Boats made from driftwood carried by the Atlantic and the magic of visiting grandchildren inspired a Dutchman to compile a book reflecting his life on Connemara’s Turbot Island.
Stefan Frenkel Frank, originally from Amsterdam in the Netherlands, spends six months a year on Turbot with his wife Hanneke.
He has now published The Driftwood Boats of Inish Turbot:Colours of Living on a Small Island, which was launched recently in The Clifden Bookshop, Clifden, Co Galway.
The front cover of Stefan Frenkel Frank's new book The Driftwood Boats of Inish Turbot : Colours of Living on a Small Island
As they recounted in previous interviews with Afloat, the couple first came to Turbot over 30 years ago.
Turbot-born fisherman John O’Toole brought the couple in to show them the island, and they bought his father’s house.
John’s son, Craig O’Toole (18) was co-writer for the text, which Stefan describes as a “marvellous” experience.
“As a child on the Dutch beaches, I crafted boats from things I found at the high tide line — driftwood, rope, and plastic scraps for the sails,” Stefan says.
“When I was finished with them, I would set the scraps free, and watch them float towards the horizon, dreaming of where they might go,” he says.
“Now, decades later, I walk Turbot island’s shoreline, still collecting driftwood, ropes, old crate pieces — anything that the sea gives back,” he says.
“Sometimes, I wonder if one of those scraps were from one of the boats of my childhood, ending up here...”
“One day, I found a few rubber duckies tangled in the seaweed on the pebble beach. Each had a number printed on their chest, a miracle…”
“Years ago, I read about them — as an experiment, tens of thousands of rubber duckies were thrown overboard in the Caribbean to see where the currents would bring them. They were drifting across oceans for years, scattered across the globe.
And now — here they were, washed up on my little island,” he says.
“I imagined them alone on the vast ocean, tossed by storms, burned by the sun, riding wave after wave. They had come a very long way. I picked them up, and brought them home.”
One of Stefan Frenkel Frank's paintings
“And with all the things I gathered, I began building boats again. On their sails, I paint memories — fragments of island life, quiet tributes to a place that holds so much more than meets the eye,” he says.
He says visits by his grandchildren, Saar and Cecco Frenkel Frank, also provided inspiration.
Stefan Frenkel Frank's grandchildren Saar (left) and Cecco (right) Frenkel Frank
“Inish Turbot is no more than a short boat ride from the mainland — and yet, it feels like it’s lightyears away from the normal world,” he says.
“On Turbot, the silence still reigns, and the days move slowly, in tune with the tides and wind. That silence — that stillness — is the island’s most precious treasure…”
The Driftwood Boats of Inish Turbot : Colours of Living on a Small Island by Stefan Frenkel Frank is available in the Clifden Bookshop at 20 euros, and can be ordered by phone on (095)22020 or by email at [email protected]
