STING RAYS
Two years ago, Covid-19 destroyed my hobby and left me searching for something safe to do in my spare time. So I started driving down the less travelled roads of Texas, exploring the backwaters and taking pictures - without getting into contact with people. A two hour drive east from San Antonio would get me to the ranches and fertile farmlands near the coast. A two hours drive westward got me into the semi-desert and the oil fields. Two hours south got me into Mexico - which had its own set of problems - and a two hours drive north, led to hell aka the Republican homestead.
One fine evening, I stumbled upon this wildlife refuge which was established for whooping cranes. These elegant birds spend their summers in Canada and return to the refuge every winter. Just a few decades ago, there were just fifty of these cranes left in the world but thanks to the refuge, the population has grown to around eight hundred birds. When the cranes are not at the refuge, the area around it is open to fishing.
The refuge is where the San Antonio river empties into the Gulf of Mexico. All the sand and nutrients brought down by the river are deposited onto the bay of the same name. The sand does not get washed away as the nearby Padre Island forms a barrier that protects the bay from the erosive effects of wave action. The bay is so shallow that you can walk 300 yards into the ocean without the water ever getting higher than your waist. The shoreline of the bay has vegetation akin to a mangrove swamp and as such, the area is a preeminent ecosystem. A lot of species come here to spawn and breed. Fry, in their millions, swim by the shoreline and all sorts of creatures feed on them. Larger fish feed on the smaller ones and predatory fish feed on the rest. In short, the shallow bay is a fisherman's paradise.
Well, I was returning from wading one evening when I saw the dried remains of a sting ray on the beach. A shark had taken a bite out of it, then the remains got washed up and it eventually dried on the beach. Note the sting in the picture folks, I am told that in the old days in Goa, if your neighbour had a mango tree close to the property line and all the mangoes fell into his compound while all the leaves fell into your compound, all you had to do was to insert the sting of a ray into the mango tree and the tree would die in a couple of weeks.
This dried sting ray brought back memories of a time long, long ago in Tanzania when we would drive to a beach resort, catch a seafari shuttle and then go spearfishing on an island a few miles off the coast. We would shoot fish, octopus, squid and lobsters, take them back to the island and give them to the barman to cook. The barman, who always made sure that there was an ample supply of cold beers available to us - at all times - was also a most excellent, trained in Italy, cook. He would take pains in preparing our catch and would serve us only when he was satisfied that he had done his very best. On the days when the catch was better than usual, we would send the er, smartest looking woman lying on the beach a platter of the most succulent seafood. This way, we managed to sort of strike up many a friendship.
Well, one pleasant afternoon, after I had consumed more than a few beers, someone known came up to me and asked if I could take him and his group out spearfishing. After a lot of persuasion, I eventually agreed but on condition that I shoot just one fish. I told them that if they liked what they saw, they could come out spearfishing with us the following weekend.
So we geared up and got into the sea. Just a few feet from the shore, I saw a fully grown, 24 inch, blue spotted sting ray in the sand. When rays find a spot to rest on the ocean floor, they flap their "wings" into the sand and the sand falls on their bodies, camouflaging them perfectly. Much as I tried to point out the ray to them, the newbies could not see it. So I took a deep breath, dived, shot the ray and surfaced. The ray was pinned to the sand, flapping around frantically, trying to escape. The next step was to dive again, cut off its tail and bring the ray to the shore. It was a process I had completed umpteen times before.
Well, the stars said everything would go wonky from now on.
I dived and as I was cutting off the tail, the ray whipped and stung me. The barb/sting pierced through my leather glove and into the back of my right wrist. I surfaced, removed my glove, looked into the two by quarter inch incision and it seemed clean - with no sting or piece of barb in my wrist. However, my arm from my elbow forward, immediately began to feel numb.
So I turned over onto my back and used my feet to propel to the shore where I pressed the blood out and peered - without the mask - into my wrist again. The sting of a ray has an almost invisible sheath that is venomous but slow acting. Just to be sure, I again tried to press my now super throbbing wrist to see if I could extract anything from the wound but there seemed to be no foreign material.
I now had to face the most horrible part. I had to tell my fishing gang what had happened and convince them to abandon their cold beers and take me to a doctor. Somehow, I found the courage to walk up to the happy guy who had driven us to the resort and asked him to be serious for a moment. I then showed him my wrist.
Well, we packed our equipment and tried to calculate the time it would take to get me to a hospital. The rough estimates were that it would take 20 minutes for the shuttle to arrive. Another 30 minutes to get to the mainland and if I was lucky, 45 minutes to get to a hospital in town. The driver, thankfully, supplied me with the best pain killer known to fishermen - moonshine - and we embarked on our return journey.
By the time we got to the mainland, I had no feelings from by elbow down. My arm felt like it weighed 40 tons and the ball and socket joint in my shoulder was threatening to separate. The pain killer, in/on the other hand, was inspiring me to sing songs in Gujarati, a language which I am only familiar with the numbers and curse words! Then the car I was in, appeared to stop moving but everything around the car was whizzing by like in a tornado. Every time the car braked, my arm seemed to continue its forward momentum and not stop.
When we got to the T-junction to enter the town, I was surprised to see that the driver did not turn right to go to the government hospital complex but instead turned left onto the road that led to the much smaller private hospital. I asked the driver why and he said that if there was an antidote, the best bet was that we would find it at the Aga Khan Hospital.
We drove up to the hospital entrance where, at last, I found the courage to glance at my wrist. The whole wrist had swollen up like an extra ripe tomato. I ventured another look and the colour of my skin from my elbows to my finger tips - looked cherry pink. My finger nails, if I was processing the sight correctly was, yes, apple blossom white.
I hobbled out of the car and the cool seashore breeze felt really soothing to my sweating face but like a bush fire to the skin of my entire right arm. The flesh in my wrist felt like the 4th of July. I could feel all sorts of explosions and flashes going on inside.
Somehow, I managed to walk the 40ft it took to get into the hospital, was put on a stretcher and got wheeled away, near sobbing, to see the emergency room doctor.
Karma, being what it is, dictated that the doctor on duty that day was an ex-girlfriend - whom I had broken up with for no good reason.
This is the point where, for several reasons and for several years, I used to stop recounting the tale but I now prefer to end it with the newer and updated version.
I was at a New Year's Ball in Toronto when another doctor was telling me how he had stepped on a stingray on the very same island in Tanzania. The flesh around his wound began to rot in two days and he was evacuated to Europe. When I showed him the scar on my wrist, he pointed out that it was less than a millimeter from a major vein. He mentioned that had that vein been punctured, this tale would have had a different ending.
If you google a map of Texas, you will see about thirty lakes. When you enlarge the map, the number of lakes rises to 300+. The incredible part is that all the lakes in Texas are man made. The only lake that may or may not be natural is Lake Caddo. The lake was formed 200 years ago by a 20 mile log jam in the nearby Red River which dammed the waters and eventually forced the river to flow in the opposite direction. The runoff water created swamps and Lake Caddo. Man has alternatively broken the dam of Lake Caddo or built it stronger - depending on how he wanted to harvest natural resources from the area. The lake is currently five to eight feet deep and is a popular destination for naturalists due to the high number of bald cypress trees with Spanish moss there.
Lake Caddo is also one of the few places in the world where the paddlefish survives. The species, which have been around since the time of dinosaurs are about 5ft long, have no scales, no teeth and have a nose the size and shape of a small paddle. Even though it has survived for more than 350 million years, it is now endangered. Earlier this year, a neighbour asked me to help him catch one as he was challenged to get a picture of himself with a paddlefish.
