July 25, 2011

..a day in the cove

Well, not a typical day in the cove ... met Jean Claude Roy painting down by the launch, talked to Mr. Moores who was waiting a fishing boat to come back, met the people who went around the Cape to fish, and talked to them while they were cleaning fish, went home with some cod fillet.

I wanted to see if Ted was around and if he was ready to build the model with me.  I walked by his house and he wasn't home.  So I carried on and went down to the slipway and hoped to see some people down there (recreational fishery started July 23 and run until August 14).  I guessed the big storm this morning didn't allow people to go out.   However I saw a person with an easel painting away down on the slipway.  I stopped and watched him paint.  Looking at the painting I knew who the painter was.   It was Jean Roy Claude - well known Newfoundland artist who spends time between France and Newfoundland.  I asked him if he would let me video him while he painted.  He was quite ok with that.

A couple of hours later along the bank, I was talking to Mr. Moores when a fishing boat came in.  Mr. Moores commented that he would not have gone out today, "the wind will take the boat away when they turn off the engine", said Mr. Moores.  During the cod food fishery, it is so common to see the older men hang around the bank, they watch the boats go out and wait until the boats come back.

I went down to the slipway and talked to the people from the fishing boat.  They agreed for me to video them when they cleaned the fish.  Darrel told me he would go out everyday to fish if he could in the next three weeks.  Darrel said, "...when I was a young fellow, fish was a livelihood.  Fish stages .... are everywhere."

I couldn't help imagining the fishermen in the past stood and looked out to the cove from the same spot that Jean Roy Claude was at this afternoon -  would the fishermen see the same colours that Jean Roy Claude saw, or would they only contemplate what the day would bring them?

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