Crew and the Captain
Of course, there’s the captain. The guy who is watching everything, taking it all in, ready to shout the command to turn left or go to port. The captain is vital. The crew is essential. They are hands that raise the sails. Hands that pull the anchor. Hands and eyes that are watching the engine room, food, water, the list for the crew is endless.
Crew the ring is magnificently well crafted. The day Keith introduced the ring to us he said, “You’re going to love this one. It’s got everything you’re looking for: big gem center, big splash of color, then lines of gold sweeping up and in, on the diagonal sides riding higher, wrapping around the north and south edges of the gem, holding, securing the gem in place like well-secured lines on a ship.” Then he said, “It’s got two accent diamonds, small, brilliant, like light reflecting off a chrome cleat, like sparkly light on the water. The gem diamonds are not big but are essential because their presence draws the eye, pulls you in, and also says there’s something really important here.”
He continued,” What we both like in any ring design is that it is low profile, glove-friendly, super comfortable, and nestles nicely on the hand. She’s going to have the ring for decades to come, of course it should be comfortable as well as beautiful.”
Keith was holding back. He hadn’t shown me the ring yet. I could sense his enthusiasm and because of his track record, I was eager to see it too. He handed me the ring. I was speechless. It was the essence of simplicity. I’d never seen anything like it. It’s not often I see something that is so fundamentally pure and yet no one has ever thought of it before. Part of the magic of this design is the two diamonds tucked in on the inside edges of the big colored gem. They are burnish-set into the lower and upper gold sidelines. I’ve never seen this done before. It creates simple, smooth, clean lines. The two little diamonds simply belong there.
I would say if there were ten rings in the world every woman should have as a right-hand ring, Crew is one of the ten because it’s fundamentally so pure and beautiful.
A Long Time Ago
I took a new girlfriend to Boston and Cambridge and Harvard. She was an English teacher; I was a jeweler. I told her I was going to check Harvard out as a possible university for children one day. I thought she would be impressed. She was a good sport. I had prepared a picnic lunch, Amato’s Italian sandwiches, and a fine French wine with real wine glasses. We had our picnic on the Boston side of the Charles and I saw crew racing for the first time.
After lunch, we walked over to Cambridge and Harvard. No, it didn’t turn out to be a long-term relationship. And yes, one of my two daughters spent three years in Cambridge and went to a college which had a curious agreement with Harvard. That’s as close as we ever got to Harvard University.
I believe Crew is one of the best ring designs in America today. It’s beautiful on the hand. All three gems sit low, close to the finger for ease of wear. The surfaces of the ring are smooth to the touch. The sweeps and curves are graceful, displaying the gems elegantly.
Crew boats are long, narrow racing shells. The crew of eight rowers sit low to the water. At the stern of the boat is the Coxswain. He or she steers, calls the race plan, and is the constant voice of reassurance to the team.
Crew has a wave of gold that sweeps in from the left and right, capturing and holding the gem at bow and stern. We make crew with a colored gem center set with two diamonds left and right that represent the oars and sparkly light on the water.
The World’s Prettiest Green Gem
In East Africa, following the Rift Valley to the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro, is a rare type of rock not found anywhere else in the world. This native rock is yielding a new green gem never seen before anywhere on the planet. Jewelers are ecstatic. Tougher than emerald. Harder than emerald. Clearer than emerald. Brighter and more brilliant than emerald. It’s a dream come true gem, that we have been waiting for for thousands of years.
Surprisingly, it sells for a quarter of what a fine emerald would sell for. We have adopted this new gem and added it to the Cross family of favorites.
To move into the deeper gemology of this new gem, it is a rare member of the garnet family. Garnet is a gem that occurs in every color but blue (Russia was a source of a yellow-green garnet many years ago). Since then, this new green garnet is the only other green gem garnet to come along…and its true color is pure green. Its gemological name is Tsavorite, and it is found in just one location – on the border of Tanzania and Kenya, Africa. Most gems are found in numerous locations throughout the world…part of what makes this gem rare is the limited geographical area in which it is found. Most people who see this gem will think it’s an emerald. Tsavorite garnet is clearer, more brilliant, and rarer than emerald.
My First Visit to
the Garden of Eden
I’ve been to the “Garden of Eden.” Never saw anything like it before or since: the sounds, sights, smells. It was rich. I slowed enough so that the memories are still vivid, years later.
I stayed in a cabin with a thatched roof 800 feet away from Eden. The cabin was on a hill, below a wire fence that separated the Garden of Eden and the rain forest from our village. In our village the food was good; the land was lush, and the company a delight.
It rained a lot, seemed like every 15 minutes to half hour torrential rains, buckets and fire hoses of rain came down. The walking paths had thatched roofs. We stayed dry and on the 4th day I accepted the invitation to go up to the Garden of Eden.
