Jessy the Flying Yapese

He doesn’t upend his torso like a dabbling wood
duck, hyperventilate wildly by sucking the life out of the sky, or clumsily beg
purchase from the ocean’s liquid skin to gain momentum like so many fluorescent
pink-finned snorkeling tourists. Rather
curiously, he appears to take a breath, under his breath. Inaudibly, ballet-like, as though he were aflying cat; he slips his padded paws beneath the waves, pulling deeper with his
arms and upper body strength alone, until he finally concedes his legs and fins
to contribute to the task with one caveat, they are never to break the surface,
the sound barrier. He seems to float
suspended by the blue for a moment, drifting slowly downward; contemplating,
calculating, and anticipating his quarries next move. Without warning he is equalized and soaring,
one arm outstretched like superman, a blue camaflouge wetsuit replacing the
familiar red cape; fins efficiently, almost mechanically, slicing through the
last seconds of his prey’s peace. A silent
stealth bomber speeding unmercifully towards its target. Briefly disappearing in the depths, he
suddenly emerges out of the darkness with light—the white underbelly and
flippers of a turtle which flap with urgency.
The beast panics, squirms, and attempts (unsuccessfully) to rid itself
of this unwelcome hitchhiker, not unlike a giant remora attached to its
back. As the free-diver gently guides
the trophy up, they spin together, a slow waltz ensues through the light-beams
refracted from the intense tropical sun above.
Gracefully they dance, helping each other swim closer to the surface and
their next life-giving breath.
Jessy Hapdei was originally taught his art form
by village elders in Ulithi, Yap, Micronesia.
I have been honored and humbled to witness his craft as I often swim
behind him near drowning as my snorkel drops from my mouth in sheer awe. As a sea turtle biologist, I’d rather not
think about why or how he used his talents in the past. I am only thankful that he is working for our
team now; assisting in sea turtle conservation and research on the island of
Saipan, in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Our in-water tagging program would not be
possible without his specialized hand-capture skills, as the use of nets or
rodeo are not feasible in this part of the Western Pacific.

By Tammy Mae Summers, Published in the State of the Worlds Turtles (SWOT) Magazine 2009

Chapter 16: Home Sweet Home

The package didn’t look like any of the other Christmas
gifts I had received at the Saipan post office.
Someone had taped the whole entire package with clear shipping tape that
wasn't even sticking to the box anymore. What probably started out to be your everyday
square brown box looked like it had traveled through 3 months of a rainy season
in Central America, the cardboard corrugations splitting and frayed, and the
box itself squashed into the shape of a trapezoid. Upon opening this
road-worn visitor, my hands stuck to something and wouldn’t let go. The bubble wrap was soaked with a sticky
liquid the color of sunshine and smelled of the first hint of Spring after a
long cold bitter winter. I unwrapped a
portion of the bubbles (none of which popped, as each bubble had happily
consumed its weight in bee-sap) and within found a ziplock containing a less
than half-filled
bottle of Watkins Apalachicola Tupelo Honey that had a cracked plastic lid
scarcely hanging on to its last screw! I think the remainder of the honey
must be dripped along the entire 49 states, Hawaii, and Guam and
mixed like caramel swirls in cake batter with the cold blue currents of the
Pacific Ocean! I envision the poor postal carrier that was on his last shred
of patience striving to get everyone's packages to them in time for X-mas. Working overtime and muttering to himself
about how he didn't even get his bonus this year because of the economy
and how Santa gets all the credit. Then coming
across my wet, sticky, wilting box and him ending up with tacky hands for the
rest of his route and cursing Apalachicola FL and Siapan MP, the names posted
in bleading ink, smeared with a golden-hued substance, the unforgettable
fragrance of Tupelo blossoms drooping lazily over the Apalachicola River
wafting towards his cold nose, and after licking his fingers with curiosity,
must have forgiven us for ruining his favorite blue nylon uniform. He proceeds to cover the failing
cardboard with an equally sticky tape in hopes of combating whatever was
mysteriously oozing from the corners and went on with his business of making a
customer halfway across the world truly the most blessed of persons this
holiday season. He could have just as easily opened the package, deemed
it un-shippable and hazardous, tossed it, and sent me a sterile postcard in its
place. But during this sticky situation
some semblance of Christmas spirit won over his tired feet, his kind heart must
have spoke to him and whispered how I longed for a taste of my favorite
swamp. A taste that connected me with my
kinfolk, my beekeeper friends George & Miss Carla Watkins & Jimmy
Moses, and that most special of all places where my heart lies--the
floodplains, tributaries, barrier islands, blackwaters, bays, and fishing
villages of Apalachicola, Florida.
Once I finally figured out what was inside this ball of
bubbling beespit, I immediately mourned the loss of more than 1 lb. worth of
pure simple & sweet ecstasy. But being a glass jar is half
full rather than half empty kind of person, I quickly went about recovering the
losses. I carefully removed the heavy-with-honey bubble wrap and gingerly
licked the essence of Apalachicola from one of the bubbles. I
looked from side to side guiltily in my empty apartment like a child that knows
she is about to do something wrong but feels oh so right about it. Finding no-one there to judge me, I proceeded
to devour and suck the life out of that syrupy saran-wrap, a few meek pops in
protest is all it had left in it after the long, wet trip from Florida to the
South Pacific. I laughed in pure delight
as though I was 3 years old again.
Tupelo honey dripped down my chin and vivid images of Winnie-the-Pooh
stuck in a honey tree, hind paws and bulbous yellow bear-bum wriggling out of a
hollow and crying for Christopher Robin’s help crossed my mind as my giggle
intermingled with popping sounds. I’m
here to tell ya, I licked that bubble wrap so clean the ants in my apartment
couldn’t track it down.
New Years Eve in Saipan, I sit here alone sipping my tea,
adorned with the sweetest tasting Apalachicola Tupelo honey I’ve ever had
yet. They say in life, the taste is
sweeter when hard won and believe me when I say this honey has paid its’
dues. But then again, so have I; I guess
that is why I appreciate it as much as I do.

Chapter 15: Going out to the Country, Hey Don't you Wanna Go?

My parent’s life story has never been writ and I now find
the urge to let it be known. I begin
this tale where I enter the story. They
found each other as first loves and teenagers in the early 70’s and I was born
shortly thereafter. The wedding photos
are etched in mind as if I attended, which I guess in a way I did since my
mother was already several months along at the ceremony. The bride wore a floor-length hand-me-down
gown with an umpire waist reminiscent of the sixties style. If Woodstock had been a color, it would have
been found on this dress; its’ vibrant purple, turquoise, and white flowers
running like a child’s finger-paints to the grass. I felt safe behind it. My father’s unruly long brown curls and blue
collar demeanor contrasted sharply with his lavender dress shirt and tie that
was as white and wide as his smile. The
muscle cars; Barracudas, Galaxies, and Novas that lined my grandparent’s
driveway were adorned with big puffy tissue flowers that formed pastel peace
signs and spelled out the word LOVE along the hoods and doors. But underneath the event’s soft colors lay an
undertone of hard feelings. My
grandparents were traditional folks brought up during the depression era and
had a difficult time accepting their middle daughter’s teenage pregnancy. Times being what they were, it was not as
commonplace as it is in today’s society.
People still worried about what the neighbors thought. So my parents packed up and moved to the
west-coast of Florida where they lived in a whitewashed clapboard cottage steps
away from Madeira Beach. I am told that
after I was born, my mother would sing and dance while she cleaned the house or
baked homemade bread to Beatles songs while my brown fuzzy locks could be seen
bouncing just above the edges of the white bassinet to the music, my tiny
fingers clutching the side for balance as I bobbed. Our house was always filled with music,
America, Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, The Doobie Brothers, Yes, John
Lennon, The Allman Brothers, Jim Croce, Fleetwood Mac, Gordon Lightfoot, and
The Grateful Dead to name a few. But I
was breastfed on the Beatles and had my first taste of saltwater in this
place. Both music and the ocean would
become a life-long staple for me, a never-wavering constant, friends that
comfort me in times of loneliness, like a mother’s love.
But I digress… Once I
was born, my grandparents came to their senses and stopped shunning my parents
once I won them over with my sweet face, and our family moved back to NY. (This turn of events was a major bummer for
me since I was destined to be raised on the water, but the Niagara River would
have to do for the time being. I made it
back to the Gulf of Mexico eventually.)
My baby sister came along 2 years later, which made my parents 19 and
high school dropouts with 2 kids. I
don’t remember my dad being around much in those younger years since he was
working third shift at the steel plant, sleeping during the day and working all
night. He worked his ass off at a dirty
hard dangerous mind-numbing job for 11 years so that my sister and I would have
a roof over our heads. My mother had the
thankless task of raising us hellions until I was 12, when she decided to go
back to work. She spent the next 8 years
going to night school, taking a class here, driving an hour there, and this
after working a full shift as a bank teller on her feet all day. I am extremely proud of my parents. They rose above being teenage pregnancy
statistics, and without any help from their parents, have come a long way in
their careers. My father took a big
chance and quit his safe union job at the steel plant. Hard hat plastered with Buffalo Bills and
Sabres stickers, blackened steel toed
boots (that he still has to this day) in one hand and a lit cigar in the
other, he walked out of those factory doors and never looked back. He worked his way up the ranks as a radio
salesman, writing commercials and guest starring on morning shows as Buffalo
Bill. He never graduated high school but
the man can clear 5 figures now from pure ambition, street smarts, and hard
work. And my mom, after years of working
a full time job, raising 2 kids, and going to night school is now an accountant
for big industry.
But I don’t think this is where either of them had intended
to end up.
For as long as I can remember, wherever we have lived, a
stack of Farmers Almanacs and Burpee seed catalogs have adorned the living-room
coffee table. And my mother has had a
garden, whether it was in the form of spindly seedlings reaching for a hooded fluorescent
grow light with 3 feet of snow drifts outside the window, a 4’ x 4’ weed-ridden
plot of nothing but compost and Florida sand where papayas and pumpkins
make for strange bed-fellows, or hundreds
of feet of hand-shovel-turned black dirt mixed tenderly with horse shit from
the nearest stable, where my sister and I would sneak sugar-snap peas and
cherry tomatoes right off the vine in the summertime when we tired of playing
with tadpoles in seeps enveloped by Forget-me-nots. (They are still my favorite flower, which befits
my gypsy tendencies.)
Once upon a time we owned land out in the countryside in a
small cow town named Warsaw. May parents
called it The Farm. It had a view of the
entire valley and the next foothill over.
It had acres of open pasture filled with purple clovers that my sister
and I would pluck and savor the honeysuckle sweetness between our teeth. There were wind breakers between property
lines where we’d climb the trees and make imaginary forts. There was a small stream that ran through the
middle where our Barbie dolls would whitewater freestyle down the rapids. Behind the creek there were wild strawberries
hiding among the knee high grasses that were matted down into large patches
where the deer had bedded the night before.
There were elderberry bushes that we’d gingerly pick tiny berries from
the delicate stems. My mom would can
this black gold and give elderberry jam as presents that family members fought
over at Christmas time. There were
blackberries that grew to be the size of your big toe in bramble thickets that
even a jackrabbit would think twice about entering. Yet it always seemed that the biggest,
ripest, juiciest prize was shining deep violet-black just beyond reach and
you’d come out looking like you lost a fight with an alley cat, just to get
your purpled lips around one. There was
a forest at the back of the property line that we’d take walks through, to hear
the Fall leaves crunch beneath our feet and smell Autumn. I have memories of my dad, all bushy-bearded
and ball-capped behind a fire-engine red Roto-tiller he had just bought,
plowing large swaths of earth and my mother, knees in the dirt, planting
strawberries, fruit trees, and corn in her plaid flannel shirt and wide-brimmed
straw hat humming away, as my sister and I toted hay to her for mulching. My parents dream was to build a log cabin on
The Farm and get back to the land; like so many other hippies of the time. But not all stories have “they all lived
happily ever after” endings. You see,
the driveway we used to access The Farm was an easement across the land owned
by the man in the big house that lay in front of our property. When it came time to finalize plans for
building I guess they needed permission to drive the heavy equipment and logs
across this man’s property (our driveway) to access the construction site. Turns out this man didn’t want a house built
on the property behind his and was successfully able to keep my parents from
realizing their dream. In the end, my
family needed the money so badly in order to start over new somewhere else that
even though my dad had sworn the last person he’d sell the land to would be the
man in the big house, we didn’t have any other offers, so my parents had no
other choice but to sell and move back to Florida.
I do believe that my parent’s spirits were irretrievably broken
that day. That they have spent the last
20 years moving forward only to yearn for getting back, back to the land. Their relationship with each other also
broke, my mother waited until both us kids were out of the house, but then the
music stopped. My parents still love
each other dearly, don’t get me wrong…they call often, take care of the other
when hardships happen, they just can’t live together without driving the other
crazy. I think when they lost the glue
that held them together, my sister and I and The Farm, there just wasn’t
anything left to make it stick. I still
like to dream that someday, when they both retire from the fast-lane, they will
build that log cabin together on a hill overlooking a grassy pasture with
horses and cows grazing. I picture my
dad with his feet propped up on the front porch railing smoking a doobie
looking out on my mom with her hands in the dirt and a watering can by her
feet, as a spring breeze carries her song away.

