Ships Log (January 2000)

BY LONA GRAY

 

            We spent our last night here before heading out in the morning. Our ultimate destination is East Holandes but as we passed Green Island we saw that there were no boats in the anchorage. We decide to spend a night or two here.

            The guys all went out snorkeling while I stayed home to bake. All three of them saw a spotted eagle ray and heard dolphin signaling to each other. Michael came back with a lobster he had speared.

            A familiar-looking boat came and anchored near us.  It turned out to be Bob, on Compass Rose. We met him in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, two summers ago and hadn’t seen him since. He’s also on his way to the South Pacific. The cruising community, although growing rapidly, still makes for a small world. We never know if the next boat coming over the horizon will be an old, or new, friend.

            Robby took me out in Gabby for a row around the two islands near us. Our time was filled with small pleasures. We saw two baby man-of-war jellyfish, one in shallow, clear water where we could look down on it from the boat and see its tenticles floating below it. The other was washed up on a beach a few yards from where we pulled Gabby up. We walked along the deserted beach where we found a cone shell in a tide pool. We could see how it moved itself along on its snail-like body and watch it probe for food with its dangerous proboscis.

            Another beach was littered with starfish in the shallows. There were royal purple, lemon yellow, red-brown, and tangerine-colored stars in all sizes. We picked some up to let them crawl on our palms and turned them over to see their hundreds of sticky legs waving like fields of ripe wheat. We kept one out of the water so long that he wouldn’t sink when we placed him gently back on the sea bed. Robby held him under and we could see how he used the off-center hole on his back to release air and suck in water to adjust his buoyancy.

            The next day we spent quietly. We all went out snorkeling and played cards and backgammon. We were ready to settle down for an early night when Bobby called us up top.

            A light show better than any Disney could devise was going on above our heads and under our feet. The moon had not yet risen and the sky was ebony with the Milky Way looking like a silvery cloud spilling out thousands of brilliant diamond chips. Neon blobs of green-blue light rushed by our boat, pushed by the current through the inky water. The instant we shined a flashlight on the glow-worms, they disappeared only to reappear as another spot of phosphorescence just beyond the edge of the beam. Occasionally, two worms would collide exploding into an even greater burst of blazing blue luminescence.

To February | Writings of Immanuel

NEXT: (February)

 

PREVIOUS: (Previous Log)

Writings of Immanuel | Home | Pictures!