Author: Charlie

Retired American nature-lover, living in Costa Rica, photographing birds and other jewels of nature. This site simply reports on my joys of being RETIRED IN COSTA RICA!
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My Africa Adventures Added to Website

On Safari in Masai Mara Reserve, Kenya, November 19, 2005

I am beginning a new stories section of my website titled Travel. It will eventually have many stories of my many trips around the world (outside Costa Rica) with some illustrative photos along with links to the newest section of my Photo Gallery titled Pre-Costa Rica Travels.  where I am slowly creating a gallery on each trip over the years or at least the recent years, one at a time as I slowly move such photos from the Travel Section of my old Pbase gallery.   PHOTO ABOVE: Masai Shepherd in Kenya

Writing the stories and moving the photos are both very slow and time-consuming jobs, but time is what an ol’ retiree has isn’t it?   🙂

For multiple reasons, I decided to start with Africa in both the Travel Stories and the Photo Gallery sections. The photos are mostly moved but all of the stories have not been written yet. I have a good start, especially with most of my Gambia stories already told here. Here’s what you can expect to find now:

TRAVEL STORIES

Driving from Nairobi, Kenya to Musoma, Tanzania, November 7, 2005

You find Travel on the main menu above with dropdown menus for stories started here and additional menu links on each country’s home page for related stories in other pages of the site. For example: my Gambia Missionary experiences and mission trips are on the HIS SPIRIT menu first and thus linked to there from this Travel Gambia Home Page or Kenya Home Page, etc. The software allows for drop down menus for only items initiated on that page, thus regular links to other pages like the missionary stories.

And since my photo galleries are actually on SmugMug.com, they cannot be on any of my site drop down menus but must be linked to from each country’s Home Page or found by going to the big gallery first from the above menu. I hope that is not confusing. Just use the country’s home page to find everything about that country.   🙂

I have only barely started on all the stories I want to tell, but for the main Travel section described above I have started these pages with more stories coming on each in the future:

AFRICA

TRAVEL PHOTOS

Masai people in the Great Rift Valley near Masai Mara, Kenya

My travel photos made before moving to Costa Rica are in a special sub-gallery title Pre-Costa Rica TRAVELS. Like my Costa Rica Trips gallery they are arranged chronologically by dates of each trip with most recent at top. At this moment, I have only travels to Africa included. Click above to see all or here is the list of my Africa Travel Galleries which will later be mixed in with other travels depending on the dates:

Africa Travel Photo Galleries:

Sunset on River Gambia, McCarthy Island, Janjanbureh, The Gambia

 

“The darkest thing about Africa

has always been our ignorance of it.”

~George Kimble

All photos by Charlie Doggett.

Questions?    Contact me!

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Adventures of the Brig Charles Doggett

When Lee Holloway introduced me to and gave me a copy of the 1931 historical adventures storybook Yankee Ships in Pirate Waters by Rupert Sargent Holland back in the early 1970’s while at The Brotherhood Commission, I had no idea how far it would lead in my future research of an 1800’s ship with my name.

For a long time I have had the research website on The Ship Charles Doggett  (the definitive website on the ship) and along the way discovered the relationships of the ship to Nashville and a friend there who is a descendant of the ship’s captain, William Driver. Driver is buried in Nashville. (Click above link for more info.) Also while there I learned of the U.S. Flag first being called “Old Glory” while flying on the Brig Charles Doggett with the actual flag at The Smithsonian Institute National Museum in Washington, DC. My web page above tells exciting stories of the flag, especially during the Civil War in a Confederate State Capital.

Then later I learned that it was this ship that rescued the survivors of “Mutiny on the Bounty.” Wow! The stories go on and are many and exciting as presented in this one 48-page Chapter 7 of the 1931 book Yankee Ships in Pirate Waters by Rupert Sargent Holland. 

As I have always intended to do, I finally scanned or used a print shop in Atenas to scan the pages of the stories for me. I now include those pages here. The chapter on The Charles Doggett is titled “Children of the Sun” and was introduced with this summary:  “How the men of the ‘Charles Doggett’ angered a witch-doctor, fought Fiji cannibals, and saved a sister-ship from yellow pirates in the gulf of Tongking.” You can read the stories online here now at Chapter 7: Children of the Sun. A fun read! And just one more bit of valuable information on this website.    🙂

The Header above is the book title page and . . .

Here’s the first page:

Continue reading at Chapter 7: Children of the Sun.

¡Pura Vida!

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Remodeling Central Park

It is difficult to figure out everything they are doing or why they went 2 weeks doing nothing, but now they seem to be lowering the central portion where the band shell or gazebo will go -quite a bit lower – possibly for a good foundation. And now I can see that the square-block park was not as level all the way across as I thought. Possibly they will level it. Now they are removing dump trucks full of dirt from the center.

Taking many dump truck loads of dirt from the center of park.

 

On the right side it appears to be 3 to 4 feet lower than surrounding land.

 

See my original post on Remodeling Central Park    (architect drawings)

Or go to Government Park Remodel Page   (architect drawings)

¡Pura Vida Atenas!