Chapter 14: Leatherback and Lace

I stood there contemplating whether
the heavy tracks leading up the steeply sloping sand berm were of human or
turtle origin in the inky darkness. When
I had sufficiently convinced myself that they were human I turned and took one
more step towards finishing my patrol, when I looked up from my path to see a
voluminous blackness slowly creeping, lunging, breathing, resting, breathing,
and lunging her heavy body awkwardly out of the sea. This female’s body was created by design for
the water and not very practical on the land.
However, her instincts, passed on from her dinosaur ancestors for a
million years, were to seek out a beach from whence she had hatched in which to
lay her offspring, and successfully complete her circle of life. She struggled with her weight issues up the
berm, slowly, ever slowly. I crouched a
fair distance from her, waiting to pounce once she began digging so that I could
look at her flippers for tags. She was
approximately 6 feet long and 5 feet wide, probably weighed in at 700 lbs, and
had a shell that looked different from all other turtle species, with ridged
lines running lengthwise down her back instead of checkerboard patterns of
plates. She was a Leatherback, the
deepest diving, the biggest nesting, the largest egging, the greatest at
everything, sea turtle. What a tremendous
honor indeed, to be in the presence of such a magnificent fish.
She would grunt and groan while she
meticulously dug her nest as if she was a pregnant woman in labor with child. The undertones in her grumbling voice spoke
to the trials of motherhood with every shovel-full of sand she removed from the
deepening pit below her. Her first nest
chamber kept caving in between her sheer weight and the dry sand area she had
chosen just above the berm. She
abandoned it and moved to a spot just a few feet away, this pit also
caved. She crawled down the large sand
cliff again and I thought she would leave us, then she got her bearings and
started up the hill for a second attempt.
What an overwhelming effort to pull her weight up and over and begin to
dig again. Her third site was still too
close to the water but it was located within some vegetation so it did not
collapse this time. We would have to
relocate the nest to higher ground. Like
a catcher sprawled over home base I stuck the entire length of my arm down into
the black hole of her nest, face in the sand reaching for a greater extension,
and began to gather cue-ball sized eggs with my gloved hand and place them
aside for later. She naturally held her
canoe paddle-sized hind flipper between her eggs dropping and the outside world
to protect them from predators. I was
hoping she knew I was trying to help her and not stealing her precious cargo as
my skinny arm slipped into the narrow crack between her flipper and the side of
the nest. One hundred and twenty eight
eggs later, she finished laying and began to cover her nest. I scrambled to gather the remaining smaller
yolkless eggs as she pinned my arm in the process. She had more strength packed in her toenail
than I had in my whole arm.
Like a wind-up toy she mechanically
threw sand back with her front flippers and packed it down with her hind
flippers, not realizing that she was covering eggs that weren’t there any
longer. With such force that the sand
flew up and back about 8 feet, spraying us if we weren’t careful to stay out of
the way. After much throwing and patting
to camouflage her nest sufficiently, she began to lumber toward the sea. With what appeared to be a sigh of relief,
but was probably just her taking a breath, she headed down the berm. Halfway down she slid like a child on a snowy
hill and practically fell into the lapping tide. I thought I saw her smile. Her back shiny now from the water, glistened
in the full-moonlight and the twinkling lights of Christensted. She slipped beneath the surface sleek, black,
and beautiful and flew through the sea effortlessly, leaving her laborious task
behind and returning back to her true element.
We relocated her nest to an area where her babies would be safe from
storms. It was the least I could do to
get them off to a good start, after all, she blessed me with a memory that will
last a lifetime.

Chapter 12: The 2nd Annual Lagoon-Reef Eco-Challenge

Jon boy had no idea what he was
about to get himself into. I had spent
the last 2 months helping to organize a kayak race and was keen to test a
hypothesis as to whether it was harder to paddle or organize the #$@*&^! race. In past races we had a total of 18 tandem
kayaks entered (36 people), this one however had already doubled its popularity
in one year with 42 single and tandem boats competing (approximately 72 people). This, let me tell you, is no easy task to
fundraise for prizes and figure out logistics for a race this big with only 3
committee members performing the lion-share of the work; myself being one of
them. The 2nd Annual
Lagoon-Reef Eco-Challenge would traverse the entire northern portion of
Ambergris Caye, a total of 43 miles through shallow lagoons, narrow mangrove
channels, a portage of 1/8 mile over mud-flats, littoral forest, and rocky
beach, and finally, back-reef ecosystems.
Contestants paddle 29 miles the first day, camp out on the beach in
Bacalar Chico overnight, and start the next day with a 14 mile push to the
finish line.
Jon agreed to be my partner for the
race. Jon and I had been best of friends
throughout our Peace Corps service, like the little brother I never had, our
off-center personalities, quirky sense of humor, and “what you see is what you
get” attitudes clicked, we were like peas and carrots. I truly believe the only reason why I
didn’t give up during the portage section of the race was due to Jon’s positive
feedback and his quick thinking. I don’t
think I could have done the race with anyone but him. Afterall, only a really tight friend would
allow you to pee in the same kayak he was riding in, a mixture of seawater and urine
washing about his feet?! It was a race and on the second day it
would have been too time consuming and difficult to paddle out of the deep
water and maneuver out of the sit-inside kayak to take a wiz!
Lucky for Jon, the first day was in shallow
water where getting in and out was easy.
It was filled with twisty narrow passageways though the red mangroves
where you could attempt to steer but instead found yourself bouncing off of the
banks like a super-ball in an ADD child’s hands. We laughed a lot. Until we got to the portage area where you
had to carry your kayak 1/8 mile over “land” from the lagoon-side to the
seaside; then we cried. (My boss had
lent us a heavy sit-inside tandem kayak with no handles. They had been broken off and replaced with
duck tape. The seats were also damaged
and would slide out of place if you shifted your weight. On top of this it did not come with spray
skirts for the hatches, which would prove a problem later on.) The “land” was partly made up of mangrove
marsh that during the wet season is a foot underwater and during the dry season
(and the kayak race) was mud that would suck your shoes, your calves, and your
knees into its abyss if you let it.
Swamp muck, smelling of rotten eggs and making your hands extremely
slippery once you fell into it a few times while attempting to get your leg
back from its sticky grasp. Covered in
mud and the faith quickly draining out of my face after only 10 feet of trying
to carry a kayak with out handles, slippery hands, and no upper-body strength
through this quagmire; Jon’s light bulb
flashed. He grabbed a few downed
mangrove logs and laid them under the kayak, we heaved and hoed, swore and
screamed, slide and sunk, the bog slowly devouring us along the way. I vowed revenge against my boss not only for
making me plan and organize this race but for giving me the most ghetto kayak
in the fleet. We finally reached hard
ground after spending the last bit of our energy and an hour struggling through
the Bacalar Chico bog. To say I was
exhausted would be a huge understatement. I had arrived at that point in which one has
to reach down into herself, dig deep into that bottomless mud pit, retrieve my
shoes and my spirit, and surface with a reserve that human beings are so well known
for in trying times. Jon urged me on with
shouts of well-timed encouragement, as we hefted and huffed the beast of burden
through the forest, tripping over stumps, muddy hands slipping, clawing to keep
hold, labored breathing counting off the paces until the next break, getting to
the top of the hill and drop kicking the piece of shit kayak over onto the
rocky coral laden beach, sliding slowly towards the water once again. I’d like to say this was the end of our pain,
but it wasn’t. We then had to paddle
another ½ mile to the campsite that included a shallow rocky area called Robles
Point, where the barrier reef came particularly close to the beach. This is where the spray skirts I mentioned
earlier would have come in handy. The
waves started breaking over us, the sea washing into our hatches, water levels
rising around our hips, and the kayak getting heavier to paddle with every
stroke thanks to the extra weight from our water retention. This is the point where Jon probably wanted
to kill me, but he’s such a genuinely kind soul, he didn’t. The journey was no longer fun; we wanted to
be at our destination. It was a struggle
to keep our hope and our boat afloat.
We did make
it to the campsite, we were the last boat in, lunch had been finished hours ago
by the front-runners and dinner was on its way.
I rinsed off my mud and salt-encrusted skin, ate, and crawled into the tent
to sleep at 7:00pm. The start was 9:00am
the next morning accompanied by everyone taping blistered hands, slathering
lotion on sunburned skin, and trying to get psyched for another 14 miles of
pure hell. The winds were blowing from
the east and you would think pushing us into shore, but instead it caused the
kayak to pull farther out towards the reef.
Jon and I were both constantly having to compensate for this and steering
with all the strength we had left for shore while getting pulled towards the
reef. Zig-zagging our way to the finish
line, Jon figured we had actually paddled twice as far as everyone else, but
unfortunately there wasn’t a prize for that.
In the end, team Green Go!
(get it, gringo?) finished 4th to last to the cheers of the crowds
lined along the beach. I had an
overwhelming sense of accomplishment, for not only did I help to make this
successful community event happen but I had also paddled it, which is something
no other race committee member could lay claim to. Take it from me; they don’t call it the
Eco-Challenge for nothing. Someone asked
me why on earth I would voluntarily enter a race like that? To this I replied, once you’ve achieved an
undertaking such as this, you know that whatever trials may come in the future,
you can overcome them, and realize
your goal, even if you come in last, its not quitting that counts in the long
run.