Paddlefish are plankton feeders, you cannot catch them with bait. You first have to spot one and then use a different method to catch it. The most popular method in other states is to snag them but in Texas, people prefer to lasso them. Our research suggested that spring floods allowed the paddlefish to bypass manmade obstacles and that paddlefish liked traveling to Lake Caddo to feed in its special red waters.
Most people assume that the Red River gets its colour because it flows long distances over ground rich with iron ore. Others believe that the real source of the colour comes from kamaberries - which ripen in spring. Kamaberries grow in shallow water, look similar to cranberries, but are super sweet and shaped like double donuts. The plants float on the water surface and when it floods, the berries pop off and are carried downstream. These kamaberries form 'rafts' and if they are trapped in a limestone cave or cavern, the kamaberries ferment forming a liquid that plankton feed on. If the fermentation is not naturally harvested, the extra liquid seeps into the surrounding waters, turning it red.
The secret to catching paddlefish is to find a stationary raft of kamaberries and fish next to it. Since we would be searching for the kamaberries during the faster waters of spring, we drew out a plan to lash our spare paddles loosely together to the bow and stern of our canoes. We would then assemble a platform linking the two canoes. This platform would give us more stability but there would be enough slack between the lashings to allow for the canoes to be moved closer or further away from each other. The resulting craft would be like an accordion catamaran, as the plan also was to sleep on the platform if required.
The prototype was assembled and attached to a trailer, all we had to do was wait for the spring floods. Well, spring arrived - without the rains. My neighbour had to take the prototype apart and reassemble it every time he needed to use a single canoe. We searched all media for info about spring rains, but there were none. Then one fine summer's day, I heard that for the second time in four years, 100 year rains had begun and were causing floods. This was the good news we were waiting for!
Road closures meant that the usual eight hour drive to the lake took us three days to complete. When we arrived, the floods were subsiding but we still saw the occasional wooden chicken coop, etc. being carried slowly downstream by the floodwaters. The fish eagles seemed forlorn but were standing sentinel atop the tallest trees, keeping an eye for any opportunity.
We launched our craft from the site of the now semi-submerged Paddlefish Research Station and started drifting in the current. Six hours later, we had not seen any kamaberries when I heard a drone approaching. As it hovered 20 ft above us, I used sign language to convey that we were fine and enjoying ourselves. The drone then flew off.
An hour later a second drone appeared. This was when we recognized that we were the dinosaurs. The drones were looking for the kamaberries too and the operators were covering more ground from the shore - than us in the canoes.
Towards sunset, a brand new aluminum pontoon, aptly named "Knot Working" was drifting by, so we rowed up to it to see if we could use it for the night. All we had to do was pull down the confederate flag, cut it into strips and tie the pontoon to the nearest bald cypress tree. The gurgling sounds of the waters, spinning amongst the knees of the cypress trees, lured us to sleep early that night.
When I woke up, I found that the water level had fallen about five feet which meant that the pontoon was now stranded in muck. As I looked thru the early morning mist, I could see this higher ground, two hoots and a holler across the lake, that seemed to be wrapped in 30 ft high cellophane. I knew that the sun would soon burn the mist and we would be able to see exactly what was there but when the mist cleared, the cellophane wrapped section did not. So we rowed over.
As we got closer, we realized that there were two "cellophane" wrapped sections which were separated by a blood red stream. The "cellophane" had more curves than a barrel of snakes. The shimmering effect was created by hundreds of spider webs, each about eight feet in diameter. Dew drops on each strand were producing the glistening effect. The spiders themselves were the size of a soup plate and were having a feast, munching on all sorts of insects.
I then noticed bumblebees flying backwards and hummingbirds doing cartwheels. While this was the first time I had witnessed such, there was something strangely familiar - like a moment of Deja Vu. I struggled, racking my brain trying to figure out what was producing the Deja Vu effect. Then it struck me. The place had the faint smell of red wine. We had stumbled upon the entrance to where the kamaberries were fermenting!
The next step was to set up lassos for the paddlefish. The alternative was to sample kamaberry juice for breakfast.
It was sweeter than stolen honey. I did very little for the rest of the day.
Lovely!
==========
CATCH AND RELEASE - AND PROBATION
n my book, heaven is a place where every cast is perfect, where you always pull up the ideal catch, go home, find all the spices in your cabinet and then cook the perfect seafood dinner. This goes on for eternity.
What makes fishing so much more interesting - in this world - is the cast of characters at your local fishing spot. San Antonio Bay, Texas may not be Dar es Salaam or the "Haven of Peace" but it is now my "Piece of Haven" as it has more than its fair share of off-beat outdoorsmen, accidental fishermen and rum characters.
A few weeks ago, I arrived at my semi-secret fishing spot just before dawn to find a very happy bunch sitting around a bonfire, laughing and telling stories that seemed from another dimension. This bunch had been fishing all night and balancing precariously on three stones was a giant black cauldron simply known as, "The bottomless pot of heavenly soup." Part of the catch is dropped to this soup pot all night and as such, the soup taste differs every time you draw a bowl from the pot.
The fishermen greeted me like a long-lost brother and cheerfully told me to take look into their cool boxes - to get an idea of what was biting or, more importantly, what bait to use. On the way to the cool boxes, I notice the bloody shell of a giant snapping turtle and figured out its flesh was in the soup. I had been told that turtle meat tastes like, yes, chicken, but depending on which part your get, it also tastes like mutton. Others describe the meat as mushy, chewy and dirty. The eggs, when present, are a delicacy and taste like pork.
Fishing is mainly a sport here and it attracts people who do not need the fish, but who need to unwind. Catch and release is the norm. Among my fisher friends, there are people who volunteer to chaperon youngsters who need a break from the harsh city life. I also know a group who regularly takes those on probation out fishing. They sometimes bring in a van full of disadvantaged youngsters who do not have the ok nor the money for a fishing license. At times, I talk to these serendipitous fishermen and their stories are unpleasant.
One youth was in his early teens when he blew up his high school chemistry laboratory – if I have understood this correctly – because he was bored. Another got arrested because he put his opened can of beer into his overcoat and went into a convenience store. The cashier called the police when the guy refused to pay for the opened can. He happened to be under the legal drinking age at the time. A third guy, refused to return yet another baseball that had landed in his yard for the umpteenth time. Previous baseballs had broken his windows. The guy eventually punched the officer who wanted to arrest him - for attempting to steal the ball.
Texas Game Wardens regularly swing by the popular fishing spots, keeping everything orderly. Fishing licenses are inspected, the catch is checked, counted and game fish are measured for size. The formula used is the number of days spent fishing (maximum two) times the number of people, to validate the catch in every cool box. There is a popular reality TV show about Texas game wardens called “Lone Star Law” and if the warden’s vehicle is being followed by a TV crew, people know what to do.
Woe betide the fisherman with a forbidden catch. I have seen a person arrested for possessing a fish that was quarter of an inch too short. The game warden initially started to issue a citation but when he entered the fisherman’s name and address, he found some unpaid traffic tickets and an outstanding arrest warrant for not paying the fines.
Well, a dozen of us early morning fishermen started wading into the sea thru a fishing spot where it is unclear when we are on public land and when we are not. You need the owner’s permission to fish from private land. However, hurricanes have changed the coastline and parts of some private plots are now underwater or where it appears to be legal to fish.
When you are out wading and your lines are taut, you often see your rod bend over for a split second and then straighten again. Sometimes a fish is just swimming by and hits the almost invisible line by accident. When you pull on your rod, there is nothing there and the bait is intact. That day, I noticed my rod bend over and I immediately pulled on it. I then got the start of a good fight. The fish felt like it was at least 30lbs and had the fight to prove it. As the fish was splashing and drawing closer, the area between the fish and me started to erupt with activity. Six to eight inch mullet, shrimp and other sea life were jumping and scrambling, trying to get the hell out of the way. The resulting white bubbles, reminded me of confetti thrown at a newly married couple.
