By: John Arbuckle
I woke up on the edge of the Caribbean Sea. It was already warm, and the waves were lapping at the edge of the Palm Trees where my hammock was tied. Twenty Fridays ago, I completed my Bachelor's degree from a college in Colorado. For the last 5 months, I had hitch-hiked south from Colorado, intermittently working a myriad of odd jobs on sailboats and exploring the beaches of Baja, the Mayan ruins of Guatemala, and the rivers and canyons of Mexico. Five long, beautiful months. Longing for more freedom and less structure than I had found in the university setting, I had finally been dropped off by a rusted cargo ship onto an uninhabited island off the coast of Honduras. Freedom and lack of structure were there in spades. Good thing I wasn't looking for food or companionship or purpose. I began to feel in my heart the long trip I had undertaken was finally winding down. This must be how the great flocks of Canadian Geese feel when they know it's time to leave their wintering grounds and fly north.
While I felt that inclination deep down inside, looking out at the vast ocean, dotted with small green tropical islands, I felt that I should put the icing on this cake before turning tail and flying north again. What would be one last big adventure? What would real wilderness and solitude look like? What would it look like to remove the safety net even further?
As I lay there, swinging in the breeze I heard the rhythmic splash of a paddle in the water approaching. “How odd,” I thought. I knew that the local Garifuna community sometimes sent men out here to gather coconuts and fish, but I hadn't met anyone yet. Yet, there he was.... A man in ragged clothes, homemade dugout canoe, and a big toothy grin that seemed to ask, “What the hell, man?” I tumbled out of the hammock and sat in the shade beside the water. He stayed in his wooden boat with his home-carved paddle in his hands. I tried to explain why I was on the island. I tried to explain that my homeland was lacking something important. He was curious what it was. I told him I didn't really know. That struck him as somewhat funny. Clearly, this man didn't have much experience with the existential crisis so common to all young people born in first-world countries. I explained that I had been on a long walkabout and that I would be going home soon. Perhaps one day, I would come back and visit again. Perhaps then, I would go deeper into this blue and green wilderness of salt water and thinly sparse tiny islands.
That's when he flashed his biggest smile and asked, “Why not today?” Clearly I had aspirations and nothing holding me back besides a block of the imagination and possibly some fear. As we looked at the islands around us, my eyes lit on one on the farthest edge of the visible horizon. Just a green dot. A plan was starting to take shape.
“How about that one?” I asked.
“That one? That one is called Garza Key. You don't want to visit that one. Nobody there. No water. Nothing,” he replied.
I decided I liked the idea of "nothing" quite a lot. A couple of hours later I was standing barefoot in the water carrying my heavy backpack and water jug out of his dugout canoe, and paying him for the trip. I gave him some cash and asked him to come back the next day, or the day after, either was fine.
“No longer than that," I said. I simply didn’t have enough food and water for more than that.
“No problem," he said with his jagged smile. “I'll be right back.”
I sat happily on the beach watching him paddle his dugout canoe into the sunset, content with the knowledge he would be back the next day and my wilderness experience would be complete. I never saw that man again.
The next few days felt like paradise. I was on a deserted island about the size of a large garage. It had one tree in the middle and a spiky, volcanic-looking crest on the north side. The island Utila occupied part of the eastern horizon, but looking beyond that the ocean extended pure and unbroken for an unimaginable distance. Far, far to the west, at the edge of my vision, lay the verdant and mountainous coast of Honduras. The sun was bright. The sky was clear. For provisions, I had a gallon of water, a pineapple, and a bag of rice and beans. This was exactly what I wanted. I built a big fire on a small strip of beach and cooked my dinner. When the sun set, I unrolled my sleeping bag in the sand and fell asleep with a full belly, under the most star-covered sky I’d ever seen. The next day, there was nothing to do, but enjoy being alive. I read a book, cooked more rice and stared out into the void of blue open space. There was no one here but me. Sweet relief. He wasn’t coming back today. One more day in paradise.
