Tales of St. John and the Caribbean

From Tales of St. John and the Caribbean
(Note: The Sea Breeze is no longer in existence. The bar has been completely renovated and is now the  Sweet Plantains restaurant.)
Trinidad Charlie and I arrived at Sea Breeze around 8:30 one Sunday morning and were waiting around for breakfast to be served. The place was filling up with all kinds of salty characters, early morning drinkers, sailors, live-a-boarders, Coral Bay locals and the occasional tourist. This one guy, who seemed to know Charlie, sat with us for a while. In the course of conversation he told us this story:

He had sailed out of St. Thomas on his way to the Azores. He was all alone; single handing a wooden sloop which, although quite old, was still, apparently, in excellent condition. He rode the tradewinds north and west to get to the latitudes of the prevailing westerlies which would then carry him east across the Atlantic.

He was about 100 miles north of the Turks and Caicos, and it was clear sailing with calm seas, steady winds and fine weather. He calculated his position and determined that he was far away from any recognized shipping lanes as well as from any land, shallow reefs or  other navigational hazards.

The sails were well set and he lashed the tiller down watching the boat self-steer north, north west with no problems. He decided it would be safe to go below and take a nap.

He awoke in the night to find the boat filled with water. The seas were coming over the main deck, and it was obvious that the vessel was sinking.

What happened? He doesn’t know. Perhaps a main plank came loose, but whatever it was, there was no time to do anything but abandon ship and avoid being trapped below in the cabin.

No time to radio an SOS, he donned an ocean life vest and jumped overboard. He watched by the light of the moon as the boat sailed on ahead of him, gracefully under full sail, for about 100 yards before going under. The batteries were still functioning, and he could see the running lights and cabin lights shining surreally under the water as the boat slowly sunk.

The life jacket, which would hold most of his body out of the water, was equipped with a flashlight, a whistle and an emergency radio beacon, none of which seemed too helpful so far from any land or commercial activity. Realizing his position, alone in the dark of night in the middle of the ocean, fright and panic set in and took over. He thought about sharks and he said he felt like a piece of bait at the end of a fishing line. He soon fainted or passed out or fell asleep.

He regained consciousness in the light of the next morning. He heard a sound; and then he saw God coming down from the sky… on a rope!

God turned out to be a United States Coast Guard lieutenant. A Coast Guard helicopter just happened to be in the area on an unusual mission. It was unusual because flights were rarely scheduled so far from the helicopter’s base of operations. The crew was just at the point of turning back when they heard the faint signal of the emergency beacon. There was scarcely enough fuel to return to base, and there was only a short amount of time for a search and rescue mission, but luckily, the Coast Guard team managed to find and rescue the sailor and make a safe return to the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He says that he still sails, but only on perfect days, when there is not a cloud in the sky and never very far from the sight of land.

A friend visits St. John
A friend of mine, who used to live on St. John, but has since moved was on ialnd and invited me for dinner at Morgan’s Mango. He was in the Virgin Islands to build communications tower on St. Thomas.

“How are things,” I asked.

“It has been a horrible week,” he answered.

It seems he had completed all the permitting processes needed to construct the tower, historical, archeological and environmental studies, approval by the various agencies, DPNR, CZM, etc. and was finally ready to actually begin construction. A job that was supposed to be completed before the end of the year.

The first step was the clearing of the site. He hired an excavator, and because he has had problems in the past and because he didn’t hadn’t worked with the excavator previously, he wanted to make doubly sure that nothing would go wrong.

In that vain, he hired a surveyor to stake out the site and he instructed the excavator, to run lines around the entire site before beginning.

The best laid plans
For some reason, the excavator marked off only three of the four border lines of the site, maybe that last line seemed obvious, no one knows. But it wasn’t obvious as it turned out and the excavator cleared off 80 feet of someone else’s land.

The owner was irate, understandably, and my friend was mortified. He honestly felt terrible. The short term outcome was that there was a fine levied and my friend was instructed to hire a civil engineer to come up with a plan to restore the mistakenly cleared land. This he did, but his goal of finishing the project in a timely fashion was no longer possible.

Not in my backyard
We got into a discussion about the not in my back yard philosophy, which is that people want amenities such as in this case cell phone access, high speed G3 internet access and emergency services, but they don’t want the tower in their back yard.

