Snorkeling

by Nick Niels Sanders

  Snorkeling

  Volume 8 of the Book Series

  Born in the Sea

  By Nick Niels Sanders

  Published by Exotica Indica

  Publication as of April 2021

  29

  September 29

  As 7:30 approached, people gathered on the beach by ones and twos; Marcella, with flour on her hands and clothes from the beginnings of breakfast; others still waking up, yawning and rubbing their eyes; Ron and Jim, jogging from the far northeast corner of the beach; Mark, being led, grumbling his usual complaints about his knees, by a smiling and confident Julia.

  Roger asked them to line up and began with qi’gong exercises again, rotating at the waist, getting arms and hips moving, then breathing exercises accompanied by arm movements to expand the chest with inhalation and help it to collapse again with exhalation. Having spent the preceding half hour doing tai chi on his own, Roger exercised facing his class, watching and observing how they worked the kinks out of their muscles as the exercises progressed. Soon, everyone (even Mark) was moving more freely.

  “Let’s work some more on the form we started last night. Do you remember the first moves of the form?”

  There were some nods and some head shakes. Roger would have to start from the beginning again, as he had anticipated. Step by step, as he had the previous evening, he led them through “bounce the ball” and “palm strike.”

  “Are you all with me now?” Roger was standing, facing them, doing the movements as he described them, watching his students. They were all with him.

  “Now we gather ourselves in. Bring your hands back to be just in front of your chest and your left foot to rest on its toe just in front of your right foot, and your torso should now turn the 45 degrees so that you are now facing right front, where your toes are pointing. We call this ‘all in.’” Again Roger paused. His students continued to follow.

  “Now we extend ourselves out. Keeping your hands in the same general relationship, extend them to the right as you let your left foot drift to the left. At the end of the extension, your left foot should be a bit more than shoulder width distance from your right foot and your arms fully extended to the right. This we call ‘all out.’” He paused to look carefully at his students, walking up and down the line. “I want you to imagine that there is a line on the sand that connected your two feet where they were when you started, and that extends out along the beach to your right and to your left. When I say ‘to the right’ I mean along that line to the right and ‘to the left’ means along that line to the left. ‘Forward’ means toward me at 90 degrees from that line and ‘backward’ means away from me at 90 degrees from that line. We will also do combinations, like ‘right front’ which is where your torso and face should now be pointed. Your left foot should be on the line to the left and your arms should be along the line to your right. Mark, you are a bit twisted, rotate to the left; that’s better. Jeanne, your left foot is too far forward, move it back about twice the length of your foot. The rest of you are doing fine.”

  He returned to front and center. “Now think about holding a ball about the size of your head between your hands. With your hands, you are going to bring that ball to your chest while you shift your weight to your left foot, which should come down to rest pointing left-front. As your weight moves to the left, your right foot will also move, ending pointed right-front with only toes touching, right next to the left foot. This is ‘grasp bird’s tail.’ Let me show you.” He demonstrated the move. “OK, now you do it.” And he walked them through the instructions again. He thought they did a remarkably good job of it.

  “One last thing and we will go back and do it again from the start. From here, you step forward with your right foot and push with your hands, so that your arms end extended as your right foot lands, directly under your hands, on its heel. Your hands should be palm outward, fingers up, and your body pointed right-front. It is called ‘push.’ Like this.” And again he demonstrated, then got the class to follow.

  “Good. Relax. Shake out your arms and legs. Get back into the starting position.” Roger led them through this much of the form four more times, and found things getting smoother and smoother each time. He told them what a wonderful job they were doing, and concluded with some qi’gong exercises to cool down. When he announced class dismissed, there was a general movement to the kitchen tent for breakfast.

  Breakfast

  Marcella was almost ready for them. She had taken the time to open a package of pancake mix, add water and stir, and she had stoked the fire so that her skillets would heat up rapidly. In about ten minutes breakfast was in production and people were eating a few minutes after that. After what Marcella had been feeding them over the last few days, just pancakes and syrup were somewhat of a letdown, but everyone was hungry, and hunger is often very forgiving.

  Over breakfast James had conversations with both Roger and Paul – the former regarding going swimming during the morning, the latter about going to collect vegetables and flowers. Roger and James made an appointment to meet for swimming at about 9:30; James and Paul agreed to mount their expedition as soon as they had cleaned up from breakfast.

  Ron and Jim volunteered to accompany James and Paul. Mark declined as he wanted to rest his knees; Roger wanted to continue his regimen of tai chi and swimming; Ralph wanted to spend some more time working with Jeanne on his tree-climbing apparatus. They took several buckets and set out as soon as they had cleaned their plates and flatware.

