Ocean liners, brigantines and barges
When writing this last week I was somewhere in the North Sea, which was its usual shade of sullen grey. White flecks on the waves told me that it was windy and cold out there, but I was warm and comfortable in the drawing room of Cunard’s Queen Anne. I don’t make a habit of luxurious surroundings – beyond a basic level of comfort I prefer not to feel wrapped in cotton wool, but as you know I never pass up an invitation to travel by sea – and the North Sea in December is no place to be in a small boat! This time I was invited to accompany my friend Cathy Shelbourne, a professional speaker and maritime historian who was giving two lectures about Erskine Childers during this one-week cruise to European Cities. For me it was a breathing space, a time to catch up, wander round Le Havre, Bruges, Rotterdam and Hamburg – and eat good food prepared by someone else!
I must confess to not being a fan of cities. I find too much concrete overwhelming, am uninterested in shops and restaurants, and am hopeless at drawing buildings. But there’s always something to find, along with the novelty of wandering around a new place, all senses alert and interested. It was fun to be a tourist for a change, go on a tour of the canals in Bruges, take a water taxi to Delfshaven, the old part of Rotterdam where the Pilgrim Fathers left on their journey to the New World. We met up with friends in Hamburg and took a tour around the harbour. It seems I can cope with cities as long as there are boats in them!
This is a good time to reflect on the current year, which was not without its stresses but in the bigger scheme of things I am fortunate indeed. I have a freshly painted boat to live on, and by the time I got home from this trip, there was a wood burner newly installed to keep me warm for the rest of the winter. Dealing with one task at a time over the last couple of years, as funds allow, has brought my little floating home together.
THE CALL OF THE SEA
Most of the time my work involves sitting in front of a screen, but there’s no cure for the travel itch. I’m fortunate in having my unusual passion for sketching at sea indulged and shared by the owners of brigantine Lady of Avenel and my co-tutors Alice Angus and Jane Northcote. Between us we ran two Sketch and Sail holidays in the Scottish Islands last year and they go from strength to strength, with many people coming back from more.
We’re doing two again in 2025 – one in May with Alice and Jane, another in August with me and Alice. Full details on https://www.ladyofavenel.com/sketchandsail and if you’re tempted, do join us. We can promise that she’s no luxury liner – but you’ll get comfortable bunks, plenty of good food, the experience of a real, living sailing ship and the company of the energetic, interesting people who sail her. There will also be plenty of help and encouragement to fill a sketchbook with your impressions of the stunning Scottish islands as we sail amongst them.
THE CALL OF THE ICE
I mentioned to my friend Mary-Anne that I really, really wanted to go sailing in the Arctic. Being a proper sort of friend, she thought that was a perfectly reasonable thing for a woman of more than a certain age to want to do. Being not just a proper sort of friend but the force behind the amazing art travel company Art Safari, she made it happen. With her own direct experience of running a sketching trip in Spitsbergen under sail some years ago, she decided that the time was right to do it again, and got on the phone to the owners of the schooner Noorderlicht, who specialise in carefully guided sailing voyages to the places that the bigger boats can’t go. I’m thrilled to be leading a sketching trip in June to this fragile and rare place and it seems that others feel that way too, as the trip is already provisionally full. If your heart leaps at the idea and you have some savings put away for a rainy day, then it’s raining – get in touch with Art Safari and ask to be on the waiting list. https://artsafari.co.uk/art-holiday/an-arctic-expedition-polar-bears-and-glaciers/
THE VALUE OF ART – AND MAKING AND DOING STUFF
Doing and making, using our hands to do more than work a mouse and screen, has never been more important. It keeps us whole; it’s what makes us human. AI is blurring the boundaries of what’s real and what isn’t, copying and echoing human endeavours so that we no longer know what’s real in the worlds of images and words. It’s all about speed, efficiency, profit or all of it. I’ve lost some work through AI but I’ve gained other commissions where human imagination and skill is needed to create an image for which there is no photo – and it also catches the reader’s attention because it’s ‘real’. My longest running commission is a humble thing – a cartoon to illustrate Dave Selby’s ‘Mad about the Boat’ column in Practical Boat Owner magazine. In 2025 we will have clocked up 20 years of columns and cartoons, never missing an issue. And the column still makes me laugh each month – I don’t know how he does it. It’s good to know that some things don’t change!
That’s it for now, hang onto the good stuff in a troubled world, wishing you all the best for 2025.
Nice one Claudia! Happy travels in 2025.
Another excellent post, Claudia – here’s to the Arctic in 2025!