Reflections on Thirty Days

I have been on Saba a little more than a month. 

 

In the past four weeks I have become a certified open-water scuba diver, hiked a few of the numerous trails on the island, gotten to know (by face and reputation) many of the local characters, helped backstage at the school play, volunteered at the local HIV community center, and acted as an additional hand here at El Momo.  I know when I hear the conch shell being blown down in "The City" that it's 6 A.M.  I’ve even gotten so I can tell the difference between the wild goats’ bleating and the caged parrot down the road imitating the wild goats’ bleating.  And I've developed a deep and luscious SPF 30 tan.

 

What a time I’ve had!  It’s inevitable that a long-term visitor would become quickly known in such a small sphere, and having the added advantage of Patrick and Sophie around to introduce me (those two are due for a blog entry devoted just to them) I have met and befriended many people on the island.  There’s a joke on Saba that the most difficult thing about driving here is waving to everyone you pass.  It’s how it’s done—every driver acknowledges pedestrians even if with just a lifted finger.  But walking into town, chances are when someone waves to me from a passing car I actually know who they are.  Add to that the fact that many island residents work at multiple jobs—the bank guard might show up as your waiter on Saturday night—and one begins to feel “of the community” very fast.

 

As you might expect, things are very casual here and social and business transactions have a pleasant “whatever” quality to them.  More than a couple of times I’ve finished a meal in a restaurant or bagged up my groceries only to discover I had no cash on me.  “Just come back,” is the response.  I finally had to strong-arm Lynne, at the dive shop, into letting me to pay for my lessons.  And when I applied for a library card the librarian took down my name:  “Tom…”   “T-O-M,” she wrote.  “Jud…”  “Oh, just ‘Tom’ is fine.”   

 

The greatest example of that lack of urgency is right here in my own back yard.  One of the stipulations to my spending the summer at El Momo was that I would design and build an additional cottage.  (That project will also have a blog entry of its own.)  Back home this would have been—at most—a week-long project but it’s just now being completed.  That’s due, in part, to the fact that work has to be done so as not to inconvenience the other guests, but also because Pat and Sop insist that nobody works too hard.  One o’clock will come around and it’s decreed that sufficient work has been done for the day and lunch is in order.  Followed by a swim.  Followed by a nap. 

 

But last week this philosophy reached new heights:  as much as I have been scribbling away on this blog, I had not written a word of the “Canned Ham” script, which is—in my mind—the principal reason for this trip.  That was partly due to wanting to finish the cottage and several other smaller projects.  Hemingway purportedly said he was unable to start a new book until he had cleaned every closet in the house.  I know that feeling.

 

So last Monday Sophie told me that I had to, simply had to, take the next week off, move up to Cottage In the Sky (which would be vacant until the 1^st) and “start work on your play!”

 

So here I am, up from the main office area the equivalent of about four storeys, ensconced in what feels like a treehouse with the view of all time, and with a finished first draft of my play and a good chunk completed of a second draft.  And what’s more, I like what I’ve written.

 

I’m here on Saba for a while still.  There are more trails to be hiked, the advanced diving certificate to be earned and a few songs left to be sung at Friday night Sabaoke.  But if I were to get on a plane bound for New York tomorrow morning (which I have no intention of doing,) I would call my summer in the Caribbean a complete success.

 

To be continued…

 

The Saba Treadmill

Beats me why I can’t post this in all its widescreen splendor.  You can see it in full HD here:

 

Worth 17,000 Words

The Level

...which, obviously, it is not.

 

The two main settlements on Saba (The Bottom and Windwardside) have outlying neighborhoods of their own.  El Momo sits above and to the right of Windwardside in the area called Booby Hill (no, silly, the bird.)  But if you continue straight up from The City you will come to an area called The Level.  The topography feels more like a bowl, in fact, and that lends a very cozy, secure feeling to the place.