As I recall, there were six of us and our guide. The field, leading up to the wire fence was dry with long yellow grasses and gray boulders. As we got closer to Eden, the trees became taller and there was the scent, an earthy scent. The field ended and a two tier barbed wire fence ran along the edge of Eden. We waited as our guide untied the wires and a tic-tac-toe grid of gray weathered logs was hinged back. The fence section opened and we walked in.
Arrival
As we stepped in, the light changed. Long shafts of light filtered through 3, 4, 5 stories of tall trees. The air was dripping, water droplets fell from stories above. The air was moist, humid, warm. On the ground, wet from above, green plants grew at the base of trees, shiny green, wet shiny green everywhere.
We entered Eden and only went 100 – 200 feet in following a log path of thin cut circles. Our guide said, “Stay on the path and don’t touch anything as much as you might be tempted, as beautiful as the flower might be, as cute as the frog might look, color often speaks danger.” He lifted a fern and a construction-worker’s-vest-yellow frog sat on the flared tree root. Our guide said something about poison darts.
Our visit did not last long enough, an hour perhaps. I spent another three days at the edge of the Garden of Eden. I never went back. The sights and sounds of the village, the food, and torchlight suppers kept me down by the river where we gathered to write and talk. I’d never experienced anything like Eden, this welcome from the earth and trees and the love of the native people of this land call to me even now, twenty years later. Land deeply felt, touches us in ways for which words often can’t possibly begin to describe.
A Lasting Impression
I will admit that on my way home to America, once I was alone at the airport, I choked up, and for months afterward if anyone asked me about it or asked if I had been on any interesting trips, I couldn’t speak the country’s name. A Garden of Eden experience touches people that way.
The biblical Garden of Eden is somewhere around 35° east. My Eden was in the west. My people, your people, 100,000 years ago walked the paths of this eastern Eden as they departed Africa, saw things, knew things, felt things and I’m sure there were tears. Land deeply felt, touches us in ways for which words often can’t possibly begin to describe.
Tsavorite – Garden of Eden Green Garnet
From East Africa we have new gems and new discoveries: Tsavorite is a gem few have heard of, yet its beauty is something to behold. The green is crisp, bright, and lush. The green is the color of Eden.
Found in Only One Place on Earth – East Africa
We’ve gone to East Africa to the world’s greatest green garnet mines, a small geographic area just north of Mt Kilimanjaro, on the border between Tanzania and Kenya. Mt. Kilimanjaro is Africa’s tallest mountain at 19,000+ feet. Snow capped with glaciers, remarkably, just a few hundred miles from the equator.
About the Trade Wind Collection:
Where does inspiration come from? Where do the creative sparks for design begin? For Cross’ new Trade Wind Jewelry Collection, we find ourselves drawn into the story of Captain John Henry Drew, from Gardiner, Maine. Born in 1834, he grew up the son of a Ship’s Carver, and went to sea at the age of 15, eventually becoming Captain of a series of clipper ships, and traveling from New York to China and back home, when that voyage took more than seventeen months.
Instead of carving or knotting or other hobbies that were characteristic of sailors, this mostly self-educated man read books, memorized details from newspapers, and wrote about his journey—his literal and his inner journey. His hand-written and personally illustrated journals tell us of his longing for Maine, for his family, and for “making something of himself”. He is very much like you and me, and it makes his story that much more compelling. He savors apples from home, as tasting better than apples from anywhere else. He imagines the scene he might see looking in the window at home, where his family sits, and he chastises himself for not getting more done at home when he was there.
The jewelry in our Trade Wind Collection is made by his great-great-great grandson, Keith. This young man went to sea as well, at age 18. As part of his service to the US Navy, his travels took him to many of the same places his great-great-great grandfather’s clipper ships visited. Keith also had a hobby unconventional for sailors— he had a fascination for gems and he studied gemology. He studied so that when his service was completed, he could become a jeweler. As Keith traveled the world, he collected exquisite gems, and after leaving the service and returning home, he mastered the art of fine jewelry making.
It is now decades later. We met Keith for the first time in March, 2014. We were impressed with his jewelry, and as we talked further, discovered he had a clipper ship sea captain ancestor and became intrigued with the parallels of his journey in life with that of his sea captain forebear.
The parallels in the two stories are expressed in the jewelry itself—the exotic colors, the flow of the designs, the attention to detail which is something passed down in this family—whether it is to protect the ship, its cargo and its crew, or to create a design that will last and protect its valuable gems, giving the wearer the same pleasure we experience when a ship at full sail goes by. You can’t help but stop and exclaim, “Isn’t that beautiful?”
We were hooked by this story, and by the jewelry. We think you will be too. In fact, we’re posting pages from Captain Drew’s journals from the Voyage of the Franklin in 1868. Take a few minutes to join in the journey, and think of those you love most, and rejoice if they are right there with you.
Two Fascinating Views of Southeast Asia
1. Keith’s yearly expeditions– Personal views of Thailand
2. Keith’s great-great-grandfather’s clipper ship trips to Southeast Asia from the captain’s personal journals
