40 Miles (give or take) North of Cuba, heading toward Florida

6 December 2012

All my bags are packed; I’m ready to go.

Today was packing day for the ship. We all had to have all except carry-ons outside our cabins by 13:00 (1pm) today. Then the ship’s crew appeared and, within minutes, all suitcases, book boxes, satchels, and golf bags (at least one) disappeared. They’ll be somewhere in the Ft. Everglades passenger terminal tomorrow. Three years ago, that was the challenge: finding our luggage. Despite a color-coding system, bags and boxes end up in mis-colored piles, or, at least, that was the case in San Diego. From the time I stepped off the gangway, I spent an hour and a half searching, waiting for a porter’s help, clearing customs, and arranging shipment of books and supplies. I’m hoping—we’re all hoping—that won’t be the case tomorrow.

But back to the business at hand.

Dominica

Before this voyage, I had no idea where Dominica is. In fact, I’ve discovered, very few people do. And for good reason: it’s inaccessible.

Dominica is a 24-mile-long, volcanic island wedged between Martinique and Barbados in—what are they called?—the Lesser Antilles. Approaching the island from the sea, it looks like it’s been misplaced; it should be in the South Pacific, floating somewhere near Tahiti or Fiji. It’s a very lush place, overflowing with thick tropical greenery. And like those Pacific Islands, its terrain rises sharply out of the Caribbean up to pointed peaks over 4,000 feet above sea level.

Because those peaks do, indeed, rise sharply, very few spots exist on the island suitable for an airport. In fact, the only airport is at the opposite end from Roseau, the capital, an hour-and-a-half drive through the mountains. And that strip will support only commuter-size airplanes. So getting to Dominica requires at least 2 hops from mainland USA: one to Puerto Rico, the next via a commuter to the Dominica strip. The result is that, despite tremendous beauty, amazing floral diversity, a Caribbean climate, and superb snorkeling and diving, Dominica is a relatively quiet place except for the occasional cruise ships that arrive in the morning and leave at dinner time the same evening.

The MV Explorer is the only ship that comes and stays for more than a day.

Our stay in Dominica will forever be marked by the death of Casey Schulman. Many of the ship’s company would never consider returning to Dominica even if it were only 20 miles off the coast of Miami and served by an international airport. The memories are just too painful. But most would agree that it’s definitely a place worth adding to a list of the world’s beauty spots.

I had pre-arranged to spend our one night in Dominica at a place called Castle Comfort Dive Lodge, about 10 minutes south of Roseau, where the ship was docked. I chose Castle Comfort because it’s the home of Dive Dominica, which, according to Trip Advisor, is the #1 dive operation on the island. I hadn’t been scuba diving since 2007, my last trip to Hawaii, and I had brought along nothing for diving: no mask, no fins, and (most important) no certification card. But my friend Barry Reszel agreed to break into my house, rummage through my basement, find my card buried in a suitcase under the stairs, scan a copy, and e-mail it to me before our arrival in Dominica. That and rental equipment were all I needed.

I spent our arrival day, Saturday, sharing a tour of island sights with Rodney and Suzanne Huey and Linda Kobert, who managed the Writing Center on board. We visited Trafalgar Falls, a husband-and-wife pair of bridal-veil-like falls coming out of the mountains and splashing into large pools very suitable for swimming. We got as close to the falls as the terrain would allow, but the huge boulders forming a wall descending from the pools didn’t deter the many SAS students who had beaten us there. They were scrambling over the rocks—many in flip-flops!—to get to the base of the falls. The four of all commented that the spot, beautiful as it was, was an accident waiting to happen.

At about that same time, Casey was being pulled out of the water.

After the falls, our driver took us to a series of hot sulfur springs bubbling out of the ground. The island is volcanic, but it has experienced no eruptions at any time in recorded history because it is full of vents that release the underground pressure before it has a chance to explode. The vents appear as boiling hot—and I do mean “boiling”!—springs. Given time and inclination, we could have taken sulfur baths. We had neither.

