| General Non-Fiction posted January 4, 2017 | Chapters: |
...4 5 -6- 7... 
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A trip to Ambergris Reef (continued)
A chapter in the book A Tale of Yucatan
A Tale of Yucatan - Part 6
by tfawcus
The first place we stop, just on the inside edge, is mainly dead coral, with a few small sprays of purple fan coral and quite a good variety of small, colourful reef fish. We stay snorkelling for about half an hour while our two human barracuda cruise up and down on the outer shelf looking for big game. They come back empty handed but with a good story about the one that got away. It seems they had come across a grouper, weighing about 100 lbs and had a shot at it, but the speargun had been too powerful and the spear had whistled through it and straight out the other side. Our two Belizean boys nod wisely and sympathise.
At our second stop the Belizean boys slip into the water in just their shorts and face masks. One has a short handheld spear - more like a sharpened stick really. They take a deep breath and dive. Several minutes later there’s a splutter of water as one of their heads breaks the surface just behind the boat. He has two lobster in one hand and one in the other. His partner appears on the other side of the boat with a grin. Swimming a lazy sidestroke he pulls a small grouper off his spear and tosses another couple of lobster into the boat. Meanwhile Bill and Ben cruise the outer edge of the reef with the heavy artillery. Within half an hour our Belizean boys have landed almost a dozen lobster, a couple of small snapper and a 4-5 lb trigger fish to join the grouper. Still no sign of Bill and Ben. After a while they return. Bill throws one small, undersized lobster onto the deck with a snort while Ben rummages in his bag muttering, as he looks for a new tip for his $400 harpoon to replace the one he snapped off in a coral outcrop.
We raise the anchor and cruise north up the coast for one last stop before lunch. There is a break in the reef wall here and a deep channel coming in from the open sea. We are told that if we are lucky we may catch a sight of some manatee; they sometimes come here to feed. The manatee is a curious mammal, a sea cow, relative to the dugong of Australian waters and, though no thing of great beauty, its almost human face and spatulate tail are thought to have accounted for tales amongst the early mariners of mermaids and other sirens of the deep. It is possible, I suppose. Perhaps after many months at sea and a particularly generous rum ration... Who knows? Two of our party claim to have seen a small one swimming not far from the boat. One was Jeremy, who had an underwater camera with him at the time so, sometime in the weeks ahead, we may get to see it.
A few hundred yards farther up the coast we stop again; this time so that the crew can clean and gut the fish for our lunch. Within a fairly short time we attract a four-foot barracuda and small reef shark that circle the boat, darting in to tear the odd tasty morsels from offal thrown overboard. Jeremy, who is young and fearless, jumps in with his camera to take photographs. Most of the rest of us are content with the more fractured but relatively safer view from on board. After a while we are joined by a frigate bird hovering overhead. He swoops in to snatch tidbits in mid-air then circles gracefully to take up his position again, above and slightly to the rear of the boat.
From here we head inshore, carefully avoiding a line of poles, the permanent tidal fishtrap of a small village community, and draw in near a lime green wooden hut on stilts. One of the lads wades ashore, soon to return with a basket full of coconut husks. These turn out to be the fuel for our barbecue on a deserted beach at the top end of the island, a feast of fresh lobster and all the other fish which they had caught out in the lagoon. When we have had our fill the boys gather up all that is left over and take it back to the family who provided our coconut husks, for their supper. Waste not, want not.
We set off for San Pedro at about 3pm, stopping one more time to snorkel in a reef garden full of live corals and all manner of brightly coloured fish. This proves to be the occasion when Bill and Ben at last meet with success. They bring in a huge grouper from just beyond the reef, three or four feet long and about 40 lbs in weight. It is a matter of some conjecture among us after we have dropped them off as to whether they will stuff it as a trophy or solemnly slice pieces off it for the next two weeks for breakfast, lunch and candlelit dinners on the balcony of their guest house. I cannot quite throw out of my mind the image of them doing this with full silver service and the finest crystal, gazing fondly across the table at one another, each still neatly dressed in his long black wetsuit, a flaming red hibiscus buttonhole and flippers.
That evening, pleasantly weary from the day’s exertions, not to mention being slightly sunburnt, nothing would have been more welcome to us than to crawl into bed after a hot shower and a couple of drinks at the bar. However, because Matthew is a diabetic, he needed to get a meal, and since he and Jeanette had passed the day quietly recovering from some mysterious sickness instead of spending it with us in paradise, we hauled ourselves off to a restaurant downtown for dinner. The service was painfully slow and we toyed with bowls of soup and glasses of water while the others ate. Meanwhile the sky over the lagoon darkened and distant flickers of lightning set off threatening rumbles which became increasingly ominous. Just as we were about to pay the bill there was a blinding flash and a crack of thunder which shook the foundations. The island was plunged into darkness, people groped their way round the restaurant with candles and torches and the first heavy drops of rain started to beat down on the roof. We half-walked, half-ran back to the hotel, dodging in and out of the deluge, from one verandah to the next, the compacted coral street already a shimmering river of mud. Overhead wires had eerie flickers of St Elmo’s fire running along them and sudden explosions of blue sparks showered into the air as power surges met transformer boxes, setting them off like Chinese firecrackers.
