Cheating
Death Once Again... The Corn Islands |
| March
15, 2000 - Nicaragua |
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The Corn
Islands. We adopted a catch phrase for the completion
of each of our many adventures in Nicaragua. Poisonous
sea snakes, sharks, empty scuba tanks forty-five feet
underwater, dangerous, encounters in the jungles all
followed by our phrase borrowed from Scotts father,
an adventurer in his own right. |
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| Scott is
a great partner for Island hopping and scuba diving,
having spent much of his youth on Grand Cayman. He
was scuba diving at six years old and teaching it
at twelve. His stories of growing up in Caribbean
culture added to my enjoyment of the Island experience
on the Corn Islands. |
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Forty miles off the Southern Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua
you'll find the greater and lesser Corn Islands.The
tourist infrastucture is not well developed and there
are no dive operators. This did not stop us from diving
because there are lobster fishermen with tanks! No
weight belts, no depth guages, no BC vests, and no
pressure guages. |
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Just a tank and someones old leather belt to strap
it around your waist. At least it was a designer belt,
GUESS. I felt confident in my dive buddy if not my
equipment. Just getting to the bottom without weights
was a challenge in itself. I learned the importance
of a pressure guage when I ran out of air after twenty
minutes at forty-five feet under.
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Needless
to say, I survived, cheating death once again! I spent
much of my time on the Corn Islands underwater, snorkeling
in the reef offshore from our hotel. I had a number
of memorable encounters with eagle rays. They are
arguably the most graceful and elegant of all underwater
creatures. They glide through the water like a giant
bird with a long pencil thin tail trailing behind. |
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I took a disposable underwater camera only guaranteed to
a depth of 12 feet down to about 40 feet to get a photo
of an eagle ray.(cheating death another time!) Perhaps the
photo is not up to normal filmtrips standards but it's not
bad for plastic camera at forty feet!
A pair of eagle rays allowed me to come fairly close to
them for quite some time. When they decided to leave me
in the dust, (so to speak) they left behind a remorah, a
fish that accompanies sharks and rays for some reason unbeknownst
to me. They are not parasites but they often attach themselves
lightly to their host/companion. The stranded little guy(or
perhaps girl!) was obviously distraught all by herself and
apparently I was the next best thing to an eagle ray. The
5 inch greenish brown fish with a triangular head stuck
with me for about 15 minutes. I felt like the ever-so -proud
papa as she followed me staying very close to my stomach
and chest.
We hung out with some friendly locals and some interesting
travellers, including Katte and Eva, a young couple from
Germany. I'll leave it to you to guess which is which. They
were travelling with a kitten they had adopted somewhere
along the way and living in a tent. They are presently on
the road for an indefinite period, having already spent
4 months in Nicaragua. I liked Kattes' tattoo as it seemed
to be the antithesis of the typical German perfection, accuracy,
punctuality mindset. |