Chapter 11: Octopus Whisperer

Her skin had been burnt one too
many times by the intense Belizean sun and she reminded me of a rotisserie
chicken. I would have had a hard time
deciphering where the wrinkles began and the layers of fat ended if it weren’t
for the teenie-weenie string bikini that looked like it was helping to hold up
more weight than its fair share on the old woman. When she traveled about the small island
padding barefooted on the white coral sand paths she was always followed ceremoniously by a wolf pack. Four pure-bred German Shepards that weighed
in at least 110 lbs a piece never let her out of their sight. Heaven help the pirate who landed on this
island. Long, gray hair tied in a loose
pony tail, she was an island character if I ever saw one. She brought to mind the last bastion of the
like in the United States; the practically extinct species of the original
crusty, rusty old Florida Key’s Conchs.
Her husband had bought this island in the early 50’s, one of 4 patches
of sand and coconut palms along an atoll surrounded by hundreds of patch
reefs. It was named after a famous
pirate named Glover and supposedly the great-great-grandson of Capt. Morgan
himself was buried there along with his treasure. The only sapphire and diamonds I found, however,
were in the crystalline aquamarine waters and in the overwhelming sense of
peace one achieved while visiting this birthstone gem.
Close your eyes and imagine shades
and hues, vibrant blues and melancholy greens, the sounds of palms rustling in
the warm breeze and waves rhythmically pounding the reef face in the
distance. Digging your toes in the sand
and never wishing to remove them from this soft-spot, ever. Keep your eyes closed and begin paddling a
kayak over to a nearby patch reef. From
the surface it looks simply like brown rock.
As you slip into this free floating liquid world and view it from below,
the brown rock morphs into ivory mazes of brain and mountains of boulder star
corals, violet sea fans wave at you in the surge, while fish every shade and
tint of an artist’s pallet are blended together and with one stroke of the
brush, melted into Mother Nature’s greatest work of art. A coral reef so healthy, filled with so much
life and color, you become a mermaid dancing with the fish, sinuously gliding
through the storm sculpted coral channels.
Open you eyes, but keep a little sand in between your toes and water in
your ears.
I had traveled to this place in
search of the illustrious and illusive whale shark, this being one of the few
places on the globe to witness this behemoth.
It was not in the stars for me to dive along-side one this time. However, other critters had plans for
me…
The scuba divers on the island
dubbed me the “Octopus Whisperer.” While
on a night dive one evening under the reassuring security blanket of the full
moon, I encountered an octopus with the beam of my dive light. He started out on the reef wall and I knelt
on the sand bottom intently watching his exotic show under my spotlight while
smiling into my regulator. In my mind I
was talking with him, as I realized he was hunting and using my light to his
advantage. He would slowly crawl
forward, perch his opaque body on top of a crevice or wrap his tentacles around
the base of a branching soft coral and then, Pop! He’d puff up like an engaged
parachute, turn from a mottled brown/gray coloration to an iridescent-neon
green-blue and begin pumping his body and bulbous head down—capturing the fish
I had just seen a moment ago scurry under his umbrella for cover and devour him
before slithering his way to the next tree stand. I must have watched this go on for 10
minutes, hoping the buddy and Divemaster I had left behind in my trance was one
of the 4 other light beams now shining onto this intriguing 8-legged creature. I must have mental telepathied my friend a
wee too strongly because he began to grope his long and numerous tentacled arms
directly towards me. As he inched closer
and closer, I had visions of those suction cups wrapping around my mask and my
regulator falling as I screamed violent bubbles forth in fear. I attempted not to panic, after all he wasn’t
the beast from the classic 20,000 Leagues
Under the Sea, he was only about 2 feet long and that was with his arms
fully extended. Still closer, oozing and
parachuting, until he was within spitting distance. I then slowly moved my hands which had been
resting on the sand bottom, but as I did, my extra regulator (which is also
technically called an octopus), swung forward as I moved backward and at that
same moment—Splap! One of the tentacled arms of my new beast-friend jabbed out
and wrapped around my dangling regulator hose.
Needless to say I was bit jilted and literally taken-aback. I believe the whole sorted incident freaked
little Occy out as much as it did me cause he made a mad dash to the safety of
the reef wall, turned brown for a better blend, and I swam off to find my long
lost Divemaster.
Several days later, sitting on a
dock lost in thought and transfixed by moonlight drifting over the seas surface,
I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye in the grass flats below
me. I shined my headlamp onto yet
another octopus, flexing its tentacled arms and eyeing me with curiosity. I hadn’t purposely conjured this one in my
mind like the last. In fact, I thought
it an odd place for an octopus, 50 feet from shore, in no more than 3 inches of
water, and no coral in sight; only seagrass.
He performed the same graceful moves, dropping dramatic shifts in shape
and color as if he was an affable poltergeist; creeping along the turtle grass
blades and straight into my heart. What
had I done to deserve being given a glimpse of light into the wondrous life of
this creature of the night, twice? Truly
a profound privilege was bestowed upon me that I will carry with me
always. These are the moments we live
for, the rest is just filler.

Chapter 10: I've Got Blisters on my Buttocks!

It all began when I told the young girl if her team might need help at some point
during the race that I'd be glad to assist. She told me to hang on a minute and
ran down the muddy river bank, before I knew what was happening she came back
again and said Yes! Right now! Well in Belize “right now” can mean anything
from right this second to 3 days from now, but by the look in her tired eyes I
could tell she meant right this second, because she was gonna drop if she
paddled one more mile. A little history… La Ruta Maya is a 170 mile canoe race
down the Belize River that takes 4 days to paddle.
Paddlers start every morning at 6:00am and camp in the evenings in 3 different
villages along the race route. It is the fourth longest canoe race in the
world. The first day is 49 miles, the second and longest day is 60 miles, the
third leg is 36, and the fourth is 25. It is not a race for the weak of heart,
it is a great challenge, and as such, has much honor attached to it. The race
follows in the tradition of the ancient Mayans when once they paddled their
heavy dugout canoes on trade routes from thriving cities now in regal ruins
such as Xunantunich and Altun Ha to the sea and the barrier reef beyond. I was
to have a seat in this race until my team fell apart at the last minute. I had
worked out at the gym on the rowing machine for hours every day for the past 2
months. I had gloves, Gatorade, and glowing ambition. I had years of paddling
experience on kayaks, and a few hours on canoes. My team had evaporated under
the hot Belizean sun, but just because two of us couldn't/wouldn't participate
didn't mean that the third was going to give up on this opportunity! It was
9:00am and 15 miles into the longest day of the race when I finally got my
chance. I jumped onto the front seat of the canoe with an excitement that is
only seen from contestants at the starting line of the first day. I had
forgotten my paddling gloves and my Platypus water bladder in all the rush but
luckily the team already had food and water on the boat, so off we went. The
team that I was assisting was actually not officially in the race at all, in
fact, they were a support canoe that helped teams who had capsized and that
picked up trash floating in the water that paddlers threw overboard. I'm really
not sure if anyone had told this to our steersman however, since he had us
paddling as if we were racing. His name was Calvin, a Belizean that had been in
La Ruta Maya the past 4 years, his teams had finished in 2nd and 4th place-an
incredible record and one to be greatly respected. My other team member was
also a Belizean male, a computer science high school teacher, who I'm sure
probably thought this race a simple task after attempting to teach 60 teenagers
about computers. No amount of preparation could have helped this white girl
when it came down to trying to keep up with two Belizean men's paddle strokes.
It was only thru sheer will and stubborn determination that I was able to keep
pace. I'm also pretty certain Calvin was going twice as slow as he was
accustomed to doing in the past, otherwise I would have been a goner. It was
hard to concentrate on paddling when our surroundings were so breathtaking. I
found my mind drifting as we passed towering strangler fig trees, soft and
bushy bamboo stands, howler monkeys noisily complaining about our presence, and
hundreds of birds including chachalacas whose raucous call almost rivals that
of the monkeys, brilliant green and red squawking parrots, and the peaceful, shimmering
gray-breasted martins that skimmed inches over the river surface seemingly
following us to make sure we were OK and when they were assured we were, would
then perch on fallen river snags as we paddled by. When I needed energy I
shoved a handful of candy bar, hardboiled egg, or salted peanuts into my mouth
and began paddling again while I chewed it down. When I got thirsty I grabbed a
“shilling bag” (a small plastic bag filled with water that costs a quarter or a
shilling). When I needed to pee, well, that was an issue. I asked the guys what
the last girl did when she had to pee. I had seen other girl paddlers getting
out on the river bank, or jumping out into the water while holding onto the
canoe to do their duties, but these methods would slow us down tremendously.
They told me she hadn't gone at all-this meant she was most likely dehydrated
and one reason why she had looked so worn out. I decided that the bleach bottle
cut into a bailer that I had picked up as trash floating along the way was sent
from the river gods for a reason. Now ladies, picture if you will pulling down
your shorts, scooting down to the front of the seat while laying somewhat prone
and holding a bleach bottle underneath you while you attempt not to rock the
boat with your weight. OK now picture it with two male strangers sitting behind
you, yep you got it. OK now envision doing this three times in one day because
you were paddling for 8 hours straight! With that problem solved I then moved
onto the next, which involved the occasional flatulence brought on by having
eaten a typical Belizean breakfast of greasy fry jacks, eggs, and beans (black
beans whipped in a blender and mixed with coconut milk). The first couple of
farts I was able to somewhat muffle while timing them with the sound of paddle
strokes splashing in the water. However, the 4th one was quite loud, high
pitched, and seemed to reverberate off of my fiberglass canoe bench seat, so it
was heard by the two Belizean male strangers downwind from me. After we all got
a good laugh out of it, I tried to explain how Americans aren't accustomed to
eating beans and fried foods for breakfast and how it reeks havoc on our
digestive systems (or at least mine.) We reached camp around 5:00pm that
evening and I surprisingly enough begged my team to allow me to paddle with
them the next day. They said their boss wanted to go the next day but that I
could possibly paddle on the final day of the race. The final day of the race
came around and Calvin said his boss annoyed the hell out of him and he wanted
me in the canoe instead. That was a really big compliment for me coming from
him; though I didn't know whether he meant it because he got to see my butt 3
times the day before or because I was a good paddler, but either way I was back
on the team! The start was anarchy. The loud thumping of helicopters flying
overhead filming us, 102 canoes side-by-side, the boat horn signaling to begin,
paddles thrashing the water, steersmen counting strokes out loud and yelling
switch!, canoes scraping against each other in a furious fight for the finish
line. Because the 4th day was only 25 miles long there were no breaks for my
team and it was a bit harder because we didn't have the current urging us
forward. I sang a few bars from the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack to make
the time pass, namely Man of Constant Sorrow (by the Soggy Bottom Boys--which
was definitely the case in my status at that particular point,) and Down to the
River to Pray, a couple of suitable Beatles tunes such as Help! and Yellow
Submarine, and the Mighty Bob Marley's Don't Rock my Boat. This crazy American
one-woman show kept my Belizean team members quite entertained for awhile also.
We were getting closer to the sea; between the tidal influence and the winds
pushing against us as the river widened, it was getting more difficult to keep
up the pace, so I shut up. When I made the effort to look up from my work I
noticed the change in vegetation and bird life. As we slipped closer to the
sea, cohune palms had changed to royal palms, red mangroves had replaced
calabash trees, and green herons swapped spots with kingfishers and kiskadees.
There were even two bottlenose dolphins who escorted us for awhile; they made
traveling through this river look easy! Nearing the last 10 miles we entered a
tributary that was a narrow shortcut and a red mangrove tunnel of love. These
were the most impressive mangroves I had ever seen, completely covering our
passage, the 50 foot tall canopy enveloped us, while the prop roots reached and
stretched out in an Alice
in Wonderland type of fanciful gigantism. With the bridge (finish line) in our
sights we began to sprint. To put everything we had left to give into digging
our paddles into the water. I gritted my teeth, my lips trembled, and as
thousands cheered I worked harder, dug deeper, reached within myself for extra
power, and came out of it on top, soaring above all the obstacles I had
encountered in Belize and looking down on them from another vantage point. I
did it, at least part of it, and it felt good--the race had symbolized my Peace
Corps service. It had its low points and its high points but all in all it was
a life-changing experience and when it got tough you just kept treading water.
After 70 miles, I now have amoebas again from bathing in the river for 3 nights
and blisters on my behind; I suppose those were the low points, the high points
were everything else.