 

Yep! I missed a couple of days posting anything. Always busy with daily chores and necessary trips to town and I have also been busy adding content to this website. I’ll tell you about that in the next couple of days’ posts. Exciting Stories!

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Atenas Teens Paint Sidewalks for Environmental Awareness

The other day I came across this youth group painting an environmental message on the sidewalk at one of the busiest corners in Atenas Central in front of a furniture store, across the street from Mercado Central and across another street from our University Extension campus.

Everything can have another life: RECYCLE

They are painting messages on several well-traveled sidewalk corners in town too create ecological awareness (conciencias de ecologica) or awareness of global warming (conciencias de calentamiento global) for the people of Atenas. The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow and their actions speak well for our future.

Atenas Youth Create Ecological Awareness

 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

—Margaret Mead

 

Earth University

People from around the world study ecology at Costa Rica’s Earth University   people who are changing the world for good (link is to English Language site)

Also a visitor’s English-Language Report on Costa Rica’s Earth University

 

¡Pura Vida!

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Spring in the Tropics!

Yes, it’s “Spring” here (la primavera) and almost the beginning of “Summer” (el verano) or Dry Season which starts in December. There are some trees and flowers that bloom this time of year while other bloom at the end of dry season and I can’t explain why because I don’t know.  🙂

I call these my “Yellow Bell Trees” because the flowers are bell-shaped, but that is not the name of them and I can’t seem to get an agreement here on what their English name is. I recently lost two of these trees, so less yellow this year in my garden, but it calls for a Haiku anyway:

¡Pura Vida!

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Book of Haiku Poetry

Click image or address below for electronic preview for free.

http://www.blurb.com/b/9093011-costa-rica-haiku

I have been playing around with writing Haiku about Costa Rica Nature for nearly 3 years now and this is my little collection of poems, each printed on one of my photos. I’m not a poet, but it was fun to do and I may continue trying from time to time. I write the American 2-3-2 syllables style of Haiku but like the original Japanese Haiku they only describe nature.

¡Pura Vida!

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Colorful Neighbors

African Tulip Tree on hill above my house.

On the hill above my little casita are blooming some brilliant orange African Tulip Trees (an immigrant or invasive species?) and above those the ever-present pink-to-purple bougainvillea which I see here through the limbs of my Guarumo or Cecropia tree. Having “colorful neighbors” can be a plus! And colorful flowers add to my happiness!    🙂

Just living is not enough…

one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.

~Hans Christian Andersen

Flowers help boost happiness and I was just introduced to a new website that you might want to check out:    Garden & Happy     for a little boost in your happiness, try gardening!   🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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Medical Thanksgiving + A Grand Feast!

The Medical

As I continue choose between the free government healthcare (with monthly payment like states do with Medicare) and the mostly affordable private doctors using my MediSmart discount card I have so far been well cared for in my various medical needs and either free or at very reasonable private costs.

In earlier reports I have explained how the public system includes a cardiologist I like and I feel well cared for. When my various “tags” and other skin growths began to increase, I decided to try a private dermatologist and have been equally pleased with his services and prices.

One growth on my right arm he suspected and did a biopsy which proved positive for a melanoma cancer, Tuesday afternoon he cut a chunk out of my arm and is pretty sure he “got it all.” His guideline is to take 4mm to 5mm all the way around the growth. That meant 10 stitches in my arm, but that will heal. I decided that a photo of it would be too gross. He also took a sample from a growth on my face that has not healed from an earlier nitrogen treatment (freezing it off). So when I go back for my stitches to be removed in 2 weeks I will get the biopsy report on that. Hoping for no more malignancies, but we do what we have to do and I’m still enjoying my monthly adventures with doctors working around my travel schedule!   🙂   And by the way, my rotator cuff surgery has healed very well, thanks a lot to the physical therapist Andres! Pretty much back to normal use, though now I have 10 stitches in that same arm!  Sigh.

I walk regularly and eat reasonably well if not maybe too much! 🙂 So my overall health and heart condition is great, just this little skin cancer bother that is caused by too much sun when I was a kid or teen, says the doc. I’m more careful about the sun now!

The Grand Feast

Tony & Rose Mary, the couple who plan our expat trips almost every month put together a group eating traditional American Thanksgiving Dinner at the Baron’s Resort on top of a hill here in Atenas with beautiful views. It was delicious in every way and the turkey was cooked perfectly – moist not dry! And they even had pecan pie! (My favorite if you don’t know.) The resort is now owned by my local attorney, Cecelia Tristan, and she is doing a lot of extras to make their restaurant appealing to locals. I will eat there again from time to time.

And no excuse for not snapping a cell phone photo – just didn’t!

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Rancho Humo: The Book

Check out the free electronic preview of all pages of my latest Costa Rica photo book at: http://www.blurb.com/b/9079446-rancho-humo  or click the book cover image below. Use “full screen mode” to best see these photo pages. I think my books & photos are getting a little better.  🙂

Front Cover of Book  –  click for preview
Back Cover of Book  –  click to see larger

 

Charlie Doggett – Retired in Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!