014fe6c037e8e1b6f64d084034c/original/img-20221109-094239-hdr.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_none" alt="Peruvian mountain roads" /></p>
<p>The road switchbacked its way down precipitous slopes to lower valleys, wound along these then began further descents. It grew dark, and the comfortable reclining ‘semi-cama’ bus seats gave us a sense of security as the bus twisted and wound along the remarkable feats of engineering that are Perú’s road network. </p>
<p><span class="font_small"><em>(Picture to right: roads through Andean valleys in Per</em></span><em>ú)</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sometime during the night we reached the coast road and the ride steadied out; we hoped our ears may have popped for the last time this journey. </p>
<p>As the daylight grew once more we passed through desert, occasionally interspersed by bursts of green – trees, fields and habitation – indications of where the rivers and streams flow west from the Andes. </p>
<p>The prevailing global air flow in these latitudes is from the east; trade winds cross the Atlantic, picking up moisture from the tropical ocean surface until they reach the Eastern seaboards of Brazil, Guyana, or Venezuela. Crossing the Amazon basin, and particularly once they reach the Eastern foothills of the Andes, these airflows begin to drop their moisture as rain. Imagine a wet sponge being gradually compressed and losing its moisture as it moves across higher and higher terrain. </p>
<p>Only dry, dusty remnants of this tropical airflow make it through, around, or over the Andes; this and the fact that the prevailing wind flows northwest along the west coast of the South American continent, tending slightly off the land, keeps this region west of the mountains one of the driest on earth. </p>
<p>We changed buses in Lima, continuing onwards to the town of Ica, where the Río Ica flows through – creating an oasis, and Perú’s best wine producing region. Ash and I caught a tuktuk out to Huacachina crater, right next to Ica Town - a microcosm of this larger oasis that appears as the classic stereotype of a desert water hole. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/49bb5673f0bef51562397d251601375e1675469b/original/img-20221103-180649-hdr.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>Resting in the dunes above Huacachina</em></span></p>
<p>Two days later, and aboard another bus, we turned inland and started ascending once more, to Arequipa, Perú’s second largest city, which lies at 2,300 metres above sea level. However, from here it’s not necessary to go far to reach much higher altitudes. </p>
<p>A local bus, rougher and readier, was our transport further into the mountains. Within two hours of leaving the terminal terrestre in Arequipa, we had wound our way up to over 5,000 metres of altitude – higher than any peak on the European continent – before descending once more into the valley that becomes the Colca Canyon, one of the world’s deepest canyons. </p>
<p>We were getting into the Inca heartlands now, and the mountainside on both sides of the valley rose with the terrace farms that converted these inhospitable slopes into a breadbasket long before the Europeans arrived.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/67a8b647c409b32a44460ded88e26bff44062666/original/img-20221107-123928.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>(Right: terrace farms line the Colca Valley)</p>
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<p>We spent the night in Cabanaconde, a Quechua-speaking village with a pleasant central square and a crisp mountain-ridge background that lit up golden in the rising sun the next morning. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/9dba7eee9136790aa28c98d8763829a1a971031f/original/img-20221107-070124-hdr.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>Mountains rise behind Cabanaconde at 6am</em></span></p>
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<p>A colectivo, a shared local minibus, took us along the canyon; hopping out midway, we walked the canyon edge and caught sights of condors soaring. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/a21c3deffefa00a888ef5578a29058c1bdc341aa/original/img-20221107-095849.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_none" alt="" /><em>The Colca Canyon</em></span></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/c9d1ca5e961f3a3d46eedb49388f8dbf63038c0a/original/img-20221107-085635.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_none" alt="" />Being the restless type, I strode off along the canyon in search of more sights; Ash sat in the shade and was rewarded by Andean foxes, swifts that flitted among the cactuses and hummingbirds that hovered sipping from the yellow flowers that grew on the small scrubby trees. It’s a real lesson for me to learn that we often see more by sitting quietly and allowing nature to come to us. </p>
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<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/47736c76cc860024b8eaa202c365a1f2b7fa0793/original/20221107-112229.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_none" alt="" />It’s becoming clear on this trip that Ash is moved by the nature and animal life of the region; where my interest often lies more in the human history and culture. Continuing into the Andes once more, we reached the Inca capital of Cusco at 5am. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/f6deca8e139cd0cdf704eb2caa5f5251e9a9fffe/original/20221108-073229.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_none" alt="" />I tested my Quechua phrases on the taxi driver who took us across town – ‘yo meka, ke kankii?’ was my phonetic attempt to say ‘hello, how are you’. The driver was delighted, and talked us through (in Spanish) the sights we saw in Cusco as we drove towards San Blás, the oldest quarter of this incredible town, rebuilt by the Spanish in the mid-1500s, often on the foundations of much older buildings.</p>
<p>We saw the great statue of Pachacuti, the Inca leader during the building of Machu Picchu and at the time of the Spanish arrival; how even the street layout was designed by the Inca to take the form of sacred creatures; and the huge symbols cut into the mountainsides that surround the city. </p>
<p><em><span class="font_small">(picture to left: Statue of Pachacuti, Cusco)</span></em></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/7feaf56909989d7440b6f439ee7dfb15f7df3c11/original/img-20221114-172058-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><em>Views across Cusco</em></span></p>
<p>Of course we had to see Machu Picchu and the Incas’ Sacred Valley while in the Cusco area. Without the funds or the months of advance booking required, the popular Inca Trail was not available to us. Instead we caught a minibus for a wearying seven hour drive across the mountains. At the highest summit, I caught a view of a small shack with woven roof, surrounding fields that looked across the tops of the clouds that submerged the valley and towards the opposing mountain peaks. I felt that living at such altitude must give a very different perspective on the world, looking down on the rest of humanity like a bird. </p>
<p>Dropped off, below once more, at a hydroelectric dam, we walked 10 km through the jungle valley following the rail tracks and the river, with dizzying sheer mountains rising on both sides. Atop one of these, far above us, we caught our first sight of the walls of the site itself.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/6ed57d6a04500a96bab81dfd430abc36f00facb6/original/20221109-144305.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" style="text-align: center;" /><em>Walking the path to Aguas Calientes</em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/c50b93ac2230409af6df5fe0617e6a47517f1e12/original/img-20221109-145224-hdr.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" style="text-align: center;" /><em>First views of the site at Machu Picchu</em></span></p>
<p>We arrived at the small town of Aguas Calientes by sunset, found our accommodation and arranged entry to the site for the following morning. </p>
<p>Only reachable by train or on foot, Aguas Calientes is built next to the river Urubamba. Just a farming hamlet until the discovery of the famous Inca site, it is now the hub and base for many who visit Machu Picchu. From here, buses (brought in by rail) drive the hairpin roads up the mountain to the site, 400 metres above. </p>
<p>How can I describe Machu Picchu? I felt the weight, history and significance of this place as soon as I set eyes on it. However, even without the historic ruins, this mountain top would feel special. The world drops off on all sides; other sheer peaks are all around, falling away in the same way. The town, river, everyday human life, take place far below. Something clicks in my brain, and it all seems to make sense – the Inca view of the three planes of the world: the <em>Hanan Pacha</em> (the world above, of the gods, represented by the Condor); the <em>Kai Pacha</em> (the world of the living, represented by the Puma); and the <em>Uku Pacha</em> (the underworld, represented by the serpent). </p>
<p>The river snakes along the foot of the valley, looking static and eternal from this height; the town, where normal life continues for the people down there. But up here, I feel a parallel with the shack we passed yesterday – viewing the world as a bird, separated from earthly affairs, from normal life, somehow even from time. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/d5514de70c7d3e45030c732dbaada9910f6b9a96/original/img-20221110-102957.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The pictures of the remains at Machu Picchu speak for themselves. Our guide tells us that it’s likely that this site was a retreat, a spiritual getaway for the Inca ruler Pachacuti and his descendants. He paints a picture of activity, of constant runners and prrovisioners coming and going along the four-day walking trail from Cusco; of the great Inca himself being carried along this trail along with his retinue. How Cusco would be the place of earthly, everyday life; and here, Pacha could be elevated to the realm of the condor. A population of 750 maintained to ensure all was ready whenever he chose to spend time here; and also to reinforce the borders of the Inca empire. </p>
<p>The engineering to ensure the stability of this mountain top town also provided the terraces that were used to grow the food required; terraces were constructed inside a retaining wall, with layers of stone in decreasing size, topped with soil, to ensure the correct rate of drainage so that crops did not become waterlogged. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/689135f39fb222a97c950c81d64291addcc11a8d/original/img-20221108-153240-hdr.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_none" alt="" />The exceptional stonework in the buildings (better quality stone construction was used as a sign of devotion in more important religious and ceremonial buildings) is humbling for anyone who (like me!) has struggled to build a drystone wall. No packing or mortar was used for the finest buildings - just a perfect fit.</p>
<p><em><span class="font_small">(picture to left - Inca stonework in Cusco)</span></em></p>
<p>We walked back down to Agas Calientes, down the path that winds down the mountainside shaded by thick tree cover, with perhaps a better understanding of what it is to live amongst such mountains. Life is dominated by the mountains; the vertical becomes as important as the horizontal. The planar simplicity of life on the coast is replaced by an otherworldly understanding of our place on earth – our altitude always kept in mind, always looking up or looking down. </p>
<p>We wound back along the road to Cusco, over the mountain pass, through the sacred valley, past the terrace farms, as the driver’s pan-pipe music blared out - tired and altitude-addled, and ready for a rest before the next adventure.</p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/70919052022-11-02T16:49:37+00:002022-12-18T17:18:47+00:00South America #2 - Journeying through Perú<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span class="font_regular">Wow, Perú!</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">I’m blown away by the welcome we’ve found in this country; and especially that here in the town of Huaraz, in the neighbourhood just east of Avenida Confraternidad Internacional.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">We’ve been staying in this barrio for just four days – and yet I already feel like it’s my own, and I would defend it and its residents to anyone.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">A classic proof that you should trust your instincts, the streets leading up to the Casa del Montañista appear exactly the sort you’re told not to go through in South America. Poorly lit, with several run-down or partially-demolished buildings, and rough mortared streets; we viewed them with trepidation after the 20 minute walk from the bus station, arriving on Thursday evening. However, from the moment we started up the hill, laden with backpacks and guitar, we also felt an incredible sense of welcome and goodwill, with a smile and a ‘buenos noches’ from everyone we passed.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 11px; text-align: center;"><span class="font_regular"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/3e69372ff17a5822e3614630d0d5fafe2fa24d48/original/img-20221028-203708.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></span></span></span></span><span class="font_small">With Ash, arriving at our lodgings in Huaraz</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px">Now that we have explored the neighbourhood by day this sense has only increased. The local shops are friendly and fun, with parents encouraging their kids to master their fear and serve a foreigner, whilst sharing a grin with me; trusting us to return glass bottles the next day, exchanging names and asking about where we're from. We’ve befriended several street dogs, and these are healthy and friendly – Ash feeds them whenever possible!</p>
<p>Today has been especially pleasant – the streets here come to life on a Sunday. I had lunch at a pop-up street café; and while I ate chatted with owner Victor and staff member Flower. I was as keen to learn some Quechua phrases as they were eager to teach me, and I look forward to trying some of these out – simple exchanges such as ‘hello, how are you’; ‘what’s your name’; ‘salt’; ‘chilli’; ‘thank you’; and ‘delicious’ – all the important stuff!</p>
<p>The sun shone and the temperature in the shade of the awning was pleasant (high teens, as warm as it gets here in the mountains; night times are much cooler – approaching freezing). Victor and Flower were both interested to learn a bit about Scotland and life there, and we compared thoughts on places, life, mountains, language and travel.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/8195124c2814b8233c23303b1af3a110bddaec85/original/img-20221030-134050-hdr.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 11px; text-align: center;"><span class="font_small"><em>Jir</em></span><i><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>ó</span></span></span></i><span class="font_small"><em>n Prolongaci</em></span><i><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>ó</span></span></span></i><span class="font_small"><em>n Jos</em></span><i><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>é</span></span></span></i><span class="font_small"><em> Olaya</em> comes alive with street restaurants on a Sunday</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px">Then just now, on my way back from making some travel arrangements in town, Yothy, Eliza and Isaac called me over for a glass of beer – ‘...algo contra el calor’ - something against the heat. Again, they are interested in Scotland, although they say they have only seen it in photographs and movies. We talk about mountains and how even here in town, down in the valley, we’re at over double the altitude of Ben Nevis (Huaraz sits at 3,100 metres; the Cordillera towers above it at up to 6,768m!) They know that Scotland is the country of William Wallace - everyone seems to have seen ‘Braveheart’!</p>
<p>Yothy asks me how I’m enjoying Huaraz – I say I love it, especially this barrio. He shrugs, and says it’s not so pretty – nodding towards the rubbled street, the tumbling buildings, damaged and under repair. But it's the people that make a barrio – the sense of community and welcome here is unmistakeable.</p>
<p>Behind the houses, the incredible ridge of the Cordillera Blanca rises, white, snow-covered. Huaraz suffers regular earthquakes, and faces threats from flooding during heavy rain periods, primarily during El Niño years; this often damages streets and buildings. The danger of larger floods caused by melting glaciers in the mountains above is an ongoing concern in this valley.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"> </p>
<hr><p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/9d66332cd6fe334b5628248c6a18fc8694b4dfef/original/img-20221015-153446-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_left border_none" alt="" /></span></span></span>We had crossed the border from Ecuador by night after spending two days in the UNESCO heritage city of Cuenca. The city features stunning cathedrals and architecture, and a level of prosperity we perhaps haven’t seen elsewhere in Ecuador.</p>
<p>The night bus onwards was extremely comfortable, putting UK buses to shame – the worst journey I’ve had this year is still the 14 hours aboard the National Express from Glasgow to London last month; that experience is one that, I hope, won’t be beaten!</p>
<p>We reclined deeply in the comfortable seats and slept much of the way to the border; and again after we went through the process of getting off the bus, getting stamped out of Ecuador and into Perú between, all of which happened sometime between 2 and 3am.</p>
<p>We arrived in Máncora at 6, finding a very different flavour there from the town we'd left. The dusty streets were barely awake in the grey morning light, and tuk-tuks queued up to offer us lifts. The station for our onward bus turned out to be only 100 metres along the road.</p>
<p>Another two-hour bus journey and we were in Talara, a town that looks as though it has been built in a huge, hewn-out square in the sand. At the bottom of the town is a large oil refinery and a port where tankers berth; the sight of this took me back to my days working on tankers, running to dusty ports on the west of Mexico.<span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> </span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/5847d83f4d0c3dd52b86d68c881d1e754f158189/original/maersk-humber-salina-cruz.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 11px; text-align: center;"><span class="font_small"><em>A picture I took from the bridge of the Maersk Humber, running into Salina Cruz, M</em></span><i><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>é</span></span></span></i><span class="font_small"><em>xico, long ago!</em></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px">More tankers and oil installations dotted the sea between Talara's harbour entrance and the horizon.</p>
<p>Our host, Rafael, met us here; we would be volunteering at his place for the next week.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/dd425fa52d6fadf073bae367412e28b81e14ef89/original/vid-20221018-161637-exported-5338.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_inline border_none" alt="" /> The drive out to Lobitos, and then to Baterías Point, was dusty and bumpy, the roads destroyed in places by the river that runs only in El Niño years, Rafael tells us. All around us on the drive from town is desert – the Sechura Desert, with very sparse, hardy bushes and huge dunes of mortar-sand. The landscape looks increasingly blasted; dotted through the desert around Lobitos stand dozens of 'horse-head' oil pumpjacks, nodding away, pumping crude through the steel and plastic pipes that lie stretched across the ground.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px">Rafael's place is named ‘El Casa del Naufragio’ – the house of the Castaway, the nickname he was given when he<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/4d865f523eecd24dd7b0d8c3730871d33e3679aa/original/img-20221021-110352-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_right border_none" alt="" /> arrived in town as a surfer ten years ago. He looks the part; beard greying, sun-hardened eyes, and a dog he has named ‘Wilson’. He lives here with his partner Caro, who runs art projects with an environmental angle for children and adults in Lobitos.</p>