 

On a sunny half-acre or so lies The Garden (if it has a more formal name I’m unaware of it) which was started several years ago as a community agricultural project for the local teenagers.  But it has evolved into something very special:  a completely organic garden that produces vegetables and herbs that are available for purchase by the island restaurants and locals.  Patrick usually supplements his El Momo menu with something from The Garden.  I went along today when he went to pick up a few items.

 

I wasn’t prepared for the beauty of the place.  It’s under the care and direction of a man named Manuel, a Cuban national who is a specialist in Organopónicos, a system of urban gardens begun in Cuba after the Soviet Union dried up and blew away.

 

A primary feature of Organopónicos is raised beds, but specifically, raised beds with low cement walls.  Here on Saba where lava rocks are plentiful, the walls incorporate that material which lends an even more elegant look to the garden.

 

I wandered among the rows of eggplants and peppers and new lettuce and young beets.  The herbs grew in huge bunches and were particularly odoriferous and, in many cases, alive with the sound of buzzing bees.  Some rows are planted at the ends with marigolds, although I can’t imagine it’s to keep the deer away, which is what my father does back home.

 

Patrick chose some peppers, coriander and lemon grass.  Manuel brought out a small machete to cut the lemongrass, releasing its fresh scent into the air.  The beets aren’t ready yet, but Patrick said he doesn’t care for them anyway.  Clearly he’s never had my beet/gorgonzola/toasted walnut salad with orange vinaigrette.  

But he will soon.  And he will love it. 

Queen Kelly

I was hoping to post my first Saba-mentary (Docu-Saba?  Docious-alli-expi?) from my Flip Video camera with this post, but I’m afraid it will have to wait.  I haven’t quite developed the hand-held self-portrait technique that I’m after.  The framing was all out of whack.  I assembled a little video of our trip to the beach yesterday but it wasn’t up to my exacting standards so I’m gonna bag it.  

(The title of this entry?  You know how I love my obscure movie references:  “Queen Kelly” was an Erich von Stroheim silent epic for Gloria Swanson that went way over-budget and was finally killed by financier Joe Kennedy.  It’s the movie Swanson and Bill Holden watch together in “Sunset Boulevard”.  “Rattling the Saba” is educational as well as entertaining.  But I digress…)

 

I’ve mentioned earlier that there is no beach on Saba because the island is just a big rock that juts out of the ocean.  The locals know if the first question asked by a visitor is, “where’s the beach?” that visitor will not be very happy on Saba.

 

But I wasn’t being completely accurate.  Once in a while there is a beach.  Mostly it’s just the ocean crashing against a vertiginous and threatening wall of boulders, gravel and dirt that is scarred by the weather and wind.  A wall that occasionally tosses an errant slab of rock to the depths below.  The beach itself is small and the sand is gray and sometimes just a few yards deep and the road there is like the last stretch of Spiderman the Ride but a beach there is.  Sometimes.  When the tide cooperates.  Right now it’s cooperating so Patrick, Sophie and I decided to go. 

 

We stopped in "The City" for a bite at the Saba Snack Bar and then proceeded down The Road to The Bottom …and Beyond!  The Road continues past The Bottom to the beach (beach area, I guess.  When there’s no beach it just goes nowhere.)  It’s really hard to describe how steep and switch-back-y this road is.  I shot some footage of the trip back up but… y’know…framing and all. 

 

The road simply ends at the beach.  You park your car and climb over some boulders to get to the sandy part.  We arrived at 1:30 on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and the place was packed.  There must have been, oh, I don’t know… one, maybe two other people?  It was  difficult to get an accurate count.  Yup, Sunday afternoon and a beach (that isn’t even always there) was empty.  I guess you just don’t think “beach” when you think “Saba.” 

