Adventurers Dream

Posted on August 2, 2015

Ever had one of those days where you are in the mood to clean everything, and you find yourself cleaning those places you wouldn’t ordinarily? Today was my day. I opened up the panel behind my shower where the holding tank is and scrubbed that clean, then I climbed down into the engine compartments with soapy water and scrubbed those too! It took a while and I worked up quite a sweat, so I asked the creatures if they felt like going on an adventure, and lucky for me they were. (Come to think of it, I can’t remember a time they’ve turned me down).

We set sail for who knows where and ended up some place magical…the mouth of a river that meandered through the dense rain forest.

We dropped anchor, grabbed some masks just in case, my camera and a big bottle of water, and climbed into the dinghy to explore.

Jude was operating the outboard while Mycah and I sat at the bow watching for submersed logs, crocodiles and large snakes, and the rest of the creatures watched wide eyed with excitement.

Giant palms spread their fronds like huge umbrellas overhead, and bright beautiful ferns displayed their intricate leaves like peacock feathers along the banks. In some places the water was brown like chocolate milk and in other it looked like an emerald pool because of reflections from above.

Periodically we would see something large moving under the water as it rippled toward our dinghy, but we chose to not discuss or dwell on those, and just continued on. The river took many turns left and right and left and right…sometimes narrow enough to scare the crabs back into their muddy holes as we passed, and sometimes wide and full of foliage. Mangrove roots stretched freely and grew where ever they pleased, and giant air plants hung from the trees high above. At times it felt as if we had discovered a place where no other man had ever been before, then around the next unexpected bend we would see evidence of life other than ours.

One of my favorite things to photograph, are reflections….

We came across a couple of women with two little children, who paddled behind us. A daily routine for them in this beautiful jungle.

What an absolutely magical place. One minute we had discovered the Nile, and were surrounded by ornery hippo’s and hostile natives, and the next we were in the Amazon, surrounded by piranha and anaconda as poison tipped darts flew through the air at us.

After traveling the winding river for a couple of hours, we came to the opening that took us back to our faithful home on the Caribbean Sea.

Captain Aidan took over the dinghy and navigated the final stretch.

Since the water we were anchored in was filled with jellyfish, we sailed to a spot close to the marina and once again dropped anchor. This time, to play as well as scrub the bottom of Tanda Malaika. (because I was still in a cleaning mood)