<p>The casa is entirely off-grid, with solar panels charging a battery bank, which gives sufficient power to keep a fridge going, run lights and charge devices through the night. Water is loaded by truck, and drinking water must be rationed carefully. An off-grid house is very similar to a ship really!</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/d6e9a1875e066041df7506b1f6bd7ab6f45d14d1/original/img-20221018-140317-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>Our stay was arranged through the 'Workaway' platform - a global volunteering/hosting platform that enables cultural exchange, often with a focus on environmental or art/music projects. Our main initial task was to lay a paving area; Ash and I got into it, enjoying preparing the ground, raking out the surface, levelling and dropping rock slabs into place, filling the gaps with aggregate, watching the patio develop. We spent the next few days working on this project, or tidying and sorting building materials around the house and surrounds.</p>
<p>The outlook from the Casa de Naufragio is incredible: waves curl around Baterías Point, open Pacific Ocean horizon is broken only by the oil installations, kite surfers and fishing boats that still head out under sail; and frequently frigate birds, pelicans and cormorants rise above the ridge, riding the updraughts and eyeing up fish. The wind rarely eases, blowing 20 knots or more and driving desert dust into every corner; the temperature is cold at night, rising from single figures to low 20s by day, so that only in the sun is it really warm.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/c8410b8c7e98b30510ce6e9939888e75c876a909/original/img-20221018-181408-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_xl justify_center border_none" alt="" /></span></span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px">We worked by day, with time to swim in the sea (chilly!), walk the dog, or cook.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/38ce0b1847bc37dd5aa7499db7e1b7c66bf8d7ca/original/img-20221018-212728.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_inline border_none" alt="" /> In the evenings we were able to go to the Naufrago Bar in Lobitos town; this place has a real community feel, built around surfing and tourism, and we got to know several of the regular crowd.</p>
<p>On our day off, and the next morning, we went surfing - with regular, curling waves, Lobitos Beach would make a decent surfer out of me in a short time. But our week was up, and it was time to move on.</p>
<p>From Talara, we caught a 6-hour bus to Chiclayo; a town where many of the streets around the guest house we stayed in have been destroyed by floods and are uneven, rubble-piled, with deep trenches cut in places where presumbly drainage systems are to be installed. But the people make up for any lack of tidiness with their warmth and humour. At a ceviche stall the following morning I feel like I have a walk-in part in a piece of street theatre as the two ladies who run the stall never stop joking and accosting passers-by. To an old man the lady shouts, 'hola viejo' (hi old man), with an aside to me: '...es enamorado de [he's in love with] mi...'; she immediately turns and cries to a passing lady 'Hola muñeca bonita!' (Pretty doll) - come eat some ceviche!</p>
<p>It is very, very good; raw fish marinaded in lime juice and chilli, super fresh.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/b9c00a70bc812bf3215f56be4d9eb7bd6fde743a/original/img-20221022-140407-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_none" alt="" /> Valería, the owner, tells me the fish market is close and good, fresh fish is easy to come by. <span class="font_regular"> </span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"> <span class="font_small"><em>(Real Peruvian Ceviche, pictured right)</em></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span class="font_regular">The ladies tell me it's normal to eat some rice with chicken after ceviche , but I need no more! We have found meals to be very large in Per<span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>ú</span></span></span> - almuerzo, or lunch, is often served as a dish of the day; there will be a soup followed by a large plate with meat, rice and vegetables. I make my excuses, pay the bill and move on before any more food is placed in front of me!</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px">We caught another bus, onwards to Trujillo - a town much smarter on the surface than Chiclayo, but perhaps lacking the mirth and warmth we found there; then the following day a further bus took us inland and up the mountains, ascending to 4,200 metres before descending once more into the valley to Huaraz.</p>
<p>These are proper, intimidating mountains, vertical in places and appearing impossibly high. A minibus takes us past Huascaran Sur, Perú's highest - and South America's third highest - mountain, then up some switchbacking, unsealed roads to Laguna Parón, where a breathless climb (10 days at sea level has robbed us of any altitude acclimatisation we may have gained!) takes us to a stunning viewpoint - looking out over an intense blue lake towards the striking Pirámide peak, and the even higher Artesonraju.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/3ede7c3399ce82151798922ae3955c7c94d53d31/original/img-20221029-131528-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 11px; text-align: center;"><em><span class="font_small">Atop the mirador at Laguna Par</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>ó</span></span></span><span class="font_small">n</span></em></p>
<hr><p>Back in town, we make plans for travelling on - Per<span style="font-size:11.0pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>ú</span></span></span> is vast, and there will be at least three night-buses involved in getting to the south part of the country. We have seen some of the desert-dry coast and the mountain areas, but it's incredible to think that three-quarters of the country, on the other side of the Andes, is rainforest - and is some of the most untouched areas of the Amazon region and river system. We are excited to see more of the jungle and forested parts of the continent when we visit Bolivia next month.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/a4b4c5cdc53c46371f2cb2dd37626eb13ed669cf/original/lobitos.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> <em> <span class="font_small">Our route so far through Per</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>ú</span></span></span></em></p>
<p>Till then I'll leave you and we'll walk down our rubbly street once more, bid good night to everyone we pass, and catch a bus onwards from the Transport Cooperativa in the centre of town.</p>
<p>Be safe,</p>
<p>Barry</p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/70825512022-10-17T15:00:00+01:002022-12-18T16:17:08+00:00South America #1 - At altitude in Ecuador! <p>It took over a week to realise that altitude sickness was affecting my state of mind as well as my body.</p>
<p>A sea-level creature by nature, I may occasionally climb to 30 or 40 metres to rig a topgallant or royal; or even the occasional Munro at a little over 1,000 metres. </p>
<p>But, feeling a loss of appetite and a revulsion towards all food, drink and comfort along with the headache and fatigue, it eventually dawned on me that my emotions were as washed thin as the air here at 3,600 metres; and I had not given myself sufficient chance to acclimatise. </p>
<p>Having now spent two weeks in the mountains, the low hum that is the altitude has not gone away; but it is more manageable. Occasionally comes the strange realization that breathing has not been deep enough; and suddenly a gasping gulp of air is needed! Definitely a step outside my comfort zone. </p>
<p>Ash had been out here for six weeks already when I flew into Quito. She has dreamed of seeing South America since a very young age; I have wanted to spend significant time immersed in a language and to become fluent; and the rhythms, music and geography of this continent fascinate me too. So, without a flat to encumber us back home, we will spend most of the winter out here. This will be a shoestring trip, but without UK heating bills and food costs to pay we may even come out better off! </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/22e3eb9f2c0e85fd1645c75d233800d60f611415/original/img-20221003-234654.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><span class="font_small">Quito by night</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">Quito, a strip of a city where almost </span><span style="font-size: 1em;">3 million souls live, fills a plunging mountain valley; trucks, taxis and vehicles fill the roads from 4am until 9pm, accompanied by the sharp, old-fashioned smell of incomplete combustion. Lorries cruise the streets selling gas cylinders, playing a tune as they go. Vendors shout from shop fronts and street stalls. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1em;">However amidst all this noise there is a sense of peace from many residents. Oscar, our host at a hostel near the historic centre, is running for office in the northern province where he is from. He talks of the history of his country - 'Almost everyone in Ecuador is descended from native people', he says. 'but when the Spanish invaded, they completely changed the culture and the country, forever'. He goes on to say 'its no good for a country to invade another, ever'. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1em;">We talk of Ecuador's incredible mountains, and active volcanoes. 'its strange how mellow the Ecuadorian people are, living among all these mountains and volcanoes', says Oscar. But I consider how, in my own experience, I have been to places where the land is flat and easy, and observed how people fall under the misapprehension that nature is tamed, that the land is theirs to buy and sell. In other places, where the land is high and mountainous, or the weather is harsh and the seas rough, there is a constant reminder of our smallness in the face of nature, and the people are often more humble and socially minded as a result. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1em;">I have travelled to Ecuador without a guitar; so on the second day we go hunting for one in town. Imported guitars, even when second hand and beat up, are impossibly expensive; but then we stumble on Fausto Carrer's luthier shop. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1em;">Fausto has been building guitars in Quito for forty years; I buy a small nylon-strung instrument from him, very different to the steel strung I am used to. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1em;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/a8dfc1ccad077abd49657b938d926dec5e08e035/original/img-20221004-153514.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><span class="font_small">Buying a guitar from Quito luthier Fausto Carrera</span></span></p>
<p>We move on, south, to the small town of Zumbahua, high in the Andean uplands. The colours here seem washed out - grainy browns, mossy greens, dark rows of trees between fields that climb steep slopes and rugged protruberances. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/9b34d2c6b8db1f1b3953eb8c891d83f117b8ad68/original/img-20221009-163607-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><span class="font_small">The backdrop to Zumbahua, high in the Ecuadorian Andes. </span></p>
<p>The people of Zumbahua are Kichwa-speaking; and the men and women dress in traditional gear. The town is small enough, and unused enough to tourists, that people stop and say a good evening. </p>
<p>The following day we headed 14km further north, to where amid the mountain tops of the Andes is the Quilotoa Volcano. </p>
<p>This semi-dornant volcano contains a lake within its jagged crater, three kilometres across. The climb down to the lakeside is steep and long; the climb back up again, at over 3,600 metres above sea level, is arduous and long. The views are incredible. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/4b3c38b720902251f64c2e19653361d06f408375/original/img-20221010-112222-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><span class="font_small">Quilotoa Lagoon</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">At Baños we climb the steep hillside and watch vultures soar below us, high above the town. That night, Carlos, an Argentinian percussionist/clarinetist jams some tango and cumbia tunes with me; there is a huge world of rhythm and music out here and I'm very keen to learn more about it. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">At Pochoa we camp in sight of Cotopaxi, one of the highest active volcanoes in the world at 5,897 metres. The nights are cold here, only a few degrees above zero, and we wrap up warm in the tent; the evening rain makes camping challenging, but it's worth it for the morning views across the valley! <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/7ca904883c34062ed83ab2d5abc4fb03e777e190/original/img-20221012-063643-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></span><span class="font_small">Morning View of Cotopaxi from our tent. </span></p>
<p>We have come as far as the city of Cuenca as I write; a town boasting some incredible architecture, cathedral domes and a grid-iron centre. The climate is very Scottish - yesterday it rained all day and reached a maximum of 14 degrees C. Having almost acclimatised to the altitude, tomorrow night we will travel down towards the coast and the Peruvian border. </p>
<p>I have been asked to curate the <a contents="Highlands and Islands Voices" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://twitter.com/HI_Voices?t=RnP7NAZBQgvTNNveVqXITQ&s=09" target="_blank">Highlands and Islands Voices</a> site on Twitter this week; I'm planning to post a mix of impressions from travel and from home earlier in 2022. I'm pleased how easy it's proving to work, communicate and keep projects ticking over from out here. </p>
<p>So, more impressions to follow; please keep in touch; and perhaps I'll see you back at sea-level! </p>
<p>Barry</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/478360c75529972356d0122af6fe226f30974a91/original/img-20221015-174447-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
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<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/70724892022-10-01T13:39:54+01:002022-10-17T02:04:23+01:00Two festivals, and a trial by weather! <p>After playing the excellent <a contents="Ardersier" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.ardersierfolkclub.org.uk/" target="_blank">Ardersier</a> Folk Festival - what a great bunch of folk run this club! - I headed to Inverness on Monday 19th September to pick up the Lady of Avenel, bringing her to Buckie for the <a contents="Findhorn Bay Festival" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://findhornbayarts.com/whats-happening/findhorn-bay-festival/" target="_blank">Findhorn</a> Bay Festival - and what a line-up the organisers here had prepared! Our own role was to sail out of Buckie twice a day, as Stories, Sessions and Sail.</p>
<p>Fair winds brought us along the Moray coast, and we tied up in Buckie Harbor; there we decorated the ship with the spectacular signal flags made by <a contents="EcoArt" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.ecoartcharity.org/Projects-LAND" target="_blank">EcoArt</a>.</p>
<p>Being from a traditional fishing community myself, it was great to be in Buckie and I met loads of interesting characters aboard and on the pier. Fishing skippers, people who talked about the gala days that used to be held - an event that sounds so similar to the Cullivoe Gala, interested folk that wandered down to the pier to see this unusual visitor.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/6455f1802ce5c11a9c31c64801ef420824ac2294/original/img-20220923-184534-hdr.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><span class="font_small">We brought interesting folk to sea with us on the sails - storytellers <a contents="Anna Fancett" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.uponmyword.co.uk/Upon_my_Word/Anna_Fancett.html" target="_blank">Anna Fancett</a> and <a contents="Alex Patience" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://tracscotland.org/storytellers/alexandria-patience/" target="_blank">Alex Patience</a>, musicians such as <a contents="Briann Ó hEadhra and Fionnag NicChoinnich" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.brian-fionnag.com/" target="_blank">Briann Ó hEadhra and Fionnag NicChoinnich</a> and family, <a contents="Su-a Lee" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.sualee.com/" target="_blank">Su-a Lee</a>, <a contents="Hamish Napier" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.hamishnapier.com/" target="_blank">Hamish Napier</a> (just married - a huge congratulations to them!) and of course <a contents="Charlie Grey" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.cgjpmusic.com/" target="_blank">Charlie Gre</a>y and Carol Anderson as part of our ship's crew. It was so good to get to jam with these great musicians once the ship was alongside after the sails!</span></p>
<p><span class="font_small">On Sunday, a truly foul spell of weather set in; we were forced to cancel the afternoon sail. With wind picking up to 40 knots from the North West, a swell began to creep into the harbour and we were soon surging at our berth. With twelve mooring lines out, Carol, Charlie and I tended the ship with concern as increasing stress loads came on the rop</span><span class="font_small">es; the worst of the wind was forecast for 4am, so we stayed up attending lines and watching until this passed. Finally grabbing some much needed sleep, I was awoken again at 7am to the sound of a spring parting, and dashed back on deck to retension and tend the remaining lines. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_small">All day the conditions deteriorated until there was no way to transfer crew between ship and shore, the swell causing us to range up and down the berth. At 8.30am the harbour sent us some extra mooring lines as by this time we had snapped four of the fifteen we now had out. And at 5pm, with the wind and motion increasingly violent, our heavy storm head line, purchased in Orkney in May, parted with a loud bang. This was a moment of real danger - there was no way to leave the harbour, but the pier was no safe place to be either. Another call to the harbour and they sent a 46mm super heavy hawser which we rigged forward. We spent the next four hours fixing extra chafe prevention and doing all we could to preserve the mooring lines until the gale would eventually blow itself out. </span></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/b849c5978c5f65becac408d268e2ff421651e971/original/20221001-123127.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">By 1030pm another spring, and one of the stern lines, parted - I started the engine and for the next five hours worked the ship back and forth against the surge, trying to minimise strain on the ropes, whilst Carol and Charlie worked chafe gear into pinch points, cutting up old hose and fenders, anything that would reduce the battering and keep the ropes from chafing away for a bit longer. Another long night of no sleep, but by 5am things had begun to improve with the falling tide. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">Tuesday evening brought enough respite for a small birthday celebration; Carol had somehow managed to make a cake! Tough conditions can bring a crew closer together and we together with Lydia, Ben, and Mark, Jo and Robbie from the LAND flag project had a pleasant conversation over food and cake. </span></p>
<p>Conditions were still too rough to sail from the harbour on Wednesday, but by evening had calmed right down and we felt safe at last, the ship now relatively still. We finally got a taste of the Festival ourselves, heading to the Marine Hotel to join the ceilidh. It felt like we were sleepwalking into a dream, salt-rimmed eyes finding the room decorated for a concert with a nicely lit stage, a good sound system and Hamish Napier hosting a concert. </p>