I soon realized that the fish was getting closer only if I pulled it to the right. It completed a 360-degree spiral around me and I was starting to get a bit worried with its strength as I had caught a four-foot shark at the same spot the previous month.
When the fish got to within 10ft, it made a dash for my steel, rod-pole holder. Nature never fails to surprise me. There was only one object in the vicinity that would cut my line and the fish headed straight to it. This was the same move the shark had made, so I used all my experience to steer the frenzied fish away from the steel rod. However, when I saw the fish, it was a big disappointment. He was half the size I expected. I had foul hooked it broadside and that is why it was so hard to pull.
All this action must have lasted a minute, yet it was the most enjoyable minute in a long time.
After scooping the fish into my landing net, I looked around to see if anyone else had witnessed the fight and realized that there was just me and my buddy from Tanzania in the water. The other ten people had disappeared! I glanced towards the shore and everyone’s vehicle was still parked at the same spot. There were just two or three people on the shore. Then I saw that rolling down the road was a cop car with four black, shinning, extralong SUVs following it. As I watched, the officials from the cars went straight to one guy fishing on the shore. They then walk him to the campfire and then into a vehicle and whisked him away.
When I returned to the landing, I found out that the person they had taken away was the extra smart kid who had blown up his high school lab. Part of his probation deal was that he had to volunteer with law enforcement. He was taken away because there was a local emergency and the FBI needed him to immediately identify the chemicals found on a site.
The other thing I noticed was that the shell of the snapping turtle was in the sea, gently floating away.
Lastly, the little liquid remaining in the pot - formerly known as the bottomless pot of heavenly soup - had turned a luminous pink. It looked really unappealing but I think the colour was a reaction to a drug test.
- - - - - - - - - -
I know a bunch of Texan geezers who like going fishing during the week, when the cost of renting a fishing vessel is much cheaper. Their group leader often calls a day before a long-scheduled trip and informs me that someone from their group has just passed on and would I like to take the members place instead?
My answer is always, yes! This isn’t just because the Texans are good fishermen, but also because they are superb liars and entertainers.
One memorable trip called for a departure from a port which was situated on an estuary on the border with Louisiana. The area is a mixture of bayou and tidal flats and teems with marine and aquatic life. The spongy ground in the area means that no houses were built there and as such, there is little development, plenty of wildlife and excellent fishing.
A quick check of the charter firm's website showed an attractive 50ft fishing vessel complete with bunks and two toilets aboard. The price to hire the vessel was reasonable and the crew would provide live bait for whatever was currently biting. The prices advertised for other amenities aboard were decent too but when we got to the docks, we were told that the vessel we had booked had a mechanical problem and was not seaworthy. We were also told that the company had several fishing platforms that we could hire, at half the cost of the original vessel we were promised.
This was the classic bait and switch. The price of hiring the floating platform was higher than the norm, but we were there and we wanted to fish. The fishing charter company also said that it knew the zone where red snappers were and offered to tow us quickly to that sweet spot. They would tow us back in the evening or when we hit the daily limit for game fish.
The platform we boarded was 30*50ft and had a festive canopy at one end with an ice box below. The other end had two picnic tables, separated by a gas fired grill. The center part of the craft was covered with a green synthetic carpet - which was ideal to practice putting. Three sides of the platform had four feet high railings with rod holders welded on them. The fourth side had a long, aluminum, fish cleaning station.
The nice thing about fishing with geezers is that they have perfectly understood that catching a fish is the secondary activity. They are fishing, which means they are enjoying where they are and what they are doing. The geezers usually eye a spot, cast their line there and then nod off. A small bell attached to their rod will alert the closest one with hearing capabilities that there is a bite and he will usually wake up the rod holder. I have been woken up several times this way and I find this method one of the most relaxing ways to fish.
The fish were biting that sunny day! We started to reach the daily limits on game fish and then had to start releasing the extras. A few watercraft past by leisurely and all waved at us. We waved back, sometimes holding up our catch. Then a speed boat swept by and while its wake initially shook the platform, it also left the platform on a slow rocking motion for a longer time than usual.
Well, I was slipping into dreamland when I spotted this coffin floating towards us.
When it floods in the bayou, the excess water often raises the coffins from the saturated graves and the coffins pop out of the ground and get carried away. Later on, you get a call from someone 200 miles downstream to please come and collect the coffin - and its contents - before they ship it back to you at your expense. It is for this reason that all coffins for bayou burials are now made with lead bottoms and cannot float.
Knowing that there were people onboard our vessel who were more than capable of setting up elaborate pranks, I kept quiet until the coffin started to gently bump against the fishing platform. The highly polished, dark brown coffin had three shiny brass handles on both sides. All four sides had elaborate carvings and the top had a split lid like those used for a half open viewing.
Finally, one geezer woke up and asked me to pull the coffin onto the platform, which I did. He then asked me to open the top half of the lid - and I started to smell a rat.
Curiosity got the better of me and I gingerly felt to see if the lid would open. It did - with ease. Knowing that I was in the company of tricksters, I slowly lifted the lid half expecting to see either a mirror i.e. my own face in the coffin - or a bag full of imitation gems or cash. Instead, I saw the plush purple velvet of the stuffed interior. There also was a beautiful, darker purple cushion/pillow, heavily embroidered with gold treads and framed with gold tassels.
Further nudging encouraged me to lift the pillow, which resulted in one of the biggest shocks of my life. Under the pillow, was a white embossed card. When I opened the card, I saw the coffin price printed in gold numbers. The price was greater than the most expensive car I have purchased. Some people can be convinced that they need all the luxury that they can afford, when they are laid to rest.
The first suggestion I heard from the group was that the next person who died, could claim dibs on the coffin. Then the conversation moved towards having a lottery draw for the coffin. Just when this discussion started to get heated, an official looking Louisiana boat with ten radio antennas and a rotating radar started to slowly approach. It then dawned on us that we may have been fishing in a state where we did not have a fishing license. Some of the older men also realized that they did not have a son or son-in-law in the area who was a judge or sheriff. As the boat got nearer, someone with regular vision mentioned that it was not a Game Warden's boat, but a police boat.
The officers who boarded our platform wanted to know why we had a coffin on board. I could see our group leader, a retired naval officer, itching to say that we were heading for a burial at sea when a police officer added that he especially wanted to know why we had a stolen coffin on board.
Apparently, a claim that the coffin fell of a speedboat does not hold much water in Louisiana. The officers then suggested that we all ought to be charged with possession of stolen property. That suggestion struck a nerve with the more excitable ones - who partially exploded - and at one point I was sure that the coffin would be put to use the very same day.
Luckily for us, a few minutes later, the captain of the police boat hollered to his officers that he received a radio call informing him that the speedboat had been cornered with two other coffins on board. The police officers left only after giving us clear instructions to leave the coffin intact on the platform when we returned to the dock. The officers added that they did not want to find either fish or one of us asleep in the coffin when they would go with the owners to retrieve it.
That coffin was easily the most invaluable catch I have made.
Mervyn Lobo
=========
Earlier this year, I was skimming thru the AAA magazine when I noticed an article about Sea Rim Park, which is on the Texas side of the border with the alligator infested bayous of Louisiana. What caught my eye was a floating campsite. I called the park and was informed that the floating site was fully booked for the year but they had an opening for that Friday. So I jumped into my car and headed for the bayous.
The park is about 10 miles away from the home town of my goddess when I was a teenager - Janis Joplin - so I thought I could kill two birds that weekend and visit her museum on the way back.
