5 Places to Rediscover the Golden Age of Piracy
Posted November 10, 2009 , comments closed
That was the actor Robert Newton, in his portrayals of Long John Silver and Blackbeard in movies and television. Obviously, it caught on.Pirates didn’t make their victims walk the plank either.
Not when it was so much easier (though admittedly less dramatic) to simply throw captives overboard. Give credit to illustrator Howard Pyle for that romantic image, his painting of a blindfolded man edging out on a wooden plank captures all of the crippling fear that such a punishment would induce.
Nevertheless, pirates were very real. They did drink rum by the caseload. They were reckless and wild and daring. Some even owned parrots and monkeys as pets. Their real stories are so nightmarish that the fiction they inspired often seems tame by comparison.
It’s no wonder then, that pirates, buccaneers and freebooters still loom large, even in the twenty-first century. They are our most beloved outsiders, particularly among long-term travelers—roaming free, making their own rules, completely in the moment. So many novels, movies and songs honor their bold deeds and gruesome deaths that it’s easy to forget that these rogues actually existed. Any savvy jack-tar worth his salt can track down one of the many pirate festivals celebrated yearly, but even more fascinating is a visit to their real stomping grounds. Some of which haven’t changed as much as one might think.
Here are 5 places that any aspiring pirate historian ought to visit:
1 – Saint Mary’s Island, Madagascar
Pirate’s graveyard in Madagascar
Known these days by the French name Ile Sainte Marie, Saint Mary’s was once the central hub of piracy and nefarious dealings in the Indian Ocean. Notable scalawags Captain Kidd, Robert Culliford and Henry Avery all took refuge on the island at one time or another to buy supplies, drink homebrewed rum and savor the company of the notoriously beautiful Malagasy women.
Many pirates were so entranced with Saint Mary’s free love atmosphere that they decided to extend their furloughs or live there permanently. The rakish pirate Thomas Tew even had a child with a local queen; his bloodline is claimed by the Zafay-Malata people to this day.
Trader Adam Baldridge set up shop on Saint Mary’s and supplied his guests with everything they might need, at a healthy markup of course. Captain Kidd had a hard time getting his crew motivated again after his turn ashore on the island and many of them abandoned him there.
A 21st century traveler visiting Sainte Marie would be missing out if they didn’t take a stroll through the pirate graveyard that overlooks the “Bay of Rogues.” The bay is where some of history’s most notorious sea-devils weighed anchor. The site is shaded by trees and vines and can be reached along a short and often muddy path from the beach. The mossy headstones feature skulls & crossbones and the sentiments etched there show little remorse for the deeds of the men buried below.
If you want to be where the crème de le crème of pirate society went to revel—go to Saint Mary’s. Consider the perfect beaches, jumbo prawns and friendly modern residents to be a bonus.
2 – Port Royal, Jamaica
Thanks to Jack Sparrow’s ringing endorsements in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Port Royal may be the destination most commonly associated with piracy’s Golden Age. There is both truth and fiction in that assertion—Port Royal was once the world’s premier pirate haven but its heyday was before the Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1720).
In the 1660s however, Port Royal was the carousing capital of the world. Records indicate one alehouse for every ten permanent residents. Ships often came into port rich and left drunk, fat and happy—but drained of plenty of gold coins. Nicknamed “The Sodom of the New World,” Port Royal existed in a state of revolving revelry.
The Gentlemen of Fortune who made Port Royal famous are generally put into the category of Buccaneers and many of them had defended the city from the Spanish or plundered Spanish treasure ports in time of war. When the crown decided that Jamaica needed to change its image they hired one of these unsavory types to do it for them. His name was Captain Henry Morgan and though he was known for taking a bribe here and there and attacking Spanish ships even in times of peace, his work to fix the island’s bloody reputation met with success.
Regardless, the point was soon moot. In 1692, most of the port sunk under water during a devastating earthquake. Some were quick to attribute the quake to an act of God (who was either furious with the hedonism of the people or jealous of all the fun they were having, depending on who you asked). Attempts to rebuild the city went up in smoke (literally, two major fires in ten years) but it did later become a popular execution spot where pirates Calico Jack Rackham and Charles Vane went to meet the gallows.