The driver dropped me off at Castle Comfort before returning to the ship with the other three. I checked in, found my room, and went immediately to the waterside bar and dining area to enjoy the early evening looking out on the Caribbean.

Moored just off the dock of the hotel next door—another dive-and-lodging operation—was a catamaran with the word “Passion” painted on the side. It couldn’t have been more than about 30 feet long and looked to be large enough to carry 15 to 20 passengers comfortably on whale-watching and snorkeling excursions. I didn’t know it at the time (I found out later that evening when Shamim called) that “Passion” had been the craft that Casey and her friends had gone out on earlier that day. More than 50 kids had been on or around the catamaran when the accident happened.

I enjoyed a couple of rum punches and decent dinner on that patio while watching the sunset.

The next day, I joined 3 other divers and about 8 snorkelers on a half-day trip to close-in reefs. The dives were excellent, and the sites as pretty as any I’ve seen. The reefs surrounding Dominica are pristine, largely because they get much less traffic than the other Caribbean islands and because they’ve managed to control the lionfish.

Starting about 10 years ago—maybe a little longer—lionfish started invading Caribbean waters. Lionfish are very beautiful—in an ugly sort of way. They’re yellow-and-black striped with very large fins and tail. And their most notable characteristic is their large, colorful dorsal fin, which includes embedded spikes. These spikes are venomous. I don’t know that the venom from the puncture wound of a lionfish would be fatal to a human, but it would hurt like hell and leave the injured person feeling very bad for a day or two.

But what lionfish are doing to Caribbean reefs is much worse than what they might do to someone foolish enough to try to grab one. Lionfish are predators; they eat other reef fish. And they’re voracious. The result, according to Jake, a marine biologist who dove with us on Sunday, is that reef fish are disappearing at alarming rates. And because coral reefs are very delicate ecosystems where all life is interdependent, reefs are dying. Jake said that in some Caribbean spots “90% of the biodiversity has disappeared.”

The lionfish arrived by two methods: some were blown in from Africa with hurricanes. But most are being traced back to home aquarium owners tiring of their pet lionfish—perhaps because fish have the annoying habit of eating the other fish—and dumping them into rivers and oceans. The same thing is happening in the Everglades, which is losing wildlife to released pet anacondas.

But the Dominicans settled on a strategy to control lionfish. They spear them. Each dive master descends with a special spear designed to kill lionfish. It’s a small—maybe 18-inch-long—think pin, a little larger than a knitting needle. It’s mounted on a device with a rubber band, and the band provides the quickness and penetration to get through the lionfish’s strong skin. Result: we saw no lionfish on either of our two dives.

But we did see lots of colorful reef fish, a school of large jacks, several eels, an enormous turtle named “Sheila” that Jake had tagged a year ago, and beautifully colored corals and sponges. It was wonderful to get back underwater and inspired me to get back to Hawaii—or somewhere else warm and reefed—very soon.

Dominica is genuinely a diving Mecca. It’s probably a good thing that it’s so inaccessible.

Sunday night, back on the ship, we all gathered in the union for a memorial service honoring Casey. The service was beautifully put together, included very touching talks by several of Casey’s friends—most of whom had been on the catamaran when the accident happened—and a photo essay of her experiences over the past 3 months, a collection put together by our team of professional photographers. It was a very moving evening.

Ft. Lauderdale (not quite)

Tonight, we have our final pre-port briefing, preceded by two selections by the SAS choir, of which I am a member. I’ll say no more. Not a gig I’ll be adding to my professional vita any time soon.

Tomorrow, it’s over. I’ll probably have a few more words to say, but not until I’ve done a little decompressing. For now, I’m looking forward very much to putting a dent in my couch, exercising my channel-changing thumb, and sleeping in a bed that doesn’t move.