Architectural students from a local university had designed and built the "unsinkable" platform and positioned it in at a prime spot in the middle of a treeless marshland. An experienced kayaker needs to row for a minimum of an hour to reach the platform.
On arrival at the park, the first question the game warden asked me was if I was more proficient with a kayak or canoe. I replied I was a novice with both - putting an end to the premise that all fishermen are liars. The warden then gave me the key to the most stable kayak and casually mentioned that the wardens went off duty in a few minutes and that there was no cell phone coverage in the area. She then asked me if I had a solid/liquid trash bag with enzymes for human waste. A few dollars secured the necessary supplies and her final words were, "There are no maps left, just turn left every time you see an exit in the channel."
The man made channel at the launch site was about 40 ft wide and exquisitely beautiful. There were delicately coloured tiny birds sitting inches apart on tall reeds which made the reeds bend towards the water. There were unseen birds with exquisite calling songs, there were flowers with the colour combinations of a psychedelic dream and butterflies were fluttering around aimlessly.
A returning canoeist rowed up to me and mentioned that he had been followed for the last four hundred yards by an eight foot alligator, which he found unnerving. At its highest point, my kayak was eight inches above the water. I ventured into the natural channel and looked for the beast but he was nowhere to be seen. Half an hour later, I came to the first left turn. Well, it sort of looked like a left turn - or maybe not - so I decided to move straight ahead which soon began to veer to the right. I then saw several signs posted by oil companies stating the area was private property but since the signs looked 50 years old, I decided to kayak forward. This channel soon led to a lake and the size and strength of the waves informed me that the load on my kayak was not balanced properly.
I turned my wobbly craft around and saw two, four foot long snakes swimming two feet apart leading the way to the left exit. I followed them and noted that the channel's width had narrowed to 10 feet. The reeds on either side were about four feet high and at the very most, my eyes were three feet above the water level. I could not see past the reeds and there were no landmarks. Scrambling on the sides of the banks were tons of tiny crabs. The egrets who were eating them let out loud sounds of annoyance between when the saw me and before they flew away.
A little while later, the channel had further narrowed when suddenly I heard this powerful grunt and massive splash in the water, just a few feet behind me. I spun my head around and saw a 400 lb boar - complete with tusks - in a panic struggle to climb up the opposite mud bank. My experience from Tanzania is that when any animal wants to cross water, s/he will survey the water for a long time, chose a spot and then quietly swim across. When an animal leaps into the water, it usually is being chased by a predator.
Five seconds and three hundred meters further, I dared to turn around and take a second look at the boar exit spot, but saw nothing. Wondering how many left turns I had missed, my senses went into high alert. The next left turn reduced the channel to about four feet wide. The swaying reeds meant that the opening above was less than three feet in most places and I was now a poisoner of the channels.
As the afternoon morphed into evening, I started to hear strange grunting sounds and it seemed like large animals were producing the same. I was rowing blind. The turns in the channel meant that I could not see where I was going, I could not spin my kayak around and I could not see whereabout I was in the swamp. My only hope was that I had spotted all the left turns. Messing up that hope was the reminder that I had previously turned into two, what seemed like left turn channels but found out that they extended for only a dozen feet before ending up in what looked like slides made by alligators getting in and out of the water.
Then the channels started to hold more muck than water and I was left with barely a foot of water. I had made up my mind that I was not going to step into the muck so I started making mental notes of what supplies to jettison first. As I was doing so, I noticed that there was an upsurge of different coloured neon dragonflies - flying in pairs - coming towards me. I started to wonder what was making them fly in only one direction.
The feeling that I was lost or in the wrong place slowly started creeping into my mind. It was about an hour to dusk and I was an hour plus away from the start point. I knew there was a spotlight at the exit to guide people back and I knew that the light was on. I decided to risk standing up in my fully loaded kayak to see if I could spot the site. Any quick movement would wobble the kayak and the sound of me falling into the muck would announce to the whole bayou that there was a meal to be had. But I was not afraid of becoming a meal. What I was afraid of was getting my sleeping bag wet. That is a fate worse than hell.
While still on my knees, trying to rise, I saw the top of this 20 ft tower just two hundred feet away. To their credit, the architectural students had anticipated people getting disoriented in the marsh, so they added a tower to the platform. The tower had two purposes: a) It served as a beacon and b) the base enclosed the platforms toilet.
Feeling a sense of er, relievement, I rowed up to the platform and chased away a dozen large cormorants. Every reviewer of the campsite had warned that the sunsets were silent and tranquil but seconds later, the mosquitoes would storm in. So I first set up my tent and then looked into securing my kayak for the night. While I have confidence in my knot skills (thank you, 2nd Dar Scouts), I really did not want to lose my kayak that night, so I also tied the back end of the kayak to the platform.
Then the thought occurred to me that the platform was 18 inches above the water so than no alligator could climb on it. By tying both ends of the kayak to the platform, I had potentially given every hungry alligator a floating step to get onto the platform. The solution was to tie just one end with an easy to open slip knot - just in case there was the need for a quick getaway.
It was finally time to cast my lines. A few minutes later I was smoothly reeling in a fish when it suddenly went down and heavy. As I struggled, I realized that: a) an alligator had got hold of my fish and that b) every other fish I caught would be picked up by an alligator. My second line began to run and I could see the line extend 50 ft to the water surface and at the end was a four ft alligator, calmly swimming away. I had a 15 lb line so I set the break on the reel and hoped the gator would break the line before it broke the rod.
The sun set was one of the most gorgeous I have witnessed. Pure tranquility.
Then the swamp exploded. Every creature in it started to howl and cry at the same moment and all had 1,000 watt amplifiers. The cacophony was the signal for the mosquitos to attack and they did so from all 16 points of the compass. The first to arrive landed all over my sweaty body and when I looked at my forearm, there was a mosquito spaced every half inch, biting into my flesh even though I was waving my arms around like a crazy person. Two mosquitoes flew up my nostrils and one got trapped in my left ear. Thirty years of living in Africa had not prepared me for this. Forty reviews on google had not prepared me for this. I rushed towards the tent, dived in and grabbed my antiseptic bottle aka Johnny Walker.
That night I finally figured out where Janice learnt to danced so crazily - every time she was on a stage or platform.
Mervyn
P.S. When I pulled up my second fishing line the next morning, I found my hook on 15 inches of alligator tail with half a dozen crabs eating it. The gator had been foul hooked and something had eaten most of it with one bite.
The secret is always in the marination.
Happy thanksgiving everybody
=============
A few years ago, while on vacation in Fort Lauderdale, I watched a news report on local TV about crocodiles that had been spotted nearby. The debate was if they were part of the few local crocodiles or recent arrivals from Cuba. I had seen lots and lots of crocodiles in Tanzania but what caught my interest were the airboats on the TV report. I had always wanted to ride one, so I got into my rented Jeep and headed to the Everglades.
The Everglades is essentially a slow moving river that is 60 miles wide and 100 miles long. The clear water is about three to four feet deep and most of the area is covered with long blade grass that grows about a foot above the water.
After driving in the Everglades for half an hour, I turned at a sign advertising airboat tours, but the place was closed. Stops number two and three produced the same result. At stop number four, an old man mowing grass informed me that most places were closed as the students had returned to school/college. The businesses depended on low wage teenage workers and also on families on summer vacation to keep the operations open. He advised me to head to an alligator farm down the road, that was open year round.
At the entrance to the farm was a notice warning that alligators liked basking on the warm tarmac of the parking lot and that they were to be avoided. Yeah, right! My first thought was that the notice was an excellent way to set an adventurous mood and I smiled till I saw the second notice. That one informed visitors that pets - including those on leashes - had been snatched away and warned all owners to carry small pets in their arms.
