How can one describe silence? How can one share solitude? How can a desire for aloneness cure a loneliness of the soul? That is the rub, isn’t it? The paradox of wilderness. We want it , indeed need wilderness to exist, even if we never set foot in it. Many insist that there be places on this earth where no human treads, even lightly. I am one such person. But I am selfish. I also need places where no permanent trace of man exists, and yet I want to be there. To live, even briefly, as man lived before civilisation, before industrialisation, before globalisation. To breathe the silence, to drink in the emptiness, to swell inside with the fullness of a lonely planet, empty of my own kind.

I can only speak for myself. When I leave behind humanity and enter the wild world, it takes about three days before the voice in my head quiets. Suddenly I am truly present in my surroundings, no longer buffered and shielded by the continuous chatter that substitutes for my own thoughts. Thinking, feeling and being, are revealed to be three different processes of mind. It takes continuous silence, not from sound, but from noise,the kind you are trained since birth to notice, to interpret. Voices, street traffic, music, commercials. And noise, which comes in a visual form as well, especially if written in billboards ten feet high, demands your attention even if you don’t realise it. And by grabbing and holding your attention, noise, in all its forms, robs you of your presence of mind; that is, it takes you out of yourself, and prevents your self from being present, in the moment, and connected to all things.

In the bush, in the desert, on the sea, your attention is also needed, but the volume of traffic on your brain is much slower, more manageable, and devoid of any social context. The word peaceful springs to mind. There is a peace in solitude that cannot exist in the presence of another human being. But how can one describe this kind of peace, with the words that shatter it, deny its existence? How can one hope to communicate the feeling of that moment, when all internal communication stops, ceases to exist, and all that is is a state of peaceful emptiness of mind, of a fullness of spirit, a moment of mere, bare , pure existence? Alone, but not lonely, indeed the opposite of lonely, in which the connectedness of all the universe is known without thought, felt without sensation, but just is.

The longest stage of any journey begins when you start to see signs you are almost home.

It is said that “Life is a journey”. We focus too much on the little destinations, the goals that have been set before us, so that we do not live in the moment but are always striving for a distant future. But the destinations are but instants in time: they occupy none of the space of our lives. It is the striving, the journey itself that fills the space between the destinations: this is where we live.
It’s hard to feel that way when you are travelling home. Heading away from home is a form of exploration. Every moment has meaning because travel is the purpose of your life at that moment. But when you set your sights on home you cease to travel, as an activity, as a form of exploration. From then on all the experiences of your travel are an annoyance, something that stands between you and your goal. The goal isn’t to go home: it is to be home.

That was how I felt at the end of my season in Belize this year. Don’t get me wrong: it was a good season for me. I met some very interesting people, and had a great time swimming with the fishies. But once the season was over, I was in a hurry to get home, to be there on my birthday, with Lorena. And a cancelled flight meant I had to get from Dangriga to Cancun overland in a single day. Now I am home, in San Carlos, in late April. The days are warm, the nights are cool and the air is dry. And the sea is chilly. Oh well, I can go a while without snorkelling with no ill effects.

This blog is supposed to be about the Manatee. Well the first one is gone, and the second one is under construction. It has been a great experience working on the new boat this past winter. I had done a little fibreglass work before, but never actually built anything out of fibreglass. This year, with the help of Kerry (aka Bobo), Island Expeditions’ resident fibreglass expert, I have built the decking, the cockpit, bulkheads, hatches and the centreboard trunk, all out of fibreglass. When she is done, she will be all fibreglass except the floor and a folding table attached to the centreboard trunk.