<p>Sharing a stage with fiddlers of the calibre of Carol and Charlie for our spot may have been intimidating under normal circumstances; I had had zero time to consider it! </p>
<p>By 4am we had to be on our way once more, departing Buckie - there was an even stronger blow forecast for Friday and the weekend, and having no desire to be caught in another north-wester, we knew Thursday was our only weather window. So at 3.30 am Ben and I got the ship underway in the darkness, three passengers onboard as we tried to make up for four days of disrupted day-sails. </p>
<p>In Nairn we anchored and took another group of passengers aboard, Charlie leaving us to head for Seattle for his next gig; and by 5pm we were at Inverness, locked in and all secure in the Muirtown Basin. </p>
<p><span class="font_small"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/731e8c8f36c4b2370f4406b7e8751fdcb43130b0/original/img-20220929-173704-hdr.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></span>Here I left the ship also, at a level of exhaustion I have rarely reached. This week has been a reminder that Sessions and Sail works well when weather is good - but when things get difficult there is no room for anything but giving 100% to the survival of the ship. </p>
<p>It has also reinforced the incredible team we have aboard the Lady of Avenel - the crew that give whatever it takes without complaint, only growing stronger as a result; the humour that has never failed yet; the knowledge that we can rely on one another through whatever may get thrown at us. And of course the cake. </p>
<p>Buckie folk and Shetland folk know exactly what the weather can do - thanks to the town, the harbour and the Findhorn Bay festival for hosting us! </p>
<p>Barry </p>
<p><span class="font_small"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/3f7a70b5a7428780e3ad8c5c54213d65e42b9102/original/img-20220923-184704-mp.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></span></p>
<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/69749052022-05-19T16:01:43+01:002022-10-01T12:34:05+01:00The Springbank Voyage - meeting Jackie Royal and family, descendants of Captain Dennis Royal.<p>When I began researching #The Springbank Voyage, I knew it as a local tale, as the crew included four sailors from Yell – Nicky Tulloch, Tammie Irvine, James Hardy and Lawrence Tait. (There turned out to be an Arthur Harrison from Aithsting aboard as well, plus some Orcadians). </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/260f1a20e0bfa196b383f9929234a2dd7a40cd2e/original/springbank-crew.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">The crew of the Springbank; photo courtesy of Leslie Tulloch</span></p>
<p>I was intrigued by the elusive Hannah Royal, wife of the Captain and stewardess on the voyage; I wanted to find out as much about her and her husband, Dennis Royal, as I could. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/86e2af1aabe055c88a26259c83ecf9b94647baa1/original/group-shot-inc-hannah.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">On the aft deck of Springbank; Hannah Sim and Dennis Royal are 4th and 5th from left.</span></p>
<p>The only thing I knew about them was that Dennis Royal was from Newfoundland. A good friend, @Wells Grogan, had some connections in Canada and told me he would make some enquiries. </p>
<p>As I searched birth, death and marriage records in the thick of lockdown, I found more and more evidence that the key could be found closer to home – a Master’s ticket issued in Glasgow in February 1904; a marriage between a Dennis Royal and a Hannah Sim in Liverpool the same month; a yacht commissioned by one Captain Dennis Royal on the Clyde in the 1930s. A book, written by a Dennis Royal in Helensburgh in 2000… </p>
<p>Just as I felt I was homing in on something, Wells messaged me back with a phone number – for @Jackie Royal, who lived just across the water from him; and just 18 miles ‘doon the water’ from where I was living in Glasgow. </p>
<p>The granddaughter of Captain Dennis Royal (from his second marriage), a trip to Jackie’s house turned out to be an absolute trove. Her father (alive then but since deceased) had researched his own father’s career; and there were photographs, Certificates of Competency, the wedding certificate of Dennis and Hannah, ship’s articles showing the names and dates of signing on of all the crew, and some amazing stories of the Springbank that I had not heard before. </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/a3062bdbdb79705e25bd216d7f14d9b20efc6205/original/d-royal-portrait-2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><span class="font_small">Captain Dennis Royal, early 1900s.</span></p>
<p>There were Dennis’s sextant, chronometer and compass; plus his 1892 Winchester rifle, used to keep the crimps at bay in San Francisco! </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/139ef83cb24fecad673fbde06afba40ce76e2f4f/original/winchester-1892.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Having spent the preceding months deep in the year 1908, these photographs, documents and items brought another side of the Springbank story to life for me in a wonderful and vivid way. </p>
<p>Jackie and her family are a great bunch, huge music fans and lovers of the outdoors and it’s been great to get to know them through their grandfather (and great grandfather)’s story; my thanks to her for her kind permission to use some of the photographs from her grandfather’s seagoing days. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/3d3f708640c25895ab03c3c0486fa459baa2e1fe/original/jackie-barry-dave.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">Barry with Jackie Royal (and Dave!) at their family house in Helensburgh.</span></p>
<p>The first iteration of this project was as my final project for my @BA Applied Music degree, and I was proud and touched that Jackie was able to let her father hear it before he passed away.</p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/68810062022-01-27T17:58:45+00:002022-01-27T18:02:31+00:00New album announcement!<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_large"><u><strong>New Album - 'The Springbank Voyage' - coming in Summer 2022</strong></u></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p>I'm very excited to announce that I've got a new album underway - and it was a great boost just before Christmas to learn that I'd got funding from <a contents="Creative Scotland" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.creativescotland.com/" target="_blank">Creative Scotland</a> to help me make it!</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/4aa2409bf5007bd659ec81f20ab1c968d9f8cd08/original/news-new-album-1.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_medium" alt="" />In May 1908, the four-masted barque 'Springbank' departed Leith, loaded a cargo of coal in Hamburg then sailed for Cape Horn and her destination of Santa Rosalía, on the west coast of Mexico. Among her crew were four Shetlanders; one of whom was a fiddle player from Cullivoe, Yell. Other crewmembers were from Orkney, Mainland Scotland, England and Newfoundland.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/0c3b2852c38befc7bfc7fbe937f353c999ff5745/original/springbank-75-on-sea.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">'Springbank'</span></p>
<p>The voyage was a tough one, and not all the crew made it to Mexico.The Springbank's crew faced hardships such as storms and rough weather, illness, calms, adverse winds and more. There were joys also - not much can match the feeling of a ship being driven in the right direction by a fair wind. The oneness with nature, the being at the mercy of the elements, the euphoria of departures and arrivals.</p>
<p>Although I have been spared many of the hardships a 1908 sailor had to endure, the voyage is one I can relate to, having spent eight years sailing in the Pacific aboard square rig sailing ship '<a contents="Søren Larsen" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Larsen_(ship)" target="_blank">Søren Larsen</a>'. Between this and the Cullivoe/Shetland history, this is for me as much a personal story as a historical one. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/c3d5e1f024de3dcac6cc91a3a4e600db5859d8ca/original/untitled-design.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_medium" alt="" /></p>
<p><em>(left - on a Southern Ocean passage aboard Søren Larsen'.</em>)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The album will be a retelling of the story, and will feature 14 brand-new tracks - a combination of songs and tunes. Several of the songs are in Shetland dialect; the tunes will give a nod to the Cullivoe style of fiddle playing.</p>
<p>I first heard the story of the Springbank from Cullivoe storyteller <a contents="Lawrence Tulloch" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.com/2017/02/britain-is-country-where-scotlands.html" target="_blank">Lawrence Tulloch</a> - the story features on his story cassette 'Yul, Hallamas and da Dead o Winter', released on the Veesik Records label in 2000. Some excerpts from Lawrence's telling of the story will feature on this album, with the kind permission of Lawrence's family and Veesik Records.</p>
<p>So I'm in Cullivoe this month, recording demos of all tracks, and aiming to get the final bits of writing and arranging complete before starting studio recording 'sooth' in February. Watch this space and my social media pages for updates and for some of the stories that have been a feature of researching the 1908 voyage!</p>
<p>And for a release date - 12th August 2022 is the date I am working on!</p>
<p>All the best, and fair breezes -</p>
<p>Barry</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/de84422adb4e08928ba0238565b075cde96fc219/original/force9sail.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/67055282021-08-03T18:33:15+01:002022-06-09T15:32:37+01:00Sessions and Sail 2021<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<a contents="Sessions and Sail" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.sessionsandsail.com" target="_blank">Sessions and Sail</a> 2021</h2>
<p>The possibility of running a musical sailing trip seemed like a dim hope just a few months ago. But with a hopeful, music-starved group, and a careful regime of testing and preparation to avoid any virus problems onboard, we gathered in Oban on July 18th.</p>
<p>This was always going to be a Sessions and Sail trip with a difference. The usual ethos of mixing with communities, gathering ashore in community halls and pubs and meeting local tutors to learn tunes had to be replaced with a plan to sail the Lady of Avenel to some of the many gorgeous, isolated spots that are well within reach from Oban; to be inspired by those places and to play and learn tunes as a self-contained crew.</p>
<p>And it worked beautifully. Of course, a great crew, a hugely positive group, and the exceptional weather helped too..</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/e547246f9e4ebc3d4d1def05c08144d76276562f/original/20210720-195806.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /><span class="font_small">Lady of Avenel anchored off the beach, SW Jura</span></em></p>
<p>Sailing from Oban with <a contents="Carol Anderson" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAd6IPAzLnY" target="_blank">Carol Anderson</a> and <a contents="Charlie Grey" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.cgjpmusic.com/" target="_blank">Charlie Grey</a> as our music tutors for the week, we first visited Eilean Dubh and the Garvellachs, where Charlie taught the crew the lovely melody 'Aignish'.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/da7459a851e1651a39aa9a4187a1e49e2db5cbc7/original/20210719-140347.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_center border_none" alt="" /></span><em><span class="font_small">Charlie Grey teaches 'Aignish' on the foredeck</span></em></p>
<p>With very light winds, and a morning fog that burned off leaving hot sun by noon, we motored through the Gulf of Corryvreckan and down the East coast of Jura, finding a beach all to ourselves where Des cooked a superb barbecue, and the tunes went on until late.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="fgWRWuw7HZE" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/fgWRWuw7HZE/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fgWRWuw7HZE?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p>We made our way up the Sound of Islay in the same way, with the tunes rarely stopping; and another beautiful beach at Kiloran Bay on the West of Colonsay.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/53e227afb3a6de3c892834b90e3b772bb95acc24/original/20210721-095647.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small"><em>Alison and Wells enjoy breakfast in the sun whilst passing the Paps of Jura</em></span></p>
<p>At Iona we were joined for some tunes on deck by Pepita Emmerichs and Theo Barnard, which led to a great trad/bluegrass/swing session; again, the tunes went on into the very small hours.</p>
<p>For our final night, where we would normally have planned a ceilidh, we were instead welcomed into the village square at Easdale Island, where we were able to meet and play some outdoor tunes with local musicians and the community - thanks go out to the community there for making us feel so welcome, and to Des Ballantyne for making the arrangements.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="nwFTrM9LDSU" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/nwFTrM9LDSU/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nwFTrM9LDSU?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p>Back in Oban, we had a day to turn around in preparation for the second week of Sessions and Sail... Charlie and Des left the crew, and <a contents="Harry Bird" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.facebook.com/harrybirdandtherubberwellies/" style="" target="_blank">Harry Bird</a> and Becky Shaw joined as tutor and cook respectively.</p>
<p>This second week begun with a little less sun than the previous one, but soon we were sailing slowly into Loch Buie with tunes being played in the saloon and mackerel being pulled in aft! Again, an idyllic start to what turned out to be another superb week.</p>
<p>At Iona we had more illustrious visitors (see right...) and another good night of tunes.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/98a17096bee2e8246ec05a29b2b2b2f67311cb24/original/20210726-220045.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_right border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>The following morning at Staffa, having made an early start to beat the tour boats to it, a real highlight was the sound of Becky's highland pipes, Carol's fiddle and John and Dave's harmonica, along with numerous voices, in Fingal's cave.</p>
<p>Mate Aodh and I stood off with the ship whilst the rest of the ship's compliment were ashore in the cave; the sound of the music brought goosebumps.</p>
<p>Thanks to Dave Godden for the use of his image below, shot from the cave:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/cc1aa249cf3a1d24f6f72a1c29f9f0fb27909533/original/lady-of-avenel-off-staffa.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span class="font_small">Lady of Avenel stands off Fingal's Cave (Photograph: <a contents="Dave Godden" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://davidjgodden.co.uk/" style="" target="_blank">David J Godden</a>). </span></em></p>
<p><span style="display: none;"> </span><span class="font_regular"> From there we were able to visit Coll, and Kilchoan Bay on the south side of the Ardnamurchan Peninsula before sailing across to Tobermory. In one of the best sails of the trip, we got the full crew on deck for some sail training; with a good NW breeze we wore ship around the Red Rocks and crossed the Sound of Mull close-hauled on the starboard tack, before sailing right into Tobermory Bay under full sail with the bagpipes on deck playing 'I See Mull'. I doubt if Tobermory missed our arrival!</span><span style="display: none;"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">We sailed down the Sound of Mull the following day to our final night party - again, a modified affair due to Covid.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">This was a ceilidh with a difference. We had planned the event in conjunction with the community in Kerrera; and with our new friends aboard the sailing vessel 'Lady Flow', the <a contents="Pianocean" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://pianocean.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Pianocean</a> project. <a contents="Caledonian MacBrayne" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.calmac.co.uk/" target="_blank">Caledonian MacBrayne</a> are also due a big thanks for giving us their permission to use the pier in Kerrera.</span></p>
<p>We moored the Lady of Avenel mediterranean style, stern-on to the pier with the bow held by our anchor and a mooring; Marieke, Lilli and Sebastien moored Lady Flow to the same mooring, and took a line from their stern to the shore. Our amphitheatre was formed!</p>
<p>With Marieke performing on the piano that rises from the deck of Lady Flow, through a PA system on her deck, and the Lady of Avenel performing from our deckhouse roof through our own speakers, we were able to perform an open-air concert and ceilidh for the gathered crowd on the pier and the shore at Kerrera.</p>
<p>A duet between Marieke on her boat, and Carol on ours, as they performed "Fear a' Bhàta", was a real highlight; others included "Drifting", the song that Harry had guided our crew in writing as the trip went along; The Stornoway Waltz, which Carol had taught our whole crew; Becky's bagpipe opener, from our fore top platform; and the Strip the Willow and Gay Gordons, played and called by our session crew that included some of Oban's finest players.</p>
<p>'That pier is just dying for a strip the willow' was definitely a contender for quote of the night...</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/b84768a076e2d03b6ad811b521f006d9188c1c60/original/20210730-194902.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small"><em>Carol Anderson performs 'Fear a' Bhata', duetting across the water with Marieke Huysmans aboard 'Lady Flow'on piano and vocals. The audience are off to the right on the shore and the pier.</em></span></p>
<p>We left the pier on Saturday morning and returned to Oban with the trip brought to a spectacular close.</p>
<p>After a year and a half where it became difficult to see the path ahead for either sailing or for music, this fortnight aboard has been a real affirmation of everything.</p>
<p>A huge thanks goes out to the crew, both sailing and musical - Aodh, Carol, Des, Charlie, Harry and Becky - for doing such a good job; and to the great folk who sailed with us, all of whom seem far more like friends than guests - Andrena, Amy, Nick, Ali, Trev, Maggie, Ian, Wells, Jane, Christina, Pedro, John, Elaine, Roy, Wendy, David, Dave, John and Charlie!</p>
<p>Also big thanks to Stefan Fritz, and to Duncan McEachan ashore on Kerrera for having the wild idea that became Friday evening, and for making it all happen!</p>
<p>There is light ahead, and we will be planning more Sessions and Sail trips in 2022.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>All the best, and fair winds -</p>
<p>Barry</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/66855022021-07-12T17:13:25+01:002021-12-27T14:53:08+00:00Sailing Lady of Avenel back to Scotland<p>It's hard to say who had suffered more from the 18 months enforced 'lay up' - me or the sailing ship Lady of Avenel.</p>
<p>While I've been isolating in a Glasgow flat or a Cullivoe croft writing music, gaining new skills in music production, and finishing a music degree, the ship has been sitting in fresh water in Heybridge Basin, awaiting a crew to get her back in sailing condition. </p>
<p>There's an old saying that 'ships and sailors rot in port', and while I would argue that my own time hasn't been too badly spent, I have rarely seen a ship in greater need of salt water.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/a569744f71846e8944b2edb5fe642b96001a0f15/original/20210527-202425.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">Lady of Avenel locking out of her lay-up berth in Heybridge Basin, near Maldon, May 27th 2021</span><br> </p>
