Bird Poop Island

I am used to fatherhood now. I no longer say the "s" word without thinking about it first. Which is why I mis-named the island in the title.

Birds*it island is a tiny dot of coral off the coast of O'ahu just north of Kailua beach park. To me it seemed like it was thousands of miles away from shore, but it was really probably about a couple hundred yards or so, give or take. It is flat enough to walk on, but anybody who has ever walked on coral knows that it is so porous and sharp that you are guaranteed to get some kind of cut on your feet. The island was the tip of a reef that brought the sea floor up to the water level, causing the waves coming in from Moloka'i to break at the island and roll into shore. It was here that my friend (the same one who slept in the tent below the Scottish waterfall) decided that I should come to learn how to surf.

He let me use his longboard, which was eight feet long. That's not really such a long board for a guy as big as me. It barely floated me. He got on his other board and we lit out from the shore for our first lesson. "Paddle like this," he told me. And I did. We got out to where the whitewater was rolling in, fifty yards from the break, and he told me to either go over the white water or go under it. I could not duck dive an eight foot board, and you cannot "lip" or go over whitewater. My structure had enough of the board in the water to catch the white water just wrong. I was either dumped off the board and dragged along by the footstrap or pushed backwards most of the way to the shore. I would paddle out to the white water and get pushed back in, paddle out again. I did that for weeks.

Finally, my shoulders got stronger and my trunk leaner and I got to where I could consistently make it out to the island. It was totally covered in bird poop. I still couldn't catch the waves right and sometimes would paddle around the island watching for marine life, sometimes walk on the island and check out the scuttling crabs and mollusks unfortunate enough to get stuck above water. I learned a lot about that very peculiar and very particular environment. Who could have guessed that shallow coral reef islands could be so interesting?

Once I first stood on the eight foot board and rode a wave at Diamond Head I felt that my persistence was rewarded. By then I had discovered that Diamon Head is a cooler place to surf, and after that, Waikiki is the big payoff if you get out there before the sun gets all the way up and the tourists invade. But I had to go back to bird poop island to catch at least one wave there.

The ride wasn't that hot, and the satisfaction I felt made me feel petty.

Isle of Arran- Scotland

There is an island off the west coast of Scotland called Arran. You can get there by taking the ferry from Greenock, it's not far from Port Glasgow. When I was a college kid almost twenty years ago now I went to that island with three friends, and we had a wild time.

There wasn't much wild to do on the Isle of Arran. We didn't stay out all night chatting up girls or dancing to flashy beat music. But the island was wild, the weather was wild, and anyone lucky enough to be caught out in it had better be wild too, or suffer.

There were a couple of tiny villages ringing the island on the one road. I remember Catacall and Pirnmill, but can't remember the other one or two. It was a miracle that we got out to the island at all. After living in Cork where the accent was very lilting I could barely understand the Scottish burr. It may sound odd, but that is completely true, I really couldn't understand everything the Scottish country people would say. Luckily, one of our friends' mother is Scottish, and he could understand everything all the time. It was as if they were speaking a different language and he understood it. I was amazed.

We took a choppy North Sea ferry from the mainland to the island and decided to have a look around. The landscape made a very stark impression. I can see it with my mind's eye, but I cannot at all describe it. It was beautiful the way a mournful uilean pipe solo is, unique and poignant. One had the feeling that all of the fertile, fecund, steaming places in the world could never undo the frosty, lonely rock on which you stood. On which you were priveleged to stand. This was the only time I had ever gone away for Spring Break, and I was instantly glad that I had come.

We tried to find the youth hostel that was in somebody's guidebook and learned that it was in a different village. We did more detective work and found out that there was a bus that would ring the island once a day if the driver felt like going. We strolled around while waiting for the bus. We ducked into a tiny shop for ham sandwiches and lucozade. We watched the see grow more and more angry as we boarded the bus that finally came.

