Day 28 - The Island

So Olivia and I had recently acquired a taste for lobster.  An expensive delicacy back home but here $12 would get you a nice sized lobster cooked on the barbeque.  Our evening meals of lobster became a daily occurrence.  I did feel a bit sorry for the poor lobsters.  I am not a vegetarian but I don’t like eating meat that looks like the animal.  I began to think whilst looking down at what was left of my evening lobster.  Do lobsters communicate with each other?  And if they do, do they talk about this island?  Hundreds of lobsters are probably hauled to this island every week against their will.  Because of this is this the place where all their friends have been taken to and have never returned?  Caye Caulker, the evil island of death in the eyes of a lobster.  But I was probably thinking too much into this.  All this sea food had made my mind very active.

Poor lobster, but it tastes soo good.

Plan to be spontaneous 

Anyway Olivia and I were coming back from our evening dose of lobster when we saw a crowd of people congregating outside our hostel.  We quickly learnt that the group of people were heading off to a private island for a shindig.  “Do you guys want to come?” they asked.  I turned to Olivia to see what she thought.  We had previously planned on just having a quiet night in the hostel with a few card games and a bottle of rum.  “Yeah let’s do it” said Olivia.  I was a little more unsure about this idea, as I am with most things unplanned.  “What island?  Where?  Who? How? How much?”  People were getting into the boat so there was no time to find out the ins and outs of this island party.  It was either get on the boat now or be left in the hostel wondering.  “Bugger it, let’s go” I replied to Olivia.  A night away from Norman our depressed alcoholic roommate was reason enough.

The atmosphere on the boat was great.  It was a party boat and everyone was in the mood for a good night.  I had found out that the island belonged to the guy who was driving the boat.  His name was Raul and during the day he was a tour guide and at night he hung around our hostel drinking with the night manager.  We had exchanged brief conversation a few nights ago.  He seemed generally nice though he did come across as a bit of an alcoholic.  “I haven’t slept for 2 days” he told me during our brief conversation.  He had a smile on his face and a distant glazed look in his eyes.  And now he was the man driving the boat and responsible for our safety.  “I hope he has had some sleep since our last conversation” I thought to myself.

This little concern didn’t take away from the experience.  Being sat in that boat with a good group of people speeding across the night Caribbean Sea with the ocean wind in my face was pretty special.  I remember looking up at the night sky to see the moon break through the clouds and thinking “this is one of those special moments” and we hadn’t even arrived at the island.

Embarking.

En route.

Arriving on the island.

The Island

After about 20 minutes we slowed down and began to approach the dark silhouette of a small island.  We docked up against a small pier and everyone disembarked each carrying a bottle of either fruit juice or some spirit.  The plan was to make a large punch for everyone to share though the first thing I wanted to do was to explore the island.  Going right from the dock I came across a small wooded area.  The right edge of the island was covered in mangroves.  Coming back to the dock on the opposite side of the island to the pier where two small shacks.  Were these toilets perhaps? 

Going left of the dock I reached the centre of the island.  Here there were some large logs surrounding a burnt out fireplace.  Many late night campfires had been lit here.  Beyond the campfire and on the far side of the island I reached a house that consisted of only two rooms.  The downstairs room was the kitchen and the upstairs room was probably a bedroom.  There were no stairs in the house so the upstairs room was only accessible via a trap door.

So this tiny island was the venue for tonight’s drunken antics.  I would like to tell you more about the island but there really isn’t much else to say.  You could walk the length of the island in less than 2 minutes and the breadth would probably take you less than 30 seconds. 

The first thing Raul did was start the bonfire.  Whilst he was doing this a few people started making the punch.  We had all chipped in a small amount of money to buy various bottles of spirits and fruit juices although we did forget to buy plastic cups.  This was a problem as living on the island on his own Raul didn’t cater for 15 odd people.  People started going into Raul’s kitchen to look for cups.  The first people to go into the house were the lucky ones and came out with cups and mugs.  The later people started coming out with saucepans and jugs as this was all that was left.  It was funny seeing people ransack Raul’s kitchen, frantically opening and inspecting every cupboard and drawer.  It was like a police drugs search, only instead of drugs they were looking for cups.  I was one of the last people to go into Raul’s house to look for a cup and as a consequence I left his house with a watering can.

Making the punch.

After everyone had their cups and I had my watering can we started helping ourselves to the punch and sat around the fire playing various drinking games.  I managed to get talking to Raul because I wanted to know more about this island.  Apparently the island was called Maya and it was a family heirloom that had been in his family for 4 generations.  Having a tropical island in the family, that was a pretty sweet deal.  Although the island was barely above sea level and with all this stuff about global warming it made me wonder how many more generations the island would be in the family. 

A simple drinking game, nominate someone to drink.

The group.

Raul had the same glazed look in his eyes from when I last spoke to him; maybe he had been continuing his non sleep marathon.  He had started the night with a full bottle of rum and now it was less than half full.

After a few hours of drinking and various incoherent conversations people began to fall asleep.  I managed to commandeer one of the hammocks from outside Raul’s house, I just wanted to relax and think about this island.  The fact that I ended up on a tiny private island in the Caribbean Sea still amazed me.  Travel does throw the odd surprise at you; sometimes they are good other times they are bad.  This was definitely one of the good ones, maybe the best so far.

Nautical twilight

I woke up abruptly; I hadn’t planned on falling asleep in the hammock.  I just wanted to rest my head and before I knew it was twilight, that odd time when it is neither day nor night.  There was just enough light to see my surrounding although the light had no obvious source. There were a few other people awake.  They were wondering around the island like zombies.  The hangover from the punch was pretty strong and there was no water or food on the island.  After speaking to a few people I learned that Raul had gone off in his boat during the night and would be returning in an hour to take us back to Caye Caulker.  I decided to pass this time by exploring the island again.

During my exploration I stumbled across the 2 small shacks that I had seen from the start of the night.  I knew one was a toilet but what was the other one?  What was inside this shack?  I had to know.  I tried the door and it was locked however the door did seem quite flexible.  I decided that the door had enough flex to pull open without breaking it or the lock.  I tried pulling it again and it didn’t quite open.  I pulled harder a third time and the door burst open so hard that I nearly fell over. 

So what was on the other side of this door?

It turned out to be a very angry 70 year old man.  He was stood there in the doorway in his white vest and boxers.  “What the fuck man?!  What the fuck?!”  Oops, it seemed I had accidently broken into an old man’s house.  But who was he?  I assumed he must have been a family relative of Raul, maybe his dad or granddad.  He must have been in his little shack the whole night.  I am surprised he didn’t make an appearance at some point during the night, maybe to complain about the noise.  The camp fire where we all were before talking loudly and drinking was less than a stone’s throw from his shack.  Anyway whoever he was he was very angry.  “What the fuck?!” he shouted at me again.  “Sorry man, I didn’t realize this was your house” I said making a hasty retreat.

Raul showed up an hour later in his boat and took us back to Caye Caulker.  The atmosphere in the boat was very different this time.  Everyone was very hung over and conversations were kept to a minimum.  I hadn’t noticed before but Raul was a very accomplished boat driver.  Instead of going in a straight line he would deliberately drive the boat close nearby islands in a big sweeping motion speeding just meters away from the mangroves.  It made the journey back a lot more fun.

This night had been both fantastic and bizarre.  I will never forget that small island; the sea glistening in the moonlight, the starry sky, the atmosphere in the boat and on the island and of course the look on that old man’s face after I burst open his door.  I am still sorry man.

What is your secret Olivia?