Creux Harbour is back in use by Sark passenger ferries for the time being. (0659338)
ESSENTIAL work on Maseline Harbour has led to considerable disruption to passenger and cargo services.
The timber above the steps used by passengers is being replaced and all services are being handled in the smaller Creux Harbour.
However, because this is tidal, the scheduled timetable has been suspended and a temporary one is in operation while the work is being carried out.
Chris Rang, the Harbours Committee member who is overseeing the work, told me that although progress is satisfactory, the weather will determine how long services will be disrupted.
‘Hopefully, the work will be completed in a month or so, although as with everything associated with shipping, it all depends on the weather,’ he told me.
‘In the meantime all services – and that includes visiting pleasure boats – must use Creux Harbour.’
Although the work has to be done, the disruption does mean that boats are leaving Guernsey and Sark at unusual times so intending passengers should make a booking – something which is essential on days when passenger numbers are limited to no more than a dozen.
While it seems a little harsh on those businesses still hoping to make a few pounds at the end of the season to mess about with boat schedules during the schools’ half-term holiday, the fact of the matter is that there is never a good time to have to rely on a tidal harbour, either from a passenger or cargo point of view.
As one trader put it to me the other morning, doing the work now probably does less damage to the economy than at any other time of the year.
However, one Avenue trader who has something to smile about these days is Monika Komla, who runs Sark Craft – one of the outlets in the mini shopping mall now known (as it was many years ago, when Isabel Jackson ran it as the forerunner of the Island Stores) as Isabel’s.
Ms Komla, who hails originally from Poland and is now in her fourth year in Sark, makes what she calls ‘handmade ideas for unique gifts’ and these include witches made from hessian – the fabric which, as older readers will know, was used for sacks until the environmentally unfriendly polythene burst on to the scene with a vengeance.
She recently received an order from Oatlands Courtyard Brasserie for a quantity of them and has also negotiated an arrangement to sell some of her products at an outlet in Guernsey.
Ms Komla started making her witch figures shortly after her arrival in Sark and this year moved into her premises in The Avenue – something which she said concentrated her mind on her work far more than when she was making the products at home.
‘I started doing the small figures and then I made some jewellery and found that customers were interested in that,’ she told me. ‘Then I started bringing home small pieces of driftwood that I’d found while walking on the beaches and turning them into clocks by adding a simple mechanism. Everyone is into recycling these days so the use of driftwood is very popular.’
She also sells her own sepia photographic prints – something which takes advantage of what she describes as ‘Sark’s natural old look’.
‘Because many places in Sark have that old look about them, sepia prints are very appropriate,’ she said.
The email address for comment is fallesark@sark.net.
Article posted on 24th October, 2008 - 11.00am
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