Absolutely Galápagos

by David Fletcher

  However, their misgivings were entirely misplaced. Because as soon as they were in the water, the roughness of the sea became only a minor concern, and they had other things to distract them. For example, there were some new fish to observe, a few sea lions to enjoy, and quite some way down but directly below them, were a couple of hammerhead sharks!

  Brian had seen these chaps before – on the telly. But he had never seen them in the flesh, so to speak, and he had certainly never found himself swimming with them before. Indeed, if anybody had told him that by snorkelling in the Galápagos, he would have found himself in this position, he would not have engaged in any snorkelling. Hell, these sharks were at least ten feet long, and Brian knew that by having their eyes on the extremities of their hammer-shaped heads, they could see above and below them at all times. Which meant that as they swam below him they could see he was there. Furthermore, they are not vegetarians and they do eat things like other sharks, and it is not unknown for them to attack humans, especially if there is blood in the water. Nevertheless, Brian immediately realised that, like his fellow snorkelers, he was not in the least bit afraid but just thrilled beyond belief. This was because he was privileged enough to be sharing for just a little while the not too intimate company of these magnificent creatures, and he also knew that negotiating the M25 in the rush hour was a lot more dangerous than swimming with even a whole shoal of hammerhead sharks.

  Yes, hammerhead sharks are only potentially dangerous to humans, and far, far less dangerous than we are to them. These particular hammerheads off Genovesa were a couple of ‘scalloped hammerheads’ (Sphyrna lewini), and this species (along with most other hammerhead sharks) is one of the most commonly caught sharks for ‘finning’. And ‘finning’ is the rather innocuous term for catching sharks, cutting their fin off, and then throwing them back into the sea to die a miserable death. This revolting practice (as sanctioned by the president of Ecuador, remember) is all in aid of providing multitudes of Chinese diners with a rare delicacy, and a delicacy that will soon become much rarer still. Populations of scalloped hammerheads in parts of the Atlantic Ocean have already reduced by 95% in the past fifty years, and it won’t take too many more dishes of shark-fin soup to see these wonderful creatures killed off completely. Yes, all for the sake of a load of vulgar, ill-mannered, noisy diners in that black hole we call China, we will soon have brought about the extinction of a marine work of art. Better, thought Brian, that it was the load of diners who were exterminated, and preferably by their being introduced to their plat du jour while their plat du jour was still alive. That is to say, by being thrown into a shoal of sharks who are still swimming in the sea and who have already had an appetiser in the form of a bucketful of blood. And yes, he really did believe that.

  For now though, he was just able to relish his experience, and to decide that swimming with sharks wasn’t anything like as scary as he’d thought. Well, at least it wasn’t just as long as one wasn’t an aficionado of shark-fin soup and one also eschewed the possession of ivory trinkets and the use of tiger parts. And amen to that.

  Needless to say, lunch was devoured with relish, and it included only potato soup. After which, it was time for the third expedition of the day, this time to the mouth of the bay on the east – and to ‘Prince Philip’s Steps’. These ‘steps’ were named after our very own Prince Philip, after he visited this outpost of the Galápagos archipelago on the RY Britannia back in 1965, and the first thing Brian noticed about them was that they weren’t really steps at all. They were more akin to a rising jumble of flattish rocks, and had been given that title of Prince Philip’s Steps, only because somebody had put in place a rather inadequate handrail. He then thought that if Prince Philip ever returned here, this well-known visitor site might thereafter have to be renamed Prince Philip’s Stannah Stairlift. Hell, it proved a bit of a struggle for even the young, sprightly Brian…

  Nevertheless, he made it in the end and he then found himself with his fellow Nature-seekers on a trail that took him past more nesting Nazca boobies and more perching red-footed boobies and towards the outer edge of the caldera crater, above which were hundreds of birds. Some of these were boobies, some were storm petrels (of which more later) and some were frigatebirds, doing what frigatebirds are renowned for. Yes, at last Brian and his friends were able to observe their airborne piracy in action. Because here were more than a few frigatebirds using their formidable beaks to grab boobies by their tail and then dangle them until they regurgitated their food, after which, with a remarkable ability to manoeuver at speed, they would catch the food and make off with it. Brian felt very sorry for the dispossessed boobies, but he could not help feeling a deep admiration for the skill of the ‘brigands’. They really were accomplished and spectacular raiders.

  They also had no cause to descend Prince Philip’s Steps, an operation for the Nature-seekers that was fraught with more danger than their ascending them. However, ultimately all made it down without mishap, and all were soon back on board the Beluga and, if they were anything like Brian and Sandra, they were savouring the delights of a cool shower after what had been an exceptionally hot hike. They may even, like Brian and Sandra, have been experiencing some challenging motion in the shower, because within minutes of their returning to the boat, José had it under power and was taking it at speed away from Genovesa and back to Santa Cruz. This course of action had been adopted to enable him to moor off the north coast of Santa Cruz before nightfall, and so enable the Nature-seekers to enjoy a stationary and therefore hopefully restful night. Furthermore, because Santa Cruz lies to the south of Genovesa – in the southern hemisphere – the forthcoming voyage would take the Beluga over the equator again. Only this time it would still be light and all the Nature-seekers would probably still be awake!

