Winslow Homer

The American landscape painter Winslow Homer was a genius when it came to capturing water.  On my last trip to Boston I rented a car and drove out to Cape Anne to a scene not unlike this.
 
As we drove along the Marble Head shore the rain was pelting down; hard enough to keep us in the rental car.  What is it about east coast rain storms?  Here in Victoria, even though we are in the rain shadow of the Olympic peninsula we get rain. But, nothing like the rain that hammers Boston.

During my first trip to Boston my wife and I almost drown in a cloud burst that lasted all of 5 minutes.  On the second visit a flash flood swept the streets of down town Boston.  The water was well above our ankles, brown; polluted with the worst you can imagine.  We were wearing sandals.

A day later in the Museum of Fine Art I found this painting.  It could have been painted the day before up in Marble Head. Homer masterfully captured the power and dynamic nature of the sea.  Standing back and admiring his work brought forth such a longing to get back onto the water. Weeks later I've still to return to the sea.  Soon.

More thoughts on the Museum of Fine Arts - Boston

On day three of my trip to Boston we rented a car and drove up to Cape Anne.  We decided to skip the freeway and took the old highway anticipating a nice coastal drive.

Turns out the old highway just wanders through these old rust belt working class neighbourhoods.  Combined with the cold wet rain it was a rather depressing drive up to Salem.  In Salem we checked out the historic  homes on Chestnut Street.

The entire street is a national historic site and the homes are protected by a series of covenants.  The street is lined with stately old maples and oaks and must be a thing of amazing beauty when the leaves turn in the fall.

After Salem we finally reached the coast and leisurely wove our way through Rockport, Marblehead and Cape Anne.  The estate homes of the burgers or commerce, trade, shipping, and forestry from 200 years ago form a rather startling contrast to the working class towns closer to Boston.  The gap between the ultra rich and even ordinary middle class Americans is very large indeed.

Clearly though the highlight for me was Marblehead.  As the road inches closer to the sea just below a low bank the Atlantic was pounding its way through a series of off shore rocks.  Wonderful rock gardens just off shore, an on shore wind, and a rising tide.  If only I'd had a kayak.

So while my wife looked at the mansions to the left I watched the sea to the right and plotted how I could seal launch off some nabobs front lawn.

We managed to get in a fast second visit to the MFA before heading off to the airport for one of those nothing goes right flights home.

I'm a bit of a nut for landscapes and while reveling in the American and European wing I came across a Winslow Homer that reminded me of the Atlantic up at Marblehead.

I had a great time disrupting an art lecture in the Dutch masters gallery.  A young art professor was introducing his troupe of college students to the brilliance of Rembrandt.  But when he referred the old master as a "brand." I think he called him the first recognized brand name;  I thought this is a bit much.

He went on and to  make his point he asked the students how many had actually heard of Rembrandt. Most put up their hands.  Then he asked how many could name three of his paintings.  He paused and no hands went up.  So just as he was about to continue I struck.

"Belshazzar's Feast, A Turk, Man in a Black Hat, Rembrandt as a Young Man in a Black Hat, and of course his master piece The Night Watch, I'd go on but I have a lunch date but do carry on."  As the stuffed shirt glared back at me I slipped through the door smiling. What fun.

April Fools Day in Boston

Arrived during a snow storm and woke up in the morning to this. It didn't take long for things to start looking up.  The snow turned to rain and the rain to sunshine.

Friday night we got to the theater to watch Faustus. My son Matthew did the staging and lighting for the play.  It was a very interesting interpretation of the classic story of good versus evil.  The entire production unfolds on a slightly raised platform surrounded by a moat.

The key prop however is paint.  Gallons and gallons of paint. Fortuitously no one was allowed to sit in the front row.  Pared down to the essentials just the devil, Mephistopheles and Faustus and lots of paint.

The next night was Gilbert and Sullivan's the Merry Yeoman.  Matthew built a two story high replica of the Tower of London for this endeavour.  Very impressive.  All those years watching his Dad measuring once and cutting twice seemed to have paid off.  Wait a minute that's measure .... Oh the operetta was lots of fun but not your typical G&S as it ends with clear winners and losers.

Between shows his Mother went on a thirty kilometer run along the Charles why I pursued intellectual endeavours with a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts.  MFA - take it in if you ever make it to Boston.  Look for John Singer Sargent's painting called "A Capriote".  It features the most beautiful woman, Rossina Ferrara in the entire museum and is in my view the finest painting in the American collection.  Landscapes excepted.

I could have spent for more time at the mfa and will return when I next visit Boston.