These days, Port Royal is small and known mostly for fishing—but as a site for pirate lovers and those interested in underwater archeology, it is unparalleled in the Caribbean and certainly worth a visit.
3 – Nassau, Bahamas
At the turn of the 18th century, the island of New Providence in the Bahamas was a scarcely governed haven for gentlemen of fortune. Retired buccaneers and upstart pirates lived in squalor under tents made from pieces of old sail.
Governor Nicholas Trott was well known for taking bribes from men who were sought by the British Crown. When the aforementioned Henry Avery needed someplace to hide out he was sent straight to New Providence. Trott was only too happy to help for a share in Avery’s plunder. Soon even the puppet governments failed and New Providence became a no man’s land split between pirate chieftains.
Later, when England made the Bahamas a colony and decided to clean up Nassau, the Lords Proprietor took a page out of Jamaica’s playbook and called in a gentleman of fortune. This time it was Woodes Rodgers. Rodgers knew the men and knew their tactics—it wasn’t long before Nassau fell off the list of preferred pirate ports.
Today, Nassau has been scrubbed to a high shine. The spit of sand across the harbor from the port even had its name changed to Paradise Island (the pirates knew it as Hog Island). Nassau Town still clings to snippets of old world charm that reference its past, though they are often tough to focus on between cruise ships and modern resorts. Luckily, the Pirates of Nassau Museum does a great job of reminding us of the way things were.
4 – North Carolina, United States
The Carolina Coast has no shortage of pirate lore. There are stories of shipwrecks, battles and buried treasure—all of which pale in comparison to the deeds of one Edward Teach a.k.a. Blackbeard. Blackbeard was tough as coffin nails, at least half-crazy and would sometimes burn slow match in his beard to scare enemies. Not surprisingly, he was an effective pirate.
After leaving New Providence due to the arrival of Woodes Rodgers, he set up camp on Ocracoke Island. From there he and his crew set out pillaging throughout the Caribbean and into the Gulf of Mexico. In 1718, after blockading the Port of Charles Towne and ransoming the entire city, he and his men returned victorious and rich to Ocracoke. Weeks of carousing followed until the governor of Virginia decided to send Lieutenant Maynard and his Royal Navy crew to do something about the pirate infestation.
The chase between Maynard’s crew and Blackbeard’s freebooters was brutal and bloody. But it was the final battle, in which Blackbeard took five bullets and more than “20 dismal cuts” before dying, that is the stuff of legends.
The best account we have of the battle, which describes Blackbeard fighting with three men at once, also attributes a quote to him AFTER receiving a death blow by broadsword to the neck. It wasn’t until his head was completely off of his shoulders that Maynard’s crew stopped fearing him, and even then just barely.
Today North Carolina’s coast has plenty in store for a visitor interested in pirate history. Blackbeard’s memory hangs over the island of Ocracoke and the towns of Beaufort and Bath. Many artifacts from the dreaded pirate’s ship, The Queen Anne’s Revenge, are on display in museums throughout the state including Beaufort’s Maritime Museum. The area also happens to one of the United States’ least appreciated stretches of beach—which any visitor should be able to enjoy heartily.
5 – Vailima, Samoa
Robert Louis Stevenon’s house in Samoa
Samoa wasn’t a hotbed of activity during the Golden Age of Piracy. But it’s notable for one very famous resident: Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island is the definitive pirate novel, and the blood-thirsty crew that populated the schooner Hispanola is responsible for many of our most vivid notions about freebooters.
Most notably, as David Cordingly points out in his book Under the Blag Flag, Stevenson popularized parrots and peg legs, both of which were real parts of life at sea but not yet cemented in the public consciousness.
Stevenson originally travelled to the South Seas to ease his chronic health problems. It wasn’t long before he fell in love with the islands and their people. For their part, the natives of the South Pacific liked the frail writer just as much—he quickly developed an enduring friendship with King Kalakaua of Hawaii.
Known as a culturally sensitive traveler long before the phrase was common, Stevenson established a home on Vailima when he was forty. Four years later he died there and his old residence is now a museum honoring his memory.
Additional photo credits:
Port Royal by Christian y Sergio on Flickr, Bahamas by LinksmanJD on Flickr, North Carolina by greenkayak73 on Flickr, Samoa by anna t on Flickr
New US administration must translate words into action, Cuba tells UN
Posted September 30, 2009 , comments closed- Caribbean cannot base tourism on US embargo against Cuba
- An end to Cuba travel ban?
