By Deena.

We woke up in Onemea Bay to the sound of light rain. We had moved to this bay, on the western side of Taravai, to weather out a storm.

It was a windy, chilly morning with a broad gray sky, and dark green pine trees dotted the mountains in front of us. Our only clue that we were not off the coast of Seattle – that we were still in the tropics – were the palm trees on the water’s edge. Otherwise it was just like a drizzly morning in the Puget Sound! So we started to call our temporary home “The Pacific Northwest of the Tropics”

Not much to do in the rain, so it was time for arts and crafts in the cozy cockpit of Aldebaran. I took out my watercolors and started to paint what was the ‘opposite of a still life’, since my subject was always in motion, or rather, I was always in motion. The gusts of wind were slowly spinning our boat around, and every few minutes I caught different glimpses of our 360 degree view. Each time we turned past the portion of our vista with the island’s edge, I added to my painting.

Photo: Watercolor of Onemea Bay by Deena.