Baidarkas

For some time I have wanted to build a baidarka, an Aleut hunting 'kayak', but I lack the money and space to do so. I also wish to take up kyudo, but that's another story. Baidarkas (the word is Russian) are, for me, the most refined expression of the small boat form that we know as kayaks, and George Dyson's baidarkas are the most refined of all. Remember that all kayaks were sea going craft, the crews of which could not swim. Hunting seals and small whales in a vessel twenty feet long by eighteen inches beam by six inches draft, with no buoyancy aid, no EPIRB beacon and no chance of rescue, requires balls in any language.

Looking at the frames of an unskinned baidarka should enable one to understand just why our North Sea traversing ancestors worshiped ships so much that they built unseaworthy examples as funerary vehicles for the interment or cremation of their noble dead. A ship, or boat, is, or was until the age of arc welding, a thing of beauty in its own right, whether useful or not, and should be appreciated as such.

Spike (d. 31/7/08) RIP

After logging off in the later 'early hours' of this morning I discovered Spike, my hamster, lying cold and stiff on the sawdust in his palatial quarters (a guinea pig cage). He was alive at lunchtime, yesterday, so must have passed away while I was at work. He was ageing when I acquired him and I was told that I should be lucky were he to live longer than six months. He hadn't been terribly active lately but his teeth were in good order, his bones well fleshed and there were no signs of an agonising struggle; it looks as though his life had simply run its course. He was pleasant and amusing company and won't be consigned to the dustbin. On Sunday I will take him out of the freezer and bury him somewhere comfortable; probably in The Lakes.

RIP Spike.

Postscript: Spike was laid to rest in a meadow above Shap Abbey at approximately 21:20, BST, on Sunday, 3rd inst. He was well provided for and should not go cold nor hungry on his journey to meet his ancestors.