When You See the Southern Cross for the First Time

“When you see the Southern Cross for the first time,

You understand now why you came this way.

’Cause the truth you might be runnin’ from is so small.

But it’s as big as the promise, the promise of a coming day.”

-Stephen Stills, Richard & Michael Curtis

Milo

We lined up on a bearing of 85° with the little blue shack surrounded by palm trees on the beach. We could see the reef a short distance away but still found no bottom within the 500 foot range of our depth sounder. As the water turned from deep blue to aqua blue to green, the sounding quickly went from 500 to 10 feet. Through the break in the reef, patches of grass, coral, and sand were clearly visible on the bottom.

Inside one of only four atolls in our hemisphere, we anchored on a sandy patch in seven feet of water 75 yards from the cabin. Crewman Kirk thought he saw a ten foot ray on the bottom as we approached the anchorage. We quickly donned snorkel gear and were soon happily exploring the grass and coral beds around the boat. The passage from the Bay Islands of Spanish Honduras to Turneffe Island off Belize had been a glorious beam reach in typical trade winds conditions.

Twenty five years and three months ago, I had spent 10 days camped out on Ranquana Cay, an uninhabited speck of sand and palm trees seventy five miles to the south. A fisherman had carried my wife, my friend, and me 17 miles offshore from Placencia in his hollowed out mahogany log.

After we had unloaded our gear on the beach and he was about to leave, solemnly promising to return in a week, we noticed some guys at a camp at the other end of the cay.

“Who are those guys?”, I asked Joe.

“Don’ worry”, he replied with a wave of his hand as he pulled away. “Dey jus’ pirates.”

That afternoon we were struggling to build a shelter out of sticks and palm fronds. We looked up from our work to see a wiry, little fellow with long, wavy hair dressed in nothing but a pair of ragged shorts. He was grimacing and slowly shaking his head.

“What’s wrong?”, I asked.

“You doin’ it ahll wrong, mon.”

So began our entrance into the world of the lobster diver, “Baby Rat”. Over the next seven days, Baby Rat and his partners showed us how to build the shelter, survive on the cay, and catch food in the sea. We spent star studded nights under the palm trees listening to tales of how these nomadic hunter-gatherers made their living armed with hook sticks and dug out canoes.

This was where I first saw the Southern Cross.

They roamed all over the western Caribbean diving for lobster. They encountered sunken galleons and clandestine military operations. Sometimes they had to evade unwelcome regulatory authorities.

Their life on the edge of civilization was not without danger. One night Baby Rat showed up at our hut asking if we had any medication. An old wooden Sarteneja sloop that carried fisherman and their salted catch was anchored leeward of the cay. The cook stove on board had exploded and one of the men was badly burned. We gave them aspirin but heard later on the radio that the cook had died on the 20 mile trip to Dangriga, site of the nearest medical help.

They maintained a way of life that required almost no possessions, independent of the rest of the world that was changing so quickly.

The last time I saw Baby Rat was February, 1980, in Puerto Barrios, Guatemala, where his crew had landed to reprovision. We spent a wild three days with them in that backwater Caribbean port town during which everyone was trapped by a tropical deluge that roared in from the north.

When we left, I sadly wondered how long their unfettered lifestyle could endure. I thought of them often during the next 25 years. Memories of my experience with them always gave me a good feeling

I was hesitant to return to the cays of Belize on our 21st century voyage to the western Caribbean. I had heard that a “Lodge” had been built on Ranguana Cay for North American fly fisherman. The lobster fisherman had been shut down. The Fisherman’s Co-op at Placencia had been closed down. Tourist lodges and guides had taken over the realm of my friends. Men who made their living from small boats on the sea were inexorably disappearing.

Were the lobster divers of Belize following in the tracks of the Grand Banks dorymen, east coast beach seiners, turtle fishermen of the Caribbean, west coast salmon trollers, and the whalers of Bequia?

