i woke up late this morning down in the cabin...
the hum of the engine and gentle rock of the moving boat lulled me peacefully and also told me that there were no waves today.
If there was a swell and we were shifting spots, the boat would be rocking and swaying much harder as we drove over the forming waves... but more then likely, if there was good surf today, we would be parked at a break and the guests would undoubtedly be in the water but i could hear them all sitting around the breakfast table drinking coffee and laughing.
Today was a peaceful day and we were on the move to somewhere.
Grabbing my coffee and coming into the wheelhouse as i always do, i heard "Bat Caves" and figured the crew was referring to Shayne and I who have both been fighting bugs and hibernating down below in the cabin on and off throughout the trip.
I came up around 3am the other night and the boat chef, my friend Safir was sitting on the back doing his shift on watch.
"You're Batgirl!" he said... "Boss is always like Batman. Always up late at night. Batman and Batgirl! Haaaa."
(he thought it was hilarious)
8 months ago i would have been terrified to the bone to see a bat in real life flying anywhere near me.
Now, when they swoop down over the boat or into a restaurant or get stuck flying around the driftwood castle on the island, i just smile and wave.
They have such good spacial awareness with that sonar stuff.
Maybe I have that sonar stuff too!
I used to perform the entire sugar plum fairy suite in my Grandmere's kitchen. My family thought it was amazing and hysterical how I'd never smack the oven or stools when i'd develope or padachat.
Padachat is the cat jump move in ballet.
Cats & Bats...
Both are so agile and spacially aware.
Ironically, I have been wearing a turquoise and gold anklet that Jessica had made for me on Koh Tao in Thailand.
It has a little golden bell on it and since the last trip on Kaimana, when the guests hear me coming, they yell "JINKSY!"
I've since adopted the nickname Jinksy Bell or Jinksy Cat.
It transfered to this trip I'm on now... Both boatloads of guys I think appreciate the early warning sign of the bells that tell them I'm coming down the hallway and give fair warning for them to put some clothes on.
This morning, after I jingled up the hallway and into the wheelhouse... I had a little look at the GPS to figure out where exactly we were...
Off North Pagai Island a little marker on the screen read "Bat Caves" and up ahead through the window I saw a tiny perfect idealic island plopped in the water... brilliant white sand, 47 palm trees and a reef in a ring of crystal clear water.
Just beyond this postcard-like island were these magical looking caves in the side of the mountainous island...
The caves seemed to form a McDonald's "M" arch in the stone that looked a little like a bat... (maybe where the bat cave name came from).
I wonder if Mother Earth has to pay royalties to the McDonalds Corp. for using the sacred symbol in its natural landscape.
We weren't allowed inside the caves.
The crew said there were hantu spirits in there, No good to explore.
It looked a little ominous, dark and scary anyways, so instead the tender boat dropped me and the guests at this little tiny island paradise instead.
A few guys surfed the small 2/3 foot right that peeled around the island.
I should have.
It was a "zani-sized wave" as Johnny would say.
But I was lost in a poetic wander around and around the island.
It was low tide, so i crept carefully like a cat out on to the reef ring, careful not to step on or destroy anything, as i stared into the tidepools, transfixed and transported to my childhood and entire life spent walking the carmel beaches with my marine biology loving mother, exploring the tidepools and caves at the North end of Main beach, where Pebble Beach golf course hung above us and gifted us with lost Titleist balls buried in the sloping grass and white sand dunes.
I could see my family playing beach golf here today on this little paradise island.
As I wandered around the corner of this short circular island, I saw something sticking out of the sand and immediately thought I saw a Virgin Mary effigy.
Lots of missionaries have infiltrated this part of the world, brainwashing the Indos into becoming Christian, but I thought that maybe some converted tribe or village nearby in the jungles behind us had used this island as a place of worship and created this wooden turquoise Mary here to protect them or something...
As I got closer, I realized it was a piece of an old ship or boat, maybe a canoe. No way to know for sure.
It was buried deep and sticking straight up... The blue paint was worn away by the tides to reveal several layers and shades of blue paint, clearly coats of paint from years and years, worn away by the tides...
It looked like the tides.
Shades of light and dark turquoise waters layered out to the deep sea that had washed this piece of a sea vessel on to this little island snuggling it deep in the warm sand like the way you'd snuggle down into the warm sheets in the morning, refusing to get up and go to school.
I thought it was so funny that i would see a Mary initially.
Back when my house burned down (the first time)... there was very little left on the lot... just ash and twisted metal... a few bricks in a pile from where the chimney was, and the occasional strange plate or piece of blackened ceramic something or other.
My parents found the ceramic head of the Mary sculpture they had in our kitchen, perched in a burned out bush on our blackened property. They had an artist fit it into a piece of the foundation of the house and make an art piece that they still have to this day...
My dad almost has a collection of Mary effigies at this point.
I remember one time he bought a white Virgin Mary in Mexico or something and put it on top of the refrigerator, not knowing that it was glow in the dark.
Our Guatamalan housekeeper came in the kitchen one night and fell to her knees seeing this Mary floating up near the ceiling in the pitch black of night.
I love magic stuff like that.
I kept on wandering around the little island and my eyes were drawn to this shell that was cracked open, both sides next to eachother... on one side was this harsh, rugged, green and brown bumpy shell, but the inside was pearlescent, shining iridescent silver... like mother of pearl.
It reminded me of my father... and the way he was encouraged and taught me to see all people on earth...
There is a divine light inside each and every one of us.
We have a choice of which side we want to see. Behind this idealic island were these dark ominous caves... but we came to the island.
And I picked up this shell and chose to flip both sides to the pearlescent side, facing towards the sun, because that's where i chose to stand today, and that's where i choose to be!
Among 47 palms beside the bat caves.
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