Monday 28 December 2015

Christmas in the Caribbean


When the plane took off from Managua, I was happy to have Kate’s hand to clutch. Bouncing, jittering, skittering: I imagined the pilot halfway through a bottle of Flor de Cana – famous Nicaraguan rum. Out the window it was earthskyearthsky, as the plane lolled from side to side, engines sputtering feebly.

“Kate, if we die in a horrible plane crash, I want you to know it’s been a blast.” Kate wears a fake perma-grin when she’s nervous; her voice emerges strained through her teeth, “Matt! Don’t say that sort of thing – it’s bad luck!”

But when we landed on Big Corn Island, our luck had obviously turned for the better. Lobster, shrimp, and fish swam in butter and garlic on our plates. Palm trees bobbed their lazy heads towards the beaches: white sand festooned with crabs and conchs. In fact, the crabs were so plentiful they had crab-crossing signs, like you might see for moose back in Canada. And a good thing too – Kate nearly stepped on one (crab, not moose) as we returned from dinner our first night in the dark. All we saw at first was a shadow-stone the size of my head. Under the flashlight, the shadow coalesced into a surly, side-stepping crab, mid-scuttle. One eye swiveled around on its stalk to glare.






When not admiring the island, getting tossed like a boy in ten-foot waves, or eating the creatures of the ocean, there was the discipline of the hammock. Dangling nets of the Caribbean, hammocks swaddle the infants and comfort the elderly: from cradle to rocker. Sure your hands may twitch for your cell phone – gotta see what emails I’ve received in the last four minutes – but that’s just civilization tugging at your flesh with its hooks. Pull out a book, Mon, or better yet just pull your cap over your eyes, like the mellow fellow below. And for star watching with your ladylove, the hammock has no equal.

After two days of lounging and sleeping beneath a mosquito net, we bought tickets to Little Corn. Smaller, more touristy, less developed: Little Corn juts from the ocean five miles to the north of Big Corn and wears a skirt of white beach and volcanic stone. The huckster at the jetty sold us our tickets but I declined his ganja. He was covered in knife scars and corded muscles. The boat was about twenty feet long with ten benches; it could safely seat forty people so we crammed forty-five onboard. Then, sweltering and huddled, still clanging against the jetty, the sailors didn’t untie the lines until the huckster berated, cajoled and pleaded for a tip. Ten awkward minutes. “I work so hard, Mon! You got no idea how hard I work. All for a tip. You there! You! You like your seat? Maybe give me little tip? No? What about you over there?” and so forth. Even after we slipped our lines you could still hear him calling, “Tiiiip! There’s still time!”

Sitting in the back of the boat was easier on my stomach, but harder for the waves. Twelve feet and higher, and driving right into them, each wave hit the bow and turned into a giant salty fist. Only a few seconds between punches, eyes stinging, water getting forced down the lungs, I cowered in my hat next to Kate. Our fingers found each other on the bench under the life jacket. Within two splashes every stitch was soaked, and Kate’s purse was a runny soup. As the fear of death gibbered in my head, my thoughts flitted to Guantanamo Bay’s waterboarding victims, half-drowned by an icy sponge. Most of all my heart went out to the Syrian refugees, who must have huddled on similarly shady voyages on their journeys to new homes.

“Kate, if we drown on this boat ride, I want you to know it’s been a splash.” She yells back, “Don’t you ever stop?”

But of course we lived, otherwise there would be no story. In retrospect linking the miserable boat ride to the hell of Guantanamo was hyperbolic, and perhaps crossing a line or two. Avoiding exaggeration and respecting “lines” are concerns that the higher brain usually takes care of, and when you think you’re drowning, that part shuts down. We spend our day-to-day lives simmering in polish and tact but die like shrieking monkeys.

On the jetty we took awkward steps on new legs. Found a bar a hundred feet away to drink recovery Tona while my stomach settled. Then we indulged in all the island’s little pleasures: swimming, live music, fried fish for breakfast. We met countless Dutch people; I think they clamour to the Corn Islands as part of a coming-of-age ritual. We even hired a local guide, Tindal, to take us snorkeling among the shimmering reefs.

Tindal would not be satisfied until we swam with a shark. We found one, mottled and napping, in a bed of coral while we hovered overhead on our flippers. “You gotta touch da shark, Mon.” “No thanks.” A school of fish – communicating via hive mind – scintillates turquoise. Holding a starfish you can feel hundreds of tiny knobs and ridges in its flesh.


But my favourite was walking with Kate along the beaches. Here on Little Corn the palm trees drowse even lower, and the grass at their feet is spotted with mysterious green tufts. I can still see Kate in her sundress on Christmas day, carrying her shoes in one hand, leaping from boulder to boulder with the waves crashing around her. In this mysterious Loompaland, Dr. Seuss’ dreamland, we are sunburnt gophers hiding in hammocks.

 Taking her hand, I say, “Kate if we die tonight, I want you to know it’s been a fairy tale.”



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