Chapter 9: Scorpion Guts

The flame licked wildly at the lantern's glass and pitched an eery shadow of ancient dancing Mayans on the wall. All the while the wind whistled through the closed window slats and was
swiftly sucked back under the space beneath the door. It was a blow from the
Northeast, with winds gusting upwards of 70 mph, that brought with it a rare
chill to Belize.
I was hunkered down under my fleece throw wishing that sleep would come soon
when I heard a loud "Thump!" The wind had picked up a bit in the last
hour and the screams and howls had been interrupted by the occassional thumping
sound. Reluctantly, I got un-hunkered, doused the lamplight, opened the window
to an unwelcome cold blast, and looked out into the darkness. While waiting for
my eyes to adjust I could already see the frothing white caps charging the
shoreline of this usually tranquil lagoon. The dock slowly came into view and
while I squinted to catch a glimpse of the Bacalar Chico work boat I heard the
thump, thump, thumping again between gusts. I had hoped the noise was caused by
the waves breaking under the bow of the boat, but instead it was the sickening
sound of the boat breaking against the dock. I rushed to wake up Sherwin the
Park Ranger, who wouldn't have heard the thumping over his own dirge-like
snoring. After doning is raincoat, winter cap, and slippers, I felt a little
underdressed in my pj's and barefeet, but there was no time to lose as we
hurried down the spiral staircase to save the boat. When we got to the dock it
was so badly knocked about by the boat it was hard to walk down (not to mention
the fact that Belizean docks are built with 2-3 inch spaces between the planks,
allowing enough room for a narrow foot to slide through on a good day!) The
boat was already in bad shape, the fiberglass looked like it had been chopped
like a rough hewn log with a sharpened machete in a one-foot area and the
damage was making its way down the hull. With the waves breaking over the end
of the dock, splashing up through the planks and splattering my wind-whipped
pj's, Sherwin yelled over the chaotic wind for me to get the boat keys from his
room and he'd go wake the other rangers to help. I ran down the sidewalk, my
headlamp dimly lighting the way, threw open the downstairs door, thrust myself
forward into the hall and simultaneously felt a peculiar 2-pronged stinging
sensation jab into my barefoot. I twisted back to see a 4 inch long black
scorpion scurry away into the corner looking as surprised as I was about the
whole ordeal. If the adrenaline wasn't rushing through my veins before, it
certainly was now! I swore (&%#!) and ran upstairs to retrieve the boat
keys, my foot throbbing as I went. I had, once before, ran over a yellowjacket
nest with my lawnmower and the stings I received that day felt a bit like the
one I had just incurred. However, I knew scorpions could be a wee more
dangerous than yellowjackets, even deadly, if it was of a certain species. I
met Sherwin at the dock and promptly said, "Sherwin I know your busy with other
worries right now, but I just got stung by a scorpion and am curious to know if
I'm going to die soon--cause if so, I'd rather not spend my last moments of
life tying up a boat." He said I wasn't going to die, that I might just
catch fever like he did when it happened to him. Seeing as how I wasn't going
to die, I went to help them with the boat. After some tense moments, Sherwin
and Mr. Hislop had swung the boat around, anchored off the port bow, retied the
lines, and bumper buoys, and made it safely back to the dock without losing any
fingers. My helping consisted of holding the flashlights for them since, in Belize, women
don't seem to drive boats. With the first problem taken care of, the second was
begging to be addressed. Sherwin opened the door , removed his slipper, found
my scorpion in the corner, and smashed it! With its' leg still jerking wildly
in its' death throws Sherwin calmly tells me to rub the scorpion guts into the
wound and proceeds to grab an old pair of boxer shorts out of a box in the hall
for me to do this with. My only hesitation to this "Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds" drug induced suggestion is that the scorpion is still moving and
I'm not about to get near it if there's any chance of it coming back to life.
Sherwin kindly makes certain its dead with his slipper again and hands me the
boxers. When you're in pain you tend to do as the locals do, especially if
there is the slightest chance it will make you feel better. So there I was,
crouched in a darkened hallway, gently dabbing a corner of the old plaid boxers
into the oozing goo of the scorpion's belly, and rubbing it into my swelling
foot. The inards smelled downright foul, like those of a cockroach after you've
killed it; but before I was even done spreading this rank medicine over my
wound--it felt miraculously better!! Scorpion guts worked far faster than
Benedryl could have anyday and I didn't even catch fever. Just goes to show
you, Mother Nature is an extremely powerful force--she can break your boat or
she can break your spirit, but as much as she hurts, she also heals.

Chapter 8: La Gaviota

Captain Liza had been the fortunate one, the two rich white guys from the states the
losers, this time. Liza had worked since he was 15 on a Belizean fishing boat, a small
sailboat stacked with sometimes 8 dories (dugout canoes), and at least
that many men. They slept packed like sardines (and that familiar smell)
in sweaty, sand-fly riddled, damp quarters--8 men crammed into a 4 x 20 foot
hold for weeks at a time. Fishing for lobsters and conch, spearing
Barracuda and Snapper for 14 hours a day--hard work, but they loved it! Saltwater was in thier ears, eyes, and heart and with
no way to clean it out; it was as much a part of them as it was a part of Caribbean life. Back in those days, there were
fish at least. Today you were lucky to bring home enough to feed
your family, let alone make a living.
Captain
Liza had just returned from fishing when he saw a beautiful 48 foot sailboat
rocking like a horse over the reef. As it turned out, two American
retirees had attmepted to navigate the channel, but the buoy that marked
it (according to thier charts), had drfited off without thier knowing.
What was left behind was a bereft stick marking the edge of the reef. The
old guys chose to wrong side of the stick and ended up on the right side of the
reef. Because Belize
does not have a "Coast Guard," the only persons who came to their
rescue were two local tour operators that happened to be listening to their
marine radios at the time. Elito and Omar had responded to their distress
calls first and thereby laid claim to their pirates booty, governed
by the laws of the sea. The Americans feared that the Belizean
government would slap a heavy fine on them for causing considerable damage
to the reef. Therefore, they promptly struck a deal to unload the
boat, load, and kitchen sink to thier rescuers. $1,000 US dollars
later, the tour operators spent the next 2 days stripping everything of any
worth from the boat from bikes to brass bells. Since the original
accident, the sea had whipped up a storm and thrashed the sailboat against
the coral mercilessly until quite a large hole at through the hull and water
damage quickly spread throughout the ship. It was about this time Captain
Liza eyed the listing boat and made a call to his cousin Omar. Omar
greedily agreed to sell the (what now seemed to him to be worthless)
vessel for twice as much as he had originally bought it for--$2,000 US
dollars. Within hours Captain Liza appeared with cash in hand after
wiping out his savings and spent the following days lifting
his "new" boat off the reef with a barge and crane.
10
years later and a generous amount of love and money, "La
Gaviota" is better than it ever was. Originally built in the 60's,
her interior was completely refinished with fine Belizean
hardwoods--mahagony, ironood, Ziracote, and rosewood--all colors of the
wooden rainbow adorn what once was warped plywood. Handcrafted with care
and soft curves by a master in Corozal. This sail looks like any other from
above the water line, but below, you feel as though you
could easily make this your home for the rest of your wave-rocking
days.
Captain
Liza isn't fishing for a living anymore, he doesn't need to, he's started
taking wealthy tourists on sailing adventures with his trusty first mate
Columbus. This true Belizean character doesn't look anything like his
namesake, though if you put a feather in his cap, close one eye, and take a
shot of Caribbean rum you'd swear he
did! I think I may be engaged to the man. While onboard, it
was difficult if not impossible to understand what Columbus was saying at times, or if he was
even speakling English to begin with. After a week went by and I ran into
old Columbo and his cap on the streets of San Pedro, he exclaimed with
great emotion something about our honeymoon (at least those are the only
words I was able to make out.) So after my next "conversation"
with him, I'll let you know when the big day is
scheduled! (Note to self, that's where shaking your head and smiling
will get you...) Personally, I'd much rather marry Captain Liza,
for he is, after all, the owner of my dream sailboat.
Unfortunately, he's already married, to a woman who hates sailing and
fishing. Sometimes life isn't fair on the high seas.