  They were. So that when there was just a quarter of an hour to go before the equator was crossed, they were all available for an assembly on the bridge, and for what turned into a delightful little party, hosted by the captain himself. Specially cooked bread was provided – along with some rather strange egg-fortified cocktails – and when the GPS latitude indicator inched down to 0.00.000 a little cheer went up on the bridge and a little more eggy cocktail went down a number of throats. But thankfully, at least in Brian’s mind, King Neptune and his court failed to put in an appearance. And later on Brian was able to enjoy an egg-free alcoholic drink.

  He was also able to enjoy another stupendous evening meal, despite this one having been prepared by Pedro while the Beluga was moving at (high) speed. No one could work out how he did it. Or at least no one on Brian and Sandra’s table could. This evening they were sharing it with John and Thelma, Evan and Mandy – and Shane and Shelly. Which meant that after touching on the impossibility of preparing food on a rolling boat and discussing at length how it would be difficult to imagine spending a finer day in a finer wildlife environment, it fell to Brian to save the day – again. And in this instance, saving the day was all about his shielding his table companions from what could sometimes be the unsettling views of… well, Shane. Or maybe that should be his sometimes discordant views. But however one described them, Brian thought it his duty to either provide some possibly discordant views of his own, or better still, some suggestions that were designed to draw contributions from around the table and so enable the sharing of the shielding duties with his fellow Brits.

  If it is not understood what is meant by this tactic, then it might just become clear when it is explained that Brian first of all proposed a couple of ‘useful inventions’ that had yet to be invented but that, when they were, would prove to be a boon to mankind. Number one was a device to let you know when ‘Thought for the Day’ on the Today programme had finished, so that you could turn your radio back on. Number two was a device to tell you how far through the week you’d got before you’d reached your weekly units allowance, but a device that would work only if your allowed alcoholic intake was ‘achieved’ in the
last or the penultimate day of the week. As Brian went on to explain, being informed that you had utilised all your allowed units at any point in the first five days of the week could be quite alarming and much more injurious to your health than over-imbibing. Then, having provided these two examples (and having educated Shane and Shelly as to the nature of ‘Thought for the Day’ and the Today programme), he then invited his fellow diners to suggest ‘useful inventions’ of their own.

  Initially, they were reluctant to do this. But, with a little more encouragement, Thelma suggested that the world would be a much better place if somebody invented a discrete hand-held device that could disable both the music in shops and the music in pubs. This suggestion was met with almost riotous approval by the Brits at the table and by a confused silence on the part of Shane and Shelly. It was then followed by a suggestion by Mandy that there was also scope for a similar machine that could eliminate the infuriating background music that one currently had to endure on more than 90% of all televisual offerings. This suggestion elicited identical approval and confused responses as had the one before.

  Then it was Evan’s turn, and what he suggested was that somebody should invent a device that would disable the coverage of any aspect of the election of an American president until just one week before the election itself. This met with the universal approval of the table, including that of Shelly and Shane. In fact, it even encouraged Shane to propose a new invention himself, this one a programmable robotic barber that would provide a reliable and consistent haircut to all its clients every time it was employed. Brian was really impressed with that one, and he said so. He was equally taken by John’s suggestion of a device to remove calories from pork pies and Evan’s idea for self-cleaning gutters. However, he was only lukewarm about Shelly’s idea for a Lazy Susan turntable to fit an oblong table, and he thought Sandra’s idea for a gadget that would allow people to live-pause their lives was just totally silly, albeit highly attractive. In fact, even more attractive if it had a rewind capacity as well…

  Anyway, Brian’s distraction efforts had done their job, even if the inventions proposed had possibly revealed an interest, on the part of those at the table, in the more superficial aspects of life at the expense of the serious and the important. Nobody, for example, had proposed a gadget to solve overpopulation and nobody had put forward the idea of a device to prevent shark fins ending up in soup. However, such is the nature of over-dinner games, and at least, for once, Shane had joined in rather than piled in with his views. And that wasn’t a bad thing. In fact, it was only a pity that after the post-dinner listing session, when Brian and Sandra were back in their cabin, Brian hadn’t learnt a lesson from Shane but instead piled in himself – with his next instalment of his treatise on the countries of South America. Tonight it would be Uruguay’s turn, and in the absence of a device to switch off annoying husbands, Sandra would be obliged to endure it.

  It kicked off with a question.

  ‘Sandra,’ asked Brian, who was sitting up in bed, ‘do you know we were instrumental in the creation of Uruguay?’

  Sandra, who was also in bed but lying down, looked fleetingly nonplussed but responded quite promptly. ‘I don’t recall doing that at all,’ she said, ‘but if that’s what you say…’

  ‘I mean Britain,’ growled Brian, ‘not us. As you damn well know…’

  ‘Well no, I didn’t know actually. I had no idea Britain was…’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ interrupted Brian. ‘You’re just being perverse.’