- Cuba says it's ready to receive US tourists
- Port controller says Cuba need not be a threat to Bahamas tourism
- Cuba cruise visitors plunge 90 percent after Castro's comments, US buyout
- Cuban-Chinese hotel project targets US market
- Cuba: Eco-tourism is the future
- US revokes diplomatic, tourist visas of Honduran officials
By
eTN Staff Writer |
Sep 30, 2009
Cuba’s Foreign Minister told the General Assembly yesterday that it is still waiting for the global optimism generated by the new United States administration to be translated into action, calling for an end to the decades-long embargo against the Caribbean nation.
With the election of President Barack Obama in the US, “It seemed that a period of extreme aggressiveness, unilateralism, and arrogance in the foreign policy in that country had come to an end, and the infamous legacy of the George W. Bush regime had been sunk in repudiation,” Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla said at the Assembly’s annual high-level debate.
In spite of Mr. Obama’s calls for change and dialogue, “Time goes by and the speech does not seem to be supported by concrete facts,” the Cuban official said. “His speech does not coincide with reality.”
The current US authorities have displayed “uncertainty” in overcoming the “political and ideological trends” propagated by the previous administration, he noted.
“The detention and torture center in the Guantanamo Naval Base – which usurps part of the Cuban territory – has not been shut down,” Mr. Rodríguez Parrilla said. “The occupation troops in Iraq have not withdrawn. The war in Afghanistan is expanding and is threatening other states.”
In April, the US announced it was going to “abolish some of the most brutal actions taken by the George W. Bush administration” preventing contact between Cubans living in the US and their relatives in Cuba. “These measures are a positive step, but they are extremely limited and insufficient,” the foreign minister stressed.
Most importantly, the economic, commercial, and financial blockade against Cuba is still in place, he pointed out.
“Should there be a true desire to move towards change, the US government could authorize the export of Cuban goods and services to the United States and vice versa.
“Further, Mr. Obama could allow US citizens to travel to Cuba, the only country in the world they cannot visit,” Mr. Rodríguez Parrillo emphasized.
“The US blockade against Cuba is an act of unilateral aggression that should be unilaterally terminated,” he said, expressing his country’s willingness to normalize relations with the US.
The Beatles on Tour
Posted September 24, 2009 , comments closedI’ll start off with a confession, I am becoming hopelessly addicted to Beatles Rock Band, I would play it eight days a week. My brother and I are big Beatles fans, so naturally we got the game, and despite genetic advantages, are still trying to get our high harmonies in sync.
Let’s just say I have new respect for the Beatles’ skills since they could score a double or triple fab every time, and we are still trying to get a couple per song consistently. Still my brother’s rock band guitar gently weeps.
A Fab Four of Viator Travelers on Abbey Road
Try to see it my way
But I digress. My burgeoning obsession got me thinking about why I like the Beatles so much and one reason, I think, is that they were great ambassadors of travel. Try to see it my way, only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong.
One reason people travel is that they find it renewing, even inspiring. Think about the White Album, many argue the greatest Beatles album, largely composed while the Beatles took their famous spiritual journey to India, and possibly kicking off a whole travel trend of hippie kids journeying to India to find themselves. You don’t need me to show the way, love.
Or let’s go back even further, we can work it out. Remember when they hopped the pond to the USA? The Beatlemania screaming girl glamor of them stepping off the plane to greet a whole new nation of fans. And then the famous touring years - Tokyo, Shea Stadium in New York, Australia. I’d also be remiss not to point out the movies from around this period, Help! is a mishmash of sequences shot all over England, Salzburg / the Austrian Alps and the Bahamas.
Come together, right now
Beatles Story Museum
Let’s get back to where they once belonged. Who’d heard of, or cared about Liverpool before the Beatles? They’re synonymous with the city. As long as people love the Beatles, people will visit the Cavern Club, Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, and gawk at George’s house. Seriously, Viator sells an awful lot of the Beatles and Liverpool Day Trip from London. Or the curious case of Abbey Road. Without the Beatles why would anyone take a special trip to the Abbey Road crosswalk?