12 Miles (or so) North of Cuba

6 December 2012

After an especially rough, mostly sleepless night Monday, with glasses falling off shelves and wine bottles tipping, the captain decided to divert from the planned course and seek calmer waters. When we passed the east coast of Puerto Rico, instead of continuing on a northwesterly course straight for Ft. Lauderdale, we made a sharp left, paralleling, first, the Puerto Rican coast then the coast of Hispanola: the Domincan Republic and Haiti. Since yesterday, we’ve been skimming along the north coast of Cuba, often well within sight of the island’s eastern mountains, but, I assume, outside the 12-mile buffer zone that is recognized as national waters. If we weren’t outside that zone, I’m guessing we’d have met a greeting party; we may even have met Fidel. But so far, no interception by Cuban authorities.

To the north, I can see some large buildups, so I’m sure we’re avoiding storms between us and the Bahamas—the straight-line course to port. We’re all grateful. The waters for the past couple of days have been fairly calm—maybe 2-foot swells at worst—and the weather has been generally sunny and warm. I’m savoring these last few days of my extended summer, spending as much time as possible on my small balcony, which is where I am now.

All papers are graded, all final exams are done, semester grades went in to UVA yesterday, and I’m packed. Now, our final full day on board is a good time to catch up on this blog. And I have some time to cover. I’ll try to be brief.

Manaus and the Amazon

We arrived in Manaus, Brazil, on Thanksgiving Day, the morning after our onboard celebration of the holiday. Ambassador Thomas Shannon, US ambassador to Brazil, had joined us in Macapa, where we first entered the Amazon. And he and his party sat at the head table for Thanksgiving dinner Wednesday evening.

Three years ago, our MV Explorer Thanksgiving dinner consisted of turkey roll, mashed potatoes, and the usual: steamed vegetables, pasta, iceberg lettuce, under-ripe tomatoes, and rolls. No gravy! No stuffing! So my expectations weren’t high. But having a VIP on board does make a difference, and this Thanksgiving dinner included stuffing and gravy. No mashed potatoes, but with stuffing, who cares? It wasn’t exactly like home, but it was, to a certain extent, a family gathering.

I spent Thanksgiving Day morning walking around the port area of Manaus. The city sits on the north bank of the Rio Negra just west of where the Negra joins the Amazon. As the name implies, the Rio Negra’s water is very dark—black, in fact. The color comes from the tannins floating downstream from the millions of acres of rainforest that line the river from its origin in the Andes to the point where it joins the Amazon. The color may not be inviting, but mosquitoes can’t lay eggs in the high-acidic water. So bugs weren’t a problem in Manaus.

The other notable characteristic of the Rio Negra is what happens when its black water joins the brown, muddy water of the Amazon. At this “meeting of the waters,” the two rivers flow along, side-by-side, as if getting acquainted before taking the full plunge into union. The result is a line in the water, an invisible wall that separates brown from black for several miles downstream. The new river is genuinely two-toned, just like those two-toned cars my parents used to drive in the 50s and 60s. It’s a very interesting phenomenon to see.

I joined Jim and Shamim for lunch at a Manaus seafood restaurant, where we shared a terrific meal of Amazon fish and Brazilian beers. After lunch, I returned to the ship, packed a few items, and caught a taxi to Manaus’s #1-rated hotel: The Holiday Inn. The fact the Holiday Inn—it looks exactly like a Holiday Inn you’d find in Des Moines or Davenport—is the top-rated place to stay says a lot about hotel selection in Manaus. But I was there for the internet. Thanksgiving was daughter Julie’s 40^th birthday, and I hoped a good internet connection would allow me to call her—Skype, even—as she celebrated both auspicious days with family at brother Marty’s house in Henderson NV. Unfortunately, the Skype call didn’t go through—maybe the sound of glasses clinking drowned out the ringing of Skype—but at least I was able to leave a musical message.

I did manage to get through to youngest-daughter Corey via Skype, so all wasn’t lost.

Thursday night, I joined a large group from the ship at a concert performance by the Amazonia Philharmonic, the local professional symphony orchestra. I didn’t have high expectations. How can they attract high-quality musicians to the heart of the hot, muggy, buggy Amazon? Well, as I discovered, it’s not as buggy as expected, and the Amazonia Philharmonic is excellent.