We arrived in the village and found the hostel, but we couldn't all afford to stay there. In the dimming twilight the friend I was staying with in Ireland and I lit out to find a place to pitch our tent. We found what seemed to be a perfect spot. It was protected from the wind on three sides and had a deep bed of moss supporting the floor and easing the back. We went back to the others and stepped out for a pint. The ale was numbing. I could feel my bones being pulled inexorably toward the center of the earth through the wooden chairs next to the mumbling coal fire. Eventually we had to brave the cold and dark to find the tent again.

We fell into our sleeping bags and shivered off to sleep until, in the middle of the night, a torrential rain began to fall. We learned that the rock faces that protected us from the wind also channeled the rainwater into a waterfall as voluminous as an open spigot. That was why the moss had flourished there. We got out in the dark, cold rain and fumbled for the spikes until we found and dug them all up and could move the tent as a piece. We were soakded through by the time we crawled back into the sleeping bags, and we lay there silently shivering, neither of us asleep but both of us dead tired.

I got out of the tent at first light and walked to the headland. Clouds were partly obscuring the rising sun and some of the landscape was bathed in a new glow while some was being clawed back down into the gloom of night. There were short whitecaps all over the sea. Clouds were headed toward the island with columns of snow and rain streaming down to the ocean that looked like grey fabric hanging off of them. I went back to the tent to find it empty.

I started back toward the village where the hostel was. I found that the pub had opened to serve coffee and tea and all of my friends were in there wondering what happened to me. My camping friend and I tried to get as close to the fire as we could without falling in and we clutched the steaming mugs until the liquid inside was cold, trying to eke out every last calorie of heat. The well rested two wanted to try for the bus to explore the remainder of the island.

We waited outside for the bus to come and could see the storm clouds I told them about coming in. When they got close enough that we could easily see that it was snow, and not rain, two of them jumped into a phone booth that offered the only shelter. My camping friend and I just turned up our collars and bowed our heads against the North Sea squall. The wind blasted the heavy wet flakes into any exposed flesh and you could feel them hit, like tiny snowballs. The wind was so strong that you had to struggle against it to breathe. The frigid tempest made everything else go away, until you were only a bundle of neurons struggling to fire enough synapse off to keep up with the squall response, existing as a series of connected moments. It was pretty intense.

Finally the only bus came, but someone had left to find a restroom. Two people got on the bus, pointing out that if you didn't get on this one, there was no other behind it. I went to find the other, and the bus left. I finally did find her, and we had a great day exploring the island, and we did make it to the other side after all. She had come to see Ireland and Scotland, but she had also come to see me. When we found an old manor that had been converted into a B&B she took some of her vacation money saved up expressly for this purpose and got us a room for the night. The building was ancient and the decorating motif was antique. There were no other guests, so we had the run of the place. The old couple who were caretaking seemed to find us amusing, as we did they. They were our friends by the time we left.

I always wanted to go back to that very same place, but was windblown here and there. I would still go back if I could. I wonder if it's still the same.

An Island Too Far

Bear with me as I relate a quick anecdote about an island I never reached. It was in West Africa, on the coast, halfway between Axim and Takoradi. We were staying with the volunteer at Dixcove, but the beach where we partied was a couple miles walk away. It was called Busua beach. At that time there was a half built hotel on the beach. It was an uncomely pile of grey concrete in a tropical paradise, but it acted as a focal point for the local fishermen and the few foreigners who found their way there. The local kids would climb the coconut trees and fetch you a coconut and cut off the top with a machete, pour in several ketchup packages filled with brandy and clean off the removed top part so you could use it as a spoon to scrape out the coconut meat when your drink was done. For about thirty cents. The blighted hotel had a working kerosene fridge and the kids would run cold beers out to you. Beers were 350 and if you gave them 400 they got to keep the change. When the fishermen dragged in their nets they would come along the beach with their best takes and you were expected to haggle for them. It was there that I had the biggest lobster I ever saw, purchased still clicking its claws, taken away, and returned on a bed of jollof rice. Space cakes were available for dessert if you cared to enhance your out-of-bodysurfing experience.

