17 November 2009

Exhausted yet wide awake I listen to a tropical storm play its melody on the tin roof of Caravelle (one of the Cottages By The Sea). It is 9:42 AST (Atlantic Standard Time) and Jonathan and Grandpa are in that world that defies all logic (Carl Jung is only one of many). Like many, I was attracted to water at a very early age spending my childhood and adolescent years in streams, rivers, and Lake Ontario. However, when I started my graduate education I was introduced to and fell in love with tropical seas. It was in December 1977 when my MS graduate advisor took me to Isle Danzante in the Sea of Cortez (a.k.a., Gulf of California) that I met my destiny. For three weeks we camped on this uninhabited island and trapped mice and wood rats, surveyed the plant community, and counted birds. This was only a prelude to the three months we spent on three different islands the following summer. When I wasn't trapping or tracking mice, I was in the water. During the day I swam with the jellyfish and siphonophores (invertebrates that can give you a nasty sting) and at night I used my dive light to catch spiny lobsters and check out the occasional whale shark. That was many years and miles ago.

Now I am back on St. Croix, where I have come so many times before to trap mongoose dem and rejuvenate my soul. Once I step onto the tarmac at the Henry Now I am back on St. Croix, where I have come so many times before to trap mongoose dem and rejuvenate my soul. Once I step onto the tarmac at the Henry E. Rohlsen airport, my daily trials and tribulations fade into the distance. All those things that seemed so important before I left have vanished into the green flash (paraphrasing Bruce Springsteen). Tomorrow I trap!