Today Korcula is dwarfed by the presence of Sea Cloud 2 – an amazing boat, and I thought you might be interested in a little of her design and sailing history.
The Sea Cloud II was built as a sister ship to the original Sea Cloud that was built in 1931 by the Krupp family at their shipyard in Kiel. The huge and impressive four masted vessel was commissioned by one of Wall Streets wealthiest traders, a Mr E.F. Hutton. Mrs Hutton, herself a successful business woman, designed the luxury yacht.
Please see www.seacloud.com if you would like to read more about these amazing vessels.
Work on Sea Cloud II was completed in 2001, combining ‘ the timeless elegance of windjammers of past with the highest safety standards and the luxurious comfort of modern cruise ships’. You can take a tour of her cabins on the website and learn more about her majestic beauty there.
The Sea Cloud yachting philosophy is as follows;
Y achting
A mbience
C haracter
H ospitality
T radition
Even if you are not interesting in sailing I am sure you will agree that the Sea Cloud is an impressive vessel. She and her sister ships visit Korcula five or six times during our summer season. Each ship carries 60 passengers from all over the world, we wish them a happy journey to their next port of call.
I have just been to the bakery to get our morning pastry fix – we seemed to have developed a daily pastry habit this last few months, just as well there is a bit of walking involved to and from the bakery.
It’s a beautiful morning here in Korcula, the sun is shining and the sea is so perfectly still and clear, one of those mornings to remind me why it is so nice to live here. I grew up by the sea (Otago Harbour, Dunedin) and love the smell of the sea and its many moods. This morning is calm and gentle and the coffee is brewing and I have my visnja (cherry) pastry, 2 good things to start the day with.
Switching on the computer and tuning in this mornings news I note with sadness the passing of Steve Jobs, all the more poignant for me (& many others) as I have an Uncle in NZ who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer 3 months ago. I find the very public sharing of grief an interesting phenomena and the prevalence of social media in our daily lives spreads so many messages of support to the Job’s family so quickly. There are so many heart-felt messages being shared, and a number of blogs already written and dedicated to Mr Jobs – here I am doing the same thing, this was not what I was not what I was intending to write about this morning but here we have it.
I found this interesting CNN article on Steve and his conversion to buddhism,
Sympathies with the family and friends of this visionary and thoughts with all families and friends who are hurting and grieving today over the loss of their own loved ones.
Last week I opened up our work email account to find that a customer who had been in a store on the eve of our offical opening had written and ordered 3 pairs of earrings and a bracelet! What a great way to start the day, and how nice to know that Rebekah wanted to order some filigree jewellery from us.
I remember when Rebekah and Monia were in our store very clearly, they had not long arrived in Korcula and were looking for some gifts and maybe something for themselves. They spent an hour or so in our small store looking at our jewellery and talking with us, it was fun to meet them and to share a little of our filigree story with them.
Rebekah ordered 2 items that we have in stock and requested some pieces be made just for her sending photos of what she wanted. I know Doka enjoys the challenge of creating something new and today he has been working on the second pair of earrings for Rebekah, the delicate filigree work is coming together and looks beautiful – even at this incomplete stage;
Filigree earrings - a work in progress photo.
I have been sent some photos to Rebekah, sharing the progress on her order. Next I’ll send her a link to the blog!
Doka and I both agree that the work looks a little finer than what we can see on the original photo sent by Rebekah, I am sure she will be delighted with her purchases and can’t wait to send them on to her.
If you would like to see more of our work please head to our facebook page where you can find a large selection of photos of our jewellery, and more work in progress shots.
Today I saw a recipe on another blog (http://nzecochick.blogspot.com/2011/10/super-easy-crumble.html), another kiwi girl writing for whoever wants to stop by and read. I have not met Madeline, but I really enjoyed her post and the recipe that she shared made me think yet again about food and cooking….
Some of you know me well enough to already know that for the last 3 months Doka and I have been living without a kitchen. This is not ideal, but it’s summer time here in Korcula and for the most part we have been working 14 hour days so not really a lot of time for cooking anyway. We’ve been eating cereal, fruit, salads and a lot of take away pizza! I am quite amazed that the novelty of the pizza hasn’t worn off yet, but they do occasionally spice it up a bit here;
Pizza calzone, Korcula style!
am so looking forward to cooking again that I have been saving favourite recipes that I have stumbled across on-line, am not sure what I will make first… we are hoping to move in the next couple of days. I’ll let you know what I make for the celebratory dinner, it won’t be quite as fun looking as the above but I know it will taste GREAT!
What’s your favourite meal? and where did you eat it?
Leave your comments below, I would love to hear from you.
I feel a little deceptive with the title, like maybe I should be off to summit Everest without oxygen or porters – not this week! I have instead signed up for a new blog challenge, I enjoyed participating in the last one (via Nikki Pilkington) so much that I thought I should try another… why not?
The Ultimate Challenge requires that I write something for our blog EVERY day this month, I haven’t seen our introductory email yet and as we are about to close the shop for the day I thought I would make a start anyway.
Interestingly I have noticed that my most popular posts to date have generally not been related to our filigree jewellery business. I hope that will change when I start to capture some of the family history of filigree making – approximately 500 years to capture, can’t wait to start on that. My father in law will hopefully be back here in Korcula with us in December and I hope to make a start on the historical stuff then.
To date my most popular post has been ‘My Mum’s’ – maybe I sound like I am from some dysfunctional up bringing and jumped round a lot of homes/Mums… Hopefully no-one was too disappointed to find am just a regular girl with a fantastic Mum in New Zealand and now a newish mother-in-law here in Croatia.
Please let me know what YOU would like me to blog about, I would love to hear from you. 30 new topics? Re-visit some old favourites? There are so many options and I look forward to sharing my progress in this new Challenge with you.
achting
