A Fish Story

Long ago we set off for Maho Bay on St. John Island in the Virgin Islands. Being tree-hugging eco-tourists at the time, we decided to stay at the Maho Bay Camp. The place was beautiful, and there was plenty to do. You could: explore, sail, windsurf, scuba, snorkel, fish, eat, drink, shop, or lapse into a coma on the beach. The "camp" was pretty cool, sparse, and elegant. We stayed in our very own cabana (hah, cabana... it was a tent with a kitchenette) nestled in the rain forest and overlooking a turquoise blue bay.

Our first day there was warm but overcast and drizzling. The rain didn't keep us out of the water, though. Within the first hour, I put on my mask and snorkel and was face down in the ocean checking out the reef right out my back door. The water was "Evian" clear; you could see forever. There were fish of all sizes and colors, sea turtles, starfish, and stingrays. It was an underwater Eden.

We explored for hours... Face down... In the tropics...

At the time, we didn't consider that even though it was overcast, we still needed to take precautions against sunburn. It seems that the cloudy sky only slowed the burning process. Not to mention the little water we were in: (a.) kept our skin temperature cool while (b.) it acted as a magnifying glass on the rays that were reaching us, rendering us crispy! It seems that the cloudy sky only slowed the burning process.

Of course we didn't realize it until much later that night, but my God we cooked our asses off!

So here we are, our first "us" time since our daughter was born. We're tucked away in a romantic shanty in a tropical rain forest, with a mountain view out one window and a view of a blue lagoon out the other. The tradewinds are blowing through our cabana/tent, and the candles around the place are flickering in the breeze, setting just the right mood for Wife and me to share... SUN-POISONING.
My burn was so bad that within a couple of days, the skin on the back of my ankles split open, and the wounds started weeping, as did I. Thankfully, I had a prescription for some really heavy painkillers that I had brought along.

Oh shit, it was horrible! Wife still has scars on her butt where she baked her skin off. My burn was so bad that within a couple of days, the skin on the back of my ankles split open, and the wounds started weeping, as did I. Thankfully, I had a prescription for some really heavy painkillers that I had brought along. The first night and the next day, we were uncomfortable but sedated. If I remember correctly, when we ran out of the 'scripts, we just started drinking heavily to dull the pain.

Did we pack it up and go home like most sane people would? Ah, hell no! We had spent money on a good time, and by God, we would have a good time! Pain be damned! Now we're tourists with a vengeance. Drunk tourists, gorked out on narcotics, but tourists all the same.

We start looking for things to do.

We walk up to Maho Bay's clubhouse to see what else the island has in store. We perused the activities list. As I mentioned, there were many things to do on the island, but in our state, there weren't many things that "we just had to do". One of the activities the camp offered that seemed to be a crowd pleaser was a guided, night snorkeling tour. "See the Reef at Night... It's Amazing!" read the brochure. "$125 per person," also read the brochure. We talked about it and decided that's what we wanted to do. We figured we could handle snorkeling at night, no sun... no pain. We also figured that those Maho folks must've been smoking crack if they thought we were going to pay them $250 to take us swimming. I had noticed a dive shop in the little town on the way to the camp. I figured we could go to the dive shop and buy underwater flashlights for $30 to $40 a piece, and we'd be in the water for around half of the price of what they wanted to charge per person, and we'd go home with a couple of cool, waterproof flashlights!

Now, there is a reason why they charge $125 per person. Only at the time did we never even think of asking ourselves why.

Supposedly, the reef is teeming with life after dark; we were told there are "...many, many MORE creatures at play in the water when the sun goes down...". Just hearing the words "more creatures" had us foaming up, eager to get on with our little National Geographic adventure.

Later that evening, with the brand new, hot pink, waterproof flashlights in one hand and our masks and snorkels in the other, we walked down to the beach to begin OUR version of the "Ocean Quest night snorkel".