The first building on site was the slaughter house and restaurant. The most expensive item on the small menu was alligator steak with white sauce and peas. That did not seem appetizing so I settled for the second most expensive item - cold beer. A levee led from the dinning room exit to the holding ponds. The levee was about 10ft wide and at its highest point was about 6ft above the surrounding water. The caution sign here recommended that if you heard a hissing sound, the best choice was to stop and retreat a safe distance from the alligator - who was warning you off.
The three adjacent holding ponds were about the size of a football field. The first pond had baby gators and the staff were happy to hand you one and take a picture of you holding it. The second pond had gators between three to five feet long. This was the size that they were harvested for leather and all the gators seemed happy, some even seemed to have smiles on their face.
The third pond was my perception of hell. The pond itself had clumps of dark green algae floating on darker green sewage. There were at least 300 really large alligators basking on the clay around the pond and that material seemed to have scum/poop all over it. The gators lay about 2ft apart, some had the green slime growing on them and others seemed to get annoyed and snapped if another gator came close. There also were untold numbers of gators, semi submerged, moving as though they were waiting to pounce on anything in the pond. This nasty scene, with its horrid smell, was a sharp contrast to the clear waters and open space outside the fence.
All three ponds were enclosed by the usual diamond shaped chain wire fence. The steel posts were four feet high and ten feet apart which seemed adequate for the first two ponds but wholly inadequate for the pond with the mature crocodiles. Then I noticed that one length of the pond for the big guys had a fence with iron poles that were tilting inwards at a 60 degree angle. The guide answered that sometimes the gators from the wild would get attracted by the pheromones from the pond and would climb over the fence to get into the pond. The gators from the surrounds were also attracted by the commotion at feeding time. Alligators are natural cannibals and they were fed the gator flesh that was the daily waste material of the slaughter house.
When I arrived at the airboat pad, there was only one other tourist there, so we started talking. He told me he was from Miami and was a natural hair importer. He added that his best imports came from India as people there used a lot of coconut oil on their hair. He asked me if I knew of any supplier in India. I replied to the negative and I asked him if the voodoo rumours were true. Miami has a lot of Haitian immigrants and the rumours were that the locals were cutting strands of hair from people they did not like and giving them to the voodoo priests. The priests attached the hair to cloth dolls and when the priests poked a pin into the dolls, hair donors in India experienced severe pains in their head, stomach or feet.
The airboat captain arrived and I was glad to see he was a mature man and not a teenager. The aluminum vessel was about 18ft long and had three rows of seats - two on each side of the boat - with an aisle in the center. The captain's chair was perched on four metal poles behind the passenger section and was about 8ft above the gunwale. That seat offered a great view of the waters ahead. The captain started the fan and we were soon cruising at twice the speeds of a regular boat of the same size. The grass ahead of us just bent and after the boat passed, it popped up tall again having suffered no damage.
At an open spot with no grass, the captain spun the boat - making donuts which were some of the best I have experienced. It is great to spin donuts in the snow of a parking lot but it is even better to have an experienced person do them for you - especially when they can execute extended backward spins.
As we were returning to the farm, we got a call on the walkie-talkie about an alligator hunter/harvester that was stuck and needed help. The harvester was on his way to the slaughterhouse and had about a dozen gators piled in his small skiff, which had a regular propeller. We pulled up beside him and it was decided that the harvester would offload one gator, or maybe two, onto our boat. A noose was thrown around the neck of the top most gator in the pile and the gator was hauled onto the airboat. That gator was about 11ft long and weighed more than 350lbs. The hunter's boat immediately began to float and it was decided that we would follow him to the slaughter house.
Before he started the airboat, our captain explained that the gators brain was the size of a walnut and that the shot that got the gator was a perfect one to the brain. The captain even poked his pinky finger into the entry point to show how accurate the shot was. He then turned the gator upside down at the front of the airboat and placed a wet hessian cloth on it to keep the meat cool.
We were cruising along peacefully, watching cranes fly in formation overhead when the other passenger suddenly let off a cry. I glanced at him and he had a contorted face. Everything went into slow motion f r o m t h e r e o n.
The wig man jumped up, pointed at the alligator, then lifted his right arm as in a Hitler salute. Next he brought it down to the gunwale and used it to leap 20ft into the water. I looked towards the gator and it was three feet away, crouched and ready to lunge at me. In a split second, I spun around, grabbed one of the steel poles of the captain's chair and vaulted myself - feet first - into it. The captain, in the same split second, had jumped to the passenger area of the boat and shot four times - bang, bang, bang, bang! The alligator let out a deflating sound and slumped on the spot.
The area at the top of the gators skull, just behind his eyes, was now a pink mess - a blend of blood, skull fragments and some other ooze - but one bullet had missed. There now was a .38 inch hole in the bottom of the boat and water was streaming in. The hair importer was splashing and screaming that he could not swim, even though he had a life jacket on and was in less than three feet of water. Alligators are attracted to splashing.
The captain first inserted a rag into the hole, lugged the gator to the front of the boat and then hauled the businessman back into the boat. We then resumed our return to the farm.
As I was walking to my Jeep, the captain asked me if I would like a five pound bag of alligator meat. That stuff is expensive but I had to tell him that I was staying at a hotel and that it would be of no use to me. That night I dreamt of upside down, pink alligator balloons slowly floating to the heavens - with yellow Gatorade pouring from their skulls.
I still get that dream sometimes.
Mervyn
==========
A couple of years ago, I had nothing to do at home in Texas so I picked up my one man tent and drove into the scrubland.
My first stop was the infamous U.F.O. crash site of Roswell, New Mexico. Vegetation is sparse there and only hardy creatures can survive. Extremely hot air distorts the horizon and you do not have to be a lonely shepherd to imagine aliens and UFOs flying around. There is very little economic activity in the area although the town itself is a pilgrimage spot of sorts. As with all pilgrimage spots, a few businesses in the town try and make some money by selling cheap souvenirs to believers and curiosity seekers.
A few hours drive north is the city of Albuquerque which markets itself as the, "Hot air balloon capital of the world." As it so happened, the annual hot air balloon fest was taking place - so I hopped onto one. It is a real pleasure to be in the air and see 200+ balloons - of all shapes and colours - drifting in the air. It is especially satisfying to see a pink balloon, shaped like a pig, flying beside you. I did not know until that day that the Rio Grande began in nearby Colorado. The balloon flight was my first domestic crossing of the Rio Grande and the captain insisted on dipping the wicker basket in the river. This meant that my record of getting wet every time I crossed the Rio Grande - which included walking, driving thru, horseback riding and on a one rower, ten passenger oar boat - remained intact.
The first chore after the balloon ride was to make my wallet great again. I stopped at the nearest drive thru, inserted my card into the ATM and two metal covers thrusted down almost slicing off my finger tips. My card was trapped in the belly of the beast! A frantic call to my bank got the promise that they would send me a new card overnight - to my address in Texas. Then they gave me the assurance that all I had to do was walk into any branch with my drivers license and they would advance me all the cash I wanted. However, it was Friday evening and the only branch open on Saturday - until noon - was a two hour drive away.
As I was putting away my phone, an advert popped up for the "Things to do" in the area. I noticed that there were ancient cliff dwellings just a few hours drive away. Half my entertainment budget while a teenager in E. Africa was consumed by cowboy movies. Vistas of native American cliff dwellings have enraptured me ever since. So I set the destination on my phone app and started driving. The Puebloan cliff dwellings were a site to behold! While I always thought they were on high cliffs, the dwellings I saw were more on an opening on the side of a gorge, than on a cliff. The stream way below the dwellings provided both water and food as buffaloes and other animals were easier to trap in the gorge.
