Tuesday, April 22, 2008

A Couple Weeks Worth of Memories


Last weekend Martin learned how to sail for his birthday. Martin can't drive here, but now he can sail.
Our friends rented two small catamarans at the Bohio and we spent Saturday sailing up and down the beach.
This past weekend was also filled. On Sunday we went kayaking on South Creek with Justin, who runs the kayak cruise ship excursion. The kayaks have glass bottoms, and South Creek is really a large lagoon open to the ocean. It was actually very cool, and a lot of fun. On Sunday night Justin came over for our now famous "just like eating in the states" waffles.
I had Justin tell his story to the boys:
Justin is an adventurer. He is here alone. If you remember past blogs at all, he came over for Christmas dinner. He spends his weekends doing what I would call adventure travel. He kayaks or sails to outlining cays (keys), the small uninhabited landforms that are too small to be islands, and camps overnight. A few months ago he got caught in high waves between Grand Turk and Cotton Cay and had to call a boat to come rescue him.
Over Easter weekend, Justin went to South Caicos, one of the inhabited islands southwest of us. He rented a kayak and went out to the outlaying cays. He camped on an small uninhabited cay, and went further out to see some of the spectacular cays that lay south of South Caicos. On the third day, he went to a very far cay early in the morning.
On his way back, the waves picked up and he struggled to make headway. After four hours of rowing, he tired and stopped to rest. A large wave crashed over his kayak and he lost his bag with his water, food, and protective clothing. After trying to row for a couple more hours he realized that he was not going to make it back to land, and without water he understood the need to not exert himself too a danger point.
As night began to fall, he resolved to conserve his energy and float. Possibly he would be in a better position the next day. The next morning he was adrift at sea, with no water. He still had a tent with him, so he placed this over his body and eventually passed out.
Justin spent 33 hours drifting in the open ocean in a kayak. As the second evening approached, he accepted his fate. Before night fall, he saw land in the distance and used what he had left to push toward this. He landed at the foot of a large set of marble stairs; heaven you ask? No a large mansion on the island of Providenciales. He had drifted 56 miles.
He dragged himself up to the house and knocked on the door. The owner did not believe his story. But he was saved. A couple weeks later, the owner of the house through a big party and flew Justin back over to meet his friends. Some say Justin cheated death.
On Sunday, we were invited to a birthday party on a very large catamaran. There were about 60 people on board. There was lots of food, and lots of drinking. During the party we stopped to snorkel on the edge of the reef. Some very popular young local dive masters on board were free diving down to 70 feet. One of them did not come back up. This was one of the most tragic events I have ever experienced.
I love being here, I love the ocean, I love free diving. But these stories remind us that the ocean is a dangerous place and tragedy can happen in a split second. I can't stop talking about this to my sons, yes the ones standing up in the kayak.
Everyone on the boat was this young man's friend. Someone was able to get a scuba tank and respirator on and get him, but by this time, it was too late. On this day, we were all cheated.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am really sorry to hear about the free dive tragedy! It actually made dive news in my monthly magazine (inserted below)

Popular Grand Turk Dive Instructor Dies : Tyro Talbot, a 26-year-old dive instructor for Oasis Divers on Grand Turk, died while free diving on April 19. Talbot, his brother and a few friends went offshore to free dive, but Talbot apparently went too deep and blacked out. His brother brought him to the surface and hospital personnel tried to revive him, but Talbot died. To see the Grand Turk TV station WIV4 report about his death, click here.