There was an island off the coast just too far to swim. It was a flat spit of sand just long enough to support eleven or twelve coconut trees. It proved to be too much to resist for beer drinking Americans one time when I was not in attendance. Some people got one of the local fishermen to take them out in his dugout canoe. Halfway there one of the guys stood up to take a picture and stumbled toward the gunwale. Everyone around him lurched over to reach for him, hoping to keep him in the canoe. Their intentions were good, but the physics were all wrong. The canoe was so heavy to that side that it swamped and everyone went into the ocean. A twenty-five foot long hardwood dugout canoe cannot be righted like a kayak when completely filled with water. All of their precious belongings went to the bottom, but none of the people did.

The only other time I was there a guy stepped on a sea urchin and had all of the top spines come off in his heel. I never made it out to that island, but I don't think I'll ever try. There may be some local fetish protecting it.

So did the lady on the boat offer you any rum cake?

Oilean Beag

Another quick entry about island hopping. When I was a student at UCC I went for a weekend to Sherkin Island off the coast of West Cork. I had all of my camping stuff, which wasn't much back then, and had intended to camp on Cape Clear Island. When we got to the ferry it seemed that everyone in the universe was going to Cape Clear, so we picked Sherkin for the privacy. It turned out to be a great choice and a terrible one.

The ferry landed at a fourteenth century Franciscan monastery that had fallen into ruin and was not yet refurbished. I wonder if it is now. It was great to be able to explore ruins unhurried and with no touristy schlock. The lanes running through the island were mostly unpaved and so well wooded as to offer green tunnels for trudging through. We meandered through pastures and followed the coast for the views of the headland and surrounding islands. We found what would have been called a blowhole in Hawaii, but the waves were not strong enough to cause billowing, so it was a coastal cave. We were there by twilight and the bed of smooth pebbles shimmered and the muted, muffled sound of the incoming ocean gave the spot an other-worldly feel.

We camped by a thicket of heather that night and it was cold and wet. My companion decided it was not a place she would care to pass another night. We walked into the one town on the island through the sun dappled green tunnels and found what may have been the only B&B on the island. There was a middle aged bohemian brewing strong coffee and letting jazz float out into the sea-scented air. We got a room and a good meal and spent the day recuperating. Later that night we stepped out to the dimly lit quiet pub for a little stout and a bowl of soup, where the locals chided my companion for being away on a weekend with a young man. She breezily laughed it off with a quite clever remark, but for the rest of the time we were on the island she couldn't relax.

We made our way off the island on the only ferry of the day and were able to reach Kinsale at nightfall. She played some beautiful classical piano in the Oyster Harbour Hotel to the delight of the patrons. We fell back into our respective routines back in the city, but knew that we had enjoyed a journey that was not forgettable.

Now, what else happened on St. John?

Island Visit

In keeping with the island travel theme I offer these few words about a trip I took to an island:

I was in my mid to late twenties, living in South Korea. I had some very good friends with whom I went camping one weekend. They were a family of four- mother, father, and two daughters, and a fellow teacher who was about thirty I think. We went camping on a very small island off the southeastern coast, somewhere north of Pusan where the Sea of Japan meets the East China Sea. The entire island was composed of small smooth rocks, which made for lumpy substrate for the sleeping bag. We swam and fished and snorkeled and caught just about every kind of monovalve and bivalve that lives in the Pacific, including sea urchins, which you have to be careful about grabbing. The Pacific up around Korea is cold, and don't let anyone else tell you different. My friends were surprised I could swim in it right alongside them, but they didn't know that I was raised swimming at Marshfield and Duxbury, where the water is colder than Korea's. They taught me how to sneak up on limpets and scrape them off of their rocks while they filter-feed. If they are alerted to your presence then they clamp down on the rock and they are almost impossible to remove. We flicked them into an onion bag with an ROK marine bayonet and went back for urchins. We ate them raw, we ate everything raw. That weekend we ate limpets (which I would later learn were called "opihi" by the Hawaiians), sea urchins, a sea cucumber that the father caught, big clams or small quahogs (I couldn't figure out which) and the two little fish we caught with rod and reel. I don't think I could have choked it all down if it weren't for all of the beer.

