by TJ Miller; S/V Snow Day
A most unusual bird landed on our boat one night and would not leave. It was a swallow with a very square head. He was gloriously brown and pointy at the beak and tail. He would not leave. He grabbed onto our life line watched us. “This is a good omen.” I told Susan.
The next day we left for Cayo lobos, the three of us: Susan, myself, and the as yet unnamed bird. I began entertaining illusions of training him to perch on my shoulder. Cayo lobos is a place that even intrepid voyagers avoid due to lack of good information and the boldly lettered warning in the guidebook that says “Many coral heads, approach in good light only, expert eyeball navigation required.” But a boater ahead of us had gone in, and (very self gratifyingly) made it sound easy. Then another boater went in but would not share any information from the previous boater out of pure selfishness. So we were going to wing it and see for ourselves.
Our friends aboard Fair Winds, John and Tammi, volunteered to go ahead and we selfishly volunteered to follow. Since we draw more water this is common practice among boats that buddy up. It was quite a luxury to have a boat in front. John was periodically nosing into the Chinchorro Reef wall to see where it was and I learned how to do the same.
It was a fine day. We stayed close to the reef to avoid the opposing current. There were no waves and we were going slowly, but we did not have to go far. We savored the time. Going slow is pure therapy and I could feel the color returning to my hair.
Soon we had reached the end of the reef and the end of the bank. It was time to turn east (left) into the wind and current and search for a way through the uncharted coral fields into a theoretical anchorage. The waves heaped up as the current ran onto the point of the reef. Fair Winds does not go into the wind as well as Snow Day and we were forced to sit on our hands and follow them way out into the south before they could tack in toward the anchorage. This was extremely frustrating, but we did not want to give up the luxury of having a lead boat, especially since we would be heading into a forest of coral in a few moments.
But it soon became apparent that at the rate we were going, Fair Winds would not lead us into the reef until fairly late in the day. I couldn't stand it any more. I broke off and headed up into the wind and waves. We tightened the sheets until they were like bars and groaned under the strain. In this manner we carved a path to a suspected entry point into the mysterious reef. We had now assumed the lead. Although it was good to be standing on our own two feet again, I was strongly aware of the fact that we were rushing headlong into something unknown. Once close to the reef, I could see that it was funnel shaped, funneling us in like a big fish trap. “This must be the place,” I thought.
The large waves were rolling up behind us and making it difficult to hold our position and speed. Unlike the other white-knuckle approaches we had conquered so far, there really was no definite right way through this one. It was porous, and there were many right and wrong ways in. It was like a maze, and you could choose the wrong way and not know until you are well inside. Unlike a maze you can not just lift up your pencil and start again. Better hope your engine works.
Standing high above the wheel with Susan perched on the bow; I picked out ribbons of bright blue water, representing deep paths of coral-free water through the forest of coral. Some coral heads were near the surface, others were not, but you could never be sure if there was enough depth above the heads to go over them; so you must stick to the bright blue ribbons.
If you look far enough ahead you can briefly retain in your mind the connecting blue ribbons that go this way and that, interconnecting and eventually arriving at the big blue anchorage in the middle. Then a cloud passes over and the entire sea goes slate gray. Then you must estimate your speed and recall the path you just so recently saw from memory. Turn right… now. “Susan! What do you see!”… Will have to turn left soon… Not sure where… Damn! How much longer will that cloud be there… Try to slow down… Looking over the port side you see the rising wall of brown coral hovering five feet from the hull, passing slowly by. Looking over the starboard side you see the opposing coral head a similar distance away. A moment's delirium convinces you that you are an airplane flying just above the treetops in their autumn foliage, sometimes flying between the trees.
The cloud passes and you clearly see that you are in a very tight spot. The coral on both sides has constricted to the point where its form matches the shape of your hull, like a mold, with the ribbon of bright sand only a foot wide and twenty feet down. There is not more than five feet on either side. While the sun is out you take a new snapshot of the forest and try to imprint it on your mind. Turn in 3, 2, 1, now…this branch takes you at a ninety-degree angle to the right. You close your eyes to see if the course is still in your mind's eye. Opening your eyes you see the blue ribbon leads on to anchorage, or does it? Dead-end! Full stop. Bring the boat around... just enough room... choose the other branch. Some coral heads are now poking right out of the water, and a slowly curving path can be discerned curving to the anchorage. Then the lights go out.
A dark cloud has turned the water to steel. Once again we will only see what is within feet of us. We complete what we believe to be the curve and bring Snow Day to a stop, afraid to go any further. Too long like this and the current will bring us somewhere, eventually up against coral. The Cloud parts and brilliant turquoise light illuminates everything from below. Our faces are highlighted in blue, like holding a blue light under your chin. The sky is below us as well as above us. We have come to a stop right in the middle of the bright sandy anchorage.