  In the meantime, Maria had been talking with the women about another snorkeling lesson. Jeanne thought she ought to stay with Ralph, but Marcella, Val, Michelle and Julia were all interested; as soon as the men had set out in one direction, they gathered up the snorkeling equipment and started out in another.

  The Harvest

  The foursome climbed over the divide onto Coral Beach and circled left to the spring. Paul was adamant that they should cut no more than two leaves from any one plant, and not interfere with blossoms in any way. The others agreed that this seemed to be a way to harvest food without threatening the resource. They started collecting near the spring. What had, yesterday, been myriads of small ovate leaves was, today, plants with vertical stems over a hand span tall with large leaves at the bottom and the beginnings of flower buds at the top.

  Ron and Jim climbed up onto the plateau, continuing to harvest there; they were certain to be able to harvest a bucketful of leaves in a short time. It was not easy footing, scrambling over the uneven surface of the lava flow, but the leafy little plants were growing up in every nook and crevice and in every small bowl that had accumulated some dust or dirt in it. Ron remembered the first day they had seen the plateau – it had been black rock with a sparse decoration of browned grass. Now it was carpeted in green and alive with insect activity. Once, Ron thought he caught sight of a small rodent foraging among the leaves. Jim was sure there were butterflies, though Ron saw none of those. They didn’t have to work long to fill their bucket with leaves.

  James and Paul continued to work at the beach level, skirting the bog, finding many of the lettuce plants to harvest. Focusing on harvesting leaves near but not at the bottoms of the plants, working steadily from firm ground into the boggy area where the sand seemed to be sucking them in, then backing up and doing the same a few feet farther along, James and Paul soon had a large bucket full of leaves.

  They doubled back to the bushes along the stream, which were now displaying blooms of several kinds and colors of flowers. There were red flowers with long yellow projections in the center. There were yellow flowers looking much like the red ones but in yellow with red projections. There was a much less frequent purple version of the same flower. Then there were smaller white
flowers, like seven-pointed stars, about the size of the palm of the hand, with a wonderful fragrance. There were, similar to these, ones with yellow throats and others with a pinkish hue. Then there were clusters of tiny blue flowers on long stalks growing among the bushes, but which seemed to be at the tops of new plants just arising from the moistened earth.

  By the time Ron and Jim reappeared with their bucket full of leaves, there was a third bucket rapidly filling with flowers. Four pairs of hands made that job go even faster. They lifted their burdens for the short hike back to the Kitchen Tent, arriving back about 9:45, to find the women just returning from snorkeling.

  Snorkeling

  Marcella, Julia, Valerie, Michelle and Maria selected masks, snorkels and fins and started toward Bathing Beach for another session of snorkeling. Marcella and Julia were becoming competent snorkelers by this time, enjoying the myriad colors of the fishes and the coral filter feeders. Val and Shelly were catching up.

  Maria stopped. “You all go ahead. I forgot something.” She went back for a spear. The spears had been stored right next to the fins and masks, but no one had touched them until now. The refrigerated and frozen meat would not have lasted longer because they had fish, so no one had gone fishing. But now the meat was gone, so it was time to start harvesting the lagoon.

  The spears were assembled of four segments that screwed into one another. Attached to the hilt was a rubber loop that would allow the wielder to “load” the spear with a charge of additional power by stretching the loop. Aim would then be the problem, as the loop tended to pull the spear off of a straight-ahead trajectory. At the other end were four straight barbs, each about a hand span long and moderately sharpened, spreading slightly.

  Maria hurried after the other women, the assembled spear’s length significantly longer than her height. She clambered over the rock wall, shrugged out of her clothes, and caught up to the others as they were getting ready to enter the water.

  Marcella: “I hope you are not going to use this as a prod to make us swim better.”

  “No. I was hoping to capture us some lunch.”

  “Ah. That would be very nice.”

  “Well, we shall see what we shall find. I have seen a number of varieties of edible fish, including young tuna and perch, to say nothing of small rock lobsters. Since I am only one and we cannot count on bringing several fish back, I will go for something large, like one of the tuna.”

  Val: “Have you really seen lobster here? I thought they only happened in the cold waters of New England.”

  “You are thinking of a particular kind of lobster. The ones here do not have the large primary claws of the New England lobster, but the tails are quite delicious.”

  “Oh. Please show me one.”

  “I will do my best to show you everything.”

  After donning flippers the five women walked backwards into the water, swimming when they were able. Most chose to remain on their backs as they chugged out to the reef, but Maria pulled on her mask and snorkel, turned over, and began to survey the fish as she followed the others to the reef. There was a school of tuna, each about as long as her arm, and there were something like 50 fish in the school. If they could corral that school, then a spear thrust into the middle of the group would be likely to get one of them.

  At the reef, she gathered the women and gave instructions. She would lead them back out into the lagoon until the tuna were between them and the reef. Then they would spread out in an encircling maneuver, Val and Shelly on the right, Marcella and Julia on the left, in an attempt to get the school as compact as possible, at which point, Maria would try to spear one.