The concert was performed in Manaus’s 100-year-old opera house, a beautiful, classic performance venue with 6 to 7 layers of gilded balconies enclosing the main seating area, and a magnificent, classical mural encircling a massive crystal chandelier hanging overhead. The concert fit the venue: three pieces by Brazilian composers, including a wonderful Villa-Lobos piano concerto (yes, performed on a Steinway concert grand) and two other very entertaining selections by composers I hadn’t heard of. All this for the not-so-grand price of US$10 . . . for a reserved orchestra-level seat. And, once again, Ambassador Shannon joined us, so it had some of the trappings of a royal performance.

The orchestra is, as I said, excellent: superb strings, decent winds (though I’ve been spoiled by the Chicago Symphony’s incredible, majestic brass section), and a fine young conductor. A great evening.

The next day, I returned to the ship early and joined Jim, Shamim, and Kay Slaughter for a 2-day venture into the rain forest. This trip, again, was set up by colleague Sergio Carvalho, the Brazilian professor of international business at the University of Manitoba. A friend of Sergio, Maia, a youngish fellow who has parleyed his knowledge of the region into a thriving tourist business, picked us up at the ship and drove us to a small port close to the junction of the Negra and the Amazon. There, we climbed aboard a high-speed boat and sped across the river junction—stopping long enough for photos of the two-toned stream—before continuing south to a busy landing on the south bank of the Amazon. From there, we piled into a van, joined by a young Dutch couple, and rode about an hour along paved and unpaved roads until arriving at a jungle port on a main Amazon tributary whose name I never learned.

We boarded another high speed boat and, for the next 45 minutes, we sped up the tributary, cut through a large lake, entered a small black-water stream, and penetrated deeper and deeper into the rain forest, with the river gradually becoming narrower, the bends more pronounced, and the forest closing in on us. We were in a Joseph Conrad novel.

Finally, we rounded a bend and saw, perched on a peninsula formed by what was now a narrow, dark stream, a thatched-roof structure flanked by smaller cottages sitting high on the bluff above the water. This was the Amazon Turtle Lodge, owned by Sergio’s friend, Maia.

We were greeted by lodge staff, who offered us some excellent tropical punch, then we trudged up the 60-or-so stairs to the lodge area. The compound’s structures, like most houses along the Amazon rivers, sit on bluffs. In addition, most houses closer to the water are constructed on stilts. During the dry season—generally our fall and winter—the rivers drain, levels fall, and great rivers and lakes become small streams and ponds. But in the wet season—generally our summer—the torrential rains cause the entire Amazon basin to fill, with water rising as much as 20 meters. That’s about 70 feet of vertical water, enough to cover an 8-story building. So the Amazon Turtle Lodge in late November sits atop a 60-foot bluff overlooking a small winding stream. In July, the compound sits on the water’s edge surrounded by more lake than river. The dock where we enjoyed our tropical punch rises and falls on huge floating logs, like a fisherman’s bobber.

We spent the next 24 hours on several boat and hiking trips through the Amazon rain forest. Saw lots of birds—lots and lots of birds: tucans, hawks, parakeets (yes, wild parakeets), egrets, on and on. Kay Slaughter is a birder, so we had an expert along who could help out our guide. It was like being in the bird house at the National Zoo. But no cages. We also saw dolphins feeding at another stream-river intersection (fresh-water dolphins evolved from some lost Pacific-ocean dolphins a couple million years ago); several caymans, which are small alligators that can grow as long as 15 to 20 feet, according to our guide; poisonous tree frogs, termite mounds, and lots of tropical flora that, according to our guide, can cure everything from the common cold to Montezuma’s revenge.

Several students on a different trip into the rain forest enjoyed swimming in the rivers, eating the local vegetation, and drinking the Amazon water. They later could have used some of those jungle remedies.

