Science Club

There is fiction
in the space between
The lines on your page of memories
Write it down but it doesnt mean
Youre not just telling stories
- tracy chapman

Cream of Caribbean Soup

Sometimes reading the water is simpler than others. Take this for instance. A long shallow bar stretching out into the ocean is often marked by a silty soup of green as the sand gets stirred up over the bar. I was surprised by how sharp the line would be drawn in the currents. Often a cross current caused by the outflow of a nearby river or a rip current would cause a similar effect. Usually though I found shallow water of more concern. Knowing I was over a shallow area even on a calm day had me more aware of those occasional bigger waves that would seemingly just lift out of nowhere. I’d also know to keep an eye below me around the kayak to see just how shallow the water actually was. It was usually in these areas that coral or rock would rises out of nowhere. Some obstacles would sit hidden just below the surface, while others were occasionally exposed in the trough of a wave. Corral and rocks full barnicles could do real damage to the boat. You certainly did not want to get dragged across them or dropped on them when a wave rolled past. Often when you saw the ocean turn to cream soup it was just wiser to stay out in the clear blue sea.

come again?

So there i was at some ungodly hour of the morning, almost out of gas, and heading into the central spine of Puerto Rico. Unlike in the States, it’s just not all that easy to find a gas station at four in the morning. It’s hard enough just finding a road sign. Nervously I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel of my rented black SUV as I drove. Finally I saw lights in the distance. I was actually happy to see a Toll Both expanding in front of me. I pulled into the lane that offered a human attendant and asked where the nearest open gas station was. You can imagine how relieved I was to find out that it was less than a mile ahead.

the love you make. . .

The Wickersham Effect

Well, it’s no big sin to stick your two cents in
If you know when to leave it alone
But you went over the line
You couldn’t see it was time to go home
- billy joel

Being out there does funny things with your head. I remember standing here on this sharp stone watching the sea race into every fissure and crack, sometimes with a subtle hiss, sometimes with a deep bass box boom that I felt more than I actually heard. I had come off the water and was already in an odd melancholy. The hard wind against a steep following sea make for quite a work out. I was tired to the bones and walking deep in an unfamiliar place. I watched the plumes of spray blast over low lying stone. I stood deep in thought. I thought in that odd way my head tends to think, a metaphor forming out of the mist. No matter how stiff, sharp and immobile this rock can be, I thought, it will, eventually, erode. The ocean is patient. The ocean works on the stone quietly. Sneaking into the cracks of the rocky shore’s seemly solid defense. It tears it down bit by bit, piece by piece. To watch it you would think that no matter how much the ocean blasts and makes noise, it has no power against the stone. Yet the evidence of the rock’s demise lies there at the bottom, near the water. All the chunks that were once part of the land’s solid wall are now lying there in lumps, slowly sinking below the surface of the water. This is why when someone says to me, “Keep your feet on the ground.” I’m not so sure that is such good advice. In the end it will always erode out from under you.

surfing a hurricane

We’ve got a low pressure system and a northeast breeze
We’ve got a falling barometer and rising seas
We’ve got the cumulonimbus and a possible gale
We’ve got a force nine blowing on the Beaufort scale
- billy joel

stranger in a strange land

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

Same as it ever was

-talking heads

It’s just bizzar, that’s all. It seems on minute you are watching the sun rise over San Juan and the next think you know you are standing in your yard wondering, How did I get here?