dharbigt

Chaguaramas used to be the site of a U.S. Military base — it is the safest harbor on the island. As such, it is now home to the most marinas and there are huge numbers of cruisers and sailors from everywhere in the world here stopping for haul-outs, cheap repairs and rest.

CHAGUARAMASby Pavel Chichikov

Thirty-eight years is a lifetime there —
The profligate mountains and the bay
Green as cats’ eyes, the spare
Red soil above the sleeve of the sea
At rest the ship, at rest the water, the palm frond —
Even here some win some pay
In the camp a pig and a swollen child spend
Into the camera lucida of memory
Africa was brought here, India begun -
To eat and cut the sugar weed
Men let go as fertilizing dung
Women as the slow dropped fertile seed
Drop them all in a lake of pitch
Let them be used as cover for the road
The bones of swollen children catch
Between the grinders — the brains and the head
That’s the truth — cannibals drink sweet coffee,
Cake bound with egg and blood,
There is no obscure mystery
About how the lucky ones are fed
Green island, bullocks blacker than shadows,
Trinidad of the stiff wind and the widows
Covered harbor of the Holy Trinity
Chaguaramas asleep in their lee

Some of the worst memories I have were made in Jupiter. But that’s not Jupiter’s fault.

I traveled U.S. 52 from Ohio to Virginia along the Big Sandy River through many of the river coal towns of West Virgina. Others may well find this road boring, but it was amazing to me to see how this hollows are dying and to reflect on the economy of West Virginia. Seeing these one-horse towns was an education in itself.

This is the valley where the Matewan massacre happened. This is the valley where the Hatfields and the McCoys had their infamous family feud.

The reason the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy is called “Tug” is because that’s what they called the boiled shoe leather that 1756 expeditioners were forced to eat when their rations ran out.

Not a fun place, but a more edifying drive than some interstate.