ᖃᔭᖅ (qajaq)

Glide, slice, glide, slice. The kayakers glide gracefully along the river, sun glinting on the water dripping from their paddles in mid-air. For a year I have watched them with longing, envying their seeming effortlessness, their freedom of movement, their closeness to the surface of the river. And there are lots of kayakers here. The racers who used Carina’s stern as the starting point of their timed practice back in the spring when we were on a mooring buoy. Portuguese teenagers taking over the river each evening after school, working hard, their coach shouting encouragement to them as he races alongside in a motorised dinghy. There’s one of my English students, who puts in hours of work on the river in his kayak, up and down the river, up and down, each evening after work until the sun goes down, pushing to be better, faster, stronger. There are our friends who paddle their kayaks between their house in town and their plot of land down river, more relaxed than the racers, in less of a hurry. And then there are the tourists who hire kayaks from the beach in Sanlúcar and paddle about in the water between the two villages. Some kayaks are long and sleek and enclosed, others are broad and open, far unlike the original Inuit qajaq.

Hard to believe that my professional career was devoted to learning about the role of the sea in Inuit life, and I have never been in a kayak. Except once on a lake in Roscarbery in west Cork. But that was a long time ago.

So I’ve gazed with longing at the kayakers, wanting to feel what it’s like to paddle through the water. I never told anyone I wanted to do this. Only the other day I thought to myself ‘maybe I’ll hire one of those kayaks from the beach someday’.

Two days ago I was rowing the dinghy upriver when I saw Diana. She was effortlessly paddling her broad, open kayak, with her little dog Daisy happily sitting behind her. ‘That looks so relaxing’, I called to Diana. Ten minutes later I was back aboard Carina and Diana called to me. She had a proposition. If I would look after her kayak on the pontoon, and keep the paddle and seat aboard Carina, I could use the kayak whenever I wanted. What could I say? After I’d gleefully thanked her for her generosity and after I’d spent some time imagining myself paddling up and down the river, it dawned on me that I had no idea how to get into or out of the thing.

I looked at the kayak yesterday, trying to figure out how best to approach it. This morning I found Diana having a coffee at the cafe. ‘Can you show me how to use it?’ I asked. Twenty minutes later I was in my swimsuit and Diana was on the pontoon instructing me how to launch it, and how to get into it without overbalancing. Five minutes later I was paddling away from her, upriver. Just me and the kayak.

I wasn’t graceful or effortless. I over-paddled to one side and had to correct my course. I splashed water all over myself. I’m sure I paddle a kayak the way I ride a horse – ungainly and ungraceful. I’m not a natural at this sort of stuff.

But goodness, it was everything I hoped it would be. I paddled upriver against the ebbing current, staying close to the riverbank where the current is weakest. For half an hour I paddled, the sun streaming down on me, the water from the paddles keeping me cool. Then I turned around, and drifted back downstream on the ebb, only dipping the paddle in occasionally to correct my course.

I can’t tell you how delighted I was. I had tried it, and I had discovered I liked it.

I plan to go again tomorrow, at sunrise.

Generosity

At the Medieval fair a Spanish woman in her 60s came up to me. She was someone I had not seen before around the village. ‘You are the mother of the two little blond girls?’ she asked. ‘You live on a boat?’ Yes, I told her, that’s me. ‘We own the house on the corner’, she told me. ‘I see your daughters playing on the pontoon’. She said she’d been hoping to see me, because she wanted to invite the girls to use her swimming pool. She said her husband had emptied and cleaned the pool earlier in the day and tomorrow, when he refilled it, he would not fill it to the top, so it wouldn’t be too deep for the girls. I thanked her for her generous offer and said we would love to. But in the way of these things, I didn’t imagine it would actually happen. We parted ways by me telling her my name and she telling me her name is Marie Jose.

I thought no more about her offer until two days later when there was a knock on the side of the boat. It was Rosa, the harbour master, with the key to Marie Jose’s house in her hand. Before leaving their weekend/holiday home in Sanlúcar to return to their permanent home in Huelva, Marie Jose had given the key to Rosa, with instructions that my girls and their friends make use of the pool. I walked up to the house with Rosa; she showed me which key to use, where the outdoor furniture was stored and where to find the toilet and shower.

I was gobsmacked. These people, who don’t know me from Adam, an extranjero living like a vagrant on a boat, had given me the key to their beautiful home and the use of their lovely roof-top swimming pool with its views over the river.

What fun the girls had, playing with a friend in the pool while I drank wine and chatted with their friend’s mum. A week later, when I finally had an opportunity to thank Marie Jose and her husband, Pepe, they insisted we use the pool any time we want. Such kindness meant so much to us – going to the pool was like a little holiday away from home, only 100 metres up the hill from our boat.

