Terra Firma

On the sixth day out, we’d anchored in a protected bay on Norman Island, uninhabited except for a pirate-themed beach bar on one of its many coves. The island is considered to be the model for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. In spite of many intense searches over the centuries, no one has found the treasure chest that legend says was hidden there by pirates in the 18th century. A gold doubloon was found in one of the caves in 1972, the most recent sign of any such thing.

            

 There were three other boats anchored nearby but no sign of anyone  on them. The curved shoreline was fairly long, but stony and rough. I felt a strong desire to walk, actually walk somewhere on land. Terra firma. In almost a week, we’d been off the boat for three lunches, otherwise only to swim or snorkel. I announced that I would like to swim ashore.

David warned me not to touch any trees, as the extremely poisonous manchineel tree is common in the area. Its highly toxic sap was used by the indigeous people on the tips of poison arrows. Many early explorers of the Caribbean found out the hard way why the small green fruits of this tree were called “death apples.” Caroline pulled out a small book on tropical trees, and I noted that the manzaneel was a large tree with rough gray bark and small, shiny, alternate pointed leaves.

Caroline said it was too early in the day for her to swim, so she settled into reading Quakers in Conflict, about a 19th century split in Ohio between more traditional Quakers and a reformist branch that broke away.

As I let myself down the ladder, I saw a large, long gray fish lurking just off the stern of the boat.

            “That’s a barracuda, but don’t worry,” said Caroline; “they won’t bother you here.”

              Didn’t they call Sarah Palin a barracuda when she played basketball? But what do they know of barracuda in Alaska?

            I cautiously entered the water and the fish moved away.

Fortunately I could swim in the water sandals I’d bought for the trip, so I tucked my regular glasses inside my suit, and snorkeled a couple of hundred feet in, noticing schools of silvery minnows but few larger fish, as this was not part of the reef.

I left the mask and snorkel beside the bleached trunk of a fallen tree in a little clearing just off the shore. Only small portions of it were pure white sand. I’d read that the colorful herbivorous parrotfish actually make the sand. Vegetarians, they feed on algae that live inside the coral and nibble off and ingest tiny bits of it. Thus every grain of pure white sand has passed through the gut of a parrotfish.

I walked happily as far as I could along the beach until a rocky outcrop barred the way and then I ventured a little way back into the jungly forest. I had no idea what species any of the trees or plants were. They were not the showy flowering imports used for landscaping around fancy resorts. Higher up on the hills I could see small clearings with clumps of bristly cactus. No romantic swaying palms here.  Coconut palms, not a native species, were originally planted around the sugar plantations to provide cheap food for the slaves.

Further inland I noticed tens of thousands small red ants building a huge nest of reddish mud about six feet off the ground in the crotch of a large tree. It had gray bark and small, pointed leaves. Could it be a manchineel? And could these be fire ants? Aren’t fire ants from Florida, or Texas, or somewhere with a warm climate? Aren’t they called fire ants because of their burning sting? There were trails of ants coming from several directions, making their way in several lines up the tree trunk. Considering that the tree might be a manchineel (though its gray bark was pretty smooth) and the insects fire ants, the practical part of me overcame my interest in observing the natural world and I walked quickly away.

There was very little in the way of trash, flotsam, or jetsam on the beach, but the round plastic lid of a white bucket had washed up, making a possible sear on the stony ground. I settled down in the shade of a shrubby tree with round, leathery leaves, and put my feet in the water. Two Magnificent Frigate Birds soared overhead; Brown Pelicans startled me more than once as they crash-dived for minnows in the water nearby; and a Brown Booby landed on a rock, looking as foolish as the name suggests. Behind me, in the forest, a number of small birds were calling. I had no idea what they were.

It was very pleasant to be on land but i realized how very unfamiliar my surroundings really were. In Michigan I can identify almost any tree I see and most plants, but here nothing was identifiable except the landforms. The contours of Norman Island were gentle, relatively low hills, quite unlike the conical volcanic peaks of some of the surrounding islands. The colorful angular rocks exposed on the small cliffs were clearly sedimentary in origin; they’d been thrust up by nearby volcanic events so that the strata were almost vertical. They were stained in streaks of rusty red from iron leaching out and in some places black, probably caused by bacteria living on the iron.

I looked out at the Unity and waved to see if anyone was watching me. No response. After a while I swam over to the reef at the edge of the bay and added several new species to my list of corals and fishes. But I wanted just to sit still a little longer. When I returned to my spot in the shade, I found a conch shell, perfectly intact, about four inches long, just at the edge of the water. It was the only shell I saw. A nice little souvenir.

I was very happy to be on land after five days at sea. What joy seeing land must have been to early travelers crossing the ocean on voyages of many months. We are terrestrial creatures, after all, and as lovely and fascinating as the underwater world of the reef is, it is not our home. Only our modern equipment allows us to look in on it. The coral, fish and other marine creatures have evolved their myriad shapes, colors, sizes, defenses, and reproductive strategies safe under the sea, all without interference from plundering, polluting  Homo sapiens. Until relatively recently, that is.