What caught my attention next was a park broacher with a picture of a panorama on a Navajo reservation. The terrains shown were straight out of the movie, "Mackenna's Gold." There were delightfully named, red, wind hewn, astonishingly sculptured buttes - standing tall - a thousand feet above the surrounding dessert. My GPS calculated a five hour drive to the location but the brochure also warned that the roads were scarcely travelled and that the area was so dry that ol' turkey buzzards there sometimes built their nests out of pieces of barbed wire.
I started driving and had not seen a car for an hour when my cell phone signal died. The area is thinly populated and the people there are poor - so poor that I later found out that some could only afford tumbleweed as pets. I figured out that no phone company was going to provide cell service where there were no paying customers but 30 minutes later, I got a bigger surprise. My car's Garmin device stopped working! Garmin maps work on satellite signals and this was the first time I was in the US without satellite coverage. I looked for smoke signs or signs of habitation near the horizon, but those too were missing.
The plan "B" now was to drive down the road till I came to a gas station and then ask for directions. Well, there were no gas stations to be seen either but I did see a sign saying five miles to the Four Corners Monument. This monument is a little brass plaque in the ground where you can stand on one foot and simultaneously be in Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico.
A cornbread vendor at the site informed me that it was 60 miles to my next destination and when I got back into the car, I saw that I had enough fuel for about 90 miles. I reached the reservation just after dusk and even though I saw the petrol station/trading post/convenience store at the highway turnoff, I decided to drive straight to the campsite as the brochure warned that the tent sites were snapped quickly. I spent my last $10 paying for the site and pitched my tent in the darkness.
The next morning, all the campers woke up to a million dollar view. Every childhood fantasy of native American/cowboy desert landscape had come true. People were stunned into silence and drank deeply from the dawn's light. Then the desert sun slowly began to show its power and I decided to pack and head to the next destination. As soon as I started my engine, the fuel warning light started to blink. That light starts blinking when there is less than 15 miles of fuel left. I estimated that the fuel station was 5 miles away - so I was not worried. I got to the station only to find out that there were no credit card facilities at the pump. Then the cashier told me that there were no cell towers in the area so I had to pay cash for everything. He also mentioned that the next petrol station that accepted credit cards was 75 miles away.
I returned to my car and found $4.10 in the nook where I keep coins to feed parking meters. Fuel at the station was $4.05 per gallon and I needed at least three gallons to reach the credit card friendly station.
In a flash, I had gone from someone who experienced a million dollar dawn to a character in a spaghetti western who had to beg for a few dollars more. I looked back at the gas station office and saw a few people sitting seemingly without purpose on a dusty, wooden bench outside. They did not look like they had any spare change so I rummaged through the car to find something to sell. The only thing I could find was the bag containing my fresh water fishing equipment.
I reasoned that I could sell the bag with two telescopic rods and a bunch of fishing lures for $10, so I approached the first man on the bench and told him my predicament. The old man nodded and kept quiet. Then he gently asked me if I liked fishing. I told him that I loved fishing. He kept quiet again and after a long pause informed me that his son would arrive soon and he would ask him to take me fishing. Now, I usually pay a reasonable amount for a guide to take me fishing while on vacation. I would pay a decent amount to anyone who could take me fishing in the desert but here was someone willing to take me fishing for free, so I jumped at the offer.
The son soon rode in, in faded blue 1960 Ford F-150 truck. The first thing I noticed was that the truck had its original tires. They were so bald, it was funny. The second thing I noticed was that there was a saddle where the passenger seat should have been. Then I ascertained that the brakes worked sometimes. Five miles from the station sat a bridge - spanning a canyon - with one of the highest drops I have ever seen. The Grand Canyon starts in the same area and where the earth is eroded, the gorges are real deep.
My guide took the exit just before the bridge and started to drive down the gorge. I noticed with trepidation that the exit was named, "Last cutoff." As we zig zagged down the switchback road, he saw how tense I was and tried to reassure me that the spot was a sacred place for the tribe and no one would ever get harmed there. At first, I kept promising myself that if I returned alive, I would write a ballad about the descend. Then I shut my eyes.
The guide stopped his vehicle about 50ft above the river level and we got out. I immediately noticed a yellow reflective sign above us. It had a broken arrow printed on it and the arrow was pointing to some twigs/grass debris on the columns of the bridge. I asked my guide if that mark was the flood level in spring time. The young man said, "No, that usually is the mark from flash floods." As we were sliding down towards the river, the young man asked me to stay clear off the bridge. When we reached the river level, I asked him what bait we were going to use.
Well, the young man explained in his slow, peaceful voice that usually a person went fishing and if the gods blessed him, the fisherman would take his catch to the market and get some money which he would use to buy the essentials. He revealed that the fishing trip we were on, we would eliminate the need for fish and instead, we would be fishing for money.
He further explained that the area was a natural pass for the tribe in the old days and there was a year when the flood waters split at the spot, forming a passage that allowed his people to cross safely onto higher ground. As a result, everyone native to the area would throw a few coins - for good luck - into the river when they passed on the bridge high above.
The young man then pulled out an 18 ft long iron pole that was hidden in the shrubs. At the end of the pole was a net the size of a teapot. About a hundred yards south of the bridge, he showed me a whirlpool about 20ft wide. In the whirlpool, was a 8ft log spinning faster than the spoon that one stirs a cup of tea with when s/he is late for work.
The guide told me to coax the pole along the edges of the whirlpool and dig out coins that had gathered there. My first try got me a half a teapot of coins. Yes, I had a fistful of dollars. I looked at the young man and he looked at me. Then he gently said, "Take what you need." He did not say take 'only' what you need but the message was clear. So I picked out $8.00 in quarters.
The last silver coloured coin in my hand was the size of a dime but was stamped, "ONE CENT." I turned it over and it had 1944 stamped on the other side. That coin was worth a fortune.
I looked at the young man again - and he looked at me.
===============
BORDERLINE MEMORY
After flowing for 3,000 kms, the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico with a whimper. The river is not navigable for most of its course and its delta consists of endless shallow channels and marshes. In addition to the resident fish and insects - large migratory birds, turtles and other spawning creatures visit this ecosystem. South Padre Island is on the northern edge of the delta. The island starts about 5 miles from the border and is a popular holiday and fishing area. I make an annual pilgrimage to the island with some fishing friends.
A few weeks ago, our gang of four found out on arrival at S.P.I. late one afternoon that there were extraordinary low tides. Amazingly, fishermen were wading all over the two to five mile long bay which is usually six to seven feet deep and with the exception of one channel, the waters were perfectly still. With no fishing to be had for the day, we decided to visit the Unknown Spot. The Unknown Spot has a large bar, shaped like the number eight. The bar has a coconut thatched roof, no walls and instead of bar stools, it has one man swings. The swinging motion enhances the effects of alcohol which leads to some interesting results.
As the sun began to set, the bay looked inviting enough for a swim. Well, the deepest spot we could find had three feet of water and was no fun. While returning to the resort, the infinity pool called. When we entered, the pool area was filled with people in swimming costumes and some had already started boarding for a bay cruise.
We soon found out that one of the local oil exploration firms was having a public relations event and we were happy enough that we decided to crash it. After all, there is a saying that you have become old when you cannot gate crash a party. We boarded the small cruise boat and it sailed for just forty five minutes before it got stuck. We were in the bay, about 200 yards west of South Padre Island and the mainland was about five miles to the west. To the north lay an endless bay almost devoid of water. To the south was the delta of the Rio Grande. After half an hour of no movement, one of the fishermen, Tony Yu, told me that he had a pay-per-view fight coming on at midnight - which he had paid for - so he was going to wade ashore, walk the few miles of absolutely dark shoreline where the State Park was and head for the bright lights of the resort.
