Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
When Harry came around to Déjà vu one afternoon to say goodby, prior to their departure
the following day, I felt compelled to nip down below and present him with an enveloped
photograph of myself from my collection. “Open this only when you are at sea!” I had
made him promise me. He had smiled knowingly and nodded and had returned to his pala-
tial motor yacht. To this day I question my motives for doing this. I can only say that I was
overwhelmed by his interest in me as a human being. I almost felt obliged to accommodate
him in the only way that was comfortable for me. I hoped this would compensate for the
rescue and fancy dinner he had put on for us.
Many years have passed since those golden days when I was a relative “kid on the high
seas,” free and wild, with salt in my hair and fire in my blood. I can only dimly recall the
excursion to the abandoned hospital that day. It was a grey ruin, almost leveled to its found-
ations. More than that, if my life depended on it I could not describe it with any more detail.
I can recall most vividly that Steve and Linda had caught two coconut crabs and carefully
put them in a bucket with a piece of plywood over the top and a large rock to keep this
lid down. Apparently, these crabs were earmarked for the barbecue later that evening. The
crabs had been captured on the way to the ruins, and sometime after the visit we returned
and found that they had both escaped. Somehow they had reached up in the bucket and
pushed off the plywood and heavy rock weight.
These crabs are the size of a full grown cat. Their pincers are lined with man-sized teeth
and can cut a man's wrist off with one snip! I have heard some islanders have a unique
way of catching them. They will lie down next to a hole under the coconut tree and calmly
put their hand down into this burrow. They can then feel the crab down below and pull
them out by the back legs, so sure are they that the crabs always go down forward into their
holes!
We regrouped several hours later on the beach as a party, hell-bent on having a fun
night around a fire and barbecue. As folks reinforced themselves with the drinks they had
brought for the party, I looked around at their different faces. Penny was busy with food
and social preparations, after all this was her idea, and she was determined to make it suc-
ceed. She was a most determined young lady. Mom and Dad were, well, mom and dad,
quite willing to hand over the social reigns to their more than capable daughter. Craig was
blushing self-consciously as Linda plied him with liquor and sotto voce questions only they
two were privy to. Gavin couldn't be more helpful and manfully, and perhaps a little too
dramatically, broke firewood and did as Penny bid. He brought down large logs of dried
timber with unnecessary force to break their backs on other lumps of wood, posing seduct-
ively and graphically to show off his best angle and muscle tone in sawn off jeans shorts
and tank top shirt. Elizabeth was greatly impressed with the show as she gulped her wine
down.