I was planning to photodocument each stage of the process, but I left my camera in San Carlos and took only one photo of the boat with the camera of another guide. So the pictures will have to wait. Now I am home I plan to build the amas (outriggers) and akas (crossbeams between the amas and the main hull) here in San Carlos, and ship them to Belize for the beginning of next season. This gives me plenty of time to work on them. Next season I should be able to assemble the whole boat before I start work and then take her out with me. I will sail her around and find her weaknesses before I set out on my voyage home. This next one will have two amas, so if one fails, I have a backup until I can get it fixed. It will also be very fast as it is longer - 20 ft - and lighter - about 1/3 the weight of the first one. The further I progress, the more excited I become about the voyage home. Sometimes it is an obsession and I have to remind myself to enjoy the anticipation but live my life now. That said, it doesn’t mean I can’t reminisce. So I would like to share some of the moments I experienced this past field season in Belize.

We don’t often snorkel the Western Wall at Glover’s Reef, as it is too far to paddle for most groups, and the groups are usually too big to take the skiff. But this year the number of people travelling to Belize was way down, so we had some small groups. One such trip we decided to skiff over to the Western Wall and snorkel along the outside edge of the atoll where the bottom drops vertically to great depths. The wall is actually a series of walls, separated by ledges. We were snorkelling over one such ledge, with about 20 feet between us and the corals below. We saw the usual assortment of reef fishes, and in small sandy clearing lay a dead squirrelfish. We noted the fish and carried on when someone spotted a large green moray eel, swimming along the bottom in broad daylight. This is unusual, so we followed it as it poked its head in and out of various holes in the reef, until it came upon the dead squirrelfish. It must have caught scent of the fish and come looking for it. We watched as the huge eel writhed and struggled to swallow this spiny fish. The whole effort looked painful.

After the show was over, we spread out and continued to drift southward with the current. I was off to the right of the main group, right near the dropoff, when a large shape directly below caught my eye. My breath caught in my throat as a 12 ft. hammerhead shark swam steadily beneath me. This was the first time I had seen a shark that could easily eat me, while I was in the water with it. The long, lithe body and powerful tail contrasted sharply with the more commonly seen nurse shark. I had a feeling, looking at this fellow, that he could easily turn and take a monstrous bite out of me should he decide to. Rationally I knew I had nothing to fear, as shark attacks are almost always on people who are spearfishing, and the shark really just wants the fish. I also quickly surmised that he wasn’t interested in us because he was already past us and swimming determinedly southward. I tried to follow, but even though he wasn’t in a hurry, he was still far too fast to keep up with. But just for the briefest of moments, he was Jaws, and I was one of his hapless victims.

My second shark encounter was much closer and much, much scarier. I was snorkelling a new patch reef, near the edge of the atoll at Lighthouse Reef, with two guests in tow. We had anchored in about 15 ft. of water, and were working our way around this big patch reef. As we got nearer to the edge of the reef, the patch reef broke up into a series of large dead coral mounds. I got an eerie feeling there. There was no live coral, no fish even. As I rounded one mound, I suddenly saw a big, heavy-bodied shark, swimming away from me, scanning back and forth. Usually when you see a shark during the day, they are milling around, killing time. This one looked like it was looking for something. I turned and looked for my friends. Then I stuck my head back in the water. The shark emerged again, a few feet away. This time he had a school of jacks with him. They knew he was hunting. Again he swam away.

I pressed myself against the coral head and looked for my guests again. I called them over and said “Snorkel’s over. I just saw a really big shark.” Read the italics as a kind of breathy speech. “Ok,” I continued, “Let’s swim over to the boats together, like one big fish.” No one argued or questioned me and we more or less did just that. It seemed to take forever for the two of them to get into the boats, as I stayed under, scanning the water. Then we were all in and on our way back. When the fear is over, you are left with a rush of adrenaline, the kind of high that makes you feel truly and sharply alive. You feel like you are charged with electricity, covered in Saint Elmo's fire. There is nothing like it.

It occurred to me that if one of the Belizian guides was with us, I wouldn’t have felt so spooked. These guys know the sea, they live in these waters, and I rely on them for their knowledge and experience. But when it is all up to me, I don’t quite have the same confidence, not when other peoples’ lives are at stake. Later conversations with Alex, the most experienced of the Belizian guides, convinced me it was probably a bull shark, and that it was wise to get out of the water when we did.