  The maneuver failed the first time. The women were too eager and too noisy and spooked the tuna, which fled rapidly out of containment. Fortunately, they turned to the right, into the narrower part of the lagoon. The women followed, encircling them again, more cautiously, driving them toward the coral reef. Maria tightened the rubber strap and dove in the direction of the school, which was still swimming and circling where it found food, wary of the predators floating on the surface not far away. Maria got below the school and came up remarkably close to it, releasing her spear. The school scattered in 50 directions – all but the one fish with a spear sticking out of its side. Gently, Maria recovered the spear and its victim, stretching the rubber loop over the fish to keep it on the spear, as she surfaced. The other four women, spitting out snorkels, raising masks, treading water, were congratulating one another and Maria on a hunting victory. This was very exciting. Marcella was already planning out loud how to cook a fresh-caught tuna.

  “You three keep swimming around here. Marcella and I will head for the Kitchen Tent to pack this fellow away for lunch, and rejoin you.”

  Maria and Marcella headed toward Camp Beach and the Kitchen Tent. The other three snorkeled lazily along the reef, moving gradually eastward, where they would be closer to Maria and Marcella as those two swam back.

  Maria spotted Roger, looking out from the hip-deep water where he had been practicing swimming, and waved to him. He waved back. When they reached the Kitchen Tent, it was vacant. Mark had apparently wandered away and it seemed that Jeanne and Ralph were off testing the latest tree-climbing device together. They were relieved that they could sneak into the tent, deposit the fish and sneak out again without anyone noticing that they were violating the anti-nudity rule for Kitchen Tent.

  They rejoined the others at the reef, and Maria undertook the role of tour guide. It is difficult to talk while snorkeling, so they arranged a series of hand signals she could use to identify things worth paying attention to. She pointed out several perch. The women all recognized the clown fish, looking like Nemo, and the sergeant-major fish. But there were some other small, neon purple fish that Maria thought were wrasses. At one point she saw a moray eel peeking out from its hiding place in a coral cave. Then she found the prize of the day – one of the rock lobsters was out of its crevice, gathering food along a coral outcropping. All five women became motionless in the water, watching the lobster forage, watching the filter feeders withdraw as it approached and open again after it had passed. But it seemed to be cleaning around the gentle little tube worms and not really threatening them at all. Then the shadow of one of the women fell on the lobster and it spooked. One instant it was there; the next it was gone.

  They looked around some more and once thought they saw a lobster feeler sticking up, but not another lobster.

  Maria called a halt. It was getting late and it was time for them to be getting back. On the way across the lagoon, they all looked down. Once, Maria dove down to poke a stingray with her spear. They watched as it lazily moved along a short distance, then settled back into the sand, the waving motions of its “wings” quickly obscuring its presence. Maria dove a second time when she thought she saw a pair of eyes looking up at her. A little poking roused a flounder, which was not as fortunate as the stingray had been. Maria speared it and brought it to shore – another fish to eat.

  The women gathered up their equipment, scampered to where their dry clothes were waiting to be put back onto wet bodies and hurried back to the Kitchen Tent, where they found that the vegetable gathering party had returned with large buckets of salad and a lot of flowers.

  Roger and James

  James went to find Roger, who was, as was his custom, sitting on a box in front of his lean-to, having just sat down after going all the way through the tai chi form when he returned from swimming, though James did not know that and Roger did not choose to tell him.

  “Talk today or just swim?”

  “Just swim, I think.”

  Draping his sulu, as usual, over the corner post of Roger’s lean-to, James joined Roger as he set off for the water. Roger’s swimming was improving. He was making pretty good use of the breast stroke that James had taught him the previous day. James asked if he wanted to learn another alternative swimming style. Receiving an affirmative reply, he taught Roger the side strok
e. He offered Roger free choice of side and swam with him, on the opposite side, so that they could be face-to-face and he could observe and instruct. The side stroke is not an easy swimming stroke to pick up because there are a lot of moving parts that have to be coordinated. On the other hand, once you begin to catch on, it is relatively effortless to do. They swam together until they reached the lava divide to Bathing Beach, then turned and swam back. Roger was very pleased with himself and with his instructor.

  “This is the best thing I have learned about swimming, or anything else for that matter, for a long time. Thanks, Doctor James. I never swam so far all at once before in my life. I don’t even need to catch my breath before I go to lunch.”

  “OK, then. Let’s go eat.”

  “You will want to get your sulu at my tent.”

  “Thank you for the reminder. You have special dispensation; I do not.”

  “I understand. But you get to go into the tent, and I do not.”

  “True, but I am hoping to be able to fix that. Maybe not today, but one day soon.”