There was something particularly soothing that night about gaining the safety of our hotel rooms and lying in bed listening to the steady patter of raindrops on the roof as we drifted off to sleep.
The first place we stop, just on the inside edge, is mainly dead coral, with a few small sprays of purple fan coral and quite a good variety of small, colourful reef fish. We stay snorkelling for about half an hour while our two human barracuda cruise up and down on the outer shelf looking for big game. They come back empty handed but with a good story about the one that got away. It seems they had come across a grouper, weighing about 100 lbs and had a shot at it, but the speargun had been too powerful and the spear had whistled through it and straight out the other side. Our two Belizean boys nod wisely and sympathise.
At our second stop the Belizean boys slip into the water in just their shorts and face masks. One has a short handheld spear - more like a sharpened stick really. They take a deep breath and dive. Several minutes later there’s a splutter of water as one of their heads breaks the surface just behind the boat. He has two lobster in one hand and one in the other. His partner appears on the other side of the boat with a grin. Swimming a lazy sidestroke he pulls a small grouper off his spear and tosses another couple of lobster into the boat. Meanwhile Bill and Ben cruise the outer edge of the reef with the heavy artillery. Within half an hour our Belizean boys have landed almost a dozen lobster, a couple of small snapper and a 4-5 lb trigger fish to join the grouper. Still no sign of Bill and Ben. After a while they return. Bill throws one small, undersized lobster onto the deck with a snort while Ben rummages in his bag muttering, as he looks for a new tip for his $400 harpoon to replace the one he snapped off in a coral outcrop.
We raise the anchor and cruise north up the coast for one last stop before lunch. There is a break in the reef wall here and a deep channel coming in from the open sea. We are told that if we are lucky we may catch a sight of some manatee; they sometimes come here to feed. The manatee is a curious mammal, a sea cow, relative to the dugong of Australian waters and, though no thing of great beauty, its almost human face and spatulate tail are thought to have accounted for tales amongst the early mariners of mermaids and other sirens of the deep. It is possible, I suppose. Perhaps after many months at sea and a particularly generous rum ration... Who knows? Two of our party claim to have seen a small one swimming not far from the boat. One was Jeremy, who had an underwater camera with him at the time so, sometime in the weeks ahead, we may get to see it.
A few hundred yards farther up the coast we stop again; this time so that the crew can clean and gut the fish for our lunch. Within a fairly short time we attract a four-foot barracuda and small reef shark that circle the boat, darting in to tear the odd tasty morsels from offal thrown overboard. Jeremy, who is young and fearless, jumps in with his camera to take photographs. Most of the rest of us are content with the more fractured but relatively safer view from on board. After a while we are joined by a frigate bird hovering overhead. He swoops in to snatch tidbits in mid-air then circles gracefully to take up his position again, above and slightly to the rear of the boat.
From here we head inshore, carefully avoiding a line of poles, the permanent tidal fishtrap of a small village community, and draw in near a lime green wooden hut on stilts. One of the lads wades ashore, soon to return with a basket full of coconut husks. These turn out to be the fuel for our barbecue on a deserted beach at the top end of the island, a feast of fresh lobster and all the other fish which they had caught out in the lagoon. When we have had our fill the boys gather up all that is left over and take it back to the family who provided our coconut husks, for their supper. Waste not, want not.
We set off for San Pedro at about 3pm, stopping one more time to snorkel in a reef garden full of live corals and all manner of brightly coloured fish. This proves to be the occasion when Bill and Ben at last meet with success. They bring in a huge grouper from just beyond the reef, three or four feet long and about 40 lbs in weight. It is a matter of some conjecture among us after we have dropped them off as to whether they will stuff it as a trophy or solemnly slice pieces off it for the next two weeks for breakfast, lunch and candlelit dinners on the balcony of their guest house. I cannot quite throw out of my mind the image of them doing this with full silver service and the finest crystal, gazing fondly across the table at one another, each still neatly dressed in his long black wetsuit, a flaming red hibiscus buttonhole and flippers.
That evening, pleasantly weary from the day’s exertions, not to mention being slightly sunburnt, nothing would have been more welcome to us than to crawl into bed after a hot shower and a couple of drinks at the bar. However, because Matthew is a diabetic, he needed to get a meal, and since he and Jeanette had passed the day quietly recovering from some mysterious sickness instead of spending it with us in paradise, we hauled ourselves off to a restaurant downtown for dinner. The service was painfully slow and we toyed with bowls of soup and glasses of water while the others ate. Meanwhile the sky over the lagoon darkened and distant flickers of lightning set off threatening rumbles which became increasingly ominous. Just as we were about to pay the bill there was a blinding flash and a crack of thunder which shook the foundations. The island was plunged into darkness, people groped their way round the restaurant with candles and torches and the first heavy drops of rain started to beat down on the roof. We half-walked, half-ran back to the hotel, dodging in and out of the deluge, from one verandah to the next, the compacted coral street already a shimmering river of mud. Overhead wires had eerie flickers of St Elmo’s fire running along them and sudden explosions of blue sparks showered into the air as power surges met transformer boxes, setting them off like Chinese firecrackers.