I guess that’s a part of life, isn’t it? Knowing when to get out of the water. That’s my cue.

Cheers
Island Jack

Back in Belize, with high hopes and empty pockets. Came early intending to work on the new Manadi, but can't do any work until I gt some money, so I am enjoying playing tourist. Went camping for ten with a friend from Tucson. Here are some highlights...

Sailing a double kayak in a lovely NE breeze, we spy a dolphin clearing the water about 100m ahead. So I scratch the hull of the kayak to get his attention. and soon he appears below us in the clear green water. He swims alongside, underneath us for a few seconds, then crosses under us and disappears. We take this as an auspicious start to our trip.

Day 3 Tobacco Range. A cold front has come in and strong NW winds are keeping us on the beach. A fishing boat from the north coast is using our island as shelter from the wind, so the crew come ashore. The Skipper teaches me how to weave a net. We use his net needle and I make a net bag. This is a great skill to have. Later we get some bamboo and carve net needles. Several of us are at work carving these needles, and one suggests a contest to see who can make the nicest one. I have the sharpest knife and so win the contest, not by any skill of my own.

Day 6: We are entering Sittee River after crossing several miles from Billyhawk Cay. Right at the mouth are three manatees, which we watch only briefly before they spot us and disappear. We enter the river, and about a mile in there is a narrow side channel which connects to a lagoon. We pass into the channel and are swallowed up by the forest. The scene about us is magical. We are surrounding by tall tangles of mangrove roots, and enclosed by the forest. Tiny birds flit by so swiftly we can't identify them, and all is still and silent. The silence rings in our ears after so many days of constant wind and waves. We drift with the current and marvel at our surroundings before we burst forth into a large round lagoon and the spell is broken.

Day 7: We are camped on a beautiful sandy beach, with our own dock and picnic area. Through the sparse woods behind us is a lagoon, and a new-built road. In the bush we find a pair of narrow-gauge locomotive wheels, and there is evidence of dredging in the lagoon. We later discover that there is a big marina and housing devlopment planned for this area, but for now we have it to ourselves. Ourselves and millions of nasty biting sandflies. For now the breeze is blowing and we are content to hang our hammocks and make our dinner in peace. But in the morning, after a rain followed by a windless day, we are driven away as fast as we can flee.

Day 9: We are on the Sittee River, at the Riverview Lodge, which for now is just a restaurant and dock, but we are very pleased with the people and the location. We have slung our hammocks under a big thatch, and we have a place to cook our meals and hang our clothes, along with a shower and toilets. This place is perfect for us. The owners are friendly and helpful and plan to build some cabins on the grounds. And camping is only $10 BZE ($5US) per night.

From the dock we watch tiger herons and little blue herons stalk the shoreline. A small black opossum steals by in the night. He is headed to a small channel to drink where he is reasonably safe from crocodiles. Later we see one glide by, about a 10-footer.

In the trees around our campsite we see and hear oropendulas, melodious blackbirds, red-lored parrots, a huge, orange and black iguana, and two keel-billed toucans. The toucans are a real highlight, being such an unusual bird and are a big attraction to the Sittee River area.

We get a couple of bikes and ride up the road, looking for the old sugar mill. A Salvadorian citrus worker helps us find it, and we discover huge wheels and gears buried in the jungle vegetation. By the size of the trees that have grown up in this site, it has been abandoned for a long time. We later learn it was the first sugar mill in Belize, built in the 1830's. We also learn that from here was built a railway to take the sugar to the sea, where it was loaded on schooners. The point of loading was that very beach where we had camped among the locomotive wheels and sandflies. Another mystery solved and a trip worth the effort.