I said that I could understand the homeowners position. The lowering of property values, the degrading of the view and the perceived health risks. My friend said that it was a case of the greater good, a relatively small sacrifice for the individual, for the greater good of the community at large.

A case in point
My friend told me of an e-mail he received, thanking his for the placement of a tower, in the vicinity of which there previously had been no reception. A man had an accident near the tower and there was no one around. Because the newly built tower was there, he had cell phone reception and was able to call for help. He surely would have perished otherwise. So in this case, a man’s (a father’s, a husband’s, a friend’s) life was saved because of a communication tower.

The conversation continued to go back and forth, but I had to concede that he had a point.

Yesterday’s Virgin Islands daily News reported that, partly in response to the land clearing fiasco, there will now be a six month moritorium on the building of communications towers. Read article.

(By the way, our dinner at Morgan’s Mango was really delicious)

Most Virgin Islanders have grown up hearing Anansi stories.

Anansi is a quick-witted, but mischievous, spider whose character originates in West African folk tales. This tale, which was popular in St. John in the early 1900s, was transcribed by Roy Sewer when he was 17 years old at the time and published in the book, Escape To The Tropics by Desmond Holdridge in 1937.

Mr. Sewer later served as the Island Administrator for St. John and then as the principal of the Julius Sprauve School. He is now retired and living on St. John.

Notes:

Club refers to the Virgin Island custom of family and friends helping one another out when big jobs needed to be done. The one holding club would traditionally prepare food and beverages for the helpers and would be available if called upon to do club work for someone else.

The term “resen” means baptize.

The Club

Once upon a time, there were two spiders, one name Bru Tuckomar and the other Bru Anansi.

One day, Bru Tuckomar said to Bru Anansi, “Bru, would like you to help me cut some wood.”

Bru Anansi said, “Surely. I will willingly help you.”

So Bru Tuckomar said, “I will cook peas soup for your lunch.”

So, when the day came for the wood to cut, he cook the soup before they began to work. After he finish cook, he said, “Let us go to work.” And they went.

About 9:30, Bru Anansi said, “Lord have marsey, every day resenin’ bastard child! Resenin’ child so!”

But, before they went to work, he hang a pan in the tree and whenever the wind blow, the pan made a loud sound much like a bell.

So he would say, “Bru, I have to go to resen that child.”

Bru Tuckomar said, “All right, you go.” He went right where the pot was and began to eat. He ate one third of the soup and went back to work. When he reach, he said, “Well, I resen the good-for-nothing!”

Bru Tuckomar said, “What the child’s name?”

“Just Begin,” said Anansi.

They work until about eleven and the pan made the same noise. Bru Anansi stop work and listen. Bru Tuckomar said, “I hear a call, Bru. They must be calling you to a next resening.”

Anansi said, “Hell! Then I wish all them damn children would die. Anyway, me go.”

And he went, and he did resen the child! He ate about three fourths of the food and went back.

What this child’s name?” said Bru Tuckomar.

“Half Gone,” said Anansi.

Bru Tuckomar said, “Quare names, indeed!’

Anansi said “Half Gone” because there was less than that in the pot from what there was at first.

So they work and conversed and, all of a sudden, a big wind come and the pan call again for the rest of the food to be finish. Bru Anansi made as if he didn’t hear a sound and Bru Tuckomar said, “Bru, them is call again for you to resen another bastard child.”

Bru Anansi made believe that he didn’t want to go. Bru Tuckomar said, “You know it is your duty to go, so go.”

And Anansi began to swar and say all manner of thing so Bru Tuckomar would think he didn’t want to go. But it was just from joy. He want to make a finishing touch.

He went and all was gone this time so, when he went back, Bru Tuckomar said, “What’s the name?”

“None Left for You!”

“What? None Left for Me! The idear of such a name for a child!”

When the club finish, the two left for food and rest. But, to Bru Tuckomar surprise, the pot was empty. They look at one another.

Bru Tuckomar said, “I know the children had funny names!” and he rush for Anansi. But Bru Anansi, being too fast, side slip him, and cut his head off with a cutlash.

And since that, spiders never keep club.