“Whatever. We like it here”, they said, “Let’s stay and get jobs and call the insurance people so that we can get coverage down here.” Well, Dad applied for a job and, hey, guess what? They are hiring in two years when their building is completed. Needless to say, that plan was shot down, but rather than blithely accept or admit defeat, he decided that since the insurance company extended our coverage, we would turn around and continue south. Phil was FURIOUS; “WHAT??!! We can’t go back south, we’ve already gone 500 miles, we’ll be beating into the wind, and I HATE crossings!” Personally, I am quite of the mind that this is a once in a lifetime adventure, and that heading south is the best course of action. Fortunately, as it turns out, so are Mom and Dad, and consequently, we are heading south, or at least that is our plan for the moment. The general consensus, Phil aside, is that we are not finished cruising, and we would all like to see more of the Caribbean. Who wouldn’t?
Other than changing our plans, nothing much happened today; just another day at the dock. Here's Phil with his stash of sweet mangos he collected from a tree at the marina.
For the record, air conditioning is a wonderful invention, one that has greatly enriched all our lives here at the dock. I don’t know how long we will remain at the dock with shore power and unlimited water, but I know that it will not last too much longer. What day is it? I think it’s a Friday because I just asked Dad. We discuss what day of the week it is on a routine basis, because truthfully, nobody cares enough to remember. We have today, tomorrow, yesterday, and anything else requires a calendar. In any case, we stay at least until Sunday, because our friend Bruce invited us to go deep-sea fishing on that day. I guess we leave Monday?
On second thought, we did actually do something of interest today; at some point earlier this morning, we men went on the hunt for Conch. We drove out on the dinghy with our snorkeling gear, which consists of masks, flippers, snorkels, spear pole, Hawaiian slings, weight belts, a bag in which to put the Conch, and a floating air compressor fitted with a hose and a regulator. We anchored out over a bed of sea grass that was covered with large Conch: jackpot! We put on our gear, Dad started the compressor, and I grabbed the regulator and dove in. The plan was simple, yet remarkably clever and effective: Phil and Doug would watch from the surface and point out where the mollusks were to me using hand signals. I would remain near the bottom with the collection bag (I had the regulator, and thus unlimited compressed air) and grab the larger ones. I forgot how fun diving was; the feeling of weightlessness and the graceful swimming motions in particular.
In my blissful state of mind, I proceeded to pick up 8 large and fairly heavy Conch, and as such, I was weighted down and needed to drop off my catch on the dinghy before continuing. As I began to swim up, I felt something brush against my right ankle and flipper. I turned around and found myself staring in the lifeless eyes of a four foot long remora that seemed to have taken a liking to me and a taste for the pieces of debris falling off of the conch shells into the water around me.
Remoras look alien. They have extra pectoral fins that give them extra stability when they cling to a lager organism. They have a retractable, ridged, muscular sucker on top of their heads that lets them attach to the body or pectoral fins of large predators. Their bottom jaw sticks out so that they can catch falling scraps of food. This thing looked like a mix between a torpedo, a vacuum cleaner, and an X-Wing fighter, with a flat football stuck to its forehead.
And what, might I ask, was large enough to drag that around? And where was this animal? Not that it mattered right then… I near about shit my pants when it opened its mouth and unfurled its suction cup and headed for my foot (I guess it wanted a place to stick itself to). I kicked at it and it backed up, and then came back for a floating scrap which it then sucked into its mouth. I had a weight belt on, I was carrying a heavy bag, I had tunnel vision from my goggles, and I was fighting to keep control of the regulator, which kept sliding out of my mouth to one side. I couldn’t swim upwards, and now I had to fight off a remora who had a crush on my right flipper. I tried to back away and slowly surface, when Phil gave me a spear pole. I jabbed at it a couple of times, but it was out of reach (it knew to keep its distance). Nevertheless, the stupid thing wouldn’t leave me alone. It was not until Doug also swam by with a spear and chased it off that I could finally surface and give Dad the heavy bag. They were all laughing their asses off at my plight, in fact, Phil was laughing so hard that his mask filled with water.
Needless to say, I was done diving for the day, so I gave up the regulator and got on the dinghy to relieve Dad of his watch. We stopped when Phil sighted a large Barracuda, . . . we knew it was time to go. Our bounty: 40 Conch of various sizes, which we then cleaned on a nearby beach. I learned that one must beat a hole into the upper part of the shell so that a knife can be inserted to cut the muscles that hold the animal in its shell. Then, the slop (the guts) must be cut away, and the claw removed (these are predatory snails!!). This took about 90 minutes to do, and we dined on Conch salad for lunch. Other than that, I worked out a bit (which is a real pain in the neck to do on the boat), and just relaxed.
Here are Phil and I carbo-loading on the dock after the workout.
Right now, Phil is cooking noodles for dinner, after which we will watch Jurassic Park. What a night this will be! Hopefully I will be able to mail off my post-card tomorrow and finally be rid of it. A postcard from Anguilla with postage from St. Croix, that’s nice. I hope that it’s sunny tomorrow, and that I can get some sun, buy some $3.00 bottles of Cruzan rum, and get some more exercise. Maybe I can be productive…