Chunk chunk chunk… out goes the chain. The anchor lands far below, plainly visible against the perfect sand. All yelling has ceased; the engine is off. All around is beautiful blue sand thirty feet down. To the right is a deserted sandy island with a few palm trees and a lighthouse and some ruins. In the distance all around are coral heads. The sky is endless and all ours. There are almost no waves. Slow grins spread across our faces. With a glance we know we don't have to say a thing. This is paradise. And I don't say that lightly. And we earned it. It was perfection, all of it, and you can't get here without going through everything we had gone through. The price is everything we have gone through to get here made acute by the final passage through the coral forest. The reward is so powerful is shuts you up, it cuts your last thought in half, it leaves you sitting with a winch handle in your hand having completely forgotten what you were doing the moment before. It leaves you staring at the beauty: a stupid, open mouthed grin growing on your face.
Fair Winds arrived later that day, there was much activity on their boat as they dropped their anchor, then they seemed to stop their activites and stare at each other and then back at the scenery. We did not have any radio communications for awhile. A single-handed boat that we had been in contact with called Hygelig, pronounced: “you ga lee,” came in as well and we had a little neighborhood.
Russ aboard Hygelig swam over and hovered off our stern, seeming to levitate above the blue sand 30 feet below. No, he did not want to come aboard, but instead preferred to conduct his visit from his weightless perch in the buoyant salt water. The three of us relaxed in the afternoon, our weather hardened skin absorbing the sun.
We talked about nothing important for awhile, with the swallow resting on the lifeline between us. The conversation was so uneventful that the bird fell off his lifeline, bounced on the deck and landed in the water. Russ picked him up and pronounced him dead. He asked if I wanted him back for the feathers and I said no. Russ set him adrift and the bird gradually moved away with the current, a brown spot against the blue, his head hanging into the water.
I don't know why birds chose to spend their last hours on a boat. There are more familiar islands nearby. Yet it happens frequently and is often written about. Maybe they are asking for help. Maybe they are the souls of lost sailors, as some believe. While we were on our boat at the anchorage in Isla Mujeres, a leathery old man with a heart condition was sitting in a chair on the dock having a drink. He was well liked there at the marina and had returned the last few seasons. In between jokes his drink slid out of his hand and clattered on the dock. His head slumped to his chest. Nobody knew CPR.
While I rummaged through the CD collection to find the most appropriate music for paradise, Susan got out the chestnuts that she had purchased way back in Key West. I played Lori Anderson's song “Blue Lagoon”:
I got your letter, thanks a lot.
I've been getting lots of sun
And lots of rest
It's really…hot.
Days… I dive by the wreck
Nights I swim in the Blue Lagoon
Always used to wonder who I'd bring
To a desert island
Days I remember… cities
Nights I dream about a perfect place
Full fathom five my father lies
Of his bones are coral made
Those are pearls that were his eyes
Nothing of him that doth fade
But suffers a sea change
Into something rich and strange
And I alone am left to tell the tale
Called Ishmael
Days I remember rooms
Nights I swim in the Blue Lagoon
I saw a plane today
Flying low over the island
But my mind was somewhere else
And if you ever get this letter
Thinking of you,
Blue pacific signing off
The seemingly immortal chestnuts had all gone bad in their shells, we had kept them swinging in a net bag above the galley far too long. I guess we underestimated the passage of time. I brought them out to the water and let them go slowly over the side. One brown, bobbing head after another against the blue, trailing away with the current. I watched them until I could not see them.
On shore I found an ancient tiny medicine bottle that had washed up on the sand. The Eastern Shore of the Chinchorro banks was notorious for shipwrecks, so many there are some on top of others. The current sets them right on to the reef and many 17th 18th and 19th century ships have met their end here. This small, but thick brown bottle was dulled with decades of rolling on the sea floor. The remains of a tiny petrified cork were still in its end. Holding the sturdy little bottle in my hand I tried to imagine the person who held it originally, and if they had accompanied it to the bottom in one of those countless wrecks many years ago.
Whatever the case, its owner was long gone. I sat back in the sand and looked out at Snow Day bobbing in water. It was windy and hot. I thought about a place on the land in western Minnesota where I grew up hunting. There is an old car tire that was discarded and a tree grew up through the middle of it. Each season I returned and sought out the tree. The last time I saw the tree it had thick bark and had nearly filled the space inside the tire.
Thinking of all of you,
Snow Day signing off.
Copyright 2002 TJ Miller Corp
“Blue Lagoon” from the album “Mr Heartbreak” by Laurie Anderson.
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