
“Owing to my boat’s shape, she could not wear a tall mast without turning over and so her pocket-handkerchief-sized sail could only garner and harvest the tiniest cupfuls of wind; thus, for the most part, she was propelled from point to point with oars, and when we had a full crew on board—three dogs, an owl, and sometimes a pigeon—and were carrying a full cargo—some two dozen containers full of seawater and specimens—she was a back-aching load to push through the water.”
Gerald Durrell
more infosource: Fauna and Family (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), 21.
category: animal, boat, Corfu, Greece, mast, ocean, sailing, sea, wind
medium: nonfiction
“In spring the almost enclosed sheet of water that separated Corfu from the mainland would be a pale and delicate blue, and then as spring settled into hot, crackling summer, it seemed to stain the still sea a deeper and more unreal color, which in some lights seemed like the violet blue of a rainbow, a blue that faded to a rich jade green in the shallows. In the evening when the sun sank, it was as if it were drawing a brush across the sea’s surface, streaking and blurring it to purples smudged with gold, silver, tangerine and pale pink.”
Gerald Durrell
more infosource: Fauna and Family (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), 16–17.
category: color, Corfu, Greece, island, light, ocean, sea, sunset
medium: nonfiction
“Gradually the magic of the island settled over us as gently and clingingly as pollen. Each day had a tranquility, a timelessness, about it, so that you wished it would never end. But then the dark skin of night would peel off and there would be a fresh day waiting for us, glossy and colourful as a child’s transfer and with the same tinge of unreality.”
Gerald Durrell
more infosource: My Family and Other Animals (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 26.
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category: color, Corfu, evening, Greece, island, magic, morning, night, travel
medium: memoir (travel)
“Halfway up the slope, guarded by a group of tall, slim cypress trees, nestled a small strawberry-pink villa, like some exotic fruit lying in the greenery. The cypress trees undulated gently in the breeze, as if they were busily painting the sky a still brighter blue for our arrival.”
Gerald Durrell
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Greece