The lady herself

It's a feat of the master carver, Khun Prapan Suja in Thailand, that he managed to combine a demur expression, appropriate to a boddhisattva (often translated as a goddess) and a more open expression of a lady bringing compassion to the world - she is the figurehead of a boat after all. In my humble opinion, he combined these two contrasting expressions well. She is not coy, nor wanton. Please judge for yourself - and don't hesitate to comment.

she holds asprig of willow in her right hand and vase of "holy" water in her left hand.

"Another mad Englishman . . ."

My special thanks to Canadian novelist James Bacque for his insightful and hilarious comment on my adventure to Labrador. Soon after I posted the opening lines of this blog, he wrote, "Another mad Englishman mounts an unlikely expedition in a flimsy conveyance through an extreme environment." Well not quite, but the comment captures the spirit of the enterprise. Sane or crazy, I am going. "Kuan Yin" is a steel ketch (A Tahitiana 32) and far from flimsy but in the scale of the sea, iceberg and rocks, she is; and Labrador certainly is certainly an extreme environment.