  ‘Well, better than being perversely persistent…’

  Brian huffed and then he restarted his address as if the exchange with Sandra hadn’t ever happened.

  ‘Yes. Well, Uruguay was created in 1828 through the Treaty of Montevideo, and this was a product of British mediation that led to Brazil and Argentina recognising Uruguay as an independent state…’

  ‘Very magnanimous of us…’

  ‘… and in this way we managed to contain both Brazil and Argentina as well as consolidating our commercial interests in the region…’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yes. Ah. However, it all worked out very well. Not too many people know this, but Uruguay, with a population of just 3.3 million, crammed into the second smallest country on the continent – after Suriname – is often regarded as ‘the Switzerland of South America’. I mean, it’s ranked first in South America for democracy, for peace, for lack of corruption and for press freedom. On top of that, it is prosperous; it has a thriving middle class and it can claim to be one of the most liberal countries in the whole world. It has legalised the production, sale and consumption of cannabis; it has made same-sex marriages and abortion legal, and overall it is demonstrably one of the most socially developed countries in Latin America, scoring much better than many others on stuff like tolerance, personal rights and “inclusion” issues.’

  ‘Why?’ interjected Sandra.

  ‘Well, assuming it’s just a coincidence that nearly 90% of the population is predominantly of European stock…’

  ‘Brian!’

  ‘… it may be something to do with what is said to be the country’s healthy distrust of… well, let’s call them charismatic or messianic leaders. You know, the sort we’ve seen in recent years in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador – and in Argentina for what seems like forever. They don’t do epic politics, apparently, just boring democracy – and it seems to work. I mean, on top of all the stuff I’ve already mentioned, they are a magnet for foreign investment and they are even self-sufficient in terms of renewable energy.’

  ‘I’m convinced,’ announced Sandra. ‘They really do major in the boring.’

  ‘I didn’t mean…’

  ‘I know what you meant,’ interrupted Sandra. ‘But isn’t there anything rather more interesting about Uruguay than its laudable approach to press freedom?’

  Brian had to think for a minute, and then his eyes lit up and he responded to his wife’s pointed question.

  ‘Well, actually, Uruguay has the longest national anthem in the world. It lasts five minutes when it’s played in full. Only, because it’s so long, normally just one verse and the chorus is sung…’

  ‘Give me strength.’

  ‘Oh, and of course Uruguay is the only country whose name in English has the same letter three times in its first five letters…’

  Sandra didn’t say a word. Brian wasn’t entirely sure why, but he eventually decided that it was probably as a result of a number of things, not least the demands of the day and the excitement of crossing the equator. After all, he was beginning to feel a little poleaxed himself, so it was understandable that she had little to say and that she was now… well, apparently asleep.

  One minute later, Brian was as well.

  9.

  It had taken Brian no time at all to acclimatise to a stationary boat, but falling to sleep immediately didn’t mean that he would have a completely undisturbed night. That would have involved his dreams closing down along with the Beluga’s engines. Only they didn’t. Instead they went into overdrive and provided Brian with a busy and ‘fun-packed’ night, so ensuring that, on this occasion, he was denied the sort of undisturbed sleep that he so much preferred. And worse still, the main feature in his seemingly endless cavalcade of dreams was one in which he managed to splice together not only sharks and the equator but also the Chinese.

  He did this quite often. He took one event or one observation from the last twenty-four hours, and then he braided this with another recent event and maybe with one or two more of his recent thoughts, and he ended up with a sometimes quite elaborate dream that was both preposterous and entirely credible. Or at least entirely credible in that special world we create in our sleep, a world that is never bound by anything as mundane as reason, logic, sanity or sense. Well, in this particular instance, he took ‘the equator’, then he took ‘finning�
� and finally he added the Chinese, and from these three elements he concocted not so much a dream but more a nightmare, a nightmare of the worst kind imaginable.

  Essentially, it involved the current Chinese administration discovering a Ming Dynasty document that, in the administration’s eyes at least, gave them sovereignty over the whole of the equator where it ran through international waters. This enabled them to lay claim to it in the same way that they have already laid claim to the Spratly Islands in the face of international opinion and international law. However, they had in mind using their new property not to build airstrips and military bases (as even in the mad world of dreams, that would be a bit of a stretch) but instead to use it to introduce some much needed efficiency into the mutilation of sharks. Yes, forget the artisan approach to collecting shark fins for their essential culinary requirements, and replace its inefficient, ad-hoc methods with some large-scale, systematic techniques that would ensure that Chinese soup bowls were full to the brim of shark-fin soup right up until every last shark had been killed.

  What they did was set up a base on Chinese Hat – with the full agreement of the president of Ecuador – and from here they established a huge fleet of giant trawlers. These craft were fitted with giant shark-impervious nets, and the plan was that they would steam backwards and forwards along the equator in order to catch every last shark in the world and then cut off its fin. And nobody else would be let near their circular killing ground. This equator-defined abattoir was, after all, their own sovereign territory and anyway, nobody else in the world had such disgusting, shark-exterminating eating habits and therefore nobody thought it worth risking a confrontation by introducing their own trawlers into the bloodbath.