Chapter 7: Rosemary's Baby

Now most of you that know me are well aware of my affinity (or lack thereof)
for children. I have never had a ticking clock, not one tock in fact
(even at the ripe old egg age of 33.) I never babysat when I was a teen,
like the rest of my girlfriends, I much preferred raking fall leaves for
money. In fact, my explaination to women inquiring as to why I
haven't had children as of yet (because of course if you're a woman and you
consciensly choose not to have them there must be something wrong with you) is usually that I spent 10 years raising my ex-husband and that was good enough for me! So place a
person of this mentality in a remote island beach house with a lovely
dispositioned, freckle-faced, redheaded hostess (and friend) named Rosemary
whose South African/English blend accent, homemade cinnamon buns, and devious
giggle will charm their way into your heart, along with her nearly 2 year old
blonde boy. Tellen's his name, pee-ins his game. Tellen spends most
days at the beach house naked, nude, nada. Tellin's a pretty boy
with long locks of sundrenched curls and when we recently had a visitor who
thought at first he was a she, I asked of her what gave it away? The
plainly visible penis that's always there getting yanked in everywhich way as
he says "Wee Wee." Those winky's sure are alot more flexible
and not half as sensitive as several men have led me to believe. Rosemary
regales me with stories of potty training as I dry the dishes she's washing.
She tells of how Tellen has now stepped up to the big boys bowl but does not
quite have the "finesse" that is required to aim, shoot, and
score--he rather places his finger on the nozzle of his hose and proceeds
to squirt the toilet as if it was a 5 alarm fire needing to be put
out! I myself (the one who believes hanging out with friends like
these is the best over the kitchen counter birth control you can buy)
witnessed on several occasions potty provocations. My
"baptism" into the world of potty training came when Tellen's big
brother Daniel was sitting in the doorway of the beach house shaving a coconut
with a metal tool clasped between his legs. My understanding of the
situation at the time, was that that had been Tellin's coconut hard fought and
won and Big Brother (as all big brothers do) was taunting him by taking
over his spot and began shaving Tellen's coconut to spite him. Now Tellen
was litterally "pissed" and began shrieking, yanking hardily on
his penis, and chanting in an ominous manner "Wee Wee." I knew
what was coming, though I lack in motherly instincts and before I could call
Rosemary to do something about the situation (since I wasn't about to get in
the way of Tellin's aggretions, cause after all, he was right) I watched in
horror, open-mouthed and unbelieving as Tellen began to piss all over the
shredded coconut that was between his big bothers legs. Rosemary was busy
making coconut rice in the kitchen at the time and I was hoping to hell this
wasn't part of her secret recipe! The second excretory episode came when
Tellen was pushing a chair around the house in circles, round & round,
faster & faster until he bumped into something with the chair, the chair
bumped into his wee wee, and pee pee went squirting everywhere you could see
see. Not minutes after the Hazmat team had been called in to clean-up
that spill had a second occurred, this time in the kitchen. Tellen had
sucessfully sat on his training potty and peed profusely. Everyone
cheered. But in all the excitement he attempted to be that much more
helpful and picked up the potty to dump into the compost bucket. Well
lets just say that the shooter didn't make the target and the pee made a
spreading puddle on the floor. Everyone groaned. Another day I was
walking from the outdoor shower and heard Rosemary's infamous giggle along with
a "Tellen not on Tammy's head." I didn't look up at
the time, afraid of what I might see. I wasn't until a few days
later I saw Tellen peeing off of the upstairs porch balcony and made the
connection that previously I may have narrowly avoided a "Golden
Shower!" So, I have come to the conclusion that my time with Tellen
is mentally preparing me for going back home. Several of my friends are
having babies now, after all, time is ticking by, and we are all at the baby-making
age, though for some reason I think I'll just babysit (or sit this baby out),
and let them make the babies!

Chapter 6: Fish Tails and Wool Jackets

It’s been requested of me that I tell a fish tail. I find it surprising that I
haven't told of these tales as of yet since the sport has been wrapping its 15
lb test around my spinnin reel for the better part of my life. You see,
it all began when I was all golden-brown curls and cherry-red cheeks sitting on
the end of a dock on a Buckhorn Lake in Canada sandwiched between my
four year old summer-blonde sister and my gracefully greying grandfather
(God bless his soul). With my turquoise pole, that was longer than I was
tall, my tiny fingers gripping the soft cork handle, I baited the hook with a
squiggling earthworm and plunked it into the boundless abyss. It wasn't
long before a tug, tug came along bending my little pole seemingly in half and with
an Indian war cry, I deftly lifted it out of the water at such a pace that
it near smacked my little sister in the face! I had caught me a Sunfish,
or was it a Perch? Either way it was a fine looking fish, damn near
all of 5 inches! My grandfathers giant hands put down his Pabst Blue
Ribbon Canadian beer and reached down to assist in the de-hooking
process, lest I wind up catching myself. The air was crispy-cool and he
wore a new red, white, & black checkered wool jacket with navy buttons that
were adorned with sailor anchors. My grandfather passed on his love of
fishing to me and my sister that day and since then we have done him proud by
hooking some rather large mouths. There was that one time when my sister
landed a silver bullet Tarpon off of a dock in the Indian River
Lagoon. (and they said it couldn't be done by a girl!) Or that
other time I reeled in a lunker redfish out of The Cut that gave me a
grapefruit-sized bruise on my hip, where the butt of the rod was braced
during the fierce fight. But my favoritist fishin' times were
when I would go off of St. George Island State Park's Goose Island (sorry Roy,
I gave away your honey hole). On a falling or rising tide, the conditions
were right if you could just see the tops of the submerged oyster bars.
Best times were right at sundown when the wind slacked off and a multitude of
pink shades reflected off of the glassy salty-sweet waters of Apalachicola Bay.
The sound of Oystercatchers clucking furiously as I so rudely rousted them from
their supper on the coon bars. Paddling my trusty orange-sherbert colored
kayak named the Fishtalker, said
either just that way because it could "talk to the fish" or
pronounced Fish Stalker because
it could sneak up on 'em like a tiger-striped alley cat. On winter days,
when the water was clear, I could sight the reds as their fins broke the
surface and waved in the air while they fed off of the bottom, as if they
were thumbing their noses at me saying "catch us if you can!" And
I could. And those 2'-3' fat daddies would haul me and my Fishtalker around in circles like a 4-ticket County
Fair ride for about 5-10 minutes while I laughed maniacally, hooted, and
hollered to no one in particular. When they finally got tuckered out from
hauling my fat ass around, I could easily rest that beautiful spotted tail in
my lap, gently remove the hook, and with a bronzed swish it was gone--too darn
pretty to eat. Paddling back to the ramp, with a full moon lighting my
path, its a little chilly and I button up my thread-worn red, white, &
black checkered wool jacket. The very same one my grandfather wore when I
was six on family fishing trips to Canada.
This place in Belize where
I'm currently stationed in the Peace Corps is called San Pedro, named
for the Patron Saint of Fishermen. Coincidence? I think not.

Chapter 5: Brinka

Brinka is the name of a Belizean with skin the color of Columbian coffee beans, an
Australian Aboriginal face, and a Caribbean Creole accent that only allows me
to understand a forth of what the man says on a good day. He lives
in a one-room shack on 4' stilts which consists of bare plywood, a tin roof,
and his most prized possession, a mosquito net. His toilet is a few scrap
boards thrown together for privacy and a plank serving as a catwalk leading to
his thrown 10 feet over the water where he helps to feed the fish. He
lives halfway between nowhere and somewhere, (Bacalar Chico and San Pedro Town)
his house is the only one for miles along a barren stretch of water of
crystalline blues and greens, coconut palms, and white sand beaches that would
be considered paradise by most if it weren't for the constant barage of biting
insects of all varieties and sizes. His livelihood is placed up
& down the island and are known as beach traps. These are ingenious
contraptions that appear very basic yet work like an efficient machine in
capturing wayward fish. They extend perpendicular to the shore and are
made out of sticks/lengths of wood about 5' tall stuck into the sediment close
together to form a fence about 1000 feet long out into the deeper water, ending
in a circular spiral area which then leads into a holding pen with chickenwire
used as reinforcement for the sticks. The fish travel happily along the
shoreline in the seagrass and the mangroves, bump into this "fence"
and have no choice but to follow along it in hopes of eventually rounding
it. However, when they reach the end they become trapped in a vortex that
leads to the holding pen. It is at this beach trap where Brinka climbs
over the fence, puts on his mask (or glass as he calls it), grabs his
handmade net basket, and as if he were a cowboy twirling his lasso and rounding
up cattle, he swims with his net at ready, corrals the fish into a corner and
comes up with it chock full of a frantically flipping frenzy called mangrove snappers.
This is where we get our dinner most nites up in Bacalar Chico. Course
Belizeans like to suck on bones and when a whole fish--tail, eyes, skin, and
all begin on the dinner plate, after much giant sucking sounds
throughout the meal there is nothing left but a perfect fish skeleton, so the
dog prefers to eat my leftovers rather than the Belizeans.
In San Pedro you can pay upwards of $10 for a filet of fish, but out here
if you know the right people, you can get a cooler full for a liter of Caribbean
Rum! Brinka likes his rum! One afternoon the rangers and Brinka
took off and didn't come back until dusk, (turns out they went to Xcalac, Mexico
just up the way where the nearest watering hole is). Brinka came into the
kitchen where I was eating my Campbells vegetable soup by hurricane
lamp and said in his booming slurred Creole accent (shaking his index
finger at me all the while)--Tom! Tommy! U vexed a me?!
I smiled wide and said "No Brinka, why would I be mad at you?"
(because they had left me all day by myself in the middle of nowhere without
telling me where they were going, while they went and got drunk, maybe?)
He laughed and thanked me for the rum I had brought him and I thanked him for
all the fish he brings us. He told me he had a lobster in his trap
that day and he had brought it especially for me. I said I was already
full from the soup and bread and wanted to let the lobster go free. I
thought at first he didn't understand my English but turned out his
mystified look was for the fact that he thought I was insane for wanting to
let a lobster go free! Well, that poor lobster spent the night on
the boat and was finally released in the morning looking a bit
sluggish. About 2 hours later I walked out to the dock to see Dan,
the Belizean Bacalar Chico caretaker, holding a rather large
floral print bowl with a sharpened kitchen knife balanced on it with one
hand and hiking up his shorts with the other as he waded thru the shallows
scanning the water for something. Well, this looked mighty suspicious so
I innocently asked--"Dan, are you looking for my lobster, 'Herman'?
Dan sheepishly glanced up like he had been caught with his hand in the seagrass
and said "Tommy--you name da lobsta? Shame, coz I gwanna eat
em!" (I'm called Tommy here because Belizeans have a hard time
pronouncing "A's") He never did find Herman while I was
still up there but he was threatening doning a mask and snorkel rather than a
bowl and knife when I left. This is the same man that ate breakfast with
me that morning when an old "Cranberries" song came on the radio and
this sweet Belizean began singin along to "Zombie" (with his Creole
accent instead of an Irish one) "Its in your head, in your
head!" It just seemed ironic and funny to me at the time, guess you
had to be there... Anyways, Brinka has a dog and a cat whose names are
just that because most Belizeans don't treat their pets as family members like
we do in the states. They strickly serve a purpose--in the case of the
dogs to guard and protect possessions and cats to kill rodents. One day
while we were waiting on Brinka to wrangle us up some rawfish--his dog came
swimming up to our boat and with the water being kinda deep, I thought we
were gonna have to save him. How silly of me! The dog calmly
paddled over to where he knew a
shallower spot was, stood up on his two back feet, his tail splayed out behind
him in the water for balance and his front paws held up to his chest as if he
were a kangaroo! He stood there in 2 feet of water watching and waiting
for Brinka for quite a while (longer than I can hold a yoga pose) swam over to
the dory (a small canoe-like boat) and rested his paws and chin on that for a
moment, then swam back to his seagrass patch and made like a Aussie
again. I laughed and laughed and he looked up at me with his ears
cocked as if I was the funny looking one! Little does Brinka know
that he could be famous in the states if he brought this dog
onto David Lettermen. Brinka must get really lonely living in that
shack cause when he gets to come stay with us in Bacalar he
talks and talks into the nite. Its always so quite there, just the sound
of the breeze and the water lapping on the lagoon shore as I read my book
by headlamp, but when Brinkas there you can hear him over the raucous
generator yelling about how someone stole his fish from his traps again
and every other word starts with a Fok! You gotta love him though,
he's one of the few Belizeans I've bonded with thus far which means alot cause
after all, that's part of the Peace Corps mission: To help
promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of
the peoples served; & to help promote a better understanding of
other people on the part of the American people. In other words, Brinka
now thinks that all Americans laugh alot and would rather eat canned soup
than fresh lobster and Americans will now think that all Belizeans drink,
swear, and suck fish bones.