Changing Plans

Sometimes the smart thing to do is to throw out the plan. Sunday we'd planned to do a one way paddle from Weirs Beach to Becher Bay. One way trips are unusual here in Victoria. Out and backs are easy to plan and execute. Out and backs also seem to fall into clock management. Even with it's high number of retirees people in Victoria like most others are covered by the clock.

For this trip we threw out the clock and planned to paddle the tides. We hoped to ride the ebb winds all the way. Unfortunately the wind conditions warranted a rethink and we tossed out the plan and launched from Becher Bay marina headed out to the DND property then retraced our path back to the marina.


Becher Bay is a wonderful destination and I'm surprised it's not on more peoples top list of sites to paddle around Victoria. Lots of rock gardens to play in,especially on the east shore. In fact I'll be repairing nice gel coat hole later today.

It was a great day to be on the water. We covered 6.64Nm out top speed was 5.9 Kt, we paddled 2hr 23 min, with a moving avg of 2.8 kt.s and stopped to 1hr 20 min. which reduced our overall avg spd to a breath taking 1.8 kts.  Stopped time and overall averages are essentially useless bits of information as the stop time includes everything from the time I turn the GPS on when loading until the time I remember to shut it off.  Usually one of the last things I do after returning home. 

Race Rocks

It was a perfect day to visit Race Rocks and play in the current. We launched from Weir's Beach onto a 6.2 ebbing freight train. In very little time we made Race Rocks. This was one of those rare days of no wind. So when we raced the tidal over falls there were no standing wind waves - just lots of chaos.

Most of the action was happening at the South east corner of the islets.You can get a good sense of how we knocked about in the over falls from this second image.

Even without the wind there was lots of wave action to keep you focused. The odd low brace was required, my face got washed more then once, and I even got slammed sideways in the chest from a blind side that shifted the entire kayak about two feet. It felt like I'd been hip checked during a hockey game.

After knocking about we made our way around the main island where someone emerged to video tape our delinquent behaviour.
 We then slipped over to Bentinck Island for lunch then made our way back to the put in. Trip 10.1Nm Max Spd 7.8kt Mov Time 3hr 11 min. Mov Avg 3.1 kt Stopped time 1hr 42 min Overall avg 2 kt.

Ides of March

Tuesday was a great day to be on the water. We started off with a nice bit of south east swell being pushed along by a dying SE wind. Maybe 15 knots. Earlier in the morning the wind was blowing 22 knots at the Discovery Island light house.

When we slipped out of Rat Bay into Enterprise channel we were met by some metre high waves. Both Dan and I were hoping things would build but for the most part conditions remained the same for most of the day. There was a minimal flood flowing for the first half of the trip and we'd hoped the sea might start to rock and roll as we came back down Baynes and through the Chain Islets but other then the current push not much happened.

That is until we turned west to re-enter Enterprise Channel. Here the swell caught us from the aft port quarter but for the most part was running too fast to catch any meaningful rides.

we travelled 9.25Nm with a max speed of 7.8kts. Our moving time was 3 hours, our moving Avg speed 3.1 kts, our stopped time 1hr and 34 min and our overall avg was a whopping 2kts.

Tall Tales

Last week I mounted two cameras to the deck of the Romany and headed out. A WP10 Pentax facing forward mounted on the port quarter fired still shots every 10 second for a total of 250 pictures.

After a reset it fired another 250 and from those just over thirty were uploaded to the slide show that can be found in the right hand column of this blog. I'm going to try this experiment again only with the camera offset to shoot about thirty degrees to the left. Otherwise there's too much bow in the photos.

The second camera was a HD FLIP in a water proof case mounted on the right forward quarter deck and pointing aft. Both cameras were mounted with suction cups. A Ram held the larger Flip camera and a Fat Gecko held the Pentax. The Gecko cost about $50 at London Drugs. I highly recommend it. The FLIP shoots remarkable digital. Very clear. It's much larger then a GoPro but might be worth it if you want to become a video mogul. It comes with an extension arm and is more articulated.

With the Flip pointing aft it mostly captured the motor. In this case I hired a local actor to play the part of Victoria Kayaker. As you can see it wasn't a total success. The guy kept going out of character, isn't nearly as good looking as he thinks he is and simply refused to use a high angle paddle stroke.

He kept winning, "The paddle gets in front of my face." And when I did get him to raise his hands he kept smacking the cameras when he put the paddle in on the catch.

To cap it all off, he kept going off script and to relate these goofy stories.

I've fired him. Judge for yourself. But will attempt a re-shoot. Hopefully the next endeavour will result in a little more action.