Hats

 

I have a love-hate relationship with hats. On the one hand, there are some of them that look great and if I wear them as an accessory, say to a wedding, it's wonderful. On the other hand, sometimes they look goofy, but they're a necessity in order to keep the sun from burning off my scalp or my ears from freezing and falling off. They always flattened down my hair and leave me disheveled. There's no avoiding hat hair if you wear a hat.

People wear hats for different reasons. Native Peruvian women, for instance, wear bowler-type hats called bombins. The style of hat indicates their “tribe”.

Men on Taquile, an island in the middle of Lake Titicaca, wear woolen stocking caps which are knitted by the men themselves. Depending on the way they wear them indicates their marital status and whether or not they're flirting with someone.

The hats worn by some of the native tribes of the South Pacific are pretty elaborate though I had no desire to buy or wear one.

There are formal top hats, which in my humble opinion, look ridiculous on all men. There are stovepipe hats a la Mr. Lincoln and pillbox hats a la Jackie Kennedy. Veiled hats, picture hats, fedoras, derbies, berets, tams and dingleberry hats. There are those cool ones that the U.S. Park Rangers wear and the iconic ones that are worn by the French Foreign Legion. How about the Bearskin hats worn by the Buckingham Palace guards or the Beefeater hats? If you've got to wear a hat, you might as well make a statement.

Panama hats are my favorite. They're made in Ecuador, not Panama, and we received quite a lesson in quality hat making when we visited Montecristi, Ecuador, the Panama hat making capital of the world. We tried on many and we each ended up buying one. I liked the jaunty way it sat on my head as I tilted it to the side a bit. It blows off in a good wind, however … like on a sailboat, for instance.

I tend to wear the typical baseball cap for excursions ashore. It covers my head and stays on when it's windy, but allows my pony tail to stick out the back. It does not cover my ears, however, which can sometimes pose a problem, so I slather on the sunscreen. We wear watch caps on night watch and sometimes even ear muffs. The hat hair seems to matter less in the dark, at sea, at 0300.

It's a Kid's World

We love kids. Not necessarily having them around 24x7, mind you, but we enjoy their openness and friendliness and unmitigated joy at little things. We love watching them play and interact with each other. We enjoy their utter abandon when they're involved in games or trying to master some skill. Mostly, I guess we enjoy the universality of kids...they're the same the world over... innocent, naïve and unpretentious. Too bad we can't stay that way huh? Here's some of our favorite kids pix.

Vanuatu Beach

Dressing up in Vanuatu

Girl peeking in Puerto Pina, Panama

Kuna Yala Village, Panama

Darien Jungle, Panama

Cubagua, Venezuela

Buddies in Iquitos, Amazon

Aneitym, Vanuatu

Anatom Warrior

Half an Ulu - Kanirdup, Panama

Days and Ways to Celebrate

A daily list of mostly obscure holidays and fun ways to celebrate them.

Shrimp Scampi Day

I'm all for food days and I love shrimp scampi. Lot's of garlic though, so make sure your partner enjoys some too. Here's a recipe.

Zipper Day

This is also Zipper Day commemorating the invention of the "Separable Fastener" by Gideon Sundback in 1917. It was the B.F.Goodrich company which decided to use this new fastener on their boots that gave it the name "zipper" because of the sound it made. David can teach you how to unstick a stuck one here.

Cemeteries - Fascinating Places to Visit

 

I have a fascination with cemeteries. Do you? Whenever we're in a new port, I specifically try to locate the local cemetery and we make time to visit. I like wandering through the rows of gravestones, reading the epitaphs.

When we visited the Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, I was amazed at the size and grandeur of what can only be described as a city of the dead. Huge, ornate mausoleums dedicated to generations of families who have lived in the area and have been buried here. Dead family members lay waiting for the living to join them at some point and I ponder whether they all got along amiably when they were alive because they're certainly in close quarters now.

In Puerto Williams, Chile, at the bottom of the world, a peaceful cemetery overlooks the Beagle Channel.

Weathered, gray gravestones from the 18th and 19th centuries, some toppled, some leaning precariously, mark long forgotten graves in the lonely burial grounds that dot the New England countryside.

Gravestones on the Isle of the Dead at the infamous Port Arthur Prison in Tasmania reflect only those people fortunate enough to have their graves marked. Hundreds of prisoners were buried in unmarked graves.

Because of the high water table and low altitude, Cook Island graves are all above ground and located noticeably close to their families who seem to visit often.

I think I prefer the simple gravestones in old country churchyards to the grandiose monuments in upscale cemeteries. Perhaps the fascination is not so much with the dead, but rather the way the living in each place remember those who have lived before them. All that said, the Egyptian pyramids are definitely on our bucket list.

Days and Ways to Celebrate

A daily list of mostly obscure holidays and fun ways to celebrate them.

Hairball Awareness Day

According to Science Diet, we should be aware of hairballs today. Okay, cough one up and let's get on with it.