<p>Five weeks in Maldon disappeared in a bit of a blur - somewhere among it all we cleaned every surface above and below decks; stripped back hideously flaking deckhouse roof paint; prepped and painted topsides, deckhouse sides and deck house roof; sent up and bent on ten sails, and rigged haliards, buntlines, clewlines and sheets. There was welding - plates set in at deck level where the old steel was thin; replacement futtock bars aloft; and machinery and batteries were overhauled.</p>
<p>My hands - more used recently to handling a fiddle or guitar than hempex ropes and diesel filters - cracked, split and ached along with muscles unused to shipboard life since 2019. The all-consuming nature of ship life took over, and we hit our stride. Life rafts arrived, blocks and boxes and equipment, a new galley stove, were loaded aboard and secured in place.</p>
<p>With an excellent team assembling, our target of being sea-ready by June 12th - unthinkable just a few weeks earlier - began to appear doable, and by departure-eve, even the sudden need for an emergency replacement fridge for the galley couldn't slow us down.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The high tide at Maldon is a strange thing, to a Shetlander. For 16 hours a day, the ship sat in a 'mud-berth', with a trickle of water 'nae mair as a burn' ran past our port side. Egrets,Canada Geese and Shalders called out as they waded and browsed the thick brown mud.</p>
<p>Two hours before high water, there would still be little sign of any change, so far up the river Blackwater. Then, so quickly you can watch its advance, the tide appears, streaming in, filling up the river. Eventually, with a squelch and a shake, the 'Lady' would free herself from the mud, floating proudly for a brief while until the water ran out once more and she settled back into the groove she had work in the mud.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/f6528f4656ad964a81060b3996038ec728656135/original/20210531-093921.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">Maldon Creek - the tide just beginning to rise.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p>On June 12th, High Water was at 1445; and by 1330, we felt as ready as we could be, having frantically sent ashore anything we didn't want to bring to Scotland, and, very hopefully, getting aboard any last thing we thought we might need. Last-minute runs to chart suppliers, tobacco shops, and concernsa about what else we may not have. A ship that hasn't been to sea for 18 months, and has been a construction site for the past 5 weeks, is a hard thing to get sea-ready.</p>
<p>But with Jim's powerful workboat on the port bow pulling, and his right hand man Dave in another boat pushing on starboard, after a long struggle with the mud the ship pulled out into the channel. Past Maldon we steamed, the Saturday heat-wave meaning the pub, the river banks and the Blackwater were all filled with people - sailing dinghies, walking dogs, drinking pints in the sun. Out the river, past the 'Ross Revenge' - the ship that once hosted Radio Caroline - and towards the open sea.</p>
<p><span class="font_small"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/5bb5a6d39ed288e577d54f0f5e9005737fddef8c/original/20210612-155220.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_center border_none" alt="" /></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">Mate Carol Anderson, happy as the rest of us to be heading out to sea</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p>We paused at Brightlingsea, anchoring overnight in the Pyefleet anchorage to allow secure and inspect all round. There's no better feeling than leaving the land behind on a ship - getting back in to the sea state of mind once more, where the complications - and assistance - of the land are outside your sphere of existence, and the ship can live independently as she is designed to do.</p>
<p>With anchors and hoisting gear working well, the ship stowed for sea and the propeller thoroughly inspected, we continued on our way the following morning. The bottom end of the North Sea is a maze of sand banks, gas rigs, wind farms and cardinal buoys, and we picked our way through these, sometimes under sail, sometimes under engines.</p>
<p>A day of this took us blessedly clear, and we diverged with the British coast, steering a line to pass close by Rattray Head, off Peterhead. The wind, calm for the first night (See below!) did what a forecast almost too good to be true suggested, and filled in force 5 from the south-west; the sky remained clear, and soon we were leaping up the North Sea at speeds up to 9 knots.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/97cfbe028bd38d5e51e72370390a243e32b10ec5/original/20210614-223933.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">'Sailor's delight' - calms before a fair wind in the North Sea.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">Our crew was gelling very well; Aodh and Nessie (Carol's shipboard name!) worked hard on the unfinished jobs, painting hatches and decks; Tom, our carpenter, and Andy, regular volunteer, fixer of anything, and de-facto ship's entertainer, with the help of Millie, got stuck into the rigging. Sean, a maritime historian, experimented with sextant corrections and told us arcane stories of maritime lore. Donal, in addition to the 12-4 watch took charge of the galley and provisions, keeping the saloon stowed as it should be, and ensuring the food was consistently excellent. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_regular"><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="0Sb_CtREv8A" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/0Sb_CtREv8A/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0Sb_CtREv8A?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="360" width="640" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">With music too - Carol and Donal both being excellent fiddlers, and me on guitar, we were able to finish the work day and go into the night watches with a few tunes on deck. Never was such a fortunate crew!</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">By the 17th, we had reached Wick, where we were joined by Jasmine and Harry; a quick pint ashore, our only rain of the voyage so far fell during the night; and with the sky clearing and the new joiners and a large order of stores onboard, we were on our way once more.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font_regular">We had joked in Maldon that the inevitable list of unfinished jobs was the 'Pentland Firth' list; however, flat calm conditions in the Firth found us painting decks, varnishing the helm console and rigging conduit on cables aloft. A favourable tide saw us motor past Dunnet Head on the longest day of the year, and by the early hours we were coming up on Cape Wrath. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">The following day we dropped an anchor in stunning Achmelvich Bay. The wind was forecast to fill in from the North West, and we were making good time so we may as well anchor somewhere nice and wait for it!</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/8185f420a7cbc794a115f386561310bfc35d6f5b/original/20210619-112304.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">Achmelvich ahead! Plus some sure indications that we have reached the West Coast.</span></p>
<p>Sure enough, the forecast was as good as its word; and we set sail from Achmelvich Bay with a beautiful North-West breeze to carry us down the Minch. The Shiants were our destination; and we anchored in the bay there, our view criss-crossed by the flight paths of puffins and the fetor of guano filling our nostrils!</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/a5a2e4068b09b69b0c56a46e29e221a7e6448302/original/20210620-193058.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">Lady of Avenel anchored at the Shiant Islands...</span></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/868ecc9883c67f553fd68abe9719effbb9e608f3/original/loa-puffin.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font_small">...criss-crossed by puffins!</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">The fair winds were forecast to hold for one more day; we decided not to waste them, and set off at 0800; 14 hours of full sail took us down the Minch towards South Uist. And of course, for tunes on the way, what else could we play?</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a contents="'Crossing the Minch'" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://youtu.be/yvcmwmFjkro"><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="yvcmwmFjkro" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/yvcmwmFjkro/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yvcmwmFjkro?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="360" width="640" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></a></p>
<p>At Lochboisdale, anchored by evening, we were joined onboard for tunes by Anna-Wendy Stevenson and Simon Bradley; the following morning we moved to the new harbour and loaded bunkers. By afternoon we were on our way to Barra.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And what better end to a trip for a musical sailing ship like Lady of Avenel than to make acquaintance with another boatload of musical sailors? In Barra we were tied up just along the pontoon from the 'Lady Flow', a sailing boat with a difference: Marieke Huysmans-Berthou has adapted this vessel to feature a piano that raises from the aft deck, and has sailed from the South of France through the West of Ireland and now Scotland, giving concerts to audiences ashore.</p>
<p><a contents="Pianocean" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://pianocean.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">https://pianocean.wordpress.com/ </a></p>
<p>There was time for once last session in Barra before our crew dispersed! This has been a real reminder of how good sea-life can be when a good crew comes together; and a real affirmation of how integral music is to that life. And in a time when Covid is still succesfully putting a cap on all things musical, to sail for two weeks has been a very welcome respite.</p>
<p>Bring on <a contents="Sessions and Sail" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.sessionsandsail.com" target="_blank">Sessions and Sail</a>! Here's <a contents="Harry Bird" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.facebook.com/harrybirdandtherubberwellies/" target="_blank">Harry Bird</a> leading a rendition of the old shanty 'Santiana' on our farewell night aboard in Barra:</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="wh9TmI2LUEI" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/wh9TmI2LUEI/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wh9TmI2LUEI?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="360" width="640" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
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<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/65286392021-01-25T15:18:04+00:002021-01-25T20:32:47+00:00Soren Larsen voyage #7 - Galápagos<p>This January has thrown up a few highlights; the incredible concerts being unveiled every day by <a contents="Celtic Connections" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://celticconnections.vhx.tv/products">Celtic Connections</a> has to be among the best of them. I'm spending much of every day with a world-class concert coming through my speakers in my own house. And what a fantastic way of bringing people together - shared experience is one of the finest things about going to a concert; and it's warming to know that so many of my friends are also watching these shows.</p>
<p>The weather is another source of variety - Cullivoe has been stunningly beautiful at times. On more nights than not, there have been starry skies; frosty ground that crunches underfoot, and the immense background rumble of waves breaking.</p>
<p>Especially at night, when it's this quiet, I can hear so much - the deepest sound is the steady sub-bass of swells landing on rocks over a mile away to the north-west; the more regular bass sounds thump from the closer headlands to the north, near Breckon; and the steady, slow beat and hiss of breakers on the Unst shore, Brough, and the Papil and Kellister beaches within sight of the house competes a complex sound picture.</p>
<p>With the absence of light, I can see so much more; on more than one night the aurora and the stars have lit my path along the road through Cullivoe.</p>
<p>So despite the anxiety that living through a pandemic induces, and the steady worry of the loss of livelihood, there is a lot to take in and to be inspired by. Today I'm looking back again at my first Pacific voyage aboard the tallship Søren Larsen, rejoining the story here as the ship approached Galápagos.</p>
<p>Stay safe and well,</p>
<p>Barry</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>On another windless day - it was easy to see how ships got stuck in the 'doldrums', this equatorial region where the wind is virtually absent, for weeks on end in the pre-engine days - we continued to motor over the glassy-smooth surface of the Pacific, rolling over the lazily undulating ocean swells; a fierce tropical sun overhead and our destination now the Galápagos Islands.</p>
<p>On the afternoon of 13th February, two days after departing Coco Island, I had the afternoon watch when we sighted our first other ship since departing Panamá; what appeared to be a tune fishing vessel at eight miles distance, right ahead.</p>
<p>Of course, we were on a collision course, and as I made an alteration of course to starboard, I saw a helicopter lift from the deck of the other ship. Six pairs of binoculars, mine included, followed the small chopper as it rose, crossed our track - then took a dip by the bow, and plunged into the Pacific with a great plume of spray.</p>
<p>I increased Søren Larsen's engine to full ahead and, giving the helmsman a course to steer for the crash position, dashed down the companionway to fetch Captain Jim. We prepared our rescue boat for launching, got medical gear on deck and ready.</p>
<p>As we made best speed, we watched the tuna fishing vessel, faster and closer than us, reach the crash postion and stop; a crane swung out from her deck. When they at last answered the VHF they informed us that the two helicopter crew had been recovered and were fine; they had the wreckage in tow; no medical assistance required.</p>
<p>The 'Taurus Tuna', Callsign YYEK out of Venezuela, was two miles away and steaming east, away from us, at 14 knots by the time we reached the spot; leaving no sign that this strange incident had ever happened.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We resumed our south-westerly course, and three days later crossed the equator just before sunset, whence an elaborately dressed creature known as the 'Bilge Monster', bearing a vague resemblance to Terri, appeared on deck. Draped in seaweed, lank hair hanging in shades of blue, red and green, she brought the message that the Søren Larsen’s crew had not been forgotten about, and that Neptune himself would visit as soon as the vessel departed the Galapagos.</p>
<p>She subjected our crew to a series of tests to establish who were 'Shellbacks' - mariners who had already crossed the equator - and who were 'Pollywogs', and thus making their first equator crossing, and required to pay ther dues to King Neptune.</p>
<p><em>(Note: The term 'Pollywog' derives from the Middle-English word 'pollywig' or 'pollwygge', meaning 'Tadpole'. The term 'Shellback' is a more recent one, indicating mariners who had been at sea long enough to have shells growing on their backs.)</em></p>
<p>The Bilge Monster assured us that all dues would be paid as soon as the ship was at seaonce more on leaving Galápagos; I was glad I had brought my certificate from my own first crossing, five years earlier, aboard a tanker in the Indian Ocean. Today's crossing meant I had traversed 'the line' in all three oceans - Indian, Atlantic and Pacific - surely well on my way to being a shellback!</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">~ ~ ~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>On 16th February, as I took the six-hourly meteorological observations that we sent back to the New Zealand met service, I noted that the sea temperature had dropped by 5 degrees, indicating that we were now feeling the effects of the cooler Peru, or Humboldt, current.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This current sweeps up the west coast of South America in a huge upwelling flow of cool, nutrient rich water, feeding the enormous anchovy and sardine shoals off Chile and Peru, the source of one of the world’s largest commercial fisheries. From there it continues north until it washes past the Galápagos, bringing life to the marine ecosystem of the islands, and maintaining the sea temperature at a relatively cool twenty-one degrees Celsius for most of the year. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the warm El Niño current flows west out of the Gulf of Panamá, meeting the cooler water and normally brushing the islands in December when the Peru Current is at its weakest, bringing warmer temperatures and rain to the area. </p>
<p>It is this combination of warm and cold currents that give Galápagos its unique and vibrant ecosystem; it is also this dependence on the currents that renders the wildlife of the islands so prone to disruption when they do not behave as normal.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The sea and air took on a different look and feel; the sea became less clear, greener, and more opaque; and the horizon gained a wan, washed-out look that would remain throughout our time around Galapagos. The air was filled with Frigate birds and Boobies; a pod of porpoises swam languidly across our bow; there were dolphins jumping. There were even a few seals, so far out to sea. </p>
<p>Jim took us closer in to the island of Genovesa and I manned the mast, keeping look out from hugh above as he eased the ship into this volcanic crater lagoon, with all hands on deck far below reaching for cameras and binoculars, eager for a glimpse of some more Galapagos wildlife. The steep, arid sides of the island sloped down to the sea but, with no viable anchorage, we continued on our way to Puerto Ayura on the island of Santa Cruz, another eighty miles to the south-west.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The varying currents also gave the islands one of their earlier names - 'Las Islas Encantadas'. Making slow speeds due to the absence of winds in the region, the first Spanish sailors who sighted the islands were at the mercy of the currents; navigating by dead reckoning, the perception was that the islands were found in a different position every time, and thus enchanted.</p>
<p>A combination of superstition and the difficulty of navigating helped keep the islands uninhabited until the twentieth century. Galápagos is one of the few places on earth to have apparently no indigenous human population. The earliest reports we have of the islands come from passing visits by mariners including Alexander Selkirk, DeFoe’s real-life Robinson Crusoe, in 1708; and his once-buccaneer captain William Dampier, on several occasions during the early 18th century. </p>
<p>American whaling vessels regularly stopped here during the early 19th century, stacking live tortoises upside-down in their holds to eat later, and putting goats ashore for a future food source; and of course, in the 1830s, Charles Darwin, naturalist, arrived aboard the British survey ship 'Beagle'. </p>
<p>People from South America, or possibly Polynesia, had reached the islands before their European discovery, evidenced by the small coconut plantations and pottery remains left here; however these people do not appear to have remained in the islands. </p>