A word about campsites. Much of the coast of this tiny country is privately owned, but we found welcoming people and affordable sites. One such place is Billyhawk Cay, which has a small fledgling resort. For $10bze a night you can camp there and live among Garifuna fishermen. If you don't catch any fish, they will sell you some, and there are nice coral reefs nearby to explore. They also have small rooms available and a bar.

Another spot we found was Castillo's Beach, on the north end of Hopkins. Mr. Castillo let us stay on his beach for $10 bze for the both of us. The beach is very nice for swimming, there is a picnic table and flat ground for a tent or some nice tres to sling a jungle hammock. He also let us use his shower and toilet, in an outbuilding near his house. Right beside his house is Sew Much Hemp, where you can buy natural insect repellent and a variety of hemp-based clothing and other products (not weed). I didn't try the insect repellent, but it sure smells better than DEET.

The last day was a 14 mile paddle from Sittee River to Dangriga against the wind. It was a long day but we enjoyed the challenge and certainly felt we had earned a cold Belikin beer at the end of that day.

See you soon. Cheers
Jack

I'm back in San Carlos, just after a grazing by Tropical Storm Henriette. we got some wind, much rain, and very little damage.

I recently got a request for more desert photos, so i am dedicating this post to the beautiful Sonoran Desert. Those among you who are more interested in the marine stuff, skip this one but don't give up on me. Soon I will begin construction on the new amas (outriggers)for the Manatee.

San Carlos is in the southern Sonoran desert, in a region of the desert known as the Central Gulf Coast region. Rains here come mostly in the summer. The winter rains which are fairly reliable in the north, particularly around Tucson, Arizona, may not fall here for several years. Despite this, the desert is surprisingly shrubby.

Surprising too, is how dry it can be a few feet from the sea. All that moisture, and it hardly falls on land. This is typical of deserts found in the "Horse Latitudes". The horse latitudes (roughly 30 degrees, north and south of the equator)are a region of descending air, which as it falls, warms and dries. The result is very stable air, with few clouds, little wind, and very little precipitation. And the ability to tie your boat to a cactus.

Much of the Sonoran Desert is in the Basin and Range Province of southwestern North America. Small ranges of moderate to low volcanic mountains rise through a flat basin of volcanic dust and ash. San Carlos is on the seaward edge of the Sierra el Aguaje, a mountain range split with canyons and pushed right up to the sea. The canyons are shady and often have water seeping in from the surrounding porous rock. As a result these canyons often harbour a variety of tropical deciduous forest species, normally found hundreds of kilometres to the south. On the slopes are more typical desert species, such as cacti and agave plants.

Even talk. The pictures were chosen to show the variety of landforms and vegetation. I hope you enjoy them.

Cheers,
Jack

I’ve been asked to post more frequently and more regularly, lest my readers lose interest. My philosophy has been to post when I think I have something interesting to say, however rare and random that may be. Please let me know what you think.
Lorena and I are at the cottage, on the shore of Lake Talon; a lake in Northern Ontario. The water is a light tea colour, tinted by the water from the bogs in its catchment area. By mid-August it is already chilly for swimming, and so our daily bath is quick and bracing, but necessary, as there is no indoor plumbing this year.
I awoke last night, for the usual reasons, and peering out through the big front windows, I was struck by a rare and beautiful sight. In the bright moonlight a shroud of silver mist swirled slowly over the still, dark water in little peaks, like ghosts figure-skating in slow-motion over black ice. The nocturnal world seemed filled with magic, and I could only stand and stare in wonder. At such moments, you forget about the cold, and the flies, and all the inconveniences of living in such a place, and are only grateful for the brief moments of awe and wonder. Like the lonely call of a loon, drifting in through the fog, or when a bright green dragonfly with crimson eyes comes to rest on your shoulder as you paddle among the reeds and water-lilies, and you know no deerfly will dare approach to bite your neck. Or the sudden slap of a beaver’s tail, warning his neighbours of your approach as you round a bend in the river. Or the immense silence of a windless day, occasionally broken by the chattering of a red squirrel, or the distant drumming of a grouse. These are the moments that, put together, make life in the bush so rewarding in a way that is difficult to describe to one who has not experienced it for himself. And they are the moments that come back to you in sudden flashes, when you are thousands of miles away, and make you suddenly long for home, for the smell of pine and woodsmoke, for the soft rustle of leaves underfoot, for the immense silence of new-fallen snow.
Meanwhile, hurricane Henriette has hit San Carlos, and we have to wait to assess the damages. First reports are good; it was brief and not too intense. So we are expecting minimal damage. I’ll keep you posted.
Cheers
Jack