As the logistics of our trip back from Roatán began to take shape, a stop in Belize looked inviting. I couldn’t face a Ranguana Cay full of flown in fly fishermen. But surely there was another place. Another place, even if sullied, would not damage the idyllic memories I had of Ranguana Cay.

We looked at the chart of Turneffe Island and chose a destination as far as possible from any “Lodge”.

Back on the boat at the anchorage, we were drinking Port Royal beer and surveying the shoreline. Two tiny blue cabins on the beach were surrounded by mangroves, palm trees, lobster traps, water tanks, a dug out canoe and a panga. A solitary figure appeared on the beach, launched the canoe, and paddled around, slipping overboard now and then before he continued on.

A sudden hail from over the side brought us to the rail.

“Hey mon, how you doin’?”

Clive Barrow, a long, lanky fellow better known as “Milo”, was incongruously perched on a seat up even with the gunwales on a tiny, narrow, ancient dug out canoe that he referred to as his “dory”. We invited him aboard and began our acquaintance with the indigenous fisherman/philosopher.

Milo’s family has had their fish camp on Turneffe for 50 years. He lives in the northern cabin, his brother in the southern. The brother was gone to Belize City. Milo had to stay at the camp or “those damn Belizens” would come and rob his camp. Last time he left the camp alone, they ate all his food, drank all his water, and left with a bunch of his traps.

He fishes the traps without buoy lines. He knows their position on the bottom from ranges on the shore and landmarks on the bottom. All the information is stored in his memory without any electronic aids.

The “ten foot ray” Kirk saw on approach to the anchorage turned out to be one Milo’s “sheds”. The sheds consist of metal corrugated roofing mounted on sunken logs providing a shelter under which the lobsters congregate.

He paddles around inside the atoll diving for lobster in the traps, sheds, and coral outcroppings. He sells the lobster to the co-op in Belize City. The price is 35BC/ pound but the co-op retains a percentage for a social security fund.

I remarked that the price was pretty good. “The money is not worth anything,” he said shaking his head and putting palms up. “You know, we used to have a copper penny this big.” He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. “Now we have a nickel that floats when you put it in a glass of water.”

I asked him about Baby Rat and was surprised to hear that he knew him. Baby Rat was still diving and worked out of Belize City. “But he must be close to 60 years old by now?”, I queried. “Yah, mon, an’ he got hair down to he wais’.”

Further conversation revealed that there was a fair amount of distrust between Milo with his camp and fishing gear and the nomadic divers who came out from Belize City. So I dropped the subject for the time being.

We asked him about the mangroves with dead upper limbs protruding along the horizon. “Mitch came through here in 1998, stripped every leaf off all the mangroves on the point, and levelled this place.”

I thought of the blue cabin we had used for a range to enter the reef. Rauscher’s guidebook describing this entrance was written in 1990.

“Your brother’s cabin survived the hurricane?”

“No, mon. That cabin was dropped in a pile upside down half a mile inland.”

Uh oh! I realized I had entered the reef on a range that had disappeared 7 years ago.

“And then you built the cabin back in the same place?” I asked hopefully.

“Oh yah mon, we build the cabin back right away.”

“And painted it the same color?”

“We like blue. When we build my cabin we paint it blue, too”

Thank god he likes blue.

“Did you stay here through Mitch?”

“No mon, we go Belize City. It wasn’t too bad there. Water in the streets and some wind but nothing like what it was out here. We had lots of time because Mitch move slow. But we come right back out as soon as he pass.”

“Lobster know when hurricane comes.”, he added.

“Oh, really?”, I asked sceptically.

“Yah, mon. Before Mitch all the lobster dem come up from the sea and hide under the mangroves.”

OK….. “Was Mitch the worst?”

“Mitch bad but the worst was Hattie. I was at Cay Caulker for “Hattie.”

Hurricane Hattie made a direct hit on Belize Halloween of 1961. The deadliest hurricane ever to hit Belize, it destroyed Belize City and caused the capital to be relocated to Belmopan. It cut a channel right through the middle of Cay Caulker that remains today.