<p>European settlers began to trickle in after the Panama Canal was constructed in 1914 – a group of Norwegians, a few German families. But it was only in the latter part of the 20th Century that a significant population began to grow, supporting the fishing, tourism, and farming industries. Now the population is 30,000 and growing; and this increase, together with ever-rising visitor numbers, puts a strain on the unique and fragile ecosystem.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We anchored in Academy Bay; here our voyage crew left us for five days. They had been signed up on a five-day tour into the National Park, where only licensed tour operators may enter; Søren Larsen would not be sailing into those areas. Instead, with the ship half-empty, it was a good opportunity to push on with some of the endless maintenance that a wooden sailing ship demands.</p>
<p>It was also an opportunity for what I later would call 'crew maintenance' - ensuring the crew remained in good condition by giving them a couple of days of leave! So, while half the full-time crew had their shore leave, and with only Captain Jim, Engineer Pete, Lucy, Jima, Sally Anne and me on board, we worked our way through first mate Sal's job list.</p>
<p>I always enjoyed these days with a smaller crew; life was more informal, and it seemed to me that we got a lot done with just a few of us working on our tasks without distraction, enjoying our work, taking our breaks when convenient instead of at formal smoko times.</p>
<p>Barefoot and bare-shouldered we worked in the rig tarring shrouds or varnishing yards, or on the deck-house roof repairing boats. Puffy altocumulus drifted across the pastel-cyan sky; dry brush and dark rocks lined the low headlands that enclosed the bay. Behind the jetty and the little town, indistinct mountains rose into the haze.</p>
<p>This was no peaceful anchorage, however; ships came and went constantly, day and night, unloading pallets of goods and 4 wheel drive vehicles onto flat barges, taking alarmingly large angles of heel as their cargoes were hoisted and swung out over the side by creaking derricks. More than once a rusty-looking vessel anchored uncomfortably close to us; we rigged a second anchor from Søren Larsen's stern, hoping this would keep us clear of any close-quarters situations as ships swung in the night.</p>
<p>In all life was pleasant but we ached to get over to the shore, so close, and begin exploring!<br> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">~ ~ ~</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dropped off at the jetty for two days leave, we were immediately amongst the dozens of scaly black marine iguanas that basked and swam around the rocks. I was startled by a noise from behind – a “Hawwwk… ptoo!” that sounded like a man clearing the back of his throat noisily, and spitting. I turned around, but no-one was there. </p>
<p>I watched as another of the iguanas turn its head to the side and gobbed a mouthful of white foam onto the rocks with the same hawking sound. These amazing creatures drink sea water, absorbing the fresh water from it, and spitting out the brine that remains.</p>
<p>Galápagos Penguins splashed on the surface as they swam across the bay; the iguanas roamed the rocks showing little fear of us, all within a few metres of the busy pier where the lighters and forklift trucks continued to offload cargo from the ships.</p>
<p>Lucy and I found some bicycles for hire and cycled up the mountainside to Bella Vista, enjoying the view over the harbour and across the sea to Isabella Island. The air has an unusual quality here, probably due to the cold seas that surround the islands, giving every view the appearance of a watercolour painting; the sky a washed out light blue merging barely-perceptibly into the light blue sea. Puffy high clouds drift lazily. The terrain was dry, light green brush growing from a faded chocolate-coloured soil; the bleaching sun beat down, hot through the haze but the wind, blowing lightly, was cool and soft.</p>
<p>At the Darwin Research Station we met a very old tortoise that had known Charles Darwin himself; and 'Lonesome George', the last of his species of Pinta Island Tortoises, now sadly deceased.</p>
<p>The next morning we cycled to the beach at Tortuga Bay, a mile-long beach two miles west of Puerto Ayura. The sand was marked only with the tracks of two marine iguanas; the gently breaking waves were cool enough to shock the growing heat of the day from our skin. It was the perfect place to relax for a few hours before returning to our ship.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/00d4ab8a9f71782013f114de0502a2d4af7ed30e/original/barry-iguanas.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Relaxing with friends, Tortuga Bay.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p>Back onboard, our voyage crew returned filled with stories of wildlife and adventures from their five days in the national park. We raised our anchor in the morning and sailed the forty miles to the rocky anchorage at Puerto Villamil, on Isabella island.</p>
<p>Here, the Galápagos cormorants and blue-footed boobies stood on the rocks; Galápagos sea lions basked in the sun on cabin tops and decks of the half-dozen small local craft; we never did discover how they were able to haul their bodies up the three metres of vertical topside to get there.</p>
<p>Our time in these islands was almost done; but we had one last mission here. We were lower on fresh water than we would have preferred when setting out on a 2,000 mile passage to Easter Island (with no likelihood of loading water at the other end, either). Captain Jim had been informed that the only way to take on water was to load from one of the fire trucks that served the islands' main airport, on the island of Baltra.</p>
<p>On our last chaotic morning here, Jim maneouvred Søren Larsen through the little channel to the Baltra ferry pier. With little room to spare on either side, and even less clearance under our keel, we moored between an anchor and a single stern line to the shore, and with all the fire hoses we could muster, succeeded in filling our water tanks with fresh, clean and drinkable, but slightly rubber-tainted water. This process was not helped by having to leave the berth mid-way through to allow the ferry to berth; and it was evening before we were ready to sail. The firemen were amused however at this break from routine, and swapped t-shirts with some of us as a souvenir of the experience!</p>
<p>With our water tanks finally full and our departure paperwork signed, we slipped our lines and carefully motored clear of the little channel and, with Santa Cruz rising to port, Isabella to Starboard, headed out to sea.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/a22d7eb8b6ba1e0b6884ff2b097b9aa73fd854ed/original/iguana-2-puerto-ayura-edited.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">A marine iguana on the rocks at Tortuga Bay</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/e27706b2501700125512f0ccdb181f4239002ef0/original/tortoise-at-darwin-station.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Tortoises at the Darwin Research Station, Puerto Ayura</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/4eb493acc22b758bbadf12172b635a9907458105/original/stowing-gaff-topsail.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Stowing the gaff topsail, 25 metres above the deck, involves a degree of contortion!</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/65266712021-01-21T13:51:00+00:002022-11-12T22:51:36+00:00Lyrics with English Translation - 'Whaar Tide Meets Tide'<p>As promised at my Celtic on Campus concert (https://youtu.be/4qyJqXsPvXM)... here's the Shetland lyrics, and the English translation! </p>
<p>Hope you enjoyed the song. </p>
<p>Barry </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><u>Whaar Tide Meets Tide </u></p>
<p><u>Barry Nisbet </u> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Skrime da Noup abön Charlie’s Holm, </p>
<p>Whaar da affrug casts strings o foam; </p>
<p>And da skarfs beat da Flugga on da helicks by da shore, </p>
<p>Hear der mantin cry whaar tide meets tide. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Ch.) Whaar tide meets tide, da skorie glides, </p>
<p>Da selkie hunts and da solan dives. </p>
<p>Whaar wi a mortal peester du might hear a neesik rise, </p>
<p>By da banks o Noss whaar tide meets tide. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harsk gyos speak o different days, </p>
<p>When haagless swells beat alang da craigs </p>
<p>An saat spray carries lik shask apo da gale, </p>
<p>An aa-baest cruggs for life whaar tide meets tide. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Ch.) Whaar tide meets tide, da skorie glides </p>
<p>Da selkie hunts and da solan dives, </p>
<p>Whaar da bonxie laavs, wi plunder in her mind, </p>
<p>By da banks o Noss whaar tide meets tide. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Br.) Da peewit fins a girsy böl; </p>
<p>Da teetick hwenks fae daal tae croft tae helli-möld. </p>
<p>Da tystie sees da tide go doon, da tide come up </p>
<p>And a dratsi braks da tang wi a crooner ta maet her pups… </p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Ch.) Whaar tide meets tide, da skorie glides </p>
<p>Da selkie hunts and da solan dives </p>
<p>Apo dee grandfaider’s meid du casts oot dee line </p>
<p>BY da banks o Noss whaar tide meets tide </p>
<p>By da banks o Noss whaar tide meets tide </p>
<p>By da banks o Noss whaar tide meets tide. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><u>Where Tide Meets Tide (translation into English) </u></p>
<p><u>Barry Nisbet </u></p>
<p>See the Noup above Charlie’s Holm, </p>
<p>Where the backwash makes strands of foam; </p>
<p>And the cormorants ‘beat da Flugga’ (an arm-spreading motion used by fishermen to keep warm) on the flat rocks by the shore, </p>
<p>Hear their stammering cry where tide meets tide. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Ch.) Where tide meets tide, the young gull glides, </p>
<p>The seal hunts and the gannet dives. </p>
<p>Where with a great exhalation you might hear a porpoise surface, </p>
<p>By the cliffs of Noss where tide meets tide. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harsh clefts in the rock tell of different days, </p>
<p>When boundless, remorseless swells break against the cliffs </p>
<p>And salt spray carries like mist on the gale, </p>
<p>And every creature huddles against the weather for its life where tide meets tide. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Ch.) Where tide meets tide, the young gull glides, </p>
<p>The seal hunts and the gannet dives. </p>
<p>Where the arctic skua hovers threateningly with plunder in her mind, </p>
<p>By the cliffs of Noss where tide meets tide. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Br.) The lapwing finds a grassy nest; </p>
<p>The meadow pipit makes flitty, birdlike movements from dale to croft to human burial ground. </p>
<p>The guillemot sees the tide come down, the tide come up </p>
<p>And an otter breaks through the seaweed with a gurnard to feed her pups… </p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Ch.) Where tide meets tide, the young gull glides, </p>
<p>The seal hunts and the gannet dives. </p>
<p>On your grandfather’s fishing spot you cast out your line </p>
<p>By the cliffs of Noss where tide meets tide </p>
<p>By the cliffs of Noss where tide meets tide </p>
<p>By the cliffs of Noss where tide meets tide</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/745d5fb64e8e6a2266e8c8ca14f669ec4580bfce/original/p1000433.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/65175252021-01-10T15:43:43+00:002021-11-01T13:26:54+00:00Søren Lasen voyage #6 - to Cocos Island; and Captain Jim Cottier<p>The arrival in the post of Jim Cottier's memoir (Thank you Geoff Saunders!)<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/61f507e26022d05d1f2847137aca174d99979a99/original/20201208-110240.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_right border_none" alt="" /> just before Christmas brought back memories of stories, both lived with and heard from Captain Jim. As soon as the book arrived I put down the one I was reading - Wiliam Dampier's 'Memoirs of a Buccaneer'. (I do occasionally read something that's not the memoir of a swashbuckling seafarer, honest...)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was in Panamá that I first met Jim - in fact, it was 25 metres above the turquoise waters of Balboa Bay, where I was hanging off the end of the upper topsail yard, engrossed in renewing an earring lashing. I was startled from my work by a voice from the crosstree platform to my right, with a question about the lead on the topgallant sheet.</p>
<p>Our new captain was white bearded, slightly gaunt of face, with keen grey eyes and a gold ring in his left ear; energetic and clearly with an intimate knowledge of Søren Larsen's rig, having spotted that the sheets had been rigged the wrong side of the clewline back in England. I'd heard many stories about Jim in my 3 months on board - he was married to Terri, our purser, after all; a master mariner who had gone to sea at age 15; a one time hippy; expert navigator and shanty singer. I had been looking forward to meeting Jim.</p>
<p>So began one of the most epic legs of our journey so far. Our new crew joined - along with several who had been with us since Curacao, this group would be with us for three months, covering over 6,000 nautical miles. Fortuately, this crew turned out tio be equal to the voyage - a singular, enthusiastic and fascinating group, all of whom I still count as friends for life.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The wind was blowing lightly from the south that evening as we sailed; with no engines running, and a main sail half-set, we shortened up the anchor, braced the yards to starboard, and set the lower topsail. With a backed outer jib helping to pull the bow round to port, we heaved the anchor the rest of the way up on the windlass. The ship turned, slowly, slowly; the 10 crew stationed in the waist heaved the yards round to port; and as the lower topsail began to fill, the foredeck team set the upper topsail and course with a ruffle of canvas, and Soren Larsen’s 300 tonnes begun to gather some headway. </p>
<p>Soon, the sun lowering over the Pacific horizon, we sailed slowly south into the Gulf of Panama and turned to the west, and I found it easy to imagine I was among the first group of adventurers to discover this ocean, to leave a wake shimmering behind in the darkening indigo sea or to cut the golden watery road that lay ahead, empty and inviting.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>TWO nights out we found the doldrums. The swell rolled up from the south in long, gentle three metre high hills as we motored west at 6 knots, the 1949 B+W Alpha engine clunking away pleasantly. The sea lay so smooth that the reflections of the individual stars that filled the sky could be seen in its surface, and my midnight-to-four watch stood around by the wheel, silently gazing up at the heavens, or out at the sharp, black horizon. </p>
<p>The area between Panama and the Galapagos is notorious for calms, and was avoided by sailors in the past because of this. We had expected to do a considerable amount of motoring during this part of the journey, and had loaded extra drums of fuel on deck in preparation. But Søren Larsen’s hull, designed for sailing, slips easily through the water when there is no wind, taking little driving; and the engine burns less than 20 litres of diesel per hour.</p>
<p>By day, my 12-4 watch was the hottest part of the day, a time when many of the other watchkeepers take a sleep in preparation for their own night watches, We would often therefore have the ship to ourselves, and wearing sun hats and sun cream, drinking plenty of water, stand our watch in the hot sun, which this close to the equator the sun is almost directly overhead, and bleached blond sunlight would dance off every wavelet of pure blue sea. The wooden deck grew hot, and the watch would regularly wet it down with sea buckets to prevent the timber drying out and cracking, the salt water feeling blissfully cool on our bare feet.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Five days after leaving Panama we sighted Coco Island, approaching as the grey smudge turned to green and became a high, cliff-sided island. Wterfalls appeared, then forests, then plunging valleys; and eventually, we approached the east end of the island and motored into Chatham Bay.</p>
<p>Crystal clear water meant we could see our anchor chain running out ahead and down to the sandy seabed 30 metres below; as we pulled the chain taut and gently brought up to the anchor, I watched a variety of fish float around by the side of our ship. Suddenly they disappeared, and the reason why became apparent - the unmistakeable form of a hammerhead shark! Soon we had five of these creatures swimming around us, and Terri and Troy were excitedly planning a dive for the following day.</p>
<p>This isolated outpost of Costa Rica feels very primal with thick green jungle that cloaks the precipitous slopes, and untamed waterfalls that cascade off its cliffs, casting their own rainbows before dissipating into clouds of steam. The island is uninhabited, except for a few Costa Rican rangers stationed here. European pirates were reputed to have buried treasure on the island in the 19th century; prior to this, Polynesian or South American seafarers visited to create the coconut plantations that give the island its name, but did not stay; otherwise, Coco Island may have always been uninhabited.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Lucy, Jima and Sally Anne and I climbed the steep, long hill from the small boat landing, enjoying our half-day of shore leave. Sweat soon soaked our clothes as we followed the narrow path that ascended through thick forest. The sun was fierce and the air humid; but it felt good to use our legs after days aboard the ship, and we managed a rapid pace, keeping an eye open for treasure chests laying by the path side.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/5842f65bde98ac42c7d73fad696a9d3e76fb6240/original/barry-jungle-coco-i.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_l justify_right border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>We walked along the ridge, spying the speck of white that was the ship far below. Half an hour along the well-marked path took us to the ranger station, a simple white-painted plywood building built on stilts.</p>
<p>The rangers had knocked off for the day, and were unwilling to take us anywhere; but Jima, Kevin and I were desperate to see - and swim beneath - one of the island's waterfalls. Certain that we could find our own way, we set off through the jungle - and within half an hour had found the deep pool into which cascaded a heavy waterfall. We swam and splashed under the torrent, and the weight of the water hammering on my shoulders was about as much as I could bear - nature's perfect massage!</p>
<p>On the way back, however we lost the path, and decided to follow the stream instead. It took longer than expected and soon we were running, leaping from rock to rock, wading through the fast flowing water, getting worried about the time. Finally, beginning to worry that we had taken the wrong path altogether, we ran straight out into the clearing by the ranger station, panting and laughing, with just enough time to spare to run over the ridge in the evening heat , to slip and slide down the path on the other side, and to catch the launch back to Søren Larsen.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That same evening we were on our way once again, the doldrums still persisting, the same three-metre swell rolling in as we motored south west now, towards our next destination - the Galapagos Islands.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/64821222020-11-21T16:00:00+00:002022-06-16T09:29:02+01:00Thoughts on the Garvellachs, and Highlands and Islands history<p>One of my favourite anchorages in the Inner Hebrides is <a contents="Eilean an Naoimh" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/56.21887,-5.80565,13" target="_blank">Eilean an Naoimh</a>, at the south-west end of the Garvellachs, an uninhabited grop of islands between Shuna and Mull.</p>
<p>It calls for a smooth sea and a fair forecast, and is completely open to the south west; but in the right conditions, there is just enough room between the rocks on both sides for the <a contents="Lady of Avenel" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://ladyofavenel.com/" target="_blank">Lady of Avenel</a> to swing round her anchor, and I have spent peaceful nights anchored here in summer 2018 and 2019.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/c2cf90a26b184be0438f2e8e94badab4ee6dcd08/original/20180608-093529.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /> <em>Lady of Avenel </em>anchored at Eileach an Naoimh, summer 2018</p>
