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| Sailing Through Suez |
In 1962 my parents and I emigrated to New Zealand on the
Chandris Line ship "Brittany". We sailed by way of Piraeus, the port for Athens, on to Suez
and through the Canal, into the Red Sea to Aden and across the Indian Ocean to
Perth, Melbourne and Sydney before arriving in New Zealand.
This journey made a tremendous impression on a 15 year old girl!
I loved every minute of it.
To say the temperature around the Canal, and especially in the Red Sea, was hot is an
unimaginable understatement.
There was a constant red hot glowing ball way up in the sky draining
the colour out of everything along the Canal Zone and through the Red Sea.
Then you hit Aden.
I do wish I had a photograph to show you, we weren't allowed to land
as there was rioting at that time, but from the deck the sight of those
huge dark jagged peaks seemingly going on forever left me speechless.
I have a book written by Pamela Mountbatten with a paragraph in which she
describes her journey along a similar route and her arrival at Aden, I quote:
"towering dark grey volcanic rocks splitting the horizon with their peaks as we came into
harbour one morning". You will see now how those flying geese came into the quilt.
After that you head into the beautiful Indian Ocean - the sea incredibly green and the
sunsets and sky like velvet at night equally spectacular.
Hence - Sailing Through Suez to remind me
of that amazing journey which still has the power to move me to tears with the
memories.
A close up of the quilting - rolling waves in variegated thread. Widely spaced waves
didn't work for me so I went to town and did heaps and heaps!
This red hot fabric for the backing seemed quite appropriate.
This piece would certainly not be in existence without Sujata and
Cultural Fusion Quilts and this blog.
My intention now is to carry on and create
in cloth my memories of other special moments on that journey
undertaken 53 years ago, also the return through
Panama a year later. Another series will give me the chance to live again
special childhood memories, part of what makes me who I am today.
Thank you Sujata.
