Blog Archives

Frank Hammett, Diver

3/16/2015

I was thrilled to see that several stories and notations were made about Frank Hammett on the Internet. And in addition there is an old black and white movie that Frank shot many years back while diving; you'll see him with his double hose regulator, etc.

Frank is the man that I was certified under, also Chesteen. Together Chesteen and I made many dives with Frank on his boat, "THE SHARK KILLER." We went out to restaurants with Frank and Dee and I was fortunate in diving with him in the cave off of Stuart, etc. This was always extra tough diving and in no way for anyone inexperienced. I have many photographs of Frank and I together as well as Chesteen with Frank and Dee, etc.

I had a pleasant surprise last year when I was reading National Geographic and noting a story they were carrying on Goliath Groupers--and lo and behold--there was Frank Hammett telling all about his old grouper days off Palm Beach.

If you are a diver I highly recommend that you go to this site "FRANK HAMMETT DIVER" and read about the early days of diving off of Palm Beach and some of what I have experienced while diving with him.

Virginia Beach

3/16/2015

Hanging Tobacco

3/16/2015

My Boat 'Nancy Lou'

3/8/2015

This is Chesteen and Nancy Bellamy going down the Kentucky River near Booesborough on No Sweat's boat "Nancy Lou".

Sweet Lick Knob

3/8/2015

We hiked to the top of Sweet Lick on Saturday. Had to go through some rough briers to get to the top. They were growing thick, taking up the space of trees that were burned up in a fire that was on the mountain in the recent past. At the top we found the old geological marker marking the high spot. Also noted that the rare "buffalo grass" had survived. The top was rather bare but on the western side a few large oaks had survived and there seemed to have been no human traffic on the mountain in a long while. Only thing noted were deer trails and antler rubs.

#81--Sweet Lick Knob--the famous mountain that Irvine, Kentucky,is built around
#75--Sweet Lick Knob as seen from the bridge that crosses over from River Drive to Old Pike
#3--Starting the climb up to the top of Sweet Lick Knob
#12--Chesteen and Lance nearing the top of Sweet Lick Knob's eastern face

Mammoth Cave, Kentucky

3/5/2015

No Sweat and family touring Mammoth Cave, Kentucky.

Cuda

3/3/2015

by
No Sweat

Heading down I-75 to Singer Island out of the wretched hills of Estill County there is one thing all wretched Estill Countians keep an eye for----the law. Blue lights. State Boys. My father use to position me in that small suicidal space located over the back seat. I had to make my body into a curve as I pressed my face against the back window. My job was to spot for cops. Father took immense pride in going 1,000 miles non-stop. Mother would feed him a hot dog and pop his Miller High Life as he would once again set a new personal family history record in the amount of time we used to get there. The average MPH were nothing short of miraculous. Even Evil Kinevil and A.J. Foyt would have paled.

It was a natural evolution for me to keep a sharp eye when I took on snorkeling. Remain keen on what was dangerous. I was very small in those days. A hillbilly fledgling oddly better in the water than on land. My first mask in the 50's, you could barely see out of. Some kind of thick plastic lens and cheap rubber. And a goofy snorkel that had a plastic cage and a ping pong ball inside of it to keep water from coming back in.

I can't remember the very first time I saw a barracuda. I can't remember the first time I saw a hawk. I can remember being around nine or ten years old and snorkeling past the pumphouse out on the point on the north wall of the Palm Beach Inlet. Back then there weren't any laws. Back then there were schools and schools of all kinds of fish. Only a slight handful of people snorkled, let only dived. Diving was still in it's infancy. My father was my hero. My second hero was Mike Nelson playing Lloyd Bridges in SEA HUNT.

I shot every fish there was. French angels, queen angels, spade fish, parrot fish, doctor fish, sheep’s head, sand perch, chubs, jacks, pompano, catfish, croakers, grunts, snappers, flounders, whatever paused. It beat squirrel hunting all to hell. I had only one rule. You shoot it, you eat it. That wasn't a problem. My family loved fresh fish. It didn't matter what kind. It all fried up wondrous in mom's skillet. It was more than just fun. My father ran a fruit stand on the street. It saved us a little money. I took immense pride in coming back to the apartment with a stringer of exotic fish. Fish from the Gulf Stream had it bad on fish from The Kentucky River. No argument.

At some point I met a friend two years older, George Springer. He lived close to our hotel, The Sand Dunes.  In George's home, the walls were covered with turtle shells and shark jaws. His older brother had a boat and deep sea fished all the time. George and I became blood brothers. He was incredibly skinny and dark with tan. Unique for my Kentucky world. I learned a lot from him and his brother. We had wonderful times sneaking into all the different hotel and private pools getting in a quick swim before disappearing.

George and his brother talked a good deal about an old cuda that lived out on the point. A black monster. The cuda would be there on given days. He was smart. If you dared tried to shoot him, he knew just the exact range your gun would shoot.  He stayed just at that distance, carefully watching. A wild eyed wolf. He could hold perfectly still or move magically quick.