<p><br>It was on this island that Saint Brendan the Navigator built his monastery, in 542 AD; we were able to go ashore and visit the 'beehive' style monks houses from that era that still stand here.</p>
<p>Even more evocative, I found, was to look across to the Scottish Mainland - the mountains and hills stretching out in a blue haze behind the smooth sea - and consider how it would have looked to Brendan and the monks, knowing that over there were hundreds of glens populated by tribes of Picts who may have been hostile to a new religion brought by strangers. These new ideas got their toehold on the islands first - here, then Iona and Tiree.</p>
<p>In those days, and before, culture, language and religion spread through this region by sea, reaching the islands first before spreading inland; one of the principal sea highways ran north-south taking in Cornwall, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the West of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland.</p>
<p>Norway to the North East, and Brittany and Galicia to the south were extensions of this highway too - and, when viewed this way, the West of Scotland and the Islands begin to look very much at the centre of things, rather than on the edge.</p>
<p>I was reminded of these thoughts yesterday while taking part in the Residency week on the University of the Highlands and Islands Applied Music course. We read a very interesting blog piece by Professor Hugh Cheape: <a contents="https://idruhi.wordpress.com/2020/07/02/the-road-to-tobha-mor/" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://idruhi.wordpress.com/2020/07/02/the-road-to-tobha-mor/" style="" target="_blank">https://idruhi.wordpress.com/2020/07/02/the-road-to-tobha-mor/</a> that suggests using the conventional map 'turned upside-down' to best appreciate the spread of this culture, while asking how we can 'bury the concept of periphery' when talking of the relevance of the heritage of the Highlands and Islands.</p>
<p>All very interesting but most of all it makes me look forward to a time when we can once more play music, sail, and explore more of these fascinating anchorages.</p>
<p>Best wishes to all of you.</p>
<p>Barry</p>
<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/64351302020-09-16T18:35:53+01:002021-04-21T18:08:24+01:00Søren Larsen voyage #5 - through the Panamá Canal and to the Pacific<p>Hi friends,</p>
<p>It's a pleasure to be writing from Shetland, there's nowhere like home, especially after 7 months of covid-enforced exile. And I've decided to continue the story of my first voyage aboard Søren Larsen today, and take us through the Panamá Canal from Limon Bay to Balboa on the Pacific side.</p>
<p>Stay safe and best wishes,</p>
<p>Barry</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</p>
<p> </p>
<p>5am - and darkness surrounded Søren Larsen, save for the anchor lights of ships. The peace of the night gave way to excited whispers that grew in volume as more and more people appeared on deck. Suddenly there was a hiss of air, and a bang, and the main engine thumped into life; the whispers grew to murmurs, and I noticed a faint band of twilight above the eastern horizon. All hands had been called to prepare for today's passage through the Panamá Canal. </p>
<p>I had no trouble finding crew to help raise the anchor. Windlass-driver, chain-flaker, messenger, bell-ringer, cable-washer; we had the lot in place before I had asked. We headed forward and took the cover off the windlass motor. Rob wound the handle, flicked the decompression lever and the single-cylinder Lister engine kicked in. Mary at the top of the forward companionway reported that Troy was ready below decks; she would relay communications to me as he ensured the anchor chain was stowed in neat flakes in the locker below. Charlie arrived with the deck hose ready to blast the Limon Bay mud back into the sea as the cable came in; Monica was in position by the ship’s bell ready to ring off the shackles.</p>
<p>Soon the anchor was home, the cable locker was secured, and Søren Larsen was steaming towards the pilot station with a dim grey light beginning to reveal the silhouettes of the ships behind the anchor lights that surrounded us. </p>
<p>At the boarding area, Lucy swung the gate open as the launch drew alongside us, and the pilot stepped across onto Søren Larsen’s deck.</p>
<p>“One-Eight-Zero, Captain!” he shouted as he strode aft. “Full ahead!” </p>
<p>The pilot was a small man with a serious expression and sunglasses on before dawn. By the wheel, as we motored towards the canal approaches, he explained his strategy to Colin. </p>
<p>“We will head for the Gatun Locks first. The lock master will tell me when we are clear to enter the lock. We will be sharing the lock with a larger ship. The canal have agreed that you will not use the mules; your line handlers are good, sir?” Colin nodded. </p>
<p>Larger ships passing through the Panama Canal are dragged through the locks by mechanical locomotives known as ‘mules’. Søren Larsen’s timber hull could easily be damaged by the forces these mules can exert, so we had requested to handle our lines manually. This meant that our crew would have to be very sharp, taking in slack promptly as the ship rose with the water level. </p>
<p>I arranged the eight crew designated to me at the aft mooring stations: four on port, and four on starboard, an experienced hand at the front on each line to ensure they were handled safely.</p>
<p>(Here's the port team: Crispin, Rob, Chris - and Andrew looking very ready with his moustache neatly trimmed!)</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/32958f7c13d6cde8d55abfda901439cb08eb107a/original/line-team-panama.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Soon, we were motoring into the first of the Gatun Locks. Four Panamá Canal line handlers threw their heaving lines to our deck; we made them fast to our mooring lines, and they were heaved up and looped over the bollards on the lock sides. The lock gate closed behind us, the water started to rush in, and soon our mooring teams were heaving in slack hand over hand. </p>
<p>Once we reached the height of the lock walls we were able to view the countryside beyond; but before there was time to rest, the gates opened and we motored into a second lock where this was repeated. There was a third lock, and our line handlers began to sweat, grinning through the exertion and the growing heat of the tropical day. Emerging from this third lock, we motored out and into the Gatun Lakes, the man-made lake that forms the central part of the Panama Canal. </p>
<p>The canal route follows a buoyed channel for 24 miles through the Gatun Lakes, with vivid green rainforest growing densely right down to the water’s edge and beyond; the tops of trees that were growing before the valleys were flooded still protrude from beneath the water, giving the lake a slightly unnatural feel. The rainforest is crucial to the canal’s existence however, and is strictly protected; without the trees, the water would soon dry up and drain away, and the sea route would be lost. </p>
<p>Past small islands, bursting with tree life (actually the remnants of hills, poking their summits through the surface) we glided along, through the mud-brown water of the lakes. I climbed to the topgallant yard; the view was superb, the red and green buoys dotted out our path ahead, dense canopy cloaked the countryside in deep, primal green.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/eddeb4a9713dfd1ab2cbd66d90f456bb35dc0a11/original/in-the-panama-canal.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /> <span class="font_small"> The view from the topgallant yard as Søre Larsen forges through the green waters of the Gatun Lakes</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Lunchtime came; the crew were fed in shifts, taking turns to steer, keep lookout, and watch the shipping traffic move through the lakes. The wind picked up steadily until soon we had thirty knots blowing from the east. </p>
<p>The passage became tense as we approached the Pedro Miguel locks; the strong wind was reducing our options, making it difficult to slow down, and our pilot became engaged in a heated conversation over his VHF radio. </p>
<p>“ETA at the lock is 5 minutes” he called in initially to the Pedro Miguel lock master; the reply came back that the lock gate could not be opened for 10 minutes. </p>
<p>“I am making minimum speed” our pilot replied, “You must open the gate now!” </p>
<p>“I cannot open it! The lock is not yet full!” was the reply. </p>
<p>We were still making 4 knots toward the closed gate, unable to reduce speed any further. A 30,000 tonne bulk carrier, the 'Crimson Galaxy', was following us, a little over two hundred metres astern, and would be sharing our lock; Colin looked worried. </p>
<p>We breathed again when we saw the gate begin to open, just in time to admit us. As we tied up at the far end of the lock, the bulker moved in, dragged by the bright yellow mules until her huge flared bow towered over us at almost the height of our lower topsail yard. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/7b3e55dd2854ddbb6befc81988dd1f468485241c/original/sharing-a-lock-in-panama-canal.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /> <span class="font_small">The bulk carrier 'Crimson Galaxy' approaches from astern in Pedro Miguel locks.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Our line handling teams had an easier job now that we were dropping down through the locks; easing out steadily was easier than heaving up slack, keeping our ship central in the lock as the water level fell. We passed through the two locks at Pedro Miguel, and into the three-stage drop at Miraflores. The midday heat was fading into evening, there were only three more locks to negotiate, and the Pacific Ocean was tantalisingly close. But this tense day had one more piece of drama for us. </p>
<p>“We have to be quick, leaving this lock” the pilot explained to Colin in the last lock. “There is a current, where the fresh water in the lock mixes with the sea. I am going to keep ahead of this current.” I saw Colin nod uncertainly, however when the lock gates opened and our lines were let go, and we begun to move ahead, the ship took a slew to port. </p>
<p>“Hard-a-starboard” the pilot ordered the helmsman. Still the ship turned to port. “Half ahead the engine. Full ahead…!” But it was no good – the swing was uncheckable. </p>
<p>The width of the Panama Canal is only slightly more the waterline length of Søren Larsen; I felt the ship judder as her stem hit the left side of the canal. Luckily the canal sides were low, and the vulnerable jibboom, bowsprit and head rig extended far over the concrete and grass; the sturdy stem, built from a massive piece of solid Danish oak fifty years previously took the brunt of the collision. </p>
<p>Nothing happened for a second or two, then Colin’s voice boomed, “Get some bloody lines ashore!” </p>
<p>The shocked-looking canal linesmen took our lines, we made fast, and Colin manoeuvred using the lines to straighten the ship up. Sally returned aft from a hasty inspection, reporting no damage. “Just a bit of chipped paint...."</p>
<p>Round the next bend to port, we saw the Bridge of the Americas crossing the canal, the sea widening to a glittering horizon underneath. We slowed just before the bridge to allow a pilot boat to come alongside; our pilot stepped off and we pointed the bow for the bridge, passing under and gaining our admission to the Pacific Ocean. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/6005bf23654cb2eb1b4a2317a607a11a9dbfbfa6/original/bridge-of-americas.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /> <span class="font_small">The Bridge of the Americas, gateway to the Pacific</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>We anchored by 1800 off the Balboa Yacht Club, and as the last sunlight faded all hands enjoyed a well-earned drink after a long day; I felt that Captain Colin’s glass of rum must have tasted sweet after the trials of the canal.</p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/64290342020-09-09T18:02:35+01:002020-09-09T18:13:00+01:00Music studies resume! ...and a bike trip through the Trossachs.<p>Hi friends, I hope you're well and managing to navigate a route through these uncertain times.</p>
<p>Today I seem to have found my way into the <a contents="Press and Journal" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/business/north-of-scotland/2474722/xponorth-works-with-uhi-to-create-scheme-to-help-students-into-creative-industries/" target="_blank">Press and Journal</a>, among other newspapers… all connected to the course I am studying, a <a contents="BA in Applied Music" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.uhi.ac.uk/en/courses/ba-hons-applied-music/" target="_blank">BA in Applied Music</a> with the University of the Highlands and Islands, and a fascinating opportunity I was given recently to work with and learn from <a contents="Score Draw Music" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.scoredrawmusic.com/" target="_blank">Score Draw Music</a> and <a contents="OnMusic" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.on-music.tv/" target="_blank">OnMusic</a> over in Belfast.</p>
<p>This week is the first back at the studies - and right now I'm very glad to have this outlet, source of inspiration and motivation, as well as some exciting projects to focus on through the autumn and winter.</p>
<p>I found myself in 2016 playing enough music to feel it was a viable means of supporting myself. Wanting to give this new direction the best chance I could, and having promised myself since age 16 that I would one day properly dedicate some significant time to my music, I looked for courses. The UHI one quickly became the obvious choice - I was often touring in the UK and Europe with <a contents="Wire and Wool" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ANi8IgOeIM&list=PLmICHGnb1NrTjIrC52dSNNXsSPqhKxCgN&index=19&t=0s" target="_blank">Wire and Wool</a> and <a contents="Tildon Krautz" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://tildonkrautz.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">Tildon Krautz</a>, and was envisioning some tall ship skippering aboard <a contents="Lady of Avenel" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://ladyofavenel.com/" style="" target="_blank">Lady of Avenel;</a> (<a contents="Sessions and Sail" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.sessionsandsail.com" target="_blank">Sessions and Sail</a> was an idea yet to fully take form!). The distance learning arrangement of the course meant I could log into lectures and work on coursework whether I was in Shetland, at sea or abroad, and I could incorporate many of my musical activities into my coursework.</p>
<p>I'm now starting my 4th year and I haven't regretted a moment of it, even if my direction has continued to evolve. Being a full-time student has motivated me to give music the time and energy that I wanted to dedicate to it, introduced me to a host of great people and musicians, and taught me loads about what I want to get out of music and life.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</p>
<p>To help me get back in the studying frame of mind, last weekend was an opportunity to do some cycling - starting out in Balloch, I made my way along the Rob Roy trail, reaching Killin by beer o clock on Sunday...</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/3e43df1a9415e26284792a961a195c67af0d5eed/original/20200906-164514-1.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I learned the following from the trip:</p>
<p>(1). Taking off on a bicycle laden with tent, sleeping bag, waterproofs, camping stove and food is great fun!</p>
<p>(2). Mountain bike trails are great fun.</p>
<p>(3). (1) and (2) together can be pretty tough!</p>
<p>I've named my slightly rickety bike 'La Poderosa' after Ernesto and Alberto's questionable mount; but what a brilliant way to explore Scotland, and I can't wait to go off and do some more.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/ef6501170c8ed0593812224404ccb77a0cfdf5bd/original/20200906-102818-1.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/ecee6613599043631a4bf1ed1e74d2004a1cb168/original/20200906-143946-1.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I'm hoping to have a lot of new music to reveal to you in the near future, both related to and independent from my studies; I'll also return soon to the next section of the Søren Larsen tale.</p>
<p>Till then, take care, don't panic, much love,</p>
<p>Barry</p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/64227552020-09-02T12:38:38+01:002020-09-02T20:18:21+01:00Søren Larsen voyage #4 - towards the Panamá Canal<p>Dear friends! </p>
<p>It's now September, and it still feels as though we’re making life up as we go along – there’s still no sailing, no gigs, and it seems to be a case of adapting day to day, finding a way to survive and then rewriting it all as the situation changes. </p>
<p>I’m used to having a sense of purpose, generally having several projects on the go, a mix of musical and maritime, at all times; and I’m struggling a bit with having these taken away. </p>
<p>In lieu of any sailing adventures or such excitement this year, it’s been nice to recall some of my past voyages in this blog. I’m going to try to up my output to a weekly post – let’s say every Wednesday! </p>
<p>It’s also been good to have a musical focus so I’m planning to keep the weekly videos coming on Youtube. If there’s any requests – or if anyone wants to collaborate on a video or on some music – get in touch. Otherwise it’s really encouraging when folk subscribe to my <a contents="Youtube channel" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/c/BarryNisbet?sub_confirmation=1" target="_blank">Youtube channel</a>! </p>
<p>Anyhow, here’s the next instalment of my Søren Larsen voyage account! </p>
<p>Cheers, Barry </p>
<p>- - - - - - - - - - </p>
<p>Sailing through the Caribbean was about as good as it sounds. The north-east trade winds drove us west to the Venezuelan islands of Margarita and Los Roques. </p>
<p>In Margarita eight of us piled into an impossibly battered Dodge and were driven up dusty roads to La Ascunción, a 16th Century Spanish town in the dry interior of the island. We were back aboard the ship by the time the Sunday night parties kicked off, and the sounds of Latin beats were still drifting across the water to our anchorage as I kept my 2-4am watch. </p>
<p>Terri and Jim were both veterans of the last time the ship had come this way, and told a hair-raising story of their visit to Los Roques. With the 1992 coup recent and the 1993 elections happening, partisan armed police had arrested the ship and held the crew at gunpoint; the story of their midnight escape might be better told by Jim Pearson, if we can persuade him… </p>
<p>Bearing this story in mind, we made a careful, short stop at these stunning islands and were thankful to see no armed police, sailing on by nightfall. </p>
<p>Bonaire, our next stop, is a Dutch colony, and seemed very ordered and neat after the Venezuelan islands; we did our best to remedy this. </p>
<p>The ship was safely tied alongside the pier; the water sheltered, the wind still, and I had a night clear of the watch bill. Knocking off at 6pm, I walked up the pier and got as far as the first pub, where Daphne and Dave, just back from a jaunt round the island, called me over for a drink. Soon, Sally Anne, Jim and Troy arrived; there was a round of rums. A brief chat at the bar with the crew of a large motor yacht, all dressed in matching polo shirts, made us glad to be tall-ship sailors on a ‘proper voyage’. </p>
<p>More crew members arrived; more rums were bought. Nick was telling hilarious stories; our First Mate Sal, his sister, chipped in with a few of her own. Soon we were all there, with the exception of Captain Colin, who had taken the evening watch; and Lucy and Andrew, who both had watches in the early hours. Nine full-time crew, 22 voyage crew, and a liberal supply of rum. </p>
