08/04/2005
After three dives yesterday, I decided that the night dive was a good place to stop for the trip ( I mean, what is going to top that?). The water is just as choppy today as it was last night as well. I hung out at the dive shop with Doug until Josh got done with his last few exercises on his Rescue Diver course (he did well, passed flying colors and all that). A couple of the cats decided to use Doug as a couch while we both took siestas on the outdoor benches. I woke up from a doze in time to snap a rather funny picture of the resulting cat-pile. We took a latish sort of brunch-breakfast at the diner/restaurant upstairs (George is our waiter. The menu usually consists of a choice of breakfast, lunch or dinner J, not much selection, but it is usually good food). I just had toast and orange juice, having already eaten some cereal at the house-thingy, but Doug likes to talk , and I really had nothing else to do, but I did take offerings of toast to the Evil Parroty beast, even though it pinched the absolute hell out of me earlier this week. There was a little green parrot beside the dastardly Macaw, and though it was rather shy, it was still nice enough and accepted some toast bits as well. There is a young malamute looking pup at the end of the shop’s dock that I think I’ve fallen quite in love with. One of the owners of the larger yacht has purchased this dog and tied it up away from the others in the shop, basically to teach it to be a guard dog. I don’t think I’m helping all much in its training, since I constantly play with it. It doesn’t bark at all, so I really can’t see what good it’s going to be as a vicious attack animal, but I think it has quite a ways to grow still, so perhaps it will reach it’s potential yet. I took it a dead crab while we waited, thinking that, like any other animal on this island, it was probably hungry. Apparently the shop/resturant/ hotel/aparment building where Subway Scuba is now located (at the time of this trip, Gillian is trying to get moved to Parrot Tree Resort, the real-estate being better) is owned by a major car/machinery importer family in Rio (or someother South American country, but I’m pretty sure it’s Rio) who use it basically to lose money as a write off on their taxes. Nonetheless, it’s really very pretty here and the restaurant is rarely crowded, but clean and very nice. After Josh got back in, we went back to Palmetto for awhile to put on long pants and much, much more bug-juice (something made from cactus) because Doug asked Mark if he wouldn’t mind taking us through some mangroves since I had never been (YAY! Big water tree thingies!). We went to the yacht club for some Hawaiian pizza (which took FOREVER). While we waited, Josh took me up to see the ‘view bench,’ which sits at the top of the hill above the club. It was beautiful, I could see all the way out over the shrimp-boat harbor and out into the sea. The pizza didn’t arrive until after Mark did, and even though Doug offered to buy him a beer, he politely abstained, saying he had to play soccer in a few hours (he apparently plays for a league team that is now in the semi-finals, working towards a big-time meet on mainland, meaning Honduras). We ate speedily when the food came (in the French Harbor’s defense, there is a music festable going on this weekend [Carib Fest] and they actually had more then two or three tables worth of guests for a change). And then picked up Mark (I think its actually spelled Marc) at the grocery store and followed him to his house to get his boat. During our wait time at dinner, we found out that Marc not only plays some damn fine soccer, he also used to work the same cruise line that Doug did doctor work for. The drive afterwards was over the ridge of the island, and isolated in the extreme, the view was gorgeous, though. Random large estates and houses made appearances among waves of grass, overlooking waves of salt. There were a number of horses (much like the one that met us on the dirt road from Palmetto) just barely to be seen. Marc turned out to live in a very rural, very poor part of the island, but aside from a few sideways looks, no one seemed to mind us either way. We met Marc’s son and a few of his nieces and nephews. Marc at work is a very hyper, jolly and loud guy; Marc away from work is more quiet, but still basically a happy guy. He took us out in a one engine craft that couldn’t have been more then 10ft long ( the only comment I could think of was to quote Princess Leia, “You came in that thing? You’re braver then I thought.”), but I loved every minute of it. Josh and I sat in the bow, legs stretched over the gas tank/can, salt spray blowing in our faces. Doug sat in back with Marc and talked about nearly everything. I get the distinct impression that Doug, much like my Gran, can talk to just about anyone. The ride over was through inlets and bays and the edges of local resorts, everything is on stilts, as usual for islands, I am learning. We passed a seafood packing plant that supplies Miami/Tampa with its lobster and shrimp. We snapped pictures like good little tourists and passed under two bridges that had crabs scurrying in the foundations. The entrance into the mangroves was shallow and nearly defeated our tiny engine, but we made it into the dank, soured and absolutely breath-taking passageway. It looked as if a polished glass walkway gave seed to the twisted trunks and swaying leaves. Mossy black slime coated the tangled roots to mark where the water reached at the peak of high tide. The occasional bird flitted around, dodging through the gloom. The rarer on dared to venture a snatch of song. We learned that the Voyager, the largest of the dive boats we’d been using all week, was in fact bought by Patrick second hand from someone that had found it floating around, probably and ex-smuggling or drug-running boat. Marc told us this after we’d seen a apparently abandoned boat floating around in the circular turn-around bay in the middle of the mangrove forest.