Chapter 4: U2 Can Dance with Abandon

You know how a particular song or album can take you right back to a certain moment
in time in your life where you can almost smell the sweetness or taste the
bitterness of it. I've got U2's Joshua Tree crankin with the volume
as high as it will go, coming close to drowning out the
neighbor's Latino beats whose bass thumping salsa rhythms make me think
there is always someone knocking on my door (the one I just painted
"Kermit the Frog" green to cover the depressing "baby shit
brown" that was there when I moved in.) Ahhh, U2 (on cassette
tape cause, of course, we didn't have Cd's yet), it's 1987 all over again
inside my head, I'm 15, my family had moved to the Sunshine State again
after fleeing the bloody big snowdrifts of Buffalo, NY. I was happy,
as I am now, listening to Bono's voice strain with rebellious Irish soul.
I was happy. It was a fresh start, in a warm place, the world was at my
feet, I knew what I wanted to do with my life and what college to attend to
get there, I had friends, and I danced with abandon to U2 as I watched MTV in
the livingroom.
..."But I still haven't
found what I'm looking for..."
Then I met the boy next
door, Paul, he introduced me to all kinds of new music, The Cure, The Smiths, Depeche
Mode, and love. Ahhh, first love, I thought I had found what
I had been looking for. I married this boy at 18 and 7 years later I
wasn't happy anymore. Luckily, it hadn't kept me from accomplishing my
goals in life, I just got sidetracked is all. So once again it was a new
beginning and I started my dream job working with sea turtles on an island
in the as yet, (at that time) "Undiscovered" Florida Panhandle.
...Interject a driving drum beat
here and scream "Bullet the Blue Sky" at the top of your
lungs ..."there's a man breathing thru a saxaphone & thru
the walls ya hear the city groan"--place sliding guitar lick
here--"and outside its America, America"...
Did I tell you I had a crush
on "The Edge" (U2's bassist) before I met Paul. Anyways, I
was happy again.
..."With or without you,
with or without you, uhuh, I can't live with or without you..."
U2 was right again--I met the
second love of my life, I won't name any names, he knows who he is, and I
couldn't live with or without him. Funny how your mind works as you
listen to the soothing sounds of music. Most people never really hear the meaning behind the songs words, never dance with abandon--I
mean blackened barefeet kicking up the sandy floor, grinding hips, lit
cigarette butts, & broken beer bottles between you calloused toes, floral
calico-print sundress floating dangerously high with every twirl in the
moonlight, hair flying in your face like a mermaid's locks in a swift current,
arms outstretched and flying on the warm breeze of a starry mid-summers night,
feeling the rhythms, the reverberations, the bass laid bare over the 7 foot
tall woofers of the live band that go right thru to your calcium-deprived
bones, you close your eyes and the writhing, sweaty bodies around you melt away
and you wander about lost in a trance-like state alone on the dancefloor, then
a hand gently reaches for yours and you look into your partners green eyes,
smile, and go back into that place where your cheeks are flushed, your
breathing is labored, your thighs ache, your ears are ringing, and you swear
you're gonna drop, but then the next song begins, & you don't.
You just keep dancing. I guess that's how it is with relationships
too. I've been lucky enough to find
the meaning behind the words and to dance with abandon, twice.
Still, in the backdrop, there's
that squealing harmonica I remember so well, ..."I was thirsty & you
wet my lips, you, I've waited for you, you, you set my desire, I trip through
your wires, Woa, Yeah!..."
Well, I've sat here long enough
writing. I've gotta go dance. Always know, U2 can dance with
abandon, like nobody's watching, at least once in your lifetime folks, even if
you have nowhere to do it but in your own livingroom!

Chapter 3: Hurrican Ivan

I awoke this morning to the unmistakable crashing sound of waves. Which
struck me as being unusual because the only waves here in Belize break on the barrier reef that lies about
1 mile offshore and provides just that, a barrier/buffer for the outer islands
and mainland of Belize.
I glanced out the blinds and instead of the placid turquoise water which
is the Carribean Sea
I witnessed what we used to call in Apachicola
Bay "chocolate
milk." The sea bottom had been churned up and was a muddy brown
color as if it had been sucked up into a Liquidora (a.k.a blender) along with a
healthy helping of green seagrass, floating logs, and plastic bottles &
bags. All of which was slapping against the seawalls, expending its pent-up
energy and frustration into the air, backwashing, doubling up, and
leaping to heights that made the children squeal as they tightroped
along the walls, happily tempting fate. I looked to the starboard to
see my neighbor pulling his boat out of this turmoil with his Dodge
Ram-tough pick-up truck, a frayed rope, and a few old palm tree timbers
lodged rolling under the hull (that's right, no fancy aluminum float-on trailer
with alloy wheels needed here) as the water levels and waves threatened to
seize his "Baby Denis." Further down the beach 2 bronze men
struggled with about a 20 footer that had already succumbed, its belly on the
bottom and the engine struggling to take its' last breath at the surface.
Men dropped their Belikin beers and scrambled on every dock attempting to save
their livelihoods--charter fishing skiffs with poling platforms, ecotourism
v-hulls with bimini canvas tops, and 30 foot dive boats equipped with air tanks
and twin 150 Mercs. They throw extra line and anchors off the bows and sterns and
retie lines farther from the docks, bows facing the onslaught of
rolling seas and high tides. The boats with working motors fly
with an unsurpassed urgency along the rough surface and look as if they are
skipping like stones to the back side of the island where protection
lies amongst the mangroves. The boats with motors that don't work
get towed by those that do at a sea turtles pace. It seems that the
water-taxi channel is much busier today than the beach front front road, due in
part to the fact that the water finds its way closer to my front porch with
every breach of the seawall and the beach road only reappears when half of its
sand is run out of town and sent back to the sea from whence it came. I
can see the waves breaking on the outer reef clearly which means that they are
big, real big. 10 foot faces easy, with brilliant white foam looming as
they meet the coral heads, they break in slow motion from this far away
and form tubes that peel for hundreds of feet down the line, with an offshore breeze
that delicately blows the lip of the foam up & back behind the
curl another 10 feet high into the air, kissing the sky with mist. In the
vast distance, beyond the reef and waves, on the horizon, I see downright mean,
slate-blue storm clouds, no doubt the outer bands of Ivan the Terrible. I
hear he is heading for Cancun and breathe a sigh of relief, if this is what a
category 4 storm does to San Pedro "just passing by," I'd hate
to see one make landfall! The island is barely a foot or 2 above sealevel, much
of the housing is within 100' of the shore, docks are built 2' above
MHW (mean high water), the mangroves have been bulldozed for better ocean
views, and the only thing that saves all of this from becoming submerged on any
given windy day is that well-designed, engineered by Mother Nature
herself, living coral reef. After the tide subsides a bit and I've
stored a few appliances off of the floor in case of flooding, I venture
outside. Picking my way through the puddles I watch with a smile as the
local boys use anything that floats to ride the 2 foot waves breaking at the
docks end--windsurfing boards 5 times bigger than them, 2x4 wood planks
(original Hawaiian Style), and large pieces of styrofoam flotsam &
jetsam. The local girls wait for the larger waves and run screaming down
the length of the dock as the water hits the shallows, bulges, and barrels
after them forcefully spitting up through the cracks and coming dangerously
close to beating them to the end. The scene unfolding before me, filled
with childrens laughter and hoots of delight, only make me further yearn for my
precious 7'1" longboard that I left behind in Florida to pursue other
ventures, and that hopefully my bro-in-law is getting some good use out of
in 'cane Francis right about now.
Well,
the tide is rolling back in and the sun is coming back out, and despite the
rather large natural disaster spinning at 150 miles per hour in the
distance, it still manages to be another beautiful day here in
paradise!

Chapter 2: The Magic Bus

Simply put, in Guatemala the public transportation consists
of school buses. These are not, however, the plain jane orange and
black "Blue Bird" buses we Americans are accustomed to riding in to
school, mind you, but fantabulous black-smoke-belching rainbow-colored flying
machines that have acrobatic passengers hanging out of back
doors, ladders, oozing out of windows, and jumping for the steps
as they roll swiftly away. They have shiny chrome naked ladies on
their bows with silver headlamp accents and blue and green and red and
orange racing stripes with names like Guadelupe and Esmeralda in large flowing
print on both sides. Bundles of market goods wrapped
in painted, hand-woven textiles, firewood, sacs of corn and spare tires
adorn the top and hold fast on the roof rack. The inside is
decorated with Tweety Bird, Mickey Mouse, and of course, Jesus Christ, along
with plastic multicolored fringes and lights. Women's names are
stickered on the stern window as if the bus was a grand ship named
for the queen and traversing the Atlantic. The buses honk loud and
often and can be heard from the next town over so as to let the people
there know its coming, so they won't miss it. The audantes
(conductors) are fat beer-bellied men who try to grind their way down an
isle that is literally 6 inches wide to collect the bus fare. Passengers
hang off of either side of the seats into the isles so that they are actually
helping to hold each other up from falling into the isle way by pressing their
hips together and praying (along with those that are standing and holding
onto the above bars for dear life). The buses are made to seat at
most 75 persons with 15 three seater benches and
15 two seaters, but in Guatemala they can hold upwards of 150
easily! Whole families of 4 to 5 can sit in one bench seat and often
do. Babies are breast fed, naps are taken on complete strangers
shoulders, and you often feel as if you had just been molested by
the audante as he takes your money! The call of
the conductor rings clearly thru the crisp cool mornings above
the crow of roosters and barking street dogs. He calls out through the
din of grinding gears, pad-worn brakes, and long-gone mufflers--Guate! Guate!
Guate! Out the window you can see a day in the life of the Guatemalan
world pass before your sleepy eyes: Guatemalans on their way to
work--ladies in heels, black skirts and pressed white blouses; children late to
school in red & white or blue & green checkered uniforms,
socks pulled up to their knees; traditional elder women with faces creased from
years of toil and labor, baskets of red & gold flowers, vases of agua,
or colorful cloth wrapped bundles balanced precariously on their
heads, they walk down the narrow sidewalk an inch away from having the bus
blow their heavy loads off their heads as it races by! The men are short
and stocky and seem to be built for carrying cargo that
weighs twice as much as them; with straps across their forehead for better
leverage, they pull sacs of corn or bundles of firewood up the
hills like a Budweiser Clydesdale. We race on cobblestone
streets, by concrete block walls painted orange and tan
with burnt-red Mexican tiled roofs, interrupted by black iron doors
and stained glass windows. Bouganvilla spilling intense purples,
scarlets, amarillos, y verdes over the edges of walls and ancient stone
churches left in ruins by earthquakes long past. I depart the
camioneta (magic bus) with a kind of renewed view of the world, adrenaline
pumping so as not to miss my stop. I step off the bus, back pack in
hand and as I pass by the wonderful people of this land, I say Buenos
Dias! and their tired worn faces (& aching backs) light up and
with a toothy smile they return my greeting with a bright and shiny Buenos
Dias! and it is indeed, it is a Good Day!

Chapter 1. The West

I planned (this word is a misnomer since my planning consisted solely of
buying an airline ticket, a travel book & renting a car online) a trip
out west to clear my mind and create a relaxing transition from
one chapter of my life into the next. To mourn losses, to gain
confidence, to experience nature, and to have fun! This story is not only
about the places I've been to in the past month's time but also about the
extraordinary people I had the pleasure to get to know.