A Learning Experience

“But what is your address in the British Virgin Islands?” the stern young immigration officer asked me, looking at the line I’d left empty on my official immigration form.

I was third off the plane, having had a seat by the exit door of the small propjet that had brought me to the Beef Island airport in Tortola. The warm, humid air of the tropical evening smelt evocatively of the sea.

“I don’t know; I’m going to be sailing with friends on their boat.”

“What is the name of the boat?” he asked.

I blanked it out. Senior moment.

“Liberty?”

He asked if I was sure. I waffled. Not sure.

“Where is their boat?”

“It’s in a marina,” I guessed, haltingly. Where else would it be?

“Marina Cay?”

“Sure, that’s it, I think,” I replied, and wrote Marina Key on the form.

He could tell I was lying. He took back the form, scratched out those words with a frown, put my passport aside, and told me to stand against the wall near his booth. He beckoned to the next traveler to come forward.

I tried calling Caroline and David’s mobile phone. No answer, no message service on their British Virgin Islands number. Of course, we’re all in our late 60s, a generation not perpetually wed to those handy devices. Tried it again. No luck.

I watched as the last of the other passengers slowly made it through. A half hour had passed. The officer seemed to have forgotten about me.

I tried the phone again. I was tired; I’d been traveling since I left home in snowy Michigan at five a.m. I wanted to get on with my Caribbean adventure. What would I do if I couldn’t contact them? Would I be spending the night in an immigration holding cell? Put on a plane back to San Juan?

Finally a young woman in a uniform walked in and I waved her over. I explained that my friends were surely outside to meet me and could give her the information needed. She spoke to the immigration officer, interrupting him from processing a young white man with dreadlocks. He looked displeased but agreed that she could escort me outside. He tossed my passport and forms in a drawer.

On the other side of a low barrier, there were my smiling hosts, slim, tanned, gray-haired and all dressed up in their matching Unity baseball caps and polo shirts.

“What’s your address?” I cried frantically, “They won’t let me in without an address. I tried calling you…but no answer.”

“Your address is Sailing Vessel Unity,” David replied.

“Okay, but where is it? They want an address.”

“At the moment, in Trellis Bay.”

The woman official wrote down the information.

“Oh dear, we didn’t bring our phone,” Caroline murmured. “We were afraid you’d missed the plane.”

The immigration officer made me wait until all the other passengers from a second small plane had gone through before he returned to my case. He leafed carefully through my passport, examining the visas, corrected my immigration form, and scrutinized my customs form. An hour after my arrival, I was finally allowed to pick up my duffel bag, pass by a customs officer, and enter the British Virgin Islands .

What I learned: first, you need to have an address, any address, when you enter a foreign country and second, don’t mess with an immigration official. Caroline and David led me across the short distance from the small airport to the dingy dock on Trellis Bay, boarded their dingy Seek and motored over to a restaurant on the other side of the bay. I really needed a drink. After a gin and tonic for me and a glass of wine for them and some grilled mahi mahi, we dingied back to the Unity. They showed me a few essentials on the 36-foot boat and we all went to bed early. The bed in the aft cabin was comfortable and the gentle rocking of the boat pleasant, but I had a hard time getting to sleep.

announcing the winner

the mitten raffle is officially closed, and the lucky winner is marcia. a pair of mittens will be sent posthaste to help stave off the cold in georgia. congratulations and happy wearing.

back by popular demand: the grandchildren

y tamara  (5) and bennie (9 mos)

sorry, i can't rotate the mall photo here...yes, they are very cute, of course.

mittens for you?

 as some of my friends know, i have been knitting 'scandinavian style' mittens for a year or so now, though the scandinavians themselves may find my erratic use of pattern and color peculiar and undisciplined and recognize immediately some irregularities and flaws in the execution. and i'm told by my swedish friends that it is very uncouth to brag about yourself, so that's certainly not what i'm doing here.

what i am doing is offering any of the faithful blog readers a chance to own a pair of these one-of-a-kind mittens, custom knitted for you, as thanks for your interest.

below, four mix and match mittens. the color schemes are based on some extra wool that i wanted to use up, in combination with some yarn that was on sale at bargain prices at "knit-a-round" in ann arbor.

a simpler, more somber pair. i made these on a flight to california when i managed to forget the intended complex pattern sheet in the seat pocket of my first flight when i changed planes minneapolis.

all the mittens are 100% wool (variously swedish, austrian, irish, peruvian, and american) and a generic size that fits most women's hands. should a smaller or larger size be required, or custom colors requested, special orders can be accommodated.

you must enter a comment on the blog to win; a winner will be chosen in a random drawing on february 1, 2010, conducted by the certified firm of Ellie, Iris, and Ivy P.C.


happy new year, good luck and thanks so much for reading.

winter thoughts

it's the end of december and the end of the decade and time to reflect on a few things. after working for 20 years on art-related publications, i find it almost impossible to write without an image or two to give it credibility.

the barn is well stocked with split black cherry firewood and the slender poles await the saw. those are the remains of the round corral that the cowbow manque' across the road built. when finally the big collapsed barn was taken down in september, several of us scavenged wood, as most of it was just being burned up in fires night and day. now we have a different view from the front of our house, a long view across the fields to the distant forest.

