The Aztec Lady (if you are reading in 2021 or after, please note the postscript at the end of the text).

One of the things I like about the internet is you can find out about boats.   See an unusual boat somewhere, get its name, chances are you can find out quite a bit about it.

The Aztec Lady, as well as being a magic trick invented by Robert Harbin where a woman appears to be cut into four pieces in a box, is this big sailing ketch we saw up out of water in Granville back in September.  She was being restored, and as it turns out, when I came to write this, it seems she has just been put to sea again all shipshape, shiny and beautiful.  There are some lovely photos here of her in Nadia's Flickr stream that were taken just a couple of weeks ago.  She's doing charter cruises round the Channel Islands, before embarking on adventure cruises to Norway and the Arctic Circle next year.  She was built in 1977 in the UK, has cruised around New Zealand, but then went to the bad, and was seized in the Med in 2004 with ten tons of cannabis aboard, and nearly ended her days in a ships' graveyard.

But someone recognised what a good boat she was underneath, and how her sturdy zinc covered hull would stand her in good stead for journeys to the chilly North and you can book to go there on her next year.  Which sounds lovely.

However, before I knew any of this, I was simply taken with some of the lines and shapes, and the patterns of corrosion and peeling paint on her hull.  I thought they looked a little like something by Klimt or Hundertwasser.   I've tweaked up the contrast and saturation on them a bit; I always feel this is somehow more acceptable in abstracts than in more naturalistic shots.

Postscript, August 2021: Nearly twelve years since this was posted, and more than four since I ceased blogging here, this has become the most enduring post in terms of an afterlife, and seems to now serve as a meeting point for the Aztec Lady enthusiasts society, with many who have knowledge or experience of the ketch stopping by to find out more about her and leave recollections and messages in the comments. If you do so, moderation is on so it won't appear right away, but I will receive a notification and will publish and reply to your comment.

Thanks to Grant, I have just heard by email from her previous owners, John and Joan Heath, who have recently celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary, and will tell me more about her history. She is still based in Granville, where, since we live rather nearer to it now, we still visit, and she is still taking people on a variety of wonderful cruises, everything from a quick turn around Chausey, to a few days up and down the Brittany Coast, to very adventurous, ice-breaking and polar-bear-spotting trips to Svalbard. She can also be privately chartered. Her dedicated website is now here.

If any of the many former Aztec Lady sailors who pass this way are interested in a genuine reunion, either on-line or in real life, or in a meet-up in this neck of the woods, perhaps to stop by and have a look at her in her new incarnation (and who knows, maybe even one day organise a charter trip on her...) or would like to be put in contact or have a message relayed to the Heaths, or would simply like to chat and find out a bit more, please drop me a line at lucy-dot-kmptn-at-gmail-dot-com (this blogging platform does not enable me to access your email addresses when you comment, I can only reply in the comments).

God bless the Aztec Lady and all who sail in her!