Chris asked me to take what I wanted from this mouth watering selection

Marie Jose and Pepe are not the only ones whose generosity has touched me in recent weeks. I don’t remember the last time I bought vegetables. I wrote before about one of my English language students who pays me in vegetables and eggs instead of cold hard cash. Manoli’s potatoes, onions, lettuce, courgettes, cucumbers, green beans and eggs are enough to get us through about half the week. The other half of the week we are provided for by friends along the river, whose fecund plots are currently producing a glut of vegetables. The morning Chris came alongside in his little boat with buckets filled with green peppers, aubergines, courgettes, cherry tomatoes and plum tomatoes and cucumbers. He insisted I take my pick. Chris regularly brings us lots of food from his plot of land and over recent weeks we have been spoiled with courgettes from Sue and Robin, chard from Paul and Diana and eggs from Kate and Bob.

There is other generosity too – Felipe’s ebullient insistence on always treating me to food and beer when I meet him; Candido slipping money into Katie’s hand when by back was turned so she could buy sweets; Lily and Katie’s invitation to the birthday party of a three-year old girl they didn’t know, simply because all their other friends had been invited; the mayor giving me use of a room for my English classes; Joe and Fiona giving us the use of their mooring upriver; another Joe fixing our outboard motor.

Felipe invited the girls and I to join him and his family on a excursion upriver

We are outsiders in this village. We have no history here; we have no blood ties to anyone here. Yet, through small and not so small acts of kindness and generosity, we are made to feel welcome and part of the community, whether that’s the community of extranjero’s who live on boats and smallholdings along the river, or the community of Sanlúceños who, in embracing our children into village life, have, by extension, embraced me and Julian as well.

I have travelled a great deal in my life and have lived for extended periods of time in Japan, Nunavut, the UK and now Spain. I always feel uncomfortable when people say things such as ‘The Japanese are the most generous people in the world’ or ‘The Inuit are the most welcoming people in the world’ – or insert a nationality or culture of your choice. Because there are kind, welcoming, generous people everywhere. Everywhere I have travelled to and lived I have met people whose kindness, generosity and patience with me, a culturally and linguistically befuddled outsider, has been humbling. This little corner of Spain and Portugal is not different.

Cakes and clarinets

I’ve written before (here and here)about the generosity of many of the people we meet along the way. We encounter such kind and thoughtful people whose generosity at the very least puts a huge smile on our faces, but often as not helps us as we continue on our travels.

Once again Jesus, who owns the boat across from us on the pontoon, has returned from a fishing trip to Alboran and given us six fresh red sea bream. As I de-scaled and gutted them on the pontoon, the girls helped out and we had an impromptu lesson in fish biology, looking at and discussing gills, fins, eyes, liver, guts, heart, muscles and skeleton. The offal that Lily threw in the water was soon snapped up by seagulls and mullet and led us to a conversation about predators and scavengers. The fish tasted good, fried up in the pan and drizzled with lemon, and served with a green salad.

A few days later Jesus came around again with a platter of cakes for ‘las niñas’. The platter was a left-over from a confirmation party and we were delighted to have this unexpected treat of an assortment of cakes for after dinner.

Our neighbour Ray is 80 years old. He’s gradually emptying his boat as he prepares to sell it. Almost daily he comes by with items for us to keep if we have a use for them, or to get rid of if we wish. Most of what he gives us is of great use indeed.

He has given us paper charts of the Mediterranean and of the southwest coast of England, as well as an electronic chart of the whole of the Mediterranean. The electronic chart is fifteen years old and incompatible with our computer, but Julian is putting his computer skills to use to figure out a way to upload them. He has also given us a Mediterranean almanac. It’s a few years old, but still of use to us, and sailing magazine articles he’s cut out and kept over the years relating to places that we may sail to this year or next.

But that’s not all. He’s given us a clarinet! After a few attempts to get any sound out of it at all, Julian’s now played a few tunes and I hope it will be played regularly. Added to our recorders, tin whistle, tambourine, maracas, castanets and triangle we’re a band in the making!

Ray has also given us a DVD player/viewer. What a godsend! With only our laptop, there are so many lost opportunities for writing and carrying out research when the girls quietly sit and watch movies every few days. But now we have the DVD player, the girls can watch Frozen or Box Trolls of The Sound of Music while Julian or I write or do sailing-related research. Hurray!

Such generosity. Another person might not even think to find new homes for their old stuff, instead just dumping it in the nearest skip. But Ray’s thoughtfulness has expanded our navigation and cruising potential and he’s given us opportunities for learning and fun (the clarinet) and solved the conundrum of only having one laptop on board. Thank you Ray!

