Francesa, sea breeze child

Bald Head Island, North Carolina, 2007

It's been pouring and unseasonably cold in DC for the last few days. This photograph is like a breath of fresh, warm air. I need one! So I thought I'd share it with you too.

The Beaches at Port Salut

strange beach creatures

A storm brews around the shores of North Carolina's Bald Head Island (satellite image, Google Earth).Along the shore, riddled with rip currents, lie strange and displaced sea creatures.

pink dress & blue waves

a visual taste of Vache

This is the west coast of the island of Ile-a-Vache -- the bay called Abaka.
The private beaches of the private resort. We were the only ones around to enjoy the Harry Belafonte blasting from my iPod speakers and see this beautiful sunset.

A water spout formed over Les Cayes -- on our return voyage we were doused by a good tropical rain storm. The spout died when it hit land.

no development

raging storms

Some dark clouds show in the horizon, roll up over steep mountains and proceed to sweep southwest. The air is heavy full of potential. Sometimes, dark clouds gather only to drift swiftly away and dissipate out at sea. Sometimes, the storm lets lose its fury of rain and wind and lightning. One never really knows when or whether the storm will strike until it does. Last night the sky blazed – it was a beautiful little tempest.
An uprising here must, in some ways, be like a rainstorm here. The social mood, like the weather, is never quite settled. Sometimes tension mounts only to ebb quickly thereafter. As history testifies, this is not always the case in Haiti. Dark moods intensify, like the thunderheads in the horizon, and release their fury without much warning. Just the other week in Madame Comb, the town next to Castel-Pere, two cousins got into a fight. The fight, fueled by a hot workday and some moonshine, resulted in one cousin shooting the other. On-lookers swiftly avenged the death and stoned the murderer to death. By the time UN police arrived at the scene, the spontaneous crematorium was already raging. The storm had passed, leaving destruction in its wake.