Desert Thirst

I had a writer here for a few days. His name is Roland Pelletier, and he is writing a book that takes place in Guaymas in the 1850’s and wanted someone to take him around the city and into the desert. It seemed an easy assignment.

I took him for a hike in the desert. Ordinarily we don’t hike in the desert at this time of year; it was 107F or 42C today (the day I am writing this), at noon. But this was when he came, so off we went. It was a typical summer day; a cloudless sky of rich blue, like looking up at the Caribbean. We walked over some rolling hills and open country at first. The desert is very dry; months without rain have taken every leaf from the shrubs and trees, leaving a brown and grey landscape. The only green is the odd organpipe cactus, scattered along the hillsides, and the dense thornscrub in the deeper washes, where water is available year-round. Two deer bounded into a draw as we crossed over a hill. I wondered what they found to eat. We crossed a wash and strolled over the open ground beyond. Then we descended back into the wash, at first struggling through the dense bush. Eventually the wash narrowed into a boulder-strewn canyon, with palm trees that rustle in the breeze like flowing water, high walls of worn tuff, riddled with caves. After reaching a blind end at a 20 ft waterfall (dry of course), we decided to back out a bit and then climb the side, to get around the barrier. That’s when the trouble started.

The rock here is rotten, soft and easily broken; a perfect handhold may crumble with a light tug. We ascended the near-vertical sides without incident, but there was no going back the way we came up. The rest was a safer slope, but much of it was loose scree and treacherous enough with good hikers underfoot. And my friend Roland was wearing boots with smooth soles. At least they were rubber, not leather, so they held well onto hard rock. But it was treacherous going. We got to the top, and the other side was a long, vertical drop. We tried to find another way into the canyon we left, but it ended in the same, vertical formations. So the only way was to move laterally, and get ahead of the dry waterfall. This choice was the safer one, but we were already almost out of water. And to carry on meant heading a long, roundabout route through desert wash and dense thornscrub bush.

So we headed on. The sun was hot, the air hot, heavy, and still. Walking under the sun was like carrying a hot stone on your back and shoulders. My water was long gone, (I had only brought 3 litres for the two of us, planning on an hour or two on easy ground), and the thirst was intense. Saliva becomes thick, like glue, or a MacDonald’s shake, and the eyes become dry and uncomfortable. On we trudged, over boulders, through brush, out into the open where the mountains dip down to make a notch. Through this notch we descended into another wash, thick with scratchy, thorny and prickly brush. By this time we walked in silence, automatically moving forward, pushing through thickets, crunching over loose gravel, moving onward, forward, towards water, life and relief from the awful thirst. By the time we reached the last section of our hike, a dirt road over even ground, Roland turned to me and said “My hands are swollen.” I looked at mine and realized the same thing was happening to me. He also asked me if I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Fortunately I couldn’t, and we knew we would be okay soon, so we became more relaxed, and began to talk again.



Roland wanted an experience of the desert and he got one. It is important to realize that the desert is not malevolently waiting for you to make a mistake so it can punish you. It is merciless, not because it is evil, but because it is indifferent. Man does not struggle against nature; he struggles against his own fragility, his own limitations, with nature not as his opponent, but as an impartial and disinterested judge. To survive here, you need to know what you need and how to get it. And if you don’t have what you need to survive here, you had better stay on the cilivised side of the edge.