 

We dropped our stuff and headed into the water for a quick snorkel.  Right offshore is an underwater cluster of boulders and in those boulders is a nice variety of fish and, sometimes, more exotic things.  Last year we saw a sea turtle in this spot but he was AWOL this time around.  Yesterday was just an average snorkeling day, which meant, of course, we saw a beautiful array of fishes large and small, brightly colored and with more subdued markings, in schools and swimming solo, timid and nonchalant.  Imagine you are that little plastic diver in the tank at the Chinese restaurant and that’s what the experience is like.

 

Back on the sand we all SPF’d-up and lay back for a bit of sun.  Hot sun.  Bright sun.  I plugged in my iPod and was very quickly asleep.

 

I awoke to discover friends of Pat and Sophie had shown up with some chilled watermelon (which tasted extra good in the hot sun) as well as some other folks who had decided to take advantage of the Amazing Disappearing Beach.  So the head count had increased to about ten.  Sophie said, “You missed a boulder falling out of the cliff.”  Fortunately it had also missed me. 

 

Among the newcomers was one guy who I remembered from my last visit and who, unlike the turtle, showed his face again this time.  He’s a wiry fellow in a black Speedo who does some kind of exercise/gymnastics/yoga routine on the beach for his own—and others’—enjoyment.  He also parks his truck (he delivers truckloads of water here on Saba.  More about that in the future…) at the end of the road and blasts his music. 

 

[Speaking of truck drivers on Saba:  the garbage pickup guys, who drive a standard-but-itty bitty garbage truck went on strike a while ago when the authorities decided that no, it was not OK that they drink all day whilst picking up the trash.  After 48 hours of the job action a compromise was reached:  the pair would take turns driving so the other one would be free to down his Caribe beers.  Hey, it’s a system and it works.]

 

After the sun, the watermelon, the fishes and the physical culture demonstration we were all ready to head home.  We shook the sand from our towels and Patrick drove us up the ridiculous hill, never leaving first gear the entire trip back up to The Bottom.  “Up to the bottom.”  Crazy.

 

Of course we didn’t quite make it home because when we got back to Windwardside another friend invited us for beers on his front porch.  Finally, I hitched a ride back up the hill to El Momo and, after a shower, fixed myself a bowl of corn flakes and sat down to edit my cinematic epic.  Oops. 

“Queen Kelly,”… “The Day the Clown Cried”… and now, “Saba Beach.”  Lost masterpieces all. 

At least I can offer some stills from the movie. 

  

A Little Traveling Music, Please

I was up on the roof of Canned Ham II with Patrick installing the corrugated sheets when Sophie came out of the office with “very bad news”:  someone had just booked Turtle Cottage and was on their way up so I’d have to clear out ASAP.  Since I’m on the “poor relation” vacation package and not getting paid anything while I’m here at El Momo I’ve been jumping around from cottage to cottage until the one we’re building is complete.  (And, in fact, El Momo is fully booked this Saturday, so I’ll be sleeping in Canned Ham II whether it's finished or not.)  I don’t mind moving around because a) I travel with very little luggage and b) I do want to sleep in every cottage before I leave.  Tonight will make it three down with three to go.  I’m saving Cottage In The Sky for last as it’s the dreamiest of them all.

 

In other Saba news, I took my first-ever scuba dive on Sunday and it was amazing.  I seemed to take to it naturally and found breathing underwater through the regulator less unnatural than I had expected.  I won’t go on at length about the experience now, but  I will tell you that the four of us (one instructor, three newbies) descended the rope line foot-by-foot (you’d be amazed at how much a foot or so of depth changes the pressure in your ears!) until we got to the ocean floor (at this spot, about 35 feet) and the first thing I saw as I let go of the rope and swam away on my own was a shark.  Yes, a shark.  A four-foot long nurse shark that was asleep with its head under a rock.  But a shark it was! 

