Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Santa Margerida

My hatch should be arriving soon.
I'm currently staying with Narcis, a boat builder in Santa Margarita.  Aside from working professionally to restore yachts, Narcis also builds and gives classes on the construction of kayaks.  If his library is any judge, then he is an expert on the subject of skin on frame boats.
Pigeon is also staying here and we've been going out on errands together.  Yesterday we found a cobbler.  He wouldn't fix my shoe.  He examined it and grumbled in Spanish, then gestured to the ceiling-high stack of shoes behind him and said, across the language barrier, that it would be weeks before he would be able to so much look at my shoes.
Rats, I was ready to leave.  But Pigeon persisted, “Please, it's his only pair of shoes.”
The elderly cobbler looked at the shoe again and poked and prodded the leather.  The leather was stretched.  It would be impossible to line it up properly.
Pigeon persisted “It doesn't need to look nice.”  This was true, I needed only that there not be a hole in it large enough to fit all five of my toes through.
He couldn't fix it because they're my only pair of shoes, what would I wear in the meantime?  It would take at least an hour.
“An hour?  Fantastic, that's wonderful.  Thank you so much.”  I took off my shoes and left the shop barefoot.
An hour later we began searching through the twisted streets for the cobbler who had my shoes.  Eventually we found him, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some divine gamer had moved the streets around under us several times before we got there.
While in Santa Margerida I also got a better sleeping bag and lure.  I will name the new lure Moe.
We went on a short hike through the amazing mountains that line the water and watched the sun set over the bay from atop a sheer cliff with ocean on three sides and bright flowery grasses rising up on the mountain behind me.  Just at the outset we passed some deep caves that we were able to explore as far as the light would let us.  The caves had been sealed almost shut ages ago with a stone wall to protect a shepherd from the elements.  The remaining entrance overlooked deep bays and steep mountains to the north.  Narcis, our guide, pointed to some torn up ground and told me a boar had been at it.  There was also a rabbit hopping silently through the ruins of an ancient vineyard and a 15th century war tower, Norfeu, at the head of the peninsula to defend the bay.
If security back then was anything like it is today then that tower was there exclusively to defend the bay from kayakers like myself.

4 comments:

  1. Dov's current location is 42.267433,3.140797. Here is a link to Google maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=42.267433,3.140797&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=50.02446,78.837891&ie=UTF8&ll=42.267655,3.14106&spn=0.184195,0.307961&t=h&z=12 ~ ed.

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  2. moe! what about joe? if youre not careful you will get to mordy and then all you'll have to resort to is Jes. you may want to go back up the family tree... just a thought. we are thinking of you here at home.

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  3. Can you sleep in those caves?

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