People rarely die way out in the wilderness, far from help, out of communication range. The only people who get that far are those who know what they are doing. People more often die on the edges, near to civilization. Unprepared, unequipped, and caught off guard, they wander lost, or simply get themselves stuck somewhere and perish before they can get back out. We won that particular race, but it could have gone the other way if we were forced, say, to spend the night, or if an accident or injury befell one of us and slowed us down too much. And remember, long before you die from environmental exposure, your judgment becomes impaired, and you make foolish decisions which make your situation worse. So to survive you need enough to keep from getting that far, to the point of no return.

Well I don't have much to say about the "Voyage". I am in San Carlos, Sonora, a long way from the new Manatee. I haven't even started on the new outriggers, though I have picked up a sail and mast along with a cute little sailboat called a Sabot. I have a new digital camera; the old one suffered an accident with a yoghurt container full of salad in my backpack on a hike in the desert. The resultant leak of oil and vinegar has resulted in the gradual loss of function.

While uploading the last of my photos onto my laptop, I discovered a pair of pictures of the new Manatee.



The first is the boat at the boatyard before I bought her.












The second is the builder: Mr. Bradley of Bradley's Boatyard, Belize City. He was surprised I wanted to take his picture, but was very gracious.









The last picture is of the new boat in Dangriga. I have cut out the plywood moulds for the bulkheads and the decking is screwed on but not yet trimmed. With any imagination you can picture the basic form she will take.


Monsoon

The dogs hear it before we do. The first sign of the approaching storm is the banging at the door by Tequis, who is so afraid of thunder that she tries to get inside. That brings our attention to the flashes of lightning. The thunder soon follows as the storm gets within 15 miles of us.

The monsoon is a wind pattern, not a rainfall. It begins in the summer, when the air over the desert heats up enough to drag the trade winds from the tropics up this way. This brings us moist, tropical air, and eventually, rain. Hence it is called the monsoon rain.

After several months, almost a year in fact, of no rain, the desert is dry, brown, burnt-looking. The sun has baked it until it releases a scorched smell. The cacti are lean, deeply pleated, and the only green things in the landscape, as not a leaf remains over most of the desert. And a walk in the desert raises only dust. But every day since the monsoon began, the air has become a little more humid. At night, flashes of light are seen over the horizon .These flashes, called heat lightning, are the result of static electricity, released as the cooling night air descends. But the lightning I see tonight is the real thing, and the dogs are not at ease tonight.

I have been hoping the rains would come before we head north to Canada. I miss the seasons up there. Here there are only two seasons: wet and dry. Dry is most of the time, but the wet season brings a transformation to the desert that must be seen and heard, felt and smelt to be appreciated. Before the first shower is even finished, the air is filled with the resinous odour of the creosote bush, what is universally known here as the smell of rain. And at the same time arrives the shrill chorus of the spadefoot toad. Lying dormant in the ground since last summer, they begin to emerge in response to the rumbling of the thunder. By the time the rain has soaked the earth, they are crawling out and filling every puddle. Tonight they call out for a mate. Tomorrow they will be silent. The puddles in which they breed do not last long: there is no time for prolonged courtship so by the end of tonight they will have selected a mate and begun to lay and fertilise the eggs. Within days the tadpoles have hatched and started to feed on each other in the mad race to emerge as fully developed toads before the Sonoran sun dries the puddle to a cracked bed of clay.

As soon as the adult toads have mated, they begin to feed and fatten on the sudden emergence of winged termites. These insects are easily desiccated and so they also must mate and seek a place to lay their eggs and start a new colony while the humidity is high. Hopefully they won’t choose the window and door frames of our house.

After the rain ends, the transformation of the landscape begins. Leaves begin to emerge, the desert floor becomes carpeted in flowers. In two weeks, what was bare brown earth and dry grey branches, is green, yellow, orange and blue: a riot of colour and profusion of life. Summer is here.