<p>There’s not much better after weeks at sea than a good crew in a bar ashore on a night off in a secure harbour; we’d already bonded through rough weather, long days and night watches so we enjoyed ours, talking of other voyages and ships, places we’d travelled or wanted to, laughing with the bar staff, telling stories and doing our best to exhaust the rum supply. </p>
<p>We left the pier under sail at 0700 the next morning, doing our best to wake the whole town with our shanty as we hoisted the main sail fifty metres off the pier, our ship already gathering way towards Curaçao. By the time we rounded the south of Klein Bonaire, we were under full sail and any hangovers were left far behind. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/e620058a5caac1a1244f7515a191448201c30ad9/original/bazwheel.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>At Curaçao we loaded stores, embarked a new voyage crew and set off on our passage west for the Panamá Canal. Motoring past the pastel buildings of Punda, through the floating Emmasbrug bridge and back out into the open sea, we found a rising trade wind and, soon, a rising sea. </p>
<p>By 25th January we were hurtling along at ten knots, deep blue waves the colour of precious stones rearing up astern, foam-tipped and chasing us as thirty knots of wind filled our sails. Flying fish skitted off to both sides as our bow ploughed into the seas ahead with a constant surge of white foam. The morning skies were clear, dotted with small fluffy cumulus clouds that would develop and grow to become huge, towering cumulonimbus by afternoon. </p>
<p>Afternoon squalls became part of our daily routine. When the imposing clouds approached from windward, their undersides dark and heavy with rain, we would call for extra hands on deck to shorten sail. The rain made a menacing hiss before it arrived, a growing, definite line of white on the sea surface; we raced round the deck, hauling on topgallant clews and buntlines, upper topsail and outer jib downhauls, securing the lines around the deck as the wind increased with a rush and the torrent poured over us, tropical rain drenching our hair and shorts. </p>
<p>This superb sail took us to Colón, on the Atlantic side of the Panamá Canal, well ahead of schedule; we covered the 725 miles from Curaçao in just over five days. As we drew closer to the port, the traffic grew more and more dense as container ships, tankers and cargo ships of all sizes converged from ports in Europe, Africa and the Americas, all queuing to use this slender gateway to the Pacific. </p>
<p>We picked our way through the multitude of anchored vessels to our designated spot in Limón Bay and dropped an anchor. Here we would sit for the next three days.</p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/63966582020-07-29T21:17:29+01:002022-06-15T17:54:59+01:00Tall Ships, Music - and Eye of the Wind.<p>I joined Søren Larsen with a fiddle, having had a familiar decision to make - which instrument to bring to a ship. The fiddle usually won - it's common to find a guitar already on board a ship, but much less often a fiddle! But it always felt a shame to have to make such a compromise.</p>
<p>I was pleased to find that there was a decent ship's guitar aboard Søren, and was soon even more pleased to find that she was a ship full of music. From the first week aboard, in Cornwall in the pouring rain, Terri often taught us a variety of shanties as we gathered on deck after a long day's work: 'Paddy, lay back'; '<a contents="Spanish Ladies" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrpmv_zOa0k">Spanish Ladies</a>'; Tony Goodenugh's <a contents="'Pump Shanty" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqVCzsl_vbM" style="">'Pump Shanty</a>; Fielding + Dyer's 'Whale Song'.</p>
<p>During a window of calm weather on our passage to Madeira, we gathered the crew on the foredeck and played tunes and sang songs. John, one of our guests who was a master mariner and pilot at Seaham Harbour proved to have an excellent voice, treating us to songs such as 'Skibbereen' and 'What will I do with my Herrin's Head'. Lucy, our sailmaker, played tin whistle; and I was able to supply some guitar backing and a few tunes on the fiddle.With a moody night sky above us, we sailed towards a dark horizon, enjoying the music and the respite.</p>
<p>On the Atlantic crossing, the heavy mainsail was lowered and raised several times, as well as the only-slightly-less heavy upper topsail. Terri was our shantyman, and led the song; the remaining crew on the peak and throat haliards roaring the chorus line. It was good to hear shanties as they are meant to be sung - by a ship's crew while working hard. Sixteen voices in stereo - eight on port, eight on starboard - singing while hoisting three-quarters of a tonne of douglas fir and canvas up the mast by hand is a fine thing to witness, and it doesn't matter if the pitching isn't perfect!</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> - - - - -</p>
<p>A combination of music and sailing had taken us to the Caribbean, where Bequia island felt like paradise. Steel bands played by the waterfront at the Frangipani; and the path led over the saddle of the island, through soft scented trees to the isolated beach at Spring Bay; walking back in the dark, glowing fireflies hung laziily under the trees.</p>
<p>In the Windward Islands we crossed paths with an old friend - the brigantine 'Eye of the Wind'. (Pictured).</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/b4bd1b57e1ae95b02aefc0c297f09334d96a0344/original/eye-of-the-wind.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Eye of the Wind and Søren Larsen had history together - they had <a contents="sailed in company around Cape Horn" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/soren-larsen-homeward-round-the-horn/jim-cottier/9780850364828">sailed in company around Cape Horn</a> in 1993. The following year, when I was sixteen and a slightly frustrated and aimless sixth-year student at the Anderson High School in Shetland, an opportunity was advertised for youths aged sixteen in Scotland to be sponsored to join her for an Atlantic crossing. I applied immediately, and got the place.</p>
<p>I had all the highers I needed, or so I thought; and was just killing time at school, looking likely to fail Geography and sixth year studies Chemistry. So it was with great pleasure that I asked my teachers to sign my leaver's form, slipping in the fact at the end that I was leaving to sail across the Atlantic.</p>
<p>The six-week voyage from Boston, Massachusetts to Gloucester, England changed the way I saw life completely.</p>
<p>I was a keen trainee who could not get enough of climbing. Day or night, when there was aloft work to be done, I wanted to be first up the mast. We kept watches, fished, and steered; the 25-day crossing had its share of boredom, of course, but I was positive and happy to be onboard. The crew spoke about the world and travel in ways that seemed new, and yet made perfect sense; and they seemed to respect my own comments and opinions. From Captain Tony 'Tiger' Timbs, who seemed to me upstanding and wise, and yet humble and open, to base-jumping Australian engineer John; ex-Soviet solder Igor to deck hand Marian who could beat a sail into shape while 40 feet above a rolling deck more effectively than any male sailor I knew, I was inspired. I learned a huge amount about the ship, the sea, and the weather; but most of all, I think I learned how it felt to be part of a team I could really believe in. I had my horizons widened, and believed there could be a place for me in that world.</p>
<p>The following six years on oil tankers were tough, and I often wonder if I would have stuck it out had I not had that experience aboard Eye of the Wind. So it was emotional to see her now.</p>
<p>We spent Christmas Day together anchored off beach at Bequia; raced between the islands, swapping crews by day, and stories in the evenings; and ranged through the Windward Islands from Saint Vincent to Grenada. We became good friends with the crew of the 'Eye', and it was a sad parting when we went our separate ways; they cruised past, raising sail as they headed south towards Trinidad, exchanging three cheers with our crew; we would raise our own anchor that evening and head west, towards the Western Caribbean and the Panamá Canal.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/6c595351d88624724e5f49ea80fe955a5e2750e5/original/caribs-anchorage.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /> Søren Larsen, anchored off Granada.</p>
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<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/63823452020-07-10T22:26:15+01:002020-07-11T14:22:25+01:00Søren Larsen voyage #2<p>The sail from England to the Canaries had been, for me, a case of holding on tight, trying to learn everything I needed to know as second mate in a short space of time, hoping it would be enough if anything went wrong.</p>
<p>As we set out across the Atlantic, the frantic pace of learning seemeed to slow down a little, and I had time to get a handle on the ship, my duties, and the crew, who were already beginning to feel like friends for life.</p>
<p>In four days alongside in Tenerife, we had changed over several of the sails, stowing the newer canvas below decks and bending on older sails that would bear the more benign winds (but harsher ultraviolet) that we would experience as we approached the tropics. This work had given me a much better knowledge of the rig, knowledge that I would be thankful of when once more at sea, on watch, and trying to visualise every force, chafe point and potential weak spot.</p>
<p>Some sort of routine became possible now as we motored south trying to pick up the Trade WInds - the steady easterlies that have brought ships from Europe and West Africa for hundreds of years.</p>
<p>I was growing to love the 12-4 watch, traditional domain of the second mate. Waking at 1000 was something I found very palatable; with decks already scrubbed, and breakfast cleared away, there were two hours to work on maintenance jobs. With the weather improving, this often involved painting or varnishing or - the job the crew all clamoured for - working in the rig with the Bosun.</p>
<p>Then, after some lunch, four hours of watch. Navigation under motor was something I was very familiar with; and I was becoming much more comfortable with being in charge of up to 650 square metres of sail. This was the time of day when most of the other watchkeepers went below for their afternoon rest, which lent a wonderful feeling of autonomy. With two of the deck crew, and eight of our voyage crew guests, we kept lookout for other ships; rotated everyone through half-hour stints on the wheel, giving guidance on steering a 300-tonne ship where necessary; made hourly rounds throughout the ship; and tended the steadying sails, all the while looking out for that favourable breeze that would signal that we'd found the trade winds.</p>
<p>After watch there would be another hour or two of maintenance work; then, after dinner, we would go below for a rest; we would be woken shortly before midnight for watch once more and, on a good night, our watch of eleven would have the decks to ourselves again, exchanging stories, taking turns on the wheel and lookout, and watching our track creep across the chart. The approach of 4am - and blessed bedtime - would be heralded by the smell of fresh bread that two of our watch would bake every night for the cooks to serve the following day.</p>
<p>Four days of calms were followed by twenty days of trade winds; we tended our sails, kept watch, ate bread at 4am, got used to being barefoot 24 hours a day, played cards, gave lectures on navigation and meteorology, sang shanties and, a few days before Christmas, raised the Grenadines, dropping anchor in Admiralty Bay, Bequia.</p>
<p>This proximity to an island seemed wonderfully exotic after three weeks in our own self-contained world. I sat on the hatch with Terri, our purser, an experienced sailor and our de facto shantyman, as she pointed out several landmarks on shore that she knew well. “That’s the Frangipani Bar over there,” she said. “It only truly sinks in that you’ve arrived in the Caribbean when you drink your first rum in the Frangipani”. I looked forward to the Frangipani and an evening ashore, but for now a glass of rum with my shipmates on the deck of Søren Larsen seemed like an arrival in itself.</p>
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<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/abf0846f584b06bce1c2eacc3f98c534cd608f98/original/soren.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/63691492020-06-28T16:49:23+01:002022-06-15T17:54:46+01:00Søren Larsen voyage, #1<p>With all my sailing now sadly cancelled for this year, I may as well, as promised, begin to tell more of the story of my first trip aboard the Søren Larsen.</p>
<p>On passage from the Mediterranean to the Falklands as 3rd Mate on an oil tanker - the Maersk Gannet - I had hand-written thirty-six letters applying for work aboard various tall ships. I also applied to Strathclyde Uni to study a BA in Applied Music; I was clearly pretty keen to leave the tankers behind one way or the other! I stashed all the letters in my luggage, ready to post when I next reached shore.</p>
<p>In one real fork-in-the-road week, when back home on leave, I was turned down for the uni course, offered a job aboard the brigantine Soren Larsen, then called by Strathclyde to say there was a place for me on the course after all. By this time I had accepted the sailing job, so the decision was made!</p>
<p>I boarded Søren Larsen in Charlestown, Cornwall in September 2000, and was soon in the thick of the refit. Working with the engineer, I helped strip the old B+W Alpha engine right down while the deck crew prepared the main mast for removal. I was amazed how much work got done in a month - a new main topmast made from douglas fir; new galvanised steel shrouds and stays made up for mainmast and topmast, all parcelled, served and tarred; both anchors off; the windlass lifted ashore.</p>
<p>The work days got longer and our one-day-off a week disappeared as departure day approached.</p>
<p>It was the wettest month on record in Cornwall, and when it wasn't raining, water dripped and ran off the stone harbour walls. Even in my bunk, with the wooden deck 18 inches above my nose, the sound of the dripping rain above permeated my dreams; but, rain or no rain, it felt wonderful to be aboard this ship. The long days, and the occasional pint of Conish Ale, soon forged us into a team and I looked forward to going to sea with my new shipmates.</p>
<p>Somehow we got the work complete in time; our first voyage-crew group of paying guests joined us with a terrible forecast in the offing - a proper equinoctial storm system with force 10 southerlies. We sheltered it out in Falmouth Harbour, sailing at first light once the front had passed and the wind swung round to the north.</p>
<p>The passage south went by in a blur, with little sleep and the steepest learning curve I have ever gone through. Night watches especially were an experience, barreling along before the wind in five metre swells with swathes of rain and spray coursing across us as I and the six others on my watch huddled by the wheel.</p>
<p>I would 'wake' for watch, if you could call lying in a dark bunk in the heaving forecastle, lifting off the bunk weightless over some of the larger swells, holding on tight as we rolled, and going over in my head every scenario I could consider that may go wrong, sleeping. It was generally a relief to be called just before midnight and to stagger up into the blackness on deck, trying not to spill a coffee, and be given a concise but reassuring handover by Tony, the Captain and owner of Søren Larsen.</p>
<p>Four days of tumbling crashing waves and following gales gave way at last to calms, sei whales, sunsets and the chance to spread a bit more canvas; a further week of varied north-atlantic conditions, and one more gale, brought us to an anchorage at Funchal, Madeira.</p>
<p>The daylight was a little too bright for my eyes as I looked up at the mountain; tired but inspired, I felt like an initiation ceremony was over.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/244aabcae0452ef8f9d73ad768b4587386673ed6/original/madeira.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Søren Larsen at Madeira, November 2000.</p>
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<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/63220992020-05-19T11:08:52+01:002022-05-16T14:33:07+01:00Isolating at home<p>Horizons have closed in yet further; we have not left the flat for a week as our flatmate, a care home worker, has tested positive for Covid-19. She is recovering and no-one else has any symptoms, so we're hopeful that we can contain it.</p>
<p>We have segregated the flat; my space is the kitchen, where thankfully I am able to compose and record music as well as doing my best to keep life varied for all of us through food, whilst trying to live as cheaply as possible. We have found out exactly who can come through with deliveries - local butchers, good; wholesale food suppliers, good; Southside self-isolation supporters group, massive thumbs-up! All the major supermarkets - not so good.</p>
<p>And of course this week I should have been sailing out of Oban aboard the tall ship Lady of Avenel with the Sessions and Sail voyage. When this is all over we will all be dying for some outdoor time, as well as tunes and music in good company.</p>
<p>I hope everyone is staying well and staying optimistic; take care.</p>
<p>~B~<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/76590a1e338fc8e4521ec80405cb1b2370d99344/original/20200519-105837.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/0b19f5758f1100933f89e06a95493473af3a99a5/original/20200519-104911.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
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<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/62956632020-04-27T12:44:04+01:002023-12-10T18:29:45+00:00Sailing to the Pacific<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/fa2f46d7aa858b2b7f33c92dd889df4816306cb7/original/barry-soren-deck.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" />I was recently sent this picture by my good friend and shipmate Jim Anderson from Fremantle, and it's taken me right back to sailing the Pacific!</p>
<p>I've always made this site primarily about my music, but it's nice to tell a story now and again. Especially right now, when all this being cooped up is really making me - and no doubt others - dream about travel and widening our horizons once again.</p>
<p>I signed on the tall ship <a contents="Soren Larsen" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.sydneytallships.com.au/more-info/sydney-harbour-tall-ships-fleet/soren-larsen/" target="_blank">Soren Larsen</a> as 2nd Mate in September 2000 - I'd guess the pic above will be from 2000 or early 2001. I'd been working at sea as a cadet and 3rd/2nd mate aboard oil tankers, but my heart wasn't in it. I was looking for two things - music, and adventure. I recall night watches on the deck of a tanker when my head would be bursting with musical ideas that I was desperate to put together, and the agony of having no outlet for them. I was also driven mad sailing past shores that fascinated me; I promised myself that soon I would travel properly; and that I would give the music a chance.</p>
<p>So, I resigned from Maersk Tankers in July 2000; my last tanker was based at <a contents="Ascension Island" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36076411" target="_blank">Ascension Island</a>, where I learned the stories that later inspired me to write the song <a contents="Comfortless Cove" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://open.spotify.com/track/0cJh6UyroDbvSEkCekVnVx?si=BX5A1f0-S9-L7-mpgYXV4w" target="_blank">Comfortless Cove</a>.</p>
<p>By September I was aboard Soren Larsen in Charlestown, Cornwall, preparing for a 13-month trip to New Zealand; intimidated by the ship and the challenge, but more excited than I'd ever been when starting out on anything. Here she is - the Soren Larsen. Maybe I'll tell more of this story if it's interesting...</p>
<p>Stay well,</p>