 

I’ve been to a couple of staff meetings at AIDS Support Group Saba (ASGS), where I’ll be volunteering, and I’ll be taking part in my first event tomorrow when we have an open house for the community.  I’ll be behind a table handing out literature and trying to round up some other folks interested in volunteering.  The issues and programs ASGS deals with are, in many cases, the same kinds of things we had to handle back at the Albany Damien Center.  In fact, the literature rack even has many of the same pamphlets, which made me feel oddly right at home.  There are many differences, of course, beginning with staff lunches at which Long Island Iced Teas are consumed.  Trying to operate on an island and maintain confidentiality is a definite challenge; getting the telephone helpline off the ground has been difficult because on an island of 1,500 people chances are pretty good that the caller and answerer will recognize one another.  You don’t really think about that kind of thing in a country of 250,000,000 people. 

 

I’m making dinner for us all tonight.  Patrick and Sophie have an inexplicable antipathy towards pasta.  I took that as a challenge:  so tonight I’m cooking pasta with the promise that they’ll enjoy it.  I also said I’d fix a good old-fashioned Independence Day barbecue for them and that they should invite whomever they wish.  Fortunately there’s enough time for Sophie to call everyone back and tell them she meant July 4^th, not the 7^th.      

 

Interesting computer news:  getting online here in the Dutch Antilles is done through a local IP address (obviously) and therefore I can’t watch lots of downloadable things like TV shows and Netflix "watch it now” movies.  Tragedy.  However, because we’re on a wireless network here at El Momo I can listen to my fellow guests’ iTunes libraries.  That kind of amazed me when I discovered that.  The guy in Sunshine Cottage?  He’s got a lot of Sarah Vaughan, a lot of classical and a lot of Beatles.  Oh, and Judy Garland singing “Over the Rainbow.”  i.e. most of the same stuff I have in mine.  I think he’s gay.

 

I drove (I mean I drove) down to the airport with Patrick yesterday on The Road.

 

Oh.  My.  God. 

"Did You Have A View?"

To the far right of the view from my comfortable terrace here at Turtle Cottage lies a mountain peak…  [totally random aside—that opening line sounded just like Barbara Stanwyck’s bogus country life column in “Christmas in Connecticut.”  You may never know if I’m even really here.)  Anyway, about this mountain peak; it’s there and it’s almost always shrouded in mist.  No, not shrouded so much as used as a piece of exercise equipment by the constant fog.  The clouds vault over the mountain the same way car commercials used to tout the aerodynamic properties of 1970s gas-guzzlers by shooting a jet of smoke over the contours of a sedan.

 

This is Mt. Scenery.  At 2855 feet it is jokingly (and accurately) referred to as “the highest point in The Netherlands” and hiking to its summit is de rigueur for visitors to Saba.  I was a slug last October when I visited the island so I didn’t even consider a climb.  But now, with all summer to kill, I had no excuse.  Yesterday I decided to make my assault.

 

The trail up the mountain is an oddity:  most of it is either paved with asphalt or has steps cut into the stone, but it’s also a non-stop ascent and, because it’s a rainforest, the way can be very slick.  The humidity encourages lush, oversized vegetation; the trees and rocks wear thick green moss like a gramma with her sweater pulled tight in the air-conditioning.

 

I had no intention of climbing to the summit in one fell swoop.  Along the way there are brief detours to scenic overlooks and—the real point of my hike—a restaurant where I planned to have lunch.

 

The Ecolodge is just what the name implies:  an environmentally-friendly guest house.  They use solar power as much as possible, provide no phones or televisions and grow as much of their own produce as they can.  They do have hot showers—if it’s been sunny enough to heat the water.  You can get to the Ecolodge from an access road but the dramatic approach is through the forest.  Following the pointer from the main trail you start to notice the flowers along the path gradually becoming more manicured and domesticated.  Then you round a bend and the Ecolodge restaurant sits in front of you like a pavilion straight out of—sorry, here it is again—“Red Dust.”  Wide verandas and long bands of windows with hurricane shutters propped open for shade.  Inside it’s cool and dark.  And nearly silent.  Because there’s no music piped in the diners tend to murmur to one another rather than speak at a normal volume.  Silverware clinks on china.  It’s almost eerily quiet.