Still not with me? Come together right now. There’s evidence of the Beatles’ lovely travel (sometimes as allegory) songs: I”ll Follow the Sun, Magical Mystery Tour, Back in the U.S.S.R, Day Tripper, Ticket to Ride, Ballad of John and Yoko and Yellow Submarine to name a few of my favorites.
All these places have their moments, with lovers and friends I still can recall. Some are dead and some are living, in my life I’ve loved them all.
PS: Feeling like you got to get the Fab Four into your life? Check out all the Beatles tours on Viator. I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello.
Think Pink! Pink Sands Beach, Harbor Island, The Bahamas
Posted September 3, 2009 , add a commentAs the mother of a three year old girlie girl I am forever on the lookout for pink sparkles and unicorns, bonus points if the unicorn just so happens to be both pink and sparkley. Redwood groves become fairy forests, broken shells at the beach the broken tipped fingernails of mermaids from the deep. It is a magical world through the eyes of a three year old girl who very much believes in the healing power of glitter, the decorative panache of a band-aid. What I wouldn’t give to be able to show her the wonder of Pink Sands Beach on Harbor Island in The Bahamas.
Think pink.
Ever since she was a baby my daughter has had an aversion to sand. When we try to put her down at the beach she curls her legs up like a snail exposed to salt. I don’t know if she thinks it’s dirty, if maybe she doesn’t like the consistency, the color. We live in Northern California where the sand is coarse, grey, tan sometimes and sprinkled with oyster shells broken and sharp. Somehow I have a feeling, though, that if we brought her to The Bahamas her aversion to sand would disappear. Apparently here the sand is 3 1/2 miles of hard-packed perfect pink perfection. A confection of a beach leading to crystal clear turquoise waters calm and warm enough for a baby. Or a stubborn three year old who wants to be a mermaid but doesn’t like getting water in her eyes.
Aptly Named.
The color of the sand comes from ground red coral which then mixes with the white sand so as to appear pink. Of course this is too logical an explanation for something so magical, and I prefer to think the sand is pink because it can hear everyone call it beautiful. At least this is what I would tell my daughter, the beach so pink because it blushes.
All photos courtesy of The Pink Beach Club’s Photostream.
Quechua Wedding - Oriente, Ecuador
Posted August 21, 2009 , add a commentQuechua Wedding - Oriente, Ecuador
I was typing at my desk on the 17th floor of a Jersey City high-rise overseeing the Hudson when my cell-phone rang: “Alo! Luminita?” Static interrupted the familiar voice of Alex, the oldest son of the shaman: “My sister Lidia is getting married in December. My father invites you”. Gazing outside the window at the big city lights I accepted the invitation somewhat amused and immediately made travel arrangements to attend my first Quechua wedding in the Ecuadorian rainforest.
Two months later I was on a bus crossing the mighty Andes in rhythms of cumbia and bachata. Bare, round-topped hills rolled by my sweaty window. I was the only tourist among indigenous fellow travelers crowding the aisle and leaning on me at every curve. After reaching 4000 meters, the road started its descent towards the Oriente, the area sank in lush jungles of eastern Ecuador.
While my friends were attending fancy bridal parties in Napa Valley or the Bahamas, I was heading to probably the most peculiar wedding ceremony one could attend. I was lucky to have a high tolerance for ambiguity: besides the date and approximate location, I knew no further party details.
At the end of the bus line, Alex and his younger sister Lilia were waiting for me. Happy to see them, I leaned for a hug, they tried to respond to my western salute and we engaged in a graceless, uncoordinated dodge dance.
We continued our trip on a local bus through intensely green, sweltering tropical countryside, mostly in awkward silence and embarrassed giggles. It always took my friends a while to readjust. The rugged road cut through incredible tall grass and palm trees, and ended on the bank of Napo River.
We crossed Napo in a colorful canoe for only one dollar and hitch-hiked a pickup truck on the other side. We rode in the back along 12 other Quechuas, their babies, bags and banana bunches, jolting and jerking until we all had our bones rearranged. This 30 minutes mini ordeal to ahuano was as close as I got to a limo ride to the wedding location.
Ahuano is a sleepy village with one paved main road bordered by flat-roofed cement houses. In its ‘suburbs,’ with no running water and no paved road, many Quechua families established their home after leaving their communities in the rainforest.