My mother was to travel with me at the onset, the first weekend of
my soul searching venture being Mother's Day weekend. After all she was
the person who created this bouncing ball of joy, she deserves some credit, so
I took her to Zion National Park, Utah. I'm proud of her
too--she kept up with me on a hike up to Hidden Canyon
where you had to hold onto chains bolted into the rocks and scramble along
a cliff face over a bit of a drop off and walk along narrow steep
paths & steps carved out of the boulders. Yes, she made it back safely and no I didn't pick that hike in order to do her in. I just wanted to witness the narrow canyons for which Zion is famous, and for that you must make an effort. She opted out on my next crazy notion
however, and sat by a stream while I gave it a shot. The park rangers had suggested that it was the wrong season to hike "The Narrows." There was too much snow melt, the
water was chest high in places, and I would have to wear a dry suit
or at least a wetsuit to hike this particular trail. Well I was
crushed, cause of course this trail is where 99% of the cool photos in the
visitor center were taken. Then I found out from a waiter that
lived and worked in the park that the first mile of the trail was paved
sidewalk and only after that ended did you require getting in the
water (& there was a stand with walking sticks at that point if I
wanted to continue...) So I did. Walking stick in hand, over
slippery rounded river rocks and icy rushing water, I was off! The water
eventually came up to my knees and I couldn't feel my toes after 10
seconds, so I hiked a bit further and took a few photos to prove I had done it,
then I couldn't feel my calves and walking became difficult, so I probably hiked
1/100 of a mile instead of 12 on that water logged trail, but if I
hadn't at least tried I would have regretted it. My mom also
wanted to ride horses and we were lucky enough to get a
really intriging character for our guide. His name was
"Ten Bear" all gruff, scruff and cowboy hat, he was not a Native
American. He told us (with some proding) that he had received the name
honorarily from the Paiute Indians for having saved one of their own's
life (whom also happened to be his best friend) during the
Vietnam War. He wouldn't or couldn't tell us in what capacity he
had served in the war but he had given us a hint by saying that once
John F. Kennedy had dissolved the Special Services, military
already in place at the time filled those positions, which meant him. He
was now enjoying the rest and peace that came from getting to ride horses
through a land that he loved. I was happy for him. We talked
politics, native american legends, and about life in general and at
the end of our ride (which flew by quickly) instead of giving him a $5
tip like my mom did, I gave him a hug, cause he looked like he could use
one and because he'd had a hell of a life.

I drove my mom to the airport and I was on my own for 2.5 weeks
until my sweet girl Amy Dee could fly out for the remainder of the
trip. I'm not gonna lie to ya, I did alot of singing, crying, and
driving in those weeks, but it needed to be done. I left a whole
gaggle of really incredible friends and a truly unforgettable place
behind to pursue other ventures. The morning that I left I crossed the
SGI bridge for the last time. The 5 mile bridge that I had taken to
work over my Aquatic Preserve for the past 8 years. My little
green truck's rear end practically draggin; like a small child digging there
feet into the sand when mom wants to leave the beach; from the kayaks,
bike, and dive equipment I had packed to resemble Sanford and Son's junk
truck. (This is where you sing the song.) At the very same moment
in time my truck was passing over them on the bridge, the ANERR Research
crew (my girlfriends) were driving the Seahawk (boat) on Apalachicola Bay
just below me. To say this was significant to me is an
understatement. It was as if a 10 gun salute had gone off while
military jets flew overhead just for me. I waved to them, got goose
bumps, my spine tingled, and I began to wail as if I was never again going
to see my family and friends ever again. It had finally hit me like a
category 5 hurricane that I was leaving. For the past year, since I had
signed up for the Peace Corps I had known this day would come and I still
wasn't prepared for the emotions that erupted forth. You have to
understand, there was no doubt in my mind what I had set out to do was right, I
had just built such strong ties to that community that I bled as I tore
away from it. Of all the places I have lived in my life, none of them
feel like home except for Apalach. I was glad that I could
travel and think, and think some more before I left for the Peace Corps. It
was a much needed transition period.

But I digress... Continuing to follow the yellow brick road I was on my
way to see Bryce Canyon National Park,
Utah. I hiked the Queens Garden trail
and the Navajo Loop, checked out Bryce
Point and Fairyland View
all of which were chock full of red and orange spires that resembed drip
sand castles made by playful giants. From Bryce I was
supposed to travel on to Grand Staircase-Escalante, Capitol Reef,
Canyonlands, & Arches
National Parks. It
would have been the easy thing to do since they were all within spittin
distance of eachother, however, I had had my fill of the canyon thing
already. I knew what I needed; green leaves, running rivers, my
beloved Pacific Ocean!so I took a left instead of a right when leaving Bryce Canyon.
The next call to my parents was a surprise to them, I was in California instead of Utah. I had to drive thru Las Vegas to get to my
destination--I saw the Golden Nugget and Ceasar's Palace from the highway and I
hope that's all I ever see of them again. I understand now why they
built Vegas because Nevada
has nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing else to offer!

Now some of you have aleady heard this tale but I'll tell it
again. I was in Death Valley
National Park, I know,
not the kind of place you find running rivers but it was on the way to them so
I checked it out. I had stopped at the visitor center and the
rangers kept warning about heat exhaustion, drinking alot of fluids, blah,
blah, blah, (obviously they had never dug turtle nests in the blazing
sun and humidity of a still August day on Cape St. George, right
girls!) It felt like a spring day in Apalach and I was in the desert, you
know what they say, its a dry heat... Anyways, nowhere in this
conversation with Mr. Ranger Rick did the topic of dust storms come
up. So I found a lovely site for my nearly new Kelty three season
tent, placed the stakes as far into the hardpan as I could, and set off to
explore the valley. Nearing dusk and watching the sunset over the mountains I
had noticed what looked like smoke in the distance, a few minutes later it had
moved closer to my current location. Well, the sun had gone down and
I began to drive back when I saw another dirt devil coming my
way, (they look like tornadoes or waterspouts but they are made up of
dirt/sand) I had been seeing them all along the highway
in the desert but this one looked much more organized and larger than
the others. I stopped the car in the middle of the road not
wanting to test its strength as it crossed my path. The wind had
picked up along my 15 mile journey back to camp and things kept flying
into the car. As it turned out that smoke cloud I saw from a
distance was a dust storm that was powerful enough to knock all the
electricity out in the valley. I returned to a unusually dark campground,
40 knot winds, pelting sand, and no tent in sight or at the site! I was
in disbelief that my tent was gone I had a brief moment of panic visualizing
it being carried off by the winds rolling and bouncing like a
tumbleweed, somewhere in Texas (maybe I could blame Bush for this too) shirley,
by now...just then the heroins of this tale appeared with jackets
sheilding their eyes and mouths from the sand's exfoliation
treatment and walking at a 30 degree angle into the wind! They
exclaimed that they had caught my tent in mid air and had placed 3 boulders in
it in the bushes to keep it there! I gave them both big dusty hugs
and hurried with them to find my tent leaning at a 60 degree angle and
making such loud flapping noises it sounded like a flock of Canadian Geese
flying overhead! After realizing that I was not going to
sleep in the tent that nite, they graciously assisted me in balling it up
and throwing it into my car. Well I wimped out and instead of
spending a long sleepless night in the car I drove a mile down the road to
the generator driven hotel. Since the power had gone out they gave
me a great deal on a "Deluxe" room and for $107 (with AAA) I got 2
glowsticks & no airconditioning. But I will tell you that was
the best shower of my life! I had sand stuck in every nook and
cranny! After I had rented the room I went back to the
lovely old couple from England that saved my tent and were trying to sleep
in their car and asked if they would like to join me in my room since I had an
extra bed and I would like to somehow repay them for saving my tent.
I'm sure they must have thought I was just another one of those strange
Americans. The old man and his middle age son said it was very
nice of me to come back and ask and all, so I said well how
about this poor woman in the back seat surely she would like to leave
the guys to fend for themselves and join me in a comfortable room--the old
man exclaimed with a smile "she's our cook, she can't
go!" and I said "well I need a cook too!" just to
prove I was
another strange American. Anyways, I can't even get an old couple to go to bed
with me, how sad is that?! The tent poles for the remainder of the
trip resembled my spine getting out of the tent every morning, bent to
hell. But they still worked enough to set up the tent another
20 times, Hallejuah Bruddah!! (Those were pretty strong tent poles
too--I tried to bend them straight myself several times, I guess I just
needed another 40 knot wind to blow them back into shape!) Obviously,
I had had my fill of Death Valley--I agreed
with them for naming it that and left the next day.

On my drive to Sequoia
National Park I
passed a miriad of scenes--windy roads thru towering Sequoias, Oak
laden rolling hills of golden wheat and family farms, and row upon row
of orange trees and vineyards. I bought the sweetest black
cherries at a road side stand you've ever had the pleasure of rolling on your
tongue! I wanted to swallow the pits so as not to waste any of that
luscious juice! Sequoia was my 2nd favorite park on
this trip coming in just behind Yellowstone.
I hiked Congress Trail, Moro Rock & Tharp's log (where this man had
built a house out of a fallen Sequoia by a peaceful meadow, I liked it so much
I took a nap in the sunshine on a logbench, it was so peaceful). As I
was walking along a paved path around Crescent Meadow I kept noticing
what I thought was bear scat (poop) along the trail, it was showing up so often
though that I had convinced myself it couldn't possibly be bear scat cause
there was just too much of it--just as that thought was crossing my
mind I looked up to see a black bear happily munching away on grass
in the meadow about 300 feet from me! I sat down on the bench and watched
him for quite awhile until a German couple came a little too close to
him for a photo op and scared him off. It was then I noticed a
second bear on the other side of the meadow and another peaking his
head out from a fallen log! We were surrounded by bears--I guess
that's why I saw so much poop! The meadows were so picturesque, lush
green, with small streams running thru them, surrounded by majestic
Sequoia's standing guard. 2,000 years old and still growing! They
are just amazing! They are the largest living things on earth; bigger
than a blue whale! These trees, when you place your hand on their bark,
you can just feel their mana (hawaiian for power, spirit) and it energizes
you. I hugged quite a few, they didn't seem to mind.