 

I felt like an adventurer in the wild striding in for some drink and conversation; slapping my crop on the bar, my pet monkey climbing down from my shoulders to grab a banana from the bunch hanging by the door; I pull the kerchief from around my neck to wipe my sweaty forehead as I order a rum.  From Thomas Mitchell.

 

In real life I had neither a crop, a monkey nor a kerchief.  Or a rum.  And the bartender was played by a young blond named Dana who spoke with the same voice and cadence as Shelley Duvall.  Dana is married to the son of the founder of Ecolodge and she can really put together a beautiful plate of food.  For me, a grilled tuna salad.  Talk about your childhood wishes—you can even eat the flowers.  After killing some time with my book and an after-meal toothpick, Pogo climbed back on my shoulder as I saluted Dana with my crop and left the restaurant to resume my ascent.

 

The higher I got, the more lush the vegetation.  Snatches of Debussy played in my head that—as I climbed further into the clouds—morphed into Max Steiner jungle drums.  Although I wouldn't have been surprised to spot a poorly animated pteradactyl I wasn't expecting the speckled hen that darted across my path with a Bantam rooster in close pursuit.  Huh? 

 

The heat, humidity and the cardio workout necessitated frequent rests the further along the trail I got.  A pair of hikers came out of the mist on their way down. “Did you have a view” I asked?  Nope—just clouds.  That’s the thing about Mt. Scenery:  the clouds that make it so scenic from below tend to make a mockery of its name once you’re at the peak.

 

As the trail finally leveled off I came within yards of the radio tower that sits on top of the mountain.  I don’t even want to think about what went into carting the materials up here to build this behemoth.  And from the looks of things, it’s not even in operation.  The weird orange moss growing everywhere reminded me of the photos of the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean.  Corroded cable hung from the structure and huge satellite dishes lay foundering on the rocks at its base.  The top of the tower was enveloped in roiling clouds and the constant wind made everything mysterious and spooky.  Yes, it was altogether ooky. 

 

I continued past the tower to the summit.  There, a huge slab of rock affords a perfect spot to rest and take in the view.  When there is one.  Yesterday there was nothing but clouds.  I stared into the abyss.  It was impossible to tell what was past the end of the outcropping: it might have been more rocks or it could have been just a sheer drop to the sea.  I kept my distance from the edge.

 

Since I had no schedule, and to rest up for the equally taxing climb down, I wedged myself into a cleft in the boulder and took out my book, the mist and the wind making it almost chilly.  I got through a couple of chapters when I found myself squinting and felt my face turn warm.  The sun!  I bolted upright and looked out onto an amazing panorama of most of Saba.  There, far below me, was El Momo.  To the right, the road to The Bottom.  To the left Windwardside and the way down to the airport.  Just as I reached into my pack for my camera, the clouds came back and obscured the view.  Brigadoon-like, the vista had disappeared into the mists. 

 

But for a brief moment, I had a view. 

 

 

Trade Winds

Wednesday is a big day on Saba.  Like a movie set in the old west where the settlers wait around for Wells Fargo, it's the day when the supply boat from St. Maarten comes in.  Wednesday morning is a combination delivery pickup and social event.  El Momo had arriving guests who were expected around 11 AM today so Patrick and I headed down to the port about 9:30. On the way down we had a couple of stops to make in “The Bottom,” one of the two main settled areas on Saba (Windwardside, where El Momo is, is the other.  Patrick and Sophie call Windwardside “the city,” but I think they may have made that up.)

 

“The Road,” however, really is the name of the one thoroughfare on Saba.  It goes from the airport on one side to the port on the other and lies across the island like a tangled piece of twine.  The switchbacks and turnarounds are legendary because the terrain is so mountainous that it’s impossible to go for more than a few meters in a straight line.  The inclines and declines also make it pretty tough for one’s car to go any further than that in the same gear.  On my first trip to The Bottom I found myself clutching the door handle with white knuckles.  It’s not uncommon to round a steep switchback just to find a car headed in the opposite direction but in the same lane.  Most of the cars and trucks here are miniature to compensate for the narrow width of The Road. 