That cuda on the point was legendary. Every diver in Palm Beach spoke of him. The Gulf Stream Ghost. He'd hang about twenty yards off the point. Right where it got deeper. Where it was open sand. It was his patrol area. Where the currents were always whipping. He was the master of stealth. Could beam himself close to you while you were spearing other fish. He was always watching. If I moved a finger, he knew which one.

Now you may think it is impossible for fish to talk, but they do. This cuda was short on words. An old veteran. A spirit long before dinosaurs. A clean bite artist of death. He'd let me know that he knew that I was back out hunting, just like him. And in his territory. He'd say, you know, you can't get me. And you better keep an eye---I might get you. See my jaws. He'd even pop them to make sure I noticed.

We had something of a stand off as long as I had my arbelette. Mutual respect. The experts say that you can't tell a male cuda from a female just by looks. That you have to cut them open to see who is who.

The experts are wrong.

By the time 1977 rolled around Ann and Nancy Wilson had their hit song. And I had had many wonderful experiences with cudas, having the special fortune of diving every day for three months through the summers. In those times I learned that cudas did and could do about anything short of reciting the Gettysburg Address. I speared many from very small to world record class. They are a great fish for eating. Their meat has all the firmness and color of the snapper family. Many times I would shoot snappers and cudas and filet and fry them together only to sit back and listen to my guests brag on their meal never realizing that what they had eaten was cuda. They were told it was all snapper. I heard over and over again----most always from people that really didn't know much about fish-----that cuda was poisonous, especially the big ones.

If that was true, my family would have died off decades ago.

The truth is, about any fish from the ocean can be poisonous. It's very rare. Much depends on what that fish has been eating. Barracuda is delicious no matter what size. The big ones have wonderful thick fillets like that of snook.

I get hungry thinking about it.

I have learned this. That barracudas should be filleted and skinned and the meat put on ice as soon as possible. For some strange reason, a dead cuda will soon emit a particular slimish substance that is extremely fishy and slightly green in color.

This begins sometime soon after the fish dies. The longer that this fish is uncleaned the worse the taste of the meat. All fish are better when fresh.  This is particularly true for cudas.

Barracuda comes from the Spanish word, "Barraco," meaning, overlapping tooth. Anyone that has ever seen one has noted that their lower jaw juts out beyond the upper. There are 26 species. Generally speaking, the larger ones live in the Mediterranean. The current world record caught on a rod and reel weighed 85 pounds. In Florida, 67 pounds.

I've seen and shot larger.

But don't look for my name in any records.

Once when I was snorkeling in the Keys I was just pulling the trigger on a snapper when suddenly a cuda hit my fish. I raised my head out of the water. There on the reef the cuda flopped and chomped at the same time. A few seconds later he flopped back into the water. Swam away with complete ease.

Another time, early one morning, just as fish were waking, alone, I made a brain shot on a snook. Not an ordinary snook. At the time, the world record was 53 pounds, caught on a rod and reel. This snook weighed 62 pounds. My spear shaft had hit the snook in the head. A mis-calculated distance shot. The shaft did not penetrate the fish. But it did paralyze the snook. The snook was in open water around 20 feet deep. It was in a spot that went to a depth of nearly 70 feet. I had made paralyzing shots before. You never do it on purpose. Many times the fish will remain motionless. But just for seconds. Then they "wake up" and dart away. You are left with nothing. If you are able to get up to one you generally have to make the right grasp on their gills to get them. If you don't, they're gone.

Due to the tide my snook was drifting deeper and deeper by the seconds. I had a bad tangle with my gun and had to make a quick decision. Going up to get another breath I went straight back down. The snook was nearly forty feet deep.

And he was no longer alone.

There in the clearest of swift water, the mother of all rivers, The Gulf Stream, floated my giant snook. Snooks are the regal Mackdaddy of all fish when it comes to chowing down. Fish tenderloin, only for the gods.  If I was in the Big House eating my last meal before execution, it would be snook.

Somebody else thought the same way.

That somebody was floating about a yardstick away, holding dead parallel to my trophy. Well over six feet, a world record cuda, Argus eyeing. As I got closer to the snook, so did he. That cuda knew my gun was fouled. He popped his massive jaw. Look, he said, this snook is mine. You messed up. I trust you aren't so stupid as to try to grab this snook's mouth. Thanks for supper. Now, go away. Go back up to your world and I might not bite your hand off.

I had been deep sea fishing plenty enough to know what a cuda can do. Many times when fighting a Kingfish, Wahoo, or Bonita the line and pressure suddenly goes slack. When reeling in you find that large fish severed in half. Looks like someone hit it with a cleaver.

That's cuda.

Going downward I continued swallowing and popping my ears adjusting to the pressure. I was near the bottom, nearly 70 feet. As deep as I had ever free dived. I knew if I surfaced without the snook that I would never get another chance. I brought my gun up and swam at the cuda. He didn't want to budge, but did, popping his jaw, cursing me. He turned and then came straight back. I could almost touch him. I bluffed for all I was worth once more. I knew that I was flirting with getting myself in real trouble. I took the snook's mouth and got a firm hold on his gill and headed towards the surface. The snook began to revive. Jerking madly. Ten feet away stayed cuda. I kept my shaft aimed in his direction. As soon as I broke the surface I got a breath and dropped my face back in the water.