My friend Lilia, 17, already married and expecting her first child, was living here with her 19 year old husband and his family. By now, my friends overcame their shyness.
While we cooked dinner, they brought me up to date with who was pregnant, who got married, who left the community to work outside. We ate on the floor, under a pale light-bulb swarmed by exotic bugs, sitting around a huge banana leaf that served as table. The rice with vegetables and plantains was delicious. I had a comfortable, strange feeling of being so close to my friends yet belonging to such a remote world.
Over dinner, I received my tutorial on Quechua marriage. The novios live together first, and if they get along, they marry, if not, the pair separates and goes back to live with the parents. The older sister, Lidia, 20 years old, had been living with her fianc?
Pablo, 21, for 2 years and already had two babies. Now it was time to tie the knot.
The next morning, I was awakened by chatter coming from outside. I took a trip to the bathroom, among the banana trees behind the hut, washed thoroughly with tepid water springing out of a rubber tube and dressed up in festive clothes - white peasant cotton shirt and cargo pants.
Alex assessed my looks then pulled out a bottle of Johnson Baby Oil and thoroughly greased my hair: “Better. This is how our women make their hair beautiful and shiny”. Maybe their thick, gorgeous hair. My hair became thinner, definitely shinier, with the kind of luster you get from not bathing for a month. Thus dressed and oiled, I was ready to go. We grabbed the presents for the bride and groom and started walking towards Pablo’s house following a dusty road. It was fairly early, but the sizzling sun was beaming down our heads, heating up the aluminum bowls we were carrying.
Pablo’s hut, a thatched roof home erected on pillars, was located in a green meadow surrounded by rainforest and yucca gardens. We passed by a patch of cement big as half a basketball court covered with a zinc roof, the wedding salon.
A few serious looking women were carrying logs under the roof, making two concentric rectangles of benches where the guests would sit. At one end of the enclosing, four shirtless lads were testing a sound system that could embarrass even a New York DJ, spinning cumbias and jumpy Quechua songs, even some salsa, a good mix for all tastes.
Nothing else moved in the scorching heat. A white pillar of smoke stretched deep in the spotless sky, the only clue to human presence around Pablo’s house. As I got closer, I heard voices coming from the yard. Twenty women, all from the groom’s family, were peeling chicken, stirring in huge aluminum pots, or cutting yucca. I felt hungry, it all looked so good. Some men were bringing wood for fire, others were smoking and chatting. I greeted everybody and sat around to observe the wedding preparations.
Around 11am, Lidia’s family arrived loaded with bags, babies, and boxes. First came the shaman and his wife, the parents of the bride. We greeted joyfully, it had been a year since I last saw them. Within seconds, the meadow was crowded with 50 something sweaty, exhausted and sun baked Quechuas.
They were coming straight from their community, a three hours walk through rough and dense jungle. As everybody settled down on the benches, two of Pablo’s aunts brought a huge cauldron filled with a much needed thirst quencher and energy booster, chicha, a fermented yucca drink. The ladies scooped the chicha with a small bowl and fed it directly into the mouth of each person. To me, this serving process broke all sanitary rules: not only the chicha contained water from the river, but the same bowl went in everybody’s mouth.
Although I like chicha and its sweet-and-sour refreshing taste, I could not stop a shiver of nausea when I saw the lady sink her cracked hand into the bowl, swirl the liquid thoroughly before pushing the metal rim into my mouth. She locked it between my wisdom teeth with a naughty smile, sending all the chicha directly into my stomach.
According to local good manners, I had to empty the bowl. I complied slurping the liquid to the last drop and my stomach extended close to its bursting limit. I leaned half conscious against a pole, with a bulging stomach, almost as big as Lilia’s 8 months belly. I was calculating my chances of getting diarrhea while my friends were praising my drinking skills.
The wooden benches were now occupied by more than 100 people and their voices filled the air with a pleasant hum. I was the only outsider, lost in a crowd of indigenous faces, but felt bizarrely at home. I was sitting in the second row with my friends, until one of the aunties made space for me next to her, in the first row. She would help translate the ceremony in Spanish, which I badly needed as I spoke no Quechua.