 

We made a stop at the hardware store to try to find light bulbs for some lamps Pat and Sop had brought from Holland.  The hardware store is tiny by American standards but is the only game in town on Saba.  I noticed a lot of the items on the shelves are the Walmart store brand, Home Goods.  But while Sabans may be “living better,” they are definitely not “paying less.”  A tube of silicone caulk?  Ten dollars.  An eight foot pressure-treated 2x4?  Well, that’ll set you back a cool twelve bucks.  In the grocery store eight dollars and fifteen cents buys you a tin of Spam.  Since literally everything on the island has to be brought in, the markups are breathtaking.

 

It turned out Patrick’s lamps were fitted with a particular European-size socket.  The only option? Travel to St. Maarten—to the French side—and find them there.  So the lamps will remain dark until enough things are needed to warrant a trip over.  (Again, like the old west.)

 

After the hardware store we had to stop for gas.  The gas station is just outside the port down the hill from The Bottom.  The Bottom is something of a misnomer as the road from there to the port drops precipitously.  Steep, curvy and constantly threatened with huge boulders that careen down the mountain every now and then.

 

Saba is experiencing one of its periodic gas shortages, the reason for which I couldn’t quite glean, but it meant that one had to wait in line at the gas station and each car was allowed about seven dollars worth of fuel.  Until next week.  The needle barely moved on the gas gauge, so driving will be kept to a minimum for a while.

 

The port was hopping; the cargo ship was still in its berth, almost completely unloaded.  Cars and small trucks were parked here and there along the quay while their owners caught up with the news since last Wednesday.  I witnessed a lot of back-slapping and good-natured ribbing along with some late-morning beer guzzling between unloaded pallets of goods.  The men then took their turns retrieving their orders.  The atmosphere here—with its combination of salt water and diesel fumes and workers calling to one another from the pier to the ship—brought to mind less an old western and more one of those steamy melodramas from M-G-M about characters getting into each other’s way and each other’s beds in romantic, remote outposts.  “Red Dust,” specifically.  Griffin, the man in charge, could have been Clark Gable had he been wearing a pith helmet and jodhpurs.  (My jug ears would qualify me for that part, but I probably would have been cast in the milquetoast-y Gene Raymond role.)

 

Wielding a clipboard and an authoritative air, he checked the bill of lading and told Patrick the butter he had ordered was in the cooled container on the right-hand side of the ship.  Sure, we could just go ahead and get it ourselves.  (Imagine that in liability-crazed America!)  We climbed onto the ship’s deck, dodged a couple of forklifts and walked over to the open door of the mammoth metal box.  There at the end of the empty container sat one lonely little parcel:  a taped-up cardboard box which originally held packages of Oreos with a hand-written sign taped to it:  “El Momo Cottages.”  In a movie, the image would have been accompanied by a clanging metal echo.  (Note to self:  always carry your camera!)  We retrieved the butter and hopped back onto the pier. 

 

The other delivery we went to get—a new toaster—was buried somewhere on a pallet but we were on the clock and had to get back to make sure Patrick was there to greet the 11 AM arrivals.  So Griffin offered to bring it up to Windwardside with him when his work was done.  (As it happens, I just saw him drive by the café where I’m writing this so I may stop by and see if I can get it myself.) 

 

We headed back up The Road, dodging parked cars, oncoming traffic and even wild goats, and made it back to El Momo ahead of the new guests.

 

I always loved those “remote outpost,” “tramp steamer,” “isolated rubber plantation” black-and-white potboilers I used to watch on the Million Dollar Movie when I was a kid (all of which seem to have featured Thomas Mitchell.)  Even then I suspected the situations and locales were overly romanticized and the characters too broadly drawn.

