http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ouIQkH_Jn8
This statue sailed with Vasco da Gama to India and on all his later voyages. It is beautifully carved, serene and lovely and I wish it could talk to me. See the photo for a description. It is in the Maritime Museum in Lisbon and will be for me a special visit if ever I come here again – like Harrison‘s clocks in the Greenwich Museum.
The boat is a replica caravel that is on the jetty close to us here in the Doca de A and similar to da Gama’s ships that the statue sailed on. Da Gama’s ship on the voyage to India was the San Raphael. She was a ‘nau’ or ship of the line and a bit bigger and square rigged.
The logs ramblings can be cryptic, so we have added:
In Ecuador we saw very similar statues, originally carved in Spain. They were made to be disassembled and were taken across the mountains on mules by monks and missionaries. Is