we're hoping that the shed on the right will collapse on its own, leaving only the shabby deteriorating house across the road. it has been suggested that the most useful future for the house would be to donate it to the volunteer fire department for practice.

the work i did this summer on nine different assessments for the huron river watershed's bio-reserve project was so interesting and i learned so much from the truly experienced scientists on the project. of the nine sites , only one area was really quite pristine and happily it is near here a few miles to the west on six mile road. most of it is wet forest, a flood plain along a winding creek, and there were almost no invasive species. we found a stand of endangered wildflowers, the brilliant blue closed gentian. we hope that the owners will be interested in preserving it with a conservation easement.

but the other eight sites were less encouraging. some were abandoned agricultural fields with solid monotypic stands of autumn olive, canada thistle, goldenrod or, worse, wild parsnip. some were second-growth forests with a ground cover of garlic mustard, which eliminates native spring wildflowers like trillium, bloodroot, and may apple. others were over-grazed and full of spotted knapweed. a well-established hardwood forest was flooded as the result of a large virtually abandoned housing development adjacent that changed the flow of water onto the neighbor's land, killing the trees and plants.

the organizers of the bioreserve project assured me that there were many promising sites among the 80-some surveyed; the degraded ones i'd seen were just a coincidental luck of the draw.

next year i'm planning to contact the four owners of the forest across the road, which extends all the way west to earhart road, to get their permission to do an assessment. my own informal look makes me think it's in pretty good shape. there is a stand of large beech, now relatively rate in s.e. michigan. now all we have to do is find the money to buy the 80 acres and build a small modern house well back off the road, keep the fields in cultivation, and put a conservation easement on it all. anyone want to chip in?

the bald-faced hornet's nest

This summer I spotted a large paper nest in the maple tree in our front yard. When it came time to write a short final paper for field biology, I chose it as my subject.

The bald-faced hornet (Also called Dolichovespula maculata in Dunn (255) is not a true hornet, but in the wasp (Vespidae) family, related to the yellow jacket, but with a larger body and black and white coloration. Its face is white, suggesting the name. They are social wasps, who form communities built on a caste system, consisting of a queen who is served by her sterile female daughters. With mouthparts for biting and chewing, vegetarian adults drink liquids and feed on ripe fruit; they masticate insects to feed the carnivorous larvae.
In the spring, a fertile queen builds a small nest alone, lays an egg in each cell, feeds the larvae, and a first generation of “daughters” is born. The queen keeps their ovaries from developing by aggressive behavior towards them in the “form of head butting and shoulder charging” (O’Toole 190) and they become workers who enlarge the nest, creating cells for the queen’s eggs. All she does from the time the worker generation emerge is lay eggs; the workers bring her food, defend the nest, collect wood pulp to enlarge the nest with many additional cells, and gather food and feed the larvae. The legless, grublike larvae signal for food by scratching on the walls of their cells and a worker will offer a tiny pellet of masticated insects, often mosquitoes or flies. There are reports of worker wasps snatching a fly in mid-flight. Farmers welcome the bald-faced hornets who live near cattle or horse barns.
When the adult insect emerges, she too becomes a worker. She seals off her cell, which has collected excrement, and it is enlarged it to make room for a new egg. The colonies grow all during the summer and may contain as many as 500 or more individuals. These become very aggressive if disturbed and each individual can and will sting repeatedly.
The nest has one entrance hole towards the bottom and is well insulated with several outer layers of paper to maintain an ideal temperature of about 86 degrees F (30C) If it becomes too warm, the workers will cluster around it and beat their wings to cool it down and bring in drops of water to moisten the cells; if too cool, the workers will perform an exercise, rapidly expanding and contracting their abdomens, and raise the temperature (Frisch 62).
Both the initial small nest and the subsequent large one are made of paper in the same way. The insects use their serrated mandibles to scrape weathered wood, often posts, fences, and telephone poles, for pulp; mix the pellets with their saliva and build the nest by stretching out each section, aligning the wood fibers for strength (Frisch 61). As they build, they use their antennae as calipers to measure the walls of each cell. A glandular secretion is added to outer surface; it hardens like lacquer to waterproof the paper (Wooten 126).
The elaborate nests are used for only one season; at the end of summer a generation of fertile females and males emerges and mates. The males die. The fertile queens overwinter in leaf litter or in the hollow of a tree; the workers become disoriented and die. The queens start construction of a new nest each spring.
 This seems like an extraordinary labor-intensive and elaborate system for insuring the continuance of the species. 

References
Dunn, Gary A. , Insects of the Great Lakes Region, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1996.
Frisch, Karl von, Animal Architecture, New York and London, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974.
Milne, Lorus and Margery, The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders, New York, Alfred Knopf, 1980.
O’Toole, Christopher, Alien Empire: An Exploration of the Lives of Insects, New York, Harper Collins, 1995.
Stokes, Donald W., A Guide to Nature in Winter, Boston, Little Brown and Co., 1976.
Wooten, Anthony, Insects of the World, London, Facts on File, Cassell Illustrated, 2002.