All chatter stopped when Pablo, tall, bony and serious, with his enormously shy fianc?e at his side appeared on the floor. I was surprised to see they both were wearing just t-shirt and jeans like everybody else. The couple was flanked by two pairs of godparents dressed in white cloaks with a red cross sewn on the back, bearing a strange resemblance to Spanish conquistadores.
The men and women faced each other silently while all eyes were on them. The master of ceremony, a chubby middle aged man from Pablo’s family, took the microphone, and, accompanied by a violin and a drum, started singing the song of pedida in a high pitched voice, ceremonially asking for the bride’s hand. The bridal ensemble started trotting languidly back and forth with small rhythmic steps and expressionless faces.
The song, repetitive and slow, became hypnotic after thirty minutes and I felt I was witnessing a mystical pre-Incan ritual. When the music stopped, the women sprung up, creating chaos and clamor, and took Lidia outside, near the brim of the forest. I followed the crowd, hand in hand with three kids that would not let go of me. Surrounded by all the women, the bride started stripping down to her undergarments with slow movements. Subdued, eyes in the ground, she was not speaking a word.
A cascade of yells and shouts in Quechua was pouring out of the godmothers’ mouths, adding a dizzying soundtrack to the whole scene. I did not get the words, but I understood they were marriage advice. Delivered in loud shrieking voices it sounded scary. I realized that even in the rainforest married life was extremely complicated.
The tallest of the godmothers started combing Lidia’s long hair, adding oil drops to make it sleek and smooth. The other one hang a pair of golden earrings on her lobes and adorned her head with red ribbons and shiny hair pins. The bride, a new woman now, was freed to go back to the wedding court. The newlyweds sat on chairs in the middle of the room.
One by one, each person deposited gifts in front of the couple and congratulated them. Soon the two disappeared behind a pile of pots, cauldrons, mattresses, blankets, and machetes, everything one needs to start a life in Oriente. I headed to the big stack of gifts, found the bride and handed her a pocketbook with $60. I had no idea what the etiquette required from me, but when I saw the pile of one dollar bills next to the groom I knew I did ok. Later on, the bride’s aunt eating next to me expressed her awe: “They made $96, you never make that much money at a wedding”. I smiled, happy that I made this event unusual in my own little way.
It was finally time to eat. The food was distributed extremely fast, following a disciplined, well rehearsed process. A handful of young men formed a line from the women who put food on plates to the guests, and passed each dish from hand to hand. The line moved around like a clock’s arms and everybody was served. I received my plastic bowl filled with a creamy soup in which I found big pieces of chicken, beef ribs, potatoes, and a whole boiled yucca root. One of the boys pulled my arm: “You have to eat like us, with your hands”, and so I did. It was surprisingly tasty. The main course was a huge plate of rice and pasta, topped with half a braised chicken and a humongous piece of smoked beef the size of a small coffee table. Needless to say the chicha ladies kept making their tour, filling our stomachs with the yoghourty drink and making us tipsy.
Music was blasting from huge boxes, everybody was dancing and drinking up a storm. As we advanced cheerfully in the wee hours of the night, nobody seemed to get tired, only drunk, but this was overcome with a catnap under a bench or under a nearby tree. A thirty-something round faced lady, dragged me in the middle of the floor laughing and dancing around, her baby hammock bouncing pretty hard off her hips.
I looked at the baby bag worriedly and she opened it up: “Look, my baby, I gave birth 2 days ago”. I glanced at the tiny creature sleeping with his clenched fists over his face. I stared at her in slight disbelief then thought of all the post partum drama new moms deal with in my world. Two days after giving birth, this woman walked three hours through the jungle, drank, danced the whole night away, and had to return to her community the next day. My hat off to you, sister!
I spent the night skipping and spinning along everybody else. I could not tell if I had a buzz from the alcohol or from my dance moves. All the men, women, and children invited me to dance. I have never been so popular on the dance floor in my whole life. “Vamos a amanecer”, they were telling me, we will party until the sun rises. And so we did: one foreigner, pregnant ladies, new moms, toddlers and children, grandmas, newlyweds, did not close an eye until the sun was shining up on the sky.
Another round of soup with yucca was served at 11 am to whoever was sober and still standing, accompanied by the ubiquitous chicha. The 24 hour wedding was officially over. Everybody was getting ready to walk back home. Only my home was much farther than a 3 hours walk through the jungle.
Photo by gaborbasch on Flickr