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June, 1988
We had a lovely time with daughter Elizabeth, but she got seasick every time we hauled anchor, so we shortened our expectations and sailed to Statia, St. Kitts, Nevis, St. Barts, and home to St. Martin. We were all a bit disappointed that we didn’t get to Guadeloupe, but we’ve got plenty of time. The weather is hotter this June than last year and we’re a bit more anxious to leave and go south early this year.
Elizabeth fished off the yacht every chance she got, but wasn’t very successful. She caught one tiny fish and than – a monster – (or so she thought). It turned out to be a puffer fish. It was so frightened it blew up almost to bursting. We of course let it go, and it floated away, looking like a balloon on top of the water. It drifted out of sight and so we don’t know if it ever deflated itself.
Elizabeth swears that she saw a shark while we were snorkeling in St. Kitts, and wouldn’t swim back to the
yacht, so Peter had to come get us in the dinghy. Although it’s possible that there was a shark, the bay is really so shallow I can’t imagine it would hold much interest for a shark and Elizabeth is so paranoid about sharks that I just don’t know. I was swimming with her, staying close because of her paranoia, and I didn’t see it. Our conversation, me in the water, Elizabeth on the rocks on shore, sounds absurd in retrospect.
E: “I saw a shark.”
J: “Really? Are you sure it wasn’t a porpoise?”
E: “NO! It was a HUGE shark” as she spread her arms out.
J: “About as big as the barracuda we saw yesterday?” (a large, 3 to 4-foot barracuda).
E: “Yes. It was huge.”
J: “That wasn’t so big. You’re bigger than he was, then, and he wouldn't bother you.”
E: “I don’t care. He was huge.”
J: “Does this mean you won’t swim back to the boat with me?”
That’s what it meant. So, with me swimming shotgun we swam along the reef to the beach, and yelled for Peter.
I know we’ve been married too long. Peter’s response to Elizabeth’s description of the shark was word-for-word the same as mine, to Elizabeth’s disgust.
We swam a lot, found lots of conch – West Indian Fighting Conch, Milk Conch, Queen Conch, and Elizabeth found a lovely, smallish Trumpet. I made conch fritters which we all enjoy, and I made her some earrings, including a shark’s tooth earring
(Right! Found the shark’s tooth, very clean and new, in St. Kitts, 2 days and 3 bays before Elizabeth’s “encounter”.)
It took us two days to get to St. Kitts, hard on the wind as it is, but we
swooshed back to St. Martin in a comfortable 8 hours or so.
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