When the morning dawned, I rolled up my camp and went for a swim. The water was pleasant and I could see fish swimming in the periphery of my vision, and small crabs crawling on the rocks further down. I was amazed at the abundance of life at my fingertips and none of it looked very scared of me. Around noon I scanned the horizon for a sign of the man in a dug-out canoe. There was no one. I went to bed that night mostly content, certain the man would come back the following day.
Days three, four, and five went by practically in starvation, but surrounded by beauty. One day it rained buckets and I built a fort out of driftwood and a small tarp I had with me. I built the walls out of conch shells so that the wind could not rip the tarp off the structure. While it rained I collected rain water by covering a bush with a silver emergency blanket and pouring the water back into my jug. The days came and went. At one point I built a raft with which I intended to float and hand paddle to the main island with its restaurants and scuba rentals, but when I attempted to leave the island, I found that the raft was too small. It would only allow my torso to be aboard with my legs in the water. All I could think about was sharks and what would happen if the currents took me around the big island? Would I miss the big island altogether and be lost at sea? After pondering on the risks, it seemed the safest option was to remain on the island as long as it took for somebody to come find me. I’m told a human can live 30 days without food, but I didn’t really want to put that to the test.
“Wow,” I thought to myself one morning, “If you wanted to remove the safety net of civilization, you’ve gone and done it and holy shit are you in a lot of trouble.”
Finally, on the sixth day of expecting rescue, I looked up and saw a small speck on the sea. The surface was heaving with hills of water moving all around my island. There in the rain and the wind was a boat in the distance. A different Garifuna fisherman in his hand-carved dugout canoe and homemade paddle. To catch fish, he had a coffee can wrapped in a heavy gauge fishing line. On the end was a large treble hook with a bit of bait on it. As I watched, he swung the hook over his head like a lasso and as he threw it, the string unspoiled from the coffee can with a whirring noise. I tied a sheet to a long stick and waved it over my head like a flag, yelling and jumping up and down. It was a beautiful moment when I saw his posture change. He went from hunching over the edge of his boat to sitting up very straight. He had seen me. With that, he took up his paddle, turned his boat into the wind, and paddled towards me.
It was a funny meeting, the two of us, standing on the beach in the warm rain. Neither one of us spoke for a while. His name was Gabriel. He was wearing what had once been a raincoat, but now was simply in rags. He had a yellow hard hat, the kind that construction workers would wear, but his was held in place with a child's belt. His hands and feet seemed to be deformed from years spent soaked in salt water. They were bloated and discolored like balloons. His wooden boat had about a dozen medium-sized fish on the floor. It had been a good day. I explained that I was out of food and needed to get off the island. I was willing to essentially go anywhere where there was food. He did not ask me why I was there. Then he laughed a very innocent, happy laugh.
“No, man,” he said. “I can’t take you anywhere today.” Given the circumstances, that was not welcome news. Nor did I understand why. Certainly this fellow was going somewhere shortly where people eat food and drink water. That sounded good enough to me. Let's go there.
“No, man,” he said, again. “You see all those fish? There's no room for you.”
“The hell with the fish,” I said. “I’ll buy them from you! Then throw them in the water and give me a ride.”
“No, man,” he continued with an innocent and genuine smile. “The ocean,” he explained, “she gives me this gift of fish. And you know what happens when you waste a gift? The ocean, she will think I am a wasteful man and give me no more gifts.”
“Holy shit,” I thought. “He's actually going to leave me here.”
And then the revelation came: I never actually removed the safety net in my life like this guy has. I’m just a somewhat privileged American who inconveniences himself and the people around him as some bizarre form of hobby. Hell, this dude may never have experienced having a safety net in his life.
To be honest, I would have thought his words were wise beyond measure had I not been starving and sunburned, without the knowledge of when I would be taken to somewhere serving food. Gabriel said he would be back in the morning. I bought a few fish from him and cooked them that night alone on my island. It stormed hard the next day, and he didn’t come back. When I finally saw him paddle up to the island two days later it was cause for celebration. My adventure was complete. I was to begin the long journey back home, with gratitude for both my life and the Garifuna fisherman. I ask you, “Why not today?"
Photo credit: Daniel Oberg