The sleeping accommodations at the lodge were very comfortable, including, to our great surprise, air conditioning. That was a very good thing because our most vivid memory of the Amazon will be the heat and humidity. It was Mississippi in late July. Except, according to locals, the heat and humidity are present year-‘round.

We returned to Manaus by 4:30 (16:30) Saturday afternoon and sailed that evening at 20:00 (8pm). It seemed to take longer to sail down the Amazon than it had a week earlier to sail the 900 miles against the current, perhaps because the river looks exactly the same the entire stretch, whether coming or going. But we finally exited the river Tuesday morning and by later that afternoon were back in the deep-blue waters of the tropical Atlantic.

To have sailed up the Amazon, ventured into the world’s largest rain forest, listened to the constant cacophony of tropical birds, hiked through the jungle, and watched a sunrise over the black waters of a hidden stream was a wonderful experience. But I’m not ready yet to book a return flight.

West of Guadeloupe, the Eastern Caribbean

3 December 2012

We lost a student Saturday. Casey Schulman, a 22-year-old senior at the University of Virginia, was snorkeling and swimming with friends off a catamaran just a few miles from Roseau, Dominica, where the MV Explorer had docked that morning.

 A catamaran is a boat with two hulls—two “bodies”—that serve almost like skis, allowing the boat to skim along the water with less resistance than a single-hulled boat.

This catamaran, named “The Passion,” is a sail boat, a very simple design: a flat platform connecting the two hulls; a single mast extending up from the platform; and hanging down from the center, at the aft end of the platform, a small prop to drive the catamaran forward when docking or when the wind is too light to do the job.

Casey was sucked into that rotating prop. Details of how or why she was between the hulls and close to the prop with the boat’s engine running are mixed, but that’s where she was. She was gravely injured. Friends pulled her out of the water, and the boat rushed to a nearby dock. An ambulance was waiting and took her to a Roseau hospital, but not in time. Though some of those who were on the catamaran claim that Casey was conscious when she was pulled from the water, the doctor at the hospital said Casey’s injuries were so grave that she probably hadn’t survived the initial impact with the rotating prop.

The entire ship’s community is in mourning. Even though many, myself included, didn’t know Casey personally, when you spend over three months together on what is truly a small, floating village, you recognize everyone and feel connected to everyone. When a seat is open at a dinner table, you join the group. The connection is easy: we’re all part of a grand shared experience.

And Casey was one of those who stood out. She was always smiling, always engaged with others, always animated. And she radiated maturity and intelligence. These were qualities that those who knew her well verified during last night’s memorial service in the union.

Several of my students were among Casey’s closest friends, including a young man, Jack Delehey, from Vanderbilit University, who had a special relationship with her. Jack spoke at the service, describing Casey’s sense of humor, her caring nature, her positive attitude, her warmth. He had us all laughing and crying, especially when he told how his grandfather and Casey’s father had met when they traveled to Halifax in August to see the ship off. Jack’s grandfather pulled Jack aside before the ship sailed and said to him, “Get to know this Casey Schulman. You can tell a lot about someone when you meet the people she came from. This girl has excellent genes. And if she takes after her mother, that’s a bonus!”

You can also tell a lot about someone when you know the people she hangs around with, and students in my classes who were close to Casey—including Jack Delehey—are among my brightest, most mature. They seem to know how to have fun, when to have fun, and how and when to get serious. Based on her friends, Casey was a special person.

Of course, as the father of a 22-year-ol college senior myself, I sympathize especially with Casey’s parents. They were undoubtedly looking forward to welcoming her home on Friday, perhaps even planning to meet the ship as we arrive in Ft. Lauderdale early Friday morning. Now, of course, her homecoming will be very different. I can’t imagine—I don’t even want to imagine—what pain they’re going through.

I’m way behind on this blog, but I’ll eventually catch up. For now, we’re in the final days, and I’m facing a stack of papers and final exams to grade, with a looming Wednesday deadline for submitting final grades to UVA. And, of course, there’s packing.

But, for now, it all seems very small.