He was still there.

In 1978, one of the world's worst all time movies was released. It's name, "Barracuda." My grandfather owned two theatres and a drive-in. I had no choice but to know movies. Especially since the apartment I grew up in was located over one. That's where mom made a living selling tickets. I saw every rotten flick you could imagine. It saved on babysitting. And when Barracuda came out I couldn't help but enjoy it's madness. It was about some chemicals that ran off into the ocean and made all the barracudas in the area go berserk. For the most part it was a spin off of Jaws.

Nine months of the year I suffered living in a complacent Appalachian village called, Irvine, Kentucky. I'd ride around with my Falls City comrades in their Plymouth Barracudas making the most incredible hook shots into stop signs as we roared off into the hills. The only water we saw was The Kentucky River.  If the outlaws upstream in Beatyville didn't flush, we didn't even see that.   My survival in this fetid rat hole was my atonement for all my sins.

And many they were.

But then, God would go senile and give me another chance and set me free for three months. And I'd be right back out in the Gulf Stream bluffing cudas. If it is one distinct characteristic that I enjoy about cudas it is their ability to put on a wonderful and most frightful bluff. They have a lot of "bad dog" in them. The trick is, knowing when they're bluffing and when they ain’t.

The folk that study cudas found that the males are bigger. Nobody but the shadow knows how long cudas live. Once they reach 4' they're at least 15 years old. They can swim over 30 MPH. The timing and location of their spawning still remains a mystery.

There was an August day when my wife, Chesteen, and I made one of the strangest Gulf Stream dives. We dove on a day following a week of storms.  The moment we hit the water we experienced what can only be described as a dream. The whitecaps and churning had given way to a placid surface. But the water was full of thermo clines. One after the other. Different temperatures, different depths. A dream, I say. Ah, yes.

Who really knows what be a dream?

How much is hundred thousand? How much is more? Much more. That's how many barracudas we found ourselves in the midst of. All sizes.

And rays. Rays of every variety and size.

All intermingled. All seemed spellbound. All life was going with the current. All was vague and eerie.

Yet, real.

For nearly an hour we floated in the current holding hands experiencing this surreal gathering. The thermo clines played tricks with the visibility. Sometimes it was as though oil was mixed in the water. This only added to heighten our senses. It was as though everyone was looking for a moment, for a leader. As though all was lost.  Yet, moving on as if with some strange purpose. As if a silent siren was drawing all.

When Chesteen and I surfaced we were never the same. And decades later, we still speak of this dream.  It is a wonderful thing to own.

Like being lost in the stars.

And then there was the day when Bo Bennett-----one of the finest dive buddies I ever had-------and I were diving in the Palm Beach Inlet. We rode the tide in and were just surfacing near some jetty rocks. Two fishermen were calling it a day and had thrown the remainder of their bait into the water. A school of small cudas were darting back and forth around the bait.

Bo swam through them. Then climbed out with his tank on his back. He sat on a rock, his lower half still underwater.

I was swimming to Bo through the cudas when I noted one headed straight at him. To my disbelief, it bit his knee. The bite was quick, the cuda retreated. I raised from the water. Bo was grabbing his knee and cursing.  No meat was gone. But there was a perfect "V" shaped bite just above his knee, bleeding.

Cudas are the coldest hot fish in the ocean. Peer at you like a mother-in-law. Two vampire fangs. The charm of a mortician.

The French natural historian, Charles de Rocheport, reported in 1667 that the great barracuda of the Caribbean craved human flesh and were equipped with a poisonous bite. de Sylva , in his 1963 paper, lists 29 attacks of which 19 are documented.

On July 14th, 1960, a diver was attacked off Pompano Beach, Florida by a great barracuda. The barracuda rushed him four times and bit him twice. Until recently, following a June, 1997 attack on a woman cleaning the bottom of a boat in murky water, this was perhaps the only widely-documented case of an unprovoked attack on a diver or snorkler.

In 1966, a fisherman was "buzzed" by a cuda flying through the air and going over his boat. In 1959, a barracuda jumped in a fisherman's boat and bit his neck in the process. Nadine Chlor was also bitten by a "flying barracuda" in 1993. It is recorded in RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT. The cuda was reported to be 8' in length and inflicted a serious wound to her upper leg.

Diving Peck's Reef off Stuart, Florida, surrendered many cudas in the five and six feet range in the 70's and 80's. So did the reef off McArthur's nude beach. Being heroic there had sweet rewards. A good shot is a powerful one in the middle of the cuda directly behind the gill plate. It not only insures keeping him on and saving the filets, it also prepares one for a grandiose fight for at least a half of a minute. It's common for a big cuda to hard pull and walk n the water soon after being hit.

A pauper's marlin tango.

Several years ago in Eleuthera, an outer island in the Bahamian chain, I met two families from North Carolina. I was staying at The Twin Coves and noticed them snorkeling and having a good time. They loved the ocean. They kept trying to shoot a poor fish but didn't have a clue as to what they were doing. Their