I pointed out to him that we were on a vessel with free drinks, free food, good music and that the tide was coming in, which was sure to refloat the boat. I reasoned with him that the boat could return to the resort before he did. Convinced that I did a good job with my reasoning, I rejoined the party.
Well an hour passed and Kenny Rogers’, “You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucile” was playing when I heard someone singing loudly and off key, “You picked a fine time to leave me, loose wheel.” Only Tony Yu uses those words for the song and his voice felt like he was not on the boat but overboard! So I looked. Tony Yu was sitting in a flimsy, plastic, luminescence green kayak. Trailing him, facing in the opposite direction were three other luminescence green kayaks bunched together. Tony Yu was moving backwards. He also had the look on his face of a St. Bernard who had just found someone buried in an avalanche.
We later found out that he had gone ashore, found the kayaks and come back to rescue us. Tony Yu insisted we join him on the kayaks. Finally, his older brother, Tony Double-Yu, muttered, “Maybe this will be the only chance I get in my life to leave a marooned ship” and started to join his brother. What convinced me to join them was Tony Yu’s next comment. He said, “First lets make a pact not to turn into cannibals this weekend.” Then he pointed to a cockerel sitting on one kayak and while he was no KFC, we felt there was an option for the next 24 hours.
As we drifted away from the cruise boat, it became clear that the tide was coming in at such a pace that our bare hands did not have the power to take us to the closer shore. I will always remember to check for a paddle before I get onto any other kayak. At the time, it felt like a good idea to let nature take its course and drift with the tide. The cockerel sat – almost like our pilot - where all four boats were tied together and never looked back. We soon realized that we were drifting towards the marshes at the mouth of the Rio Grande.
The first luminescent green turtle to pass by was a monster, about 5 ft long. It slowly swam alongside, checked us out and then glided into the darkness. Then we drifted into the fouler smelling shallows of the marsh and saw known and unidentified creatures, both big and small, crisscross the area. They all left a greenish phosphorescence trail in the water. Alligators in this area are on the smaller side. They float silently on the water but their eyes are as big as saucers. Their eyes glow red at night and when they spot you, they will shut their inner eyelid which stops the red glow and makes them seem to disappear. In the darkness, the green trails and the red stop lights contrasted beautifully.
Then the real light show began. Tiny luminous creatures appeared in the current and began to dance in swirling patterns. The light show got stronger with the strength of the incoming tide and soon turned into an aurora borealis – only this one was underwater. We were marsh mellowed.
While it was getting cooler all the time, the temperatures suddenly began to fall and it became quite chilly. After what seemed to be an endless time of drifting in circles, we spotted a brightly lit shrimp boat heading in our direction. For the first time in history, you could see four inebriated fishermen standing with perfect balance in a flimsy kayak, waving and shouting. As the shrimp boat approached closer, it appeared that there was no one aboard but the radio was blasting the Birdie song.
Tony Double-Yu suggested we provoke the cockerel which would crow and alert the crew members where we were. About 80 ft before it got to us, the shrimp boat started to turn right. We realized we were in the middle of the fishing area that the captain had targeted and that he was only looking towards the left to see how far off his nets extended.
We were heading into a trap!
At that point, Tony Yu let out a scream that made two species of migratory birds turn around and head back north.
The cockerel woke, pooped and flew in the direction of Cuba.
Luckily, our kayaks soon got separated from the rope and the currents - which were in charge again - started taking us due south and into Mexico.
This was the best possible scenario as we were almost sure to get discovered by a Coast Guard vessel’s radar and get picked up. Well, we were not. Instead they sent out a helicopter to figure out what was going on. Not a Coast Guard helicopter but one from a private space exploration firm which had scheduled a dawn launch from a pad a thousand feet away.
The investigators er, our rescuers insisted we leave the kayaks on the shore and we were happy to do so.
All the kayaks were foul smelling by then.
Mervyn
-----------
ACCIDENTAL ZANZIBAR FISHING TRIP
Approximately 40 miles due east of Dar es Salaam lies a desolate speck of an isle called Latham. This isle juts out just a few feet above the Indian Ocean and if you leave Dar by boat and miss Latham, the next land east is Indonesia. Latham always has large birds circling above it. When these birds are not circling, they are shrieking and dive bombing for food. The vegetation on the island is sparse, gnarled and the rocks are covered with guano. This contrasts sharply with the spectacular reef that surrounds the isle as it teems with every type of marine life imaginable.
At low tide, the coral reefs are just three or four feet below the surface. This means that when the sea is rough, a swell easily lifts a boat 8 ft and then crashes it onto the coral, which effortlessly rips up the hull. The reef, which is of the lightest hue of blue by the shore, gets progressively darker with depth and ends with a navy blue colour by edge - where it drops sharply at an underwater cliff into the depths of the ocean.
This underwater cliff causes ocean currents in the area to rise and mix. The mixing of currents, with the nutrients they toss around, makes the area around Latham a haven for feeding and thus a haven for the sports fisherman. Every fish species found in the area is twice as big and sometimes three times as big as the largest of that species found in the fish markets on the mainland.
In the 1980s, a bunch of my friends and I would head to Latham on fishing expeditions whenever we had gathered enough people to share the expense of hiring a boat. The game plan was simple. The Seafari's boat would leave its base on a Friday morning and moor at the habour front. Everyone going on the trip would leave work early, walk down to the jetty and if all went well, we would exit Dar harbour at 5.00 pm on the dot. With the right current and wind, we would see the birds flying over Latham just before sunset.
In the days before GPS, we always hired a local fisherman as a guide. The local fisherman would navigate on his knowledge of the month of the year, the wave direction, the wind and the currents. The guide would get us to Latham by passing over some of the best fishing lanes. This meant that we usually had some fun on the way, allowing the least experienced person on board the chance to reel up dinner for all of us. Hooking and landing a good sized fish though, would slow the journey and at times we would arrive at Latham just past dusk. If the seas turned choppy, we were in for a topsy-turvy night on board.
One Friday morning I packed my sleeping bag and headed to work confident that the weekend fishing trip would be a real adventure. Little did I know then, how much of an adventure it would be! To kick off, it started raining the moment I stepped out of the house and I had a roofless car at the time. It rained constantly for the next five hours and then a cold wind picked up. As I started heading down to the jetty, I observed dark, heavy clouds rolling ominously from the interior and heading towards the sea. That, alone, should have been enough of a warning not to head out as clouds always rolled in the opposite direction.
Despite this anomaly, there were two or three 'extras' waiting by the boat. These 'extras' were not fishermen but those who liked to come out on a fishing trip whenever we had a spare spot. I recognized one of the 'extras' as a real clown and another as a person who could hold his drink. What we were not sure of though, was if these extras had good sea legs. Needless to say, those without sea legs get seasick easily and it is no fun having pale faced strangers on board begging for the boat to return - the moment their stomachs start churning.
At 5.00 pm we headed out into the damp darkness. The sun had disappeared without setting and a choppy sea, complete with whitecaps, greeted us at the harbour exit. The wind and the whitecaps were producing a cold spray which immediately seemed to trouble the extras on board. Twenty minutes - instead of the usual hour - outside Dar, the city lights disappeared. This was also when the big waves started and really began to swirl the boat. Instead of the engine driving the boat straight, all it could manage was to drive the boat in a twisted, zig zag motion against the waves. There is a strange group of people who will reach for a drink when the sea gets rough and believe me, that little boat was filled with strange people.