<p>~B~</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/9bb9861ecb1b380bde4265376548fd0f593a20bb/original/dsc-0024-2.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/62871152020-04-19T17:10:41+01:002021-01-09T16:52:45+00:00Desert Wind - Live Video. Missing going out!<p>I've recorded a little live video this afternoon - at home, performing the song 'Desert Wind'. I'm really missing playing music in company, and playing gigs; but sending some of these songs out there helps. I hope it helps you through this as well!</p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="Ok6Azh6mhHA" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/Ok6Azh6mhHA/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ok6Azh6mhHA?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p>I wrote Desert Wind a couple of years ago, it's based on my travels in Australia and South East Asia. It was inspired by all sorts of reflective, mystical thoughts about the experiences we have, and where they go... </p>
<p>It was also an attempt to describe the wind that blew over the Australian desert - there was something that seemed very strange about it to me, maybe it was just so different from the wind I know well, a wind that always has something to say about the sea. The sound of that wind seemed to capture somehow the concept I was trying to get across! </p>
<p>I hope you enjoy the song. </p>
<p>I am also considering, inspired by friends who are doing the same thing, to tell some of the stories from my travels, both by sea and by land. Let me know if you'd like to hear some of these! </p>
<p>Take care of each other, and stay healthy! With love, </p>
<p>Barry</p>
<p><script src="https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js"></script> </p>
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<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/b19b1bbcb2b9facbe85b1e4909d640bdbedff797/original/add-a-heading-2.png/!!/b:W10=.png" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/62863382020-04-18T13:19:35+01:002022-03-27T22:07:51+01:00Music, Skype conversations, Isolation - sound familiar?<p>It would be interesting to hear people's take on isolation, and how it's changed your lifestyle. I bet a lot of it would be very familiar to many of us. Feel free to add a comment on how you're living or how you're getting by!</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/f22021c3a95c6ecb32cd45aa6f1cfbab9103d4c6/original/img-9e1fcda937b9754ae233e7cafdc94567-v.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>For me, I'm trying to put this strange time to good use, mostly through writing and composing music; I'm fortunate in that I have a recording set-up in the flat here. (As soon as I produce something I'm happy with, you'll be the first to know!) But, working at my desk with a microphone, a keyboard, a guitar and a fiddle availale to me - well, it could be worse.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/fc24311286f83820c67f5c35303b1f51dbc5f5a8/original/img-20191126-163608-559.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Exercise is important; it seems very clinical now - I'm aware that I'm going out for the good of my physical and mental health, and try to make sure I do it once a day. My bike is my saviour, and there is a great feeling of freedom in cycling through streets and parks of Glasgow (At a suitable distance from others of course!)<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/53f94d00111df14e9f282b77f38be42bbbba92c2/original/20200325-193206.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />I'm concerned about anyone who's struggling financially right now - I seem to be scraping by despite all gigs and work being cancelled, and am hopeful that I'll be able to claim a living through the job protection scheme until I can get back to work. So I'm one of the lucky ones. Those working in the health service I thin kof particularly - a hard job at the best of times.</p>
<p>It's really nice to be able to keep up with family through Skype or online platforms. My folks, brother and sister in law in Shetland; Sister and her partner in London. We're chatting, having drinks together and playing quizzes; but we're also really hoping we get to see each other again very soon. Till then, this is the best contact we get.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I hope everyone's surviving and remaining healthy; please take care and look after yourselves.</p>
<p>Barry</p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/62631292020-03-26T23:42:15+00:002023-04-03T01:38:09+01:00Emotional day in isolation<p>It's been an emotional day, having made the final decision to cancel the first of Sessions and Sail's voyages this year. April's trip in Shetland will not be going ahead.</p>
<p>I'm hoping everyone out there is doing OK in these strange, isolated times.</p>
<p>Another emotional moment at 8pm as we hung out the window to bang pots and pans, and the only sound across our silenced city was thousands of others doing the same. A huge welling of emotion and support for the incredible nurses, doctors and NHS staff, and a reminder that all across town - and all across the UK, and the world - there are others isolated in their own spaces, feeling, thinking and fearing the same things that we are.</p>
<p>...A picture of a foredeck session from last July; hopefully we'll have some blue skies, music and good company to look forward to soon.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/a305f76e8fc70fd834598cd7b55f4d706ed2ae95/original/img-20190729-wa0000.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/62508192020-03-16T10:37:51+00:002020-03-16T12:15:53+00:00SEX! And now that we've got your attention...<p>Dozens of birds are singing outside, and it feels a bit like spring - there's blue skies at last, although I'm sure they're normally criss-crossed with contrails - I don't see any today.</p>
<p>This Corona virus is hitting almost every aspect of life, hard - I worry about friends in the airline industry, who may lose their jobs; I worry about friends in the NHS who will likely be overwhelmed with extra work very soon. My musician and self-employed friends have seen their entire income dry up over the space of a few days.</p>
<p>In a way this emergency seems like a wake-up call; we in the first world have desperately and increasingly needed to change our ways for a while now. The planet has been burning up and we've continued to increase carbon emissions; we've been caught up with bickering over issues that really don't matter; we've been falling out and being uncivil to each other on social media. We've been driven by this bickering into electing leaders who really aren't up to the job. We've been letting health services run down, and we've been creating an economy of zero-hours and self-employment where many of us have no safety net should the work dry up.</p>
<p>Perhaps this health scare will draw our attention and give us the opportunity to do something about these problems, a bit like the old advert that said 'SEX! ...and now that we've got your attention, the local council elections will take place on Monday....'</p>
<p>Because what's really important is becoming crystal clear. Family, and their continued good health. Community, and the support it can offer. Friends and people who will stand by us. Unity in the face of adversity.</p>
<p>I'm seeing the same thing, happening all over the world. People singing on Italian balconies. People in Wuhan vlogging about their experiences. People in Glasgow forming community groups to provide resilience. Volunteers and donations everywhere. It's really tough, and this is the only way through it.</p>
<p>I for one am facing having a lot more free time, and a lot less money, than anticipated. I'll get by; and the time can be well spent - simple pleasures, and if necessary helping others who may need it.</p>
<p>This river is a kilometre from my flat, and if the birds are singing here, they'll be really going for it down there - I'm going for a walk. </p>
<p>Stay safe and stay healthy!</p>
<p>Barry</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/4fe6c61b3bb4b8085e2b2c5e514a35c6fe7ab4cb/original/20200101-152114.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/62493012020-03-14T18:52:18+00:002020-03-14T19:18:15+00:00Big changes of plans - for all of us I guess.<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/828f8ea098bcdf783e8098253b24e17e0743e4d1/original/20200314-175100.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Not quite the trip we'd planned... I was all set to head to Lisbon for a long weekend with my sister and brother. Train tickets all the way there to avoid flight shame!</p>
<p>But by 0400 on Thursday morning, en route to St Pancras Station, it was beginning to seem like a really bad idea. Watching the world fall apart on twitter and on news websites. I decided it was irresponsible and foolish to carry on.</p>
<p>We've all lost several hundreds of pounds worth of tickets and reservations but as things have panned out the past three days, it was the right decision.</p>
<p>It's becoming clear that 2020 is not going to be about success, but about survival. Watching the gigs and events get cancelled one by one, chalking off almost all March's income. Wondering how deeply I can cut my wage and survive. Considerations I'm sure all self-employed people are having right now; and I'm aware I'm far from the worst off. Hoping friends are going to be OK. We're going to need our communities like never before.</p>
<p>Washing hands every chance - carrying a bar of soap around with me in case there's none available! I think the avoiding crowds, avoiding contact, and frequent hand-washing is essential - slowing the spread of this virus so much as possible to give the health service breathing space to deal with it when it hits fully.</p>
<p>I'll be back in Glasgow this evening and my lapel emoji says it all!</p>
<p>Wishing health and safety to everyone; we will get through this.</p>
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<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/62453332020-03-11T16:49:18+00:002020-11-26T13:07:24+00:00On the road with a guitar in 2020<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/38aacdca98c45e858f7815936058e5bfeef7de9f/original/img-20200311-163000-938.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />2020 has been a challenging, and rewarding year so far! Weather - it never stops raining; life - it's hard to find time for all the recordng, study, gigs and composing I'm trying to fit in!</p>
<p>In January, Celtic Connections allowed me to hear some musical heroes, inluding concerts by Nitin Sawhney and Anais Mitchell, as well as the opportunity to perform at Coastal Connections, the Celtic on Campus and Danny Kyle open stages.</p>
<p>In February we managed to launch a single with Reidhle, the vibrant new trad line up I'm in on fiddle, along with Jamie Anderson on accordion and Jenna McRory on guitar. Here's a listening link: <a contents="Reidhle" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/2GXD6DIa23Q5dFtpTBOCpE?si=ZJsVHgB4SCaPYq2IT8W2MA" style="" target="_blank">Reidhle</a></p>
<p>I'm headed south by train to London today, then tomorrow across the channel and through France and Spain for a weekend meet up with my sister and brother. Doing it by train all the way means I can avoid flight shame, and also can bring a guitar. Who knows, I may manage a jam or two while in transit!</p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/57501462019-05-10T19:52:14+01:002019-05-10T19:52:14+01:00Sessions and Sail begins! <p>After a busy winter preparing, I'm arriving in Orkney for this year's first Sessions and Sail trip! </p>
<p>The weather is perfect - blue skies and a sailing breeze - and, apart from some stress watching the ship's much-delayed progress making her way up from England, everything is looking good for the week ahead. </p>
<p>On Sunday the group will gather, and the tunes will comence! </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/55438762018-12-07T12:20:16+00:002020-11-26T13:07:12+00:00November gigs in France, <p>These tracks lead home... from the delapidated station in Quievrain, Belgium, to Edinburgh via the Eurostar, Brussels and London.</p>
<p>I travelled down to south-west France on November 23rd to play a few gigs with <a contents="Tildon Krautz" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.tildonkrautz.com">Tildon Krautz</a>. A mediatheque concert near Bordeaux, followed by a house concert by Bourg de Visa, then two days of recording with the band.</p>
<p>They had kindly set me up with two solo gigs in the region as well. These concerts took a very pleasant fomat - dinner was served; we ate with the guests after soundchecking; then as dessert is cleared commenced the music.</p>
<p>December 1st was a drive to the North of France, where on Sunday we played the Salle du Fetes in the small town of Esnes. This area has known better days - the mines have closed, industry has moved on and the area has a slightly neglected feel. However, the 100-strong crowd were enthusiastic and friendly. Later that evening our hosts, Josie and David-Jo, took us out for frites with their family. They are good people - he runs the local library, and she arranges concerts, shows and events in the town.</p>
<p>Across the Belgian border the following morning, it was time to make my way home.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/e5407bdeb295ce6602da7148304dd264ab9c4cfc/original/img-20181203-094048.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/53774742018-08-07T10:13:45+01:002024-02-14T10:44:08+00:00Sessions and Sail 2018<p>The Sessions and Sail project took place last week! The concept of a week sailing a tall-ship with a crew of musicians was a big experiment, but felt like a very successful one.</p>
<p>From the moment we sailed off the quay at Mallaig the group gelled very well; around the saloon table that evening, anchored at Loch Scavaig on Skye and led by fiddle player Lauren MacColl, tunes such as Calum's Road, Da Slockit Light, The Lounge Bar, and songs such as The Blackest Crow and my own Comfortless Cove were soon being played by the whole crew. The following morning, a walk, or a swim round Loch Coruisk at the foot of the stunning Cullin range.</p>
<p>We sailed on to the isle of Canna, where the community gathered in the Shearing Shed hall where we shared tunes and dancing; the following day with the group working together on deck we tacked the ship upwind and sailed onto the anchor in the bay at Rum, where some tunes round a fire on the beach with some of the locals was the entertainment.</p>
<p>Fiddler Eilidh Shaw and guitarist Ross Martin joined us at Eigg where they ran an afternoon workshop before leading the charge to the tearoom where the evening party was in full swing. Then a perfect sailing wind took us under full sail across the Sound of Sleat and into Loch Nevis where we were welcomed ashore to the Knoydart Commnity Hall and local musicians joined us for more tunes.</p>
<p>The final night ceilidh was held in the Astley Hall in Arisaig - a concert put on by the Sessions and Sail participants and headlined by Eilidh Shaw and Tia Files, before the Riska Ceilidh Band took the stage and played for a spirited dance.</p>
<p>Thanks are due to skipper/owner of the Lady of Avenel Stefan Fritz; to mate Carol Anderson, and cook Alison Sykora; to filmmaker Austen McCowan, who sailed and filed with us all week; to Ash-Lynn, who is becoming more and more indispensible to the Sessions and Sail project; to the communities in Canna, Eigg, Rum, Knoydart and Arisaig for their support; to our excellent tutors Lauren MacColl, Eilidh Shaw and Ross Martin; and to all the participants of this first-ever Sessions and Sail voyage for being such a positive and passionate group. And of course huge thanks to all of our crowdfund participants, who helped to make it possible for us to film the project! You will all be hearing from us as soon as I get back to HQ...<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/5077e6113dccd61dc1a5d503a3eedc91a2e6ec1b/original/20180723-160118.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Lauren MacColl leads the group in an onboard masterclass at Skye</p>
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<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/305446/70a0584f0539e22f2d964237d588eee14f5588ae/original/20180726-155758.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Lady of Avenel under sail between Eigg and Knoydart during Sessions and Sail 2018</p>
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<p> </p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/53663932018-07-29T16:30:14+01:002019-12-30T12:27:55+00:00Dundee City Square gig; free access to 'Hunger's Daughter' song.<p>Dundee City Square in the sun - a big sound set up and a good crowd. It was nice to get the full band together - Robbie on keys, Gav on guitar, Ade on drums, Fiona on backing vocals and Stephen on bass. It's a privelege to play with such accomplished musicians. </p>
<p>Some Dundee hecklers in the crowd stood out - the guy in the orange shirt who was calling us wankers at the start was filming us and shouting encouragement by the fourth song, so we at least won him over. </p>
<p>The homeless demographic added a poignancy - whilst singing 'Hunger's Daughter', I spotted the guy with the sleeping bag and the crutches; suddenly the line about queuing for food in the streets seemed even more significant. I'm making this song freely available this week on behalf of him, his mates and anyone else in this world who is struggling to find enough food. </p>
<p>Andy Wells came down to film the show; many thanks to him, and some videos should be available for viewing soon. </p>
<p>Much love </p>
<p>Barry</p>5:07Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/53446912018-07-13T15:52:40+01:002022-05-16T14:32:52+01:00Trump in the UK<p>So Trump has arrived in the UK; he continues to spread his offensive views on immigrants and minorities, women and Muslims wherever he goes, reinforcing his opinions with all the power that his office gives him.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, hundreds of people lose their lives daily in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, many of them running from horrors we can barely imagine.</p>
<p>I have made my song <strong>'Train to Anywhere'</strong> available for free listening; it imagines a family fleeing from war and asking us for help, and considers a time when we in Scotland were refugees ourselves. If we can't solve the problem, maybe the least we can do is share some compassion.</p>
<p>Barry</p>4:53Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/53107272018-06-22T11:11:09+01:002018-06-22T11:17:03+01:00Gig announcement coming soon - watch this space!<p>I've been in communication about an exciting gig we'll be playing next month - I will reveal details here as soon as I can.</p>
<p>In the meantime, I left the <a contents="Lady of Avenel" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.ladyofavenel.com" target="_self">Lady of Avenel</a> on Saturday, in Oban, and have since been enjoying a few blissful days with the wonderful Ash.</p>
<p>I have been getting back into practice musically, working on my set for Saturday's <a contents="solo gig" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.list.co.uk/event/940539-barry-nisbet/" target="_self">solo gig</a> in the Crosstown Bar, Edinburgh. Hopefully we'll get a few music lovers out!</p>
<p>Laying plans for next month's '<a contents="Sessions and Sail" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.sessionsandsail.com" target="_self">Sessions and Sail</a>' voyage has been taking up a lot of my time. This combined sailing/trad music trip is looking very good - it's now fully booked, and an exciting week sailing between Mallaig, Skye, Canna, Eigg and Arisaig are coming together.</p>
<p>But right now, it's time for me to get back to the guitar!</p>
<p>Barry</p>Barry Nisbettag:barrynisbet.com,2005:Post/52949392018-06-14T10:39:18+01:002020-03-14T19:10:53+00:00New website!<p>So my website is live! Thank you Bandzoogle... I'm impressed.</p>
<p>I've also spent the last 12 hours in howling wind and rain with the sailing ship 'Lady of Avenel' anchored in the bay at Tobermory. It's keeping me very busy, so it's nice to see the website coming along and feel that things are moving forward in my music world.</p>
<p>I hope you enjoy the website and the music!</p>
<p>Barry</p>
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<p> </p>Barry Nisbet