“Hattie come in the night. I spend the whole night in the house holding my little baby brother in my arms.”

“Was there high water?”

“Water was up to my knees.”

“How high was it over the ground?”

“I don’t know. The house was on posts 8 feet off the ground. After the roof blew off we hid under the bed.”

Milo had some chores to do and so begged his leave.

A Sarteneja sloop entered the reef and went off to fish the north end. “I digging a channel by the shore so I can bring a boat into the beach. I come back later.”, he said as he got up to untie the dory. I didn’t see anything that resembled dredge equipment so I asked, “What are you digging the channel with?”

“Wid a tawtel.” he replied as if nothing were more logical.

A tawtel….. I looked at Kirk and Jeff for some help but neither had a clue.

Noting our bewilderment, he explained, “Yah mon, I ketch a big she tawtel. I tie she to de stick over yonder. She paddle and wash out a big hole. Now I go move de stick.” Then he paddled off to the beach.

We got to know Milo as we swapped stories under tropical sun and black night festooned with a million stars above the lumes of Belize City, Cay Caulker, and San Pedro.

At night, while identifying the three distinct lumes, he suddenly had an idea. “Want to go to Belize City? I can do it. I go Belize City in the dark many times. No problem.”

I couldn’t imagine any route over a comparable distance with more obstacles than from Rendezvous Point to Belize City. We begged off and laughed but I believe he could have led us through the maze of reefs, cays and coral in the middle of the night.

Here was a 21st century anachronism I had hoped to encounter on this trip. He earned his living with his dory and whatever else he could put together on his little piece of beach. Baby Rat was alive and well. He was still making a living from his dory. In fact, Milo added that Baby Rat’s brother had a fish camp down at the south end of the island. If we stuck around he would pass by sooner or later. Life was good. One lifestyle I thought doomed was still happening and another had come to light.

That night, for the first time in the 30 days we had been sailing the summer Caribbean, the horizon cleared and I saw the Southern Cross for the second time.

The day we left, Milo was up at dawn paddling the dory inside the reef. He came over with a bucket of lobster for a farewell dinner. We liked lobster as much as he liked Port Royal beer. No lobster tasted as good as Milo’s. He went through a preparation ritual that surpassed any we’d seen before.

We sat in the cockpit eating lobster, beans & rice, and salad. We drank Port Royal beer. Milo waxed philosophically. His sense of responsibility was stronger than the nomads who roamed the reefs in dories. But like us all, he wondered, “What if…...”

“Twenty five years ago, I was ‘fishinin’ down by Water Cay with a partner. A sailboat pulled up with two American girls who asked the way to Placencia. I pointed the direction and they asked, ‘Would you come with us?’”

“But I don’t have any money.”

‘We have money. You don’t need any.’

“I was ready to get on their boat when my partner said, ‘If you get on that boat you get no share of our catch and you have no job when you come back.’”

“I stayed with my partner on our boat but often wonder what my life would be like if I had gone.”

“So you don’t have a wife?”

“No…”, he said pensively.

Then, “We have very nice Chinese women in Belize. They are so sweet and treat you wonderful. But never let a Chinese women feed you. They cook dog or rat and you don’t even know what you’re eating.”

“Well, there must some women around who don’t feed you rats ?”, I ventured.

“Ah! Honduran women ! Honduran women cook so good. Nice chicken. Beans and rice. Bananas, mangos. Honduran women feed you good.”

“So why don’t you have a Honduran woman?”

“You crazy?” He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Honduran women steal all your money.”

“Well, what about the Belizen women?” Rolling his eyes, he made plain that I did not have a clue about women.

“Belizen women are no good. They lay around all day and won’t do nothin’.”

I was thinking Milo had given up on finding a mate when he suddenly brightened.

“When are you guys coming back?”

“Next year…”, I shrugged.

“When you come back, please bring me one American woman.”