"It's Titanic!" Anne-Marie announced when she saw Blair's painting.  The boat stands 6 feet tall; currently we've both been painting mammoth canvasses:   TITANIC.

We think of boats and harbors all the time.  I've arranged for a tour of the harbor at Marseilles in a couple of weeks.  We are beginning our project "HARBOR":  visiting ports of the world to record their beauty.  We will talk to the Harbormaster, the dockworkers, the seamen, as we paint pictures of the ships, the port and the sea.

Meanwhile, I sit at my desk and write about the harbor.  Thursday afternoon the room seemed to get colder and colder.  When I got up to move around, I realized it wasn't my lack of activity.   Four of six radiators were ice cold.

Blair and I are interested in all kinds of maritime vessels.   On the Seine, peniches carry sand from Paris to Le Havre.  After loading gravel (not far from the Eiffel Tower), they glide northward to Rouen and Le Havre. Coal is transported on the Seine, and refined petroleum from Rouen.

As I write, perhaps the desk itself (a late Napoleonic model) is the only thing in front of me that has never traveled by ship to its consumer.  My Larousse Petit Dictionnaire Francais was printed in France.   In today's paper I read that intercity French transport is taking place via ocean freight, to alleviate the truck traffic on the A10.  La Rochelle and Ste. Nazaire are among the first ports to be shipping bulk.  A large shipment of paper (for printing) is shown in the photo.

Sete sits on the Mediterranean coast of France.  It is a canaled city where bulk loaders, fishing boats, pleasure craft and ferries all tie up along the streets of the city.  You can touch them.

All the hot water and heat in our apartment pass through a gas-fired apparatus that hangs over the kitchen sink.  It is the size of a small refrigerator -- not attractive.  It boils the water as it passes through like a giant Mr. Coffee.

Ships move most of the freight around the world.  There are specific maritime routes around the globe defined by the transport of petroleum and minerals.  These kilometer-wide corridors are key to the continued commerce of the world.

When the hot water repair man arrived at about 10 the next morning, even the fire had gone out of the gas jet.  He spoke to the machine lovingly: "she's such a tease" he told us.  He fiddled around underneath and cajoled the thing to perform once again.  Meanwhile, we bought more "Presto" logs.

Friends from America arrived on Friday night, when the house had just warmed up.  They marveled at the heat machine, and the Architect said such a device has become available in the US, through Bosch. Delivered by sea, of course.