There was something particularly soothing that night about gaining the safety of our hotel rooms and lying in bed listening to the steady patter of raindrops on the roof as we drifted off to sleep.
At our second stop the Belizean boys slip into the water in just their shorts and face masks. One has a short handheld spear - more like a sharpened stick really. They take a deep breath and dive. Several minutes later there’s a splutter of water as one of their heads breaks the surface just behind the boat. He has two lobster in one hand and one in the other. His partner appears on the other side of the boat with a grin. Swimming a lazy sidestroke he pulls a small grouper off his spear and tosses another couple of lobster into the boat. Meanwhile Bill and Ben cruise the outer edge of the reef with the heavy artillery. Within half an hour our Belizean boys have landed almost a dozen lobster, a couple of small snapper and a 4-5 lb trigger fish to join the grouper. Still no sign of Bill and Ben. After a while they return. Bill throws one small, undersized lobster onto the deck with a snort while Ben rummages in his bag muttering, as he looks for a new tip for his $400 harpoon to replace the one he snapped off in a coral outcrop.
We raise the anchor and cruise north up the coast for one last stop before lunch. There is a break in the reef wall here and a deep channel coming in from the open sea. We are told that if we are lucky we may catch a sight of some manatee; they sometimes come here to feed. The manatee is a curious mammal, a sea cow, relative to the dugong of Australian waters and, though no thing of great beauty, its almost human face and spatulate tail are thought to have accounted for tales amongst the early mariners of mermaids and other sirens of the deep. It is possible, I suppose. Perhaps after many months at sea and a particularly generous rum ration... Who knows? Two of our party claim to have seen a small one swimming not far from the boat. One was Jeremy, who had an underwater camera with him at the time so, sometime in the weeks ahead, we may get to see it.
A few hundred yards farther up the coast we stop again; this time so that the crew can clean and gut the fish for our lunch. Within a fairly short time we attract a four-foot barracuda and small reef shark that circle the boat, darting in to tear the odd tasty morsels from offal thrown overboard. Jeremy, who is young and fearless, jumps in with his camera to take photographs. Most of the rest of us are content with the more fractured but relatively safer view from on board. After a while we are joined by a frigate bird hovering overhead. He swoops in to snatch tidbits in mid-air then circles gracefully to take up his position again, above and slightly to the rear of the boat.
From here we head inshore, carefully avoiding a line of poles, the permanent tidal fishtrap of a small village community, and draw in near a lime green wooden hut on stilts. One of the lads wades ashore, soon to return with a basket full of coconut husks. These turn out to be the fuel for our barbecue on a deserted beach at the top end of the island, a feast of fresh lobster and all the other fish which they had caught out in the lagoon. When we have had our fill the boys gather up all that is left over and take it back to the family who provided our coconut husks, for their supper. Waste not, want not.
We set off for San Pedro at about 3pm, stopping one more time to snorkel in a reef garden full of live corals and all manner of brightly coloured fish. This proves to be the occasion when Bill and Ben at last meet with success. They bring in a huge grouper from just beyond the reef, three or four feet long and about 40 lbs in weight. It is a matter of some conjecture among us after we have dropped them off as to whether they will stuff it as a trophy or solemnly slice pieces off it for the next two weeks for breakfast, lunch and candlelit dinners on the balcony of their guest house. I cannot quite throw out of my mind the image of them doing this with full silver service and the finest crystal, gazing fondly across the table at one another, each still neatly dressed in his long black wetsuit, a flaming red hibiscus buttonhole and flippers.
That evening, pleasantly weary from the day’s exertions, not to mention being slightly sunburnt, nothing would have been more welcome to us than to crawl into bed after a hot shower and a couple of drinks at the bar. However, because Matthew is a diabetic, he needed to get a meal, and since he and Jeanette had passed the day quietly recovering from some mysterious sickness instead of spending it with us in paradise, we hauled ourselves off to a restaurant downtown for dinner. The service was painfully slow and we toyed with bowls of soup and glasses of water while the others ate. Meanwhile the sky over the lagoon darkened and distant flickers of lightning set off threatening rumbles which became increasingly ominous. Just as we were about to pay the bill there was a blinding flash and a crack of thunder which shook the foundations. The island was plunged into darkness, people groped their way round the restaurant with candles and torches and the first heavy drops of rain started to beat down on the roof. We half-walked, half-ran back to the hotel, dodging in and out of the deluge, from one verandah to the next, the compacted coral street already a shimmering river of mud. Overhead wires had eerie flickers of St Elmo’s fire running along them and sudden explosions of blue sparks showered into the air as power surges met transformer boxes, setting them off like Chinese firecrackers.
There was something particularly soothing that night about gaining the safety of our hotel rooms and lying in bed listening to the steady patter of raindrops on the roof as we drifted off to sleep.
Next instalment - onward, to Guatemala.
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