After just one week on Saba I’m not so sure.           

9-to-5

What a way to make a livin’

It's What's For Dinner

I Can Do That!

There’s this big cement slab next to Lizard Cottage that is basically an unusable eyesore. I stayed in Lizard Cottage last year on my first visit to El Momo and did in fact feel a little gypped that, unlike all the other cottages, I didn’t have my own outdoor space.  At that time there was just a big pile of gravel on the spot and lots of weeds; you couldn’t get to it without killing yourself but that didn’t matter because you wouldn’t want to.

 

Patrick and Sophie have since spread the gravel over the slab, stuck a deck table and chairs up there and some scraggly potted plants, but it’s still kind of yucky.  Patrick wondered, did I think we could build a how do you say it… (there are lots of “how do you say its?” and “do you call it thats” flying back and forth among the three of us.  It’s surprising how often it’s the same word.) 

 

Did I think we could build a pergola?

 

I shrug and turn my palms upward.  Hey--I can build a pergola with one eye tied behind my back.  So the three of us spend a couple of hours weeding the hill behind the cement slab, lay down some black plastic and cover that with the gravel.  We then haul over some rather huge rocks from the pile on the other side of the dining pavilion (where the six iguanas are usually hanging out in the sun) and build a retaining wall behind the slab against the hill.  Sophie ripped up a lot of beautiful purple-leafed plants and just stuck them between the stones and--as the French would say--wa-lah!  The perfect spot for a pergola Or “perchola” (“ch” as in “challah”) depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re from.

 

But what are we going to use for materials?  

 

Well, there’s also, behind the shared bathroom (not only does poor Lizard Cottage not have its own porch, its residents share a bathroom,) a pile of lumber that was ordered last year with the intention of building an additional bathroom and an intern cottage.

 

A what?

 

Like many resorts/hotels El Momo occasionally, mostly in the high season (winter) will have a hospitality student spend weeks at a time working for free in exchange for a hands-on practical education.  So far, the interns have been staying in The Bunker.  Every place on Saba has a hurricane bunker that is just what you’d expect:  a big concrete room with—maybe—a small shuttered window.  Pat and Sop thought something a little nicer was in order.  Something that, if the place was full, could also be rented out at a modest rate.  (And, also, where I can live full-time while I’m here, rather than scurrying back and forth between un-booked cottages.  By the way, in the header photo above, the hip-roofed cottage to the left of the photo with the little white porch?  I'm writing this on that porch.)

 

This lumber was delivered (and carried up all those steps) just before Hurricane Omar last fall.  It’s been sitting on another slab, behind the shared bathroom, ever since.

 

Doot-doo-doo-doooh!  Acme Housing to the rescue! 

 

Yes, it looks like Acme Housing is going international.  The pile of lumber has been turned over to me to do with it as I see fit.  In other words, I’ll be building my own house right here on Saba!  It’s going to be a very fun challenge as the slab is 14’ x 7’ (in normal measurements, anyway.  God only knows what it is in those ridiculous meters and centimeters.  Although, that said, try to explain to a metric-oriented person why a 2x4 is really 1 1/2" x 3 1/2".)  It’s also going to be built up against the back of the shared bath on one side and a rock wall on t’other.  Big, beautiful boulders covered with vegetation.  I’m hoping to work those into the plan.  So there’s the danger of the place feeling like a long, dark coffin.  My mental gears are creaking into action and I’ve already got a couple of thoughts on how to make it work.

 

During dinner last night at Swinging Doors we were discussing what we’d call the new cottage.  Kokapelli, Turtle, Cottage-In-The-Sky, Sunshine Cottage… those names are already taken.  Sophie chewed thoughtfully on a piece of steak and her eyes lit up.  “I know,” she said, beaming.  “We’ll call it ‘Canned Ham II’!”

 

And lo, a legend was born.