I had a great time that I'll never forget, but the pictures are not digital. I have since returned to Korea but was unable to locate any of those people because I had traveled to live in different places in the interim and I believe the family may have emigrated. I miss how much fun we had together and I think of them every time I eat some raw sea animal. I guess that's the danger of traveling too much. You can't keep the best times except as memories.

Now, what were your memories of Charlotte Amelie?

Gig tonight

Hi All.

I'm playing tonight at Brennan's Irish Grille in S. Easton, MA USA. Rte 138.
508-238-9017.

9pm.

Can you mak it?

Alms Giving

A white collar businessman is walking down the street when he is accosted by a panhandler and asked for a dollar.
"I don't give able-bodied men alms," says the businessman.
"You just don't know how it feels to be hungry," retorts the panhandler.
"Of course I do," replies the businessman, "that's why I work."

The common joke above indicates the different views of alms-giving. I recently had three separate perspectives brought to light; my nephew's wife's, my wife's, and mine.

Many times since returning from Saudi my wife would see me throw a few cents into the ratty, tattered disposable coffee cup of a street person in Boston. Invariably, she gives me a hard time about it. In her mind, anyone who does not have a significant physical disability should not be given alms. She supported her view by reminding me of the panhandlers in Africa, and how none of them could work and support themselves otherwise. She says that street people in America have the opportunity to avail themselves of government funded social programs to assist them in becoming self sufficient, and people who did not wish to garner assistance in this way should start lifting something heavy, or mowing, or sweeping. She pointed out that there are so many beggars in Jeddah because alms giving is one of the pillars of Islam, and repeated payment to able bodied street people in Boston will only perpetuate their circumstance.

Recently my nephew's wife was here in Richmond with the kids and the subject of panhandling came up. I mentioned my wife's point of view, and my niece-in-law wholeheartedly agreed, and took it a step further. She said that able bodied people should not only not be given alms on the street, but that neither should they be given the opportunity to avail themselves of the public largesse in the form of social programs.

This made me think of how appreciative a supermarket checkout lady was when I bought a box of food to be donated to the poor in Appalachia. She could not stop thanking me for my $8.00 donation, of which she would get exactly none. I could easily tell that she had been one of the hungry many in the past, perhaps originally from Appalachia. I told her I didn't mind giving it because I had in the past been hungry, and she looked at me as if seeing me for the first time, reforming first impressions, and knowingly agreed that a little help goes a long way. I remembered the frayed and worn down looking young woman who came to our door in Cork city with her son asking for food- not coins or folding money- food to sustain them through the day. They were clean and polite, but very poor. Though we were poor students we rummaged through our meager larder and handed over whatever we could live without.

I know that there are no farms in Boston run by extended families to which able bodied unemployed can run for sustenance when times are hard. There is no tropical warmth to keep the Bostonian homeless from becoming solid blocks of plasmic material. The unfortunate in Boston do not only have fewer options than the unfortunate in the tropics and the south, they have no education on how to seek to better their circumstances outside of the society in which they were raised.

I went unemployed for a number of months during the big crash, and it wasn't for not trying to get or hold a job. I did everything within my power to become gainfully employed day in and day out for months on end, to no avail whatever. If I didn't have an extended family to fall back on then I may have ended up with the same tattered cardboard cup in my hand, standing on the corner of Beacon. When I see those people, not the college kids playing at begging, but the true unfortunates, I think, "There but for the grace of God go I." I had the opportunity to study economics for years and have a more intimate idea of how the big wheels turn to churn out down on their luck people, but nothing is as powerful as the sympathetic emotion put in your heart when you meet one and see yourself when you look in his face.