I headed to King's Canyon
National Park. I
had an hour before sunset one evening to sit and write in my journal on
John Muir's rock. He used to stand on this rock and make impassioned
speeches about preserving lands for conservation (we need to get a rock for Roy!) I bought a
book about him because I was so impressed by how many different parks I
went to where his work had made a difference and how he helped to
preserve these spectacular lands for generations like myself to
enjoy. Several factions had fought over this land for electricity
production, lumbering, grazing, and Disney wanted to build a ski
resort--sitting on that large boulder looking out over a crystalline
river, I was glad that they hadn't. I had seen a sign stapled
to the bathroom door at camp that read "Don't Hike Solo-Mountain
Lion Terrain." Well, I didn't have anyone with me and with no hope
of finding a man that
quickly, I would have no other choice than to break the rules again! So
here I was hiking solo thru what looked like terrain a mountain
lion would love--boulders the size of Belize, forest edge, high
cliffs above, and plenty of water to be had, when I noticed what had to be
lion scat on the trail. I suddenly felt like I was being watched. I
made it around the 5 mile loop without being used as catnip and it
was one of the prettiest hikes I did on the whole trip, so I'm glad I did
it! But a week later while in Santa
Cruz the charming Hawaiian girl who
was managing the Hostel desk told me about how a woman was just
recently attacked by a mountain lion in one of the parks and how the cat
had actually been found to have stalked her along a trail. At that,
I was glad that I had Amy Dee to accompany me soon... I was
happy to have Amy joining me because I had also noticed that 99% of the people
that visit the parks do so in pairs, so it was nice to have the prospect
of someone to share these incredible experiences and sights with. Being
alone also had its perks though, I met a lot of people from all over the world
(cause you're more apt to speak to strangers if you don't have a friend there
to chat with) Austria, Germany, England, Canada, Taiwan, Pennsylvania,
etc. They were all so kind. There were a few days when I'd
have extra ice and try to find someone to give it to so as not to waste--I
offered it to one couple who seemed to be washing their van next to my car.
They just kept thanking me; they were so thrilled to get a free third of a bag
of ice?! I went back into the store to get something I had forgot and
when I came back out to the car, the man was washing my windshield with windex
and a paper towel! Just goes to show you practicing random
acts of kindness does have its rewards!

So I should have made reservations for Yosemite National Park,
but I had been doing so good flying by the seat of my pants thus far, I really
didn't expect everything to be booked, and I mean everything! No tent
sites, backcountry sites, tent cabins, hotels, lodges, log
cabins, nothin. I hadn't planned to come in on a Saturday, hell, I
don't even know if I knew what day it was! So I pulled up into Yosemite's Wawona Lodge in hopes of finding a
room for the night (at that point I thought that only
the campgrounds were full, not the hotels). It looked like the lodge
in "Dirty Dancing" except with girls in neat little white
tennis skirts and men driving around in golf carts with little polo
ponies on their pressed collared shirts. I looked down at my blackened
chaco-striped dirty feet and tried to remember the last time I
had taken a shower. I couldn't remember, so I said "what the hell"
and walked into this "much too historically beautiful classy place for
me" and asked the smiling kind-faced young man behind the
counter if he had any rooms for the night? They didn't, but he
continued to help me by calling throughout the park to find a
vacancy. After several calls with no luck he asked me if I'd like to stay
on his couch, that his 3 roommates wouldn't mind, if I didn't mind them; that
is if I was the trusting sort. Now as I had driven away from the
Ranger station after being told there were no camp sites available I told
myself don't panic, God will provide. Now I'm not religious mind you, but
I was thinking of the girl I had met on Moro Rock in Sequoia (she
was traveling with a singing group called Jews for Jesus) and the story she
had told me about her running out of camera batteries and how she didn't
think she had more until she remembered this one story in the bible, God was
trying to tell her something & she looked in her knapsack and there
were more batteries--a miracle to her at the time (she told me the bible
story so enthusiastically I thought she was gonna fall off
the mountain!) Let's just say she had a lot more
breath left after that climb than I did! Anyways, I figured somehow
I'd be saved like she was, so after making another unsuccessful phone call to
a hotel down the mountain, I took him up on his offer. Now I
wouldn't normally do this type of thing but I figured this must be the answer
to my prayers and I better not mess with destiny! Besides, he seemed
like he had an honest, sweet face and I was really hoping I could use his
shower!!! I had a wonderful evening listening to guitar, watching
saturday night live, and talking to his friends and roommates about
traveling and fishing and chef knives? Their cabin by the
river was toasty warm, the couch comfortable, and I slept well that night
thanks to Chris! (There was a different Chris from San Diego that helped Amy
and I batten down our tarp one night in Grand Tetons. The sky got
black and the sound of the wind coming down thru the mountain valleys made
it sound like we were camped by a huge waterfall. It started
to sprinkle and that cool wind was whipping and he lent us his tent stakes
and helped us drive them in in a hurry. Our tarp still beat the tent
to death but we stayed dry and were glad that we had shared our
smore's with him earlier that evening!) Yosemite Valley was like Disneyworld! I stopped at all the appropriate sites
to take pictures, but it was a carnival instead of a wilderness
experience! I fled up to the rim as soon as I
could. It really made me appreciate how good I had had it with
the crowds so far on my journey and that I would definately never want to be in
these parks in their summer peak seasons! If it was
already like this here in mid May. I hiked up to Lembert Dome
and had the whole rock to myself, everyone else was down in the
valley. The trail became a stream at some points due to the snowmelt
and I hiked thru snow to reach the top of the Dome.

Drove like the wind the next morning to get to Bir Sur and luckily fell short
at a place called Marina Dunes. I had made it there around 9:30
pm in the only RV/camp ground around off the highway, so I pitched my
tent in the dark not knowing what surrounded me. I had woke up unusually
early for me--6:00am and couldn't go back to sleep for some reason. So I
packed up and followed a trail thru dunes that were 200 feet tall and
1/2 mile long to get to the Pacific Ocean
as the sun rose. There were crazy flowers blooming on the dune
vegetation, all plants I had never seen before--completely different
from East Coast dunes. When I finally got to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time on this trip I felt
relieved. Then I was shocked to see what was basically a smorgesborg
happening before my eyes! First the sight of shorebirds flying
eradically, then the school of bait fish hitting the surface of
the water frantically trying to find somewhere to hide, than this gigantic
mouth came from below and almost swallowed the whole picture before
me! It was a grey whale! A pod of about 30
Common Dolphins, white sided and about half the size of Bottlenose
Dolphins, jump, jump, jumped their way into the feeding frenzy. They
seemed to have so much more energy than our Florida dolphins, jumping out of the
water so frequently it was as if they were spending more time in the
air than in the water. About 10-15 whales appeared either feeding or
swimming along with young within a 1/2 mile from the shore! I sat there
for the next hour watching these waters brim with life
and knew why I had woke up so early, because by 8:00am they were full
and they all went on their way. What a great way to start the day!
I made my way to Monterey
Bay from there to go
kayaking. I walked down cannery row to a kayak rental shop and when
I got there I happened to run into an old schoolmate from
college. Becky lived in San Fran and had just come down
with her cousin for vacation. I asked if she'd like to paddle with me
cause I would enjoy the company and we were off on a tandom talking about the
old days before we knew it! We saw sweet-faced sea otters twirling,
washing, & wiping their faces, shy & quiet harbor seals, and boisterous
brash barking sea lions clustered on rafts, rocks, and buoys! Paddling
above and looking into the clear water of the kelp forests was
definately a stark change from the oyster beds I had become so
accustomed to over the years. I hadn't got my fill of sealife for
the day so I walked to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, cause I had heard to much about
it. They were right, it was one of the best I've seen! Course,
they have an observation deck where you can look out onto the kelp beds and
with their spotting scopes look for sea otters and the like. Well, with
my St. Joe Bay luck
I saw a very dead sea lion floating. I alerted Aquarium staff and
she didn't know what to do and didn't really want to do anything until I
pressed the issue. She then called "downstairs" and got a
number for strandings. She then proceeded to hand me the phone and
the number and told me to call and report it! I looked at
her for a moment curiously and thought to myself, I have come across the
whole country to a completely different ocean and I still can't get away from
my job! So I called and reported the stranding. But after
seeing several more seals and sea lions floating dead along the state parks of
Big Sur, I began to know how tourists feel when they come
to Florida
and see things like that and wonder if anybody's doing anything about
it? And why are these critters dying in such numbers? I really
had a lot of questions that no one could answer. To top of my day a
sealife viewing I went and ate sushi on Cannery Row. Sat next to a really
nice guy named Robert who was born in Brazil, was working for the
military, in what capacity he wouldn't tell me, (all these secret missions
going on?) and had some fascinating stories from places he had been to all
over the world (he had been to just about everywhere). He suggested
I go to the Giradelli chocolate shop down the street and get a
chocolate shake for dessert. Boy was he right! I went back to
my bed at the Hostel fat and happy!
Driving
along Hwy 1 was breathtaking, they don't call it Big
Sur for nothing! I camped at Pfeiffer-Big Sur state park but
I stopped at Andrew Molera, Point Lobos, and Pfeiffer Beach
state parks and went hiking thru the Redwoods and sightseeing. Drove to Santa Cruz from there and
the waves were going off! Steamer's Lane was overhead and barrelin there
were about 30-40 guys out on one break (most wearing booties and hoods and 5 mm
wetsuits.) They caught some amazing rides but it looked so cold I
didn't even want to stick my toe in to test it! I fell asleep on
the pebble-strewn beach in the warm sun instead. Next stop
Point Reyes National Seashore. This was the place where if a big
earthquake had hit California
while I was there the whole landmass could have essentially floated out to see,
the fault line is the boundary of the park! I stayed at another nice
Hostel and met several Native American women who just
so happened to be staying there for a native craft workshop. So as I
was peering over my book in the common area one night I got curious
and asked them what they were making. Turns out they were
weaving water tight baskets out of marsh reeds and it was an incredibly intricate
process! I'll never make fun of basket weaving class
again! The younger woman of about 40 was learning the
craft from the 70 year old woman who looked so wise and worn I thought she
must know everything about her traditions, and how wonderful for her to pass it
on! It was so educational for me to hear this Native American
teacher instruct her pupil of the hundred year old traditions of her
family. I didn't get much reading done that night, but I learned alot
anyways. The next day I was hiking along a trail that told of
the Indian tribe that once inhabited this area and bumped into the
ladies again! They were using hand-made drills that were created
from a wood dowel & wheel, thread, handle, and sharp point that when the
handle was pressed down the thread would wind around the dowel and cause the
wheel and sharp point to be driven down into the object. I was
captivated by this reproduction of a traditional tool, such a masterful
design and yet simple at the same time. The women were drilling
holes in small white clam shells, rounding off the edges and making beads,
stringing them with pieces of irridescent abalone shells. It was like
stepping back in time on that trail. They may have been wearing modern
clothes but their facial features were so proud and ancestral and their hair
black as midnight, I could almost picture how peaceful it used to be
before all of the buffalos were shot. They brought their
projects home that night and shared them with me, I think they were
excited that someone other than themselves appreciated what an
accomplished craft they were undertaking. I got to see elephant
seals sunning themselves on a beach in Point Reyes
the next day. The males were making loud honking sounds and fighting for
their harems by slamming their heads into eachother repeatedly. It
was like a spring break night at Harry A's! Every now and then the
females and babies would toss sand on their backs with their flippers, but
that was about all of the interest they showed in the males battling in the
water for their honor. From there I was finally going to pick up Amy
Dee--Yipee! Driving across Nevada was no
fun at all but once I was in Salt
Lake City I couldn't sleep. I was so excited
cause the next morning I was gonna have company!

Ok folks, so this is as far in the trilogies as I got before I had to leave for
the Peace Corps. So if you want to hear the rest of the story...implore
Amy Daniels my partner in crime to finish it for me in my absence. Otherwise
you may never hear about the dishing washing incident in what we thought was a
utility sink in Grand Tetons or about the camping in the snow in
Yellowstone...come on Amy Dee, please help me out on this one, you write better
than me anyways & I've run out of time!