But such thoughtfulness doesn’t come only from our recently-found friends in the marina. The girls and I returned from Ireland to find two parcels that had come all the way from Japan. They were from my old friend Takako. Since I left Japan in 1998, Takako has regularly sent me gifts – quite often non-perishable Japanese food. When she and her daughter, Mayu, came to visit us in Devon in early 2012, they brought two suitcases. The smaller of the two contained their clothes and belongings. The larger, and much heavier, suitcase was filled to bursting with food, and for the duration of their stay Takako did much of the cooking – Japanese breakfasts, lunches and dinners for a week. She re-taught me cooking techniques she had first taught me in the mid-1990s and she left us with so much food that I was still occasionally cooking with those ingredients at the start of this year!

The larger of the two parcels to arrive in Aguadulce a few weeks ago contained an assortment of noodles – ramen, udon, soba; instant meals that will be perfect for a mid-sail lunch or warming overnight watch meal in the coming months. The smaller parcel contained four packets of origami paper. I’ve become quite obsessed with origami since we were given an instruction kit a few months ago. The paper from Japan is so much more beautiful than any origami paper I’ve found in Europe. It’s delicate and patterned and multi-coloured and in a couple of different sizes. It is another wonderful and thoughtful gift that will keep the girls and I busy on long passages and during long winter evenings later in the year.

We are grateful for the generosity of these old and new friends. Their thoughtfulness enriches our lives and reminds us that most people you meet in life are downright good and nice and kind.

Roald Dahl, candyfloss and our very own ship’s parrot

Evil-hearted pirates!

Small acts of kindness mean so much. Shirley and Brian, sailing aboard Island Song (see link), have now embarked on their world cruise. They have been wonderfully generous in the past few weeks, bestowing on us story books and educational books. How delighted I was to open a large bag of books to discover a treasure trove of favourites – Roald Dahl’s Matilda, The Twits, George’s Marvelous Medicine. Stig of the Dump was in there too, and My Naughty Little Sister, along with some lovely picture books. I found educational resources in the bag too – books about writing, grammar, times tables, and so much more. Some of these are too advanced for Lily and Katie right now, but have been stored away, to be put to use in a year or two or three down the road. A few chapters of Roald Dahl before bed every night keeps children and adults very content! Thank you so much, Shirley and Brian, and best of luck on your voyage.

A year ago, I wrote about Cobbles Ice creams and Doughnuts, over on the quayside in the Barbican in Plymouth. Earlier this week, the girls and I took our visitors, Elizabeth and Ujarak McClintock, for coffee and ice cream. Michael, aka Cobbles the Clown, owner of the vintage ice cream and doughnut vans, and now a fresh fish cart, stopped by our table to chat to Lily and Katie. When Lily told him she plans to be a fisherman when she grows up, Michael kindly gave us a tub of fresh cockles to eat. But when he discovered that I was the one who had written about his business in my blog last year, he presented the girls with a bag of candyfloss each (much to their delight) and a bag of doughnuts and chocolate dipping sauce for the rest of us (much to my delight). Thank you Michael, although you might expect a medical bill for the heart attacks you’ve caused us with all this delicious calorific food!!

Andy, on Parsonic, had a parrot aboard (actually I think it’s a toucan, but the girls insist it’s a parrot). A toy parrot that Lily and Katie fell for, and every time we walked to or from Carina we passed Parsonic and her parrot, and the girls insisted we stop to look at him on his perch. Last week Andy told me he planned to get new batteries for the parrot. A couple of days later, as Katie and I walked past, true to his word, Andy said, ‘The parrot has new batteries now’. He went below and lifted the perch from its hook. ‘Pieces of eight, pieces of eight’, Andy said to the parrot. ‘Pieces of eight, pieces of eight’, the parrot repeated. ‘Who’s a pretty boy then?’ Andy asked the parrot. ‘Who’s a pretty boy then?’ the parrot repeated. ‘Here’, Andy said, handing the parrot on its perch over to Katie. ‘It’s for you’. Her little face lit up and I thanked Andy for his kindness. Katie proudly carried the parrot back to Carina and we called Lily up on deck to show her what we’d brought home. The joy on her little face was indescribable and Julian soon found a new home for the parrot in the corner of the saloon. That night, as we took the bus home after a long day out, Lily turned to me and asked, ‘When do we have to give the parrot back to Andy?’ ‘We don’t’, I told her. ‘Andy gave it to us to keep’. I’ve never seen her eyes grow so wide. I thought she might cry.

Such small acts of kindness over the past few weeks have made my children immeasurably happy, and will not be forgotten. Thank you xx