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?