Today was chore day: dinghy into town with four loads of laundry, hit the ATM, and provision (fancy boat term for grocery shopping). This last chore turned into a 3-pronged approach: go to cheaper market, then go to fancier market for any items first store didn’t have in stock, but dinghy back over to first shop to get the all-important DARK chocolate Klondike bars Christopher craves in order to keep them frozen as long as possible. Because it’s a 10-minute roofless dinghy ride in the hot sun back to the mother ship. Then hull cleaning.
We don’t have a yard to mow; we “mow” the hulls. And today was chore day. And hull cleaning needed to happen. Chore number four, our final task of the day.
Christopher and I both donned snorkel gear and, armed with scrapers and suction cups (think Spidey-ability to hold onto the boat underwater) we got wet and got to it. I lasted longer than Christopher. Not because I’m more dedicated or hardier. It’s only because I’m warmer in the water as I have to wear a full wetsuit to evade my allergen nemeses, jellyfish. Christopher hopped out to get warm, but I remained to finish the job.
Alone in the water beneath our boat, between the hulls, I made a new friend.
A tiny-all of one inch-juvenile sergeant major fish swam right up to my mask. I think he was thanking me for providing all the bitching snacks he was wolfing down from the detritus I was scraping off our boat. It’d been a little over a month since our last hull cleaning. And Aquatania had become a bearded lady, supporting a small ecosystem which was growing beneath her waterline. As I scraped off tiny barnacles, algae and assorted marine plants, the baby fish got an easy, free meal. He swam by my torso and near my face mask, gulping bits of flotsam wafting away from our floaty home.
A larger finned fellow then caught my eye. One of the largest barracudas I’ve ever seen sauntered beneath me, keeping low to the sand. (Spoilers: barracuda love to hang out beneath things – docks, boats – so his silhouette didn’t come as a huge shock to me.) He was close to 4’ in length and a curious fella. He never ascended above the bottom of the keels, but he kept his eye on me.
I wasn’t afraid. I’ve seen ‘cudas beneath boats plenty of time. Besides, I know I’m at the top of the food chain. The thought reminded me of tactics one is supposed to take if encountering a coyote in the wild. Scare it off by making yourself as big as possible and yell and flail your arms. I tested the theory, shooting my arms and finned legs out full length and growling like a bear through my snorkel.
Barry (that was the barracuda’s name) was unphased. Not one for theatrics, he seemed keen on trying to figure out what I was. Clearly I was not a water bear!
I continued my task, popping off tiny barnacles, wiping the slime slick off the waterline, and checking to make sure the baby sergeant major was nearby now and then (and hadn’t become a snack for Barry).
Full disclosure: as a former dancer with gymnastics training, I find it terribly amusing when I have to dive deepest to scrub the bottom-most section of the keels because I usually end up upside-down. Okay, I admit it, I gleefully and purposefully position myself upside-down, practicing the lost art of Inverted Hull Cleaning. Fins toward the surface, head down, I hold onto the boat with one hand for stability and scrape with the other. I was doing just this gymnastics-type maneuver when I thought, “Hm, wonder where Barry is right now.”
And, as one would, I looked under the boat for him. But…I was upside-down. So, essentially I looked UP while beneath my boat to locate a huge barracuda just to see him.
And that’s the moment when I realized my life is kind of weird.
But immensely wonderful.