The sun had set, but it was still light out when we geared up and got into the water. We tooled around close to the shore for a while, always mindful of the buddy system, we stayed pretty close to one another as we ventured out further into the bay. Time started flying by, before we knew it, we had been in the water for well over two hours, and it was dark. We noticed the nightfall, but it didn't concern us. We just kept oohing and aahhhing (which by the way sounds alot like porn when you have a mouthful of snorkel) at every new sight.

Wife's flashlight beam would land on a huge parrot fish and the damned thing would seem to glow. Or my beam would fall on a clown fish feeding around a sea anemone. Occasionally, when one of us would see something really cool, we'd pop our heads out of the water and say "d'you see that?" and the other would let out a snorkeled, audible "buhhhh-hhhuh".

At one point, while we were face down, the water around us turned into this quivering fish soup. Apparently, we had startled a school of fish, and now we were in this living mud. Millions of tiny "guppies from hell" were freaking out all around us. Literally, they were all over us, in our hair, ears, swimsuits, everywhere (yep, even there too!). In a blink, they were gone.

We both popped up, unnerved as hell and spitting fish.

"You ok?"

"Yeah. You?"

"uh huh."

We collected ourselves for a few seconds, put the masks and snorkels back on, and then we were back exploring. By now, it was really dark! We kept swimming. Our only field of vision was within the beams of our flashlights. I remember thinking to myself how creepy it was that all of this life was around us, but we could only see within the thin cone of what our beams could spotlight.

We kept swimming.

Our beams would dart back and forth searching for the next new sight to see.

Then our beams converged on it. Let me rephrase that: Our beams are locked on to IT.

And time stopped.

There, not 20 feet away from us, was the largest eyeball I've ever seen in my life! I have no idea what kind of creature was behind that orb but that fucking eye was the size of a hubcap.

The eye glanced once in Wife's direction, then glanced over to me. I almost chummed in my swimsuit. We were in a deadlocked gaze with something WAY bigger than either of us could've imagined.

We blinked first. Our heads popped out of the water simultaneously.

me: (calmly) "d'ya see it?"

Wife: "uh huh."

pause... pause... pause...

me: (still calmly) "Wha' say we head back?"

Wife: "yeah."

We calmly turn around, then break into this panicked "swim for your life" effort to get to the shore. I'm practically Jesus trotting across the water, I'm swimming so hard I'm rooster tailing it!
,
Then I hear Wife say... "Mark. Where are ya?".

I stopped swimming and answered, "I'm right here." It seems like my subconscious said, in an effort of self-preservation, " Screw the buddy system. Swim! Swim if you want to live!"

"I'm over here!" Wife replies, "Keep talking so I can find you."

Now I'm starting to reach DEFCON 1 on the panic meter.

Not only are we being chased by "satanic guppies" and a fish the size of a large condominium, but now my wife is lost at sea, and I've lost my bearings... I don't know where the shoreline is. For all I know, I could be swimming towards Venezuela.

We find each other and then get back into the "buddy system" groove. This time we're holding each other's hands while we swim, but we're still lost. Finally, I see a dark outline of an anchored boat that I noticed earlier in the evening as we were heading out. Once I get an idea of the boat's position, we swim towards it, and off in the distance, I see a light I recognized in the camp. I know where we are! But we are a long way from the shore.

We finally made it back to the beach. Once there, we crawled onto the sand and tried to catch our breath. Completely out of energy, still hurting from the burn and hungry beyond belief, we slink back to our cabana/tent and crash for the night.

We didn't leave the tent the next day. Sunburnt, exhausted, hungry, in a tent, in the middle of the summer, with no AC. That was one of the neatest places we've ever been.

By week's end, I had adopted this too-cool island vibe. I took the Maho Shuttle bus down to the little port town several miles from camp to check out the place. On the way back, the shuttle loaded a herd of fresh-off-the-boat vacationers. I thought to myself... "Fucking tourist".