Four miserable hours later with all the passengers thoroughly wet and shivering, the boat was aimlessly tossing around in a pitch dark section of the Indian Ocean. Since the clock screamed that we should have been at Latham hours ago, one of the inebriated ones mustered enough courage to ask our guide when we would to get to Latham. To our surprise the guide replied, "I think we are lost, the waves are coming from the wrong direction."
While I was digesting this news, the inebriated one decided to take it one step er, higher. He asked the captain of the boat how much longer he thought it would take to get there. Well, the captain of the Govt owned boat said that he had not brought along his compass and did not know where we were! We later would find out that the captain had also forgotten to bring along a full tank of fuel and the correct number of life jackets necessary for that boat.
Towards midnight, when it came abundantly clear that we were hopelessly lost, one of the two still sober passengers aboard begged that we head back to Dar. The guide, a man of few words, nodded and pointed to the captain to keep heading in the direction the boat was going. No one had realized that the guide had made the decision to head home some time prior and what we could not find now - believe it or not - was the African mainland.
Two hours later, most aboard were in a restless sleep. Those who were not, were weeping. The boat was now starting to twist and spin on every wave. The lights on board had long gone past the flicker stage and were intermittent. The wind - blowing through the boat - was almost at howling speed.
The pilot and the captain remained calmly on their seats and behaved as though they went through such rough seas every day of the week. Despite the loud music and the howling wind, they just kept their eyes focused ahead. The thought then struck me that we could be in the busy shipping lane leading to the Dar es Salaam harbour and visibility was just 20 ft. Imagination and the fear it introduces, can be more dangerous than reality but it was reality that struck the next blow.
Out of nowhere, there was a sudden, loud thud. The propeller then began to spin agonizingly slower and sounded two octaves lower. The captain informed us that we had struck semi-submerged debris, maybe a log. The propeller sounded lower because parts of the blades had been ripped off. In order to compensate for the power lost by the damaged propeller, the captain increased the revs on the diesel engine. A few minutes later the engine began to smoke.
Inhaled diesel smoke mixed with sea spray produces some interesting results. Some people get light headed, others feel like throwing up. Yet others decide to curl into a ball. Those who did curl up, were trying to shut off the world while lying in a wet sleeping bag. This miserable situation carried on for a few hours more.
Close to dawn, when we were nearly wiped out with exhaustion, I heard the pilot tell the captain that he could hear the sound of waves crashing onto land. I stretched my tired senses but could not see nor hear anything in the pitch darkness. The pilot then informed us that he felt we were too close to land and asked to drop anchor and turn off the engine.
When you start a diesel engine, it will normally run uncompromised until you switch it of. When you turn off a diesel engine, there are a plethora of reasons why it will not start again. Some reasons are water in the diesel, a dead battery or even wet electrical connections. Despite this, we dropped anchor and the engine was switched off.
As dawn crept in, we realized that we were just fifty yards away from an exposed coral reef. Had we tried to go any further, we would have destroyed the boat. More intriguingly, the relief of the land, slowly appearing in the distance, was not familiar to any of us. The captain, the pilot and others on board who were very familiar with the Tanzanian coastline could not even venture to guess where we were.
A short time later, we spotted a two man fishing canoe heading out to sea. The fishermen were hailed over and they informed us that we were off the southeast coast of Zanzibar. We were about 80 nautical miles from where we thought we would be. As we had the boat for two more days, it was decided to head to a Pungume island - known for its crabs and lobsters and anchor there.
The captain started to navigate the boat between the reefs, heading to an absolutely gorgeous, white sand beach. Pungume has a large lighthouse on it and I could imagine my granddad watching it constantly while on duty, making sure that the coastal steamer he was in never got too close to the treacherous rocks around the island - and here I was, just two generations later, actively looking for a passage into the hazardous place. We all jumped off at the beach, very, very happy to be on land again. The captain then took the boat to where he felt the water would be deep enough at the lowest tide, dropped anchor and swam ashore.
This was when the fun really began. A posse was sent to scavenge the beach for driftwood. In a few minutes, one of the posse members spotted something in the sand and pulled out a bleached human skull. He was told, in no uncertain terms, to drop the skull exactly where he found it. The next big surprise came when we opened the 50 liter container of fresh water. It was discovered that someone had filled a plastic container that was normally used for diesel, with fresh water. The liquid that poured out of the container smelt like diesel and felt like it could be set on fire.
Nonetheless, a breakfast campfire was lit, a large blue tarp was rigged over some low hanging branches and masala tea was prepared and served. Since the corals we observed while approaching the island were among the most pristine we had ever seen, the divers in the group decided to swim out and spear lunch for the expedition. That dive was one of the most fruitful I have ever had and in a short time we had a bounty of lobsters, large crabs and rock cods. When we returned to shore, the few people who had decided to attack the cold beers instead of tailing the divers, happily announced that they were the volunteer barbecue chefs for the day. They also informed us that their qualifications for being so, was that they had peeled an entire bag of onions and that they were weeping with joy! Even though it was obvious that were joyous for a different reason, the catch was handed over with instructions that it should not be served until the rest of the gang caught up to their level of happiness.
Just about the time lunch was served, the weather, which was kind of iffy, began taking a turn for the worse. Since we had a damaged propeller, the decision was made to leave at 3.00 pm for the two hour journey home. At 3.00 pm, the captain swam to the boat and discovered that the engine refused to start. Afternoon passes, evening passes, it starts raining and the diesel engine just refuses to start! The radio on board did not function either and now no one in Dar could contact us. We were left with no choice but to sleep in the drizzle - amongst the biting sand flies - for the night.
As we were foraging for firewood the next morning, a medical doctor was spotting more human bones on the beach. He informed us that there were the bones of at least two people, maybe three and figured that they must have drowned and their bodies got washed ashore. The bodies would then have been picked clean by crabs and other sea creatures and that was why only the larger bones - scattered in the sand above the high tide line - were to be seen.
Not all were fully comfortable with this situation. The more religious in the group were afraid that we were disturbing the spirits. The not so religious introduced the idea that maybe this was the beach where people came to dispatched their enemies.
By now, the vegetarians in the group were very hungry and extremely thirsty. They had brought along a dozen cans of condensed tomato soup, but no water. The only water available was a few bottles of soda water. As the discussion grew on how to prepare the soup, someone suggested that people usually add salt to their soup and that if we used a 50/50 combination of soda and sea water, we would get twice as much soup. Duh! If there is one thing to remember from this tale, it is that agreeing to drink anything laced with sea water - may be the last dumb idea you will agree to. If you do not get fresh water after that, you go delirious with thirst.
Thirty minutes after soup was served, the soup drinkers were behaving so discordantly that it was clear the soup was special. A short while later, they were dancing in the rain with their tongues held out - trying to capture any fresh water they could. At the stroke of midnight, all those who had tasted the soup claimed they could hear a low growling sound. Then they started to hear some sputtering. The non-soup drinkers could not hear any of those sounds. Finally someone associated the sounds with that of a diesel engine.
At first, the sober ones (myself not included) thought someone was borrowing the boat. Then the captain hollered out from the darkness saying all was well. He had removed the diesel filter, filled it with Johnny Walker and started the engine. Everyone looked at each other, rushed and gathered their belongings, then scrambled waist deep into the cold waters and hauled themselves onto the boat.
We got to within two miles of the mainland when the fuel ran out. As we were slowly drifting on the neap tide, we could only but view all the twinkling lights of the tourists hotels on the shore. We could almost see the silhouettes of the coconut trees swaying gently in front of the white washed, luxury balconies. That was where we wanted to be. My last memory of the trip was when someone announced that there were two skulls hidden in the box where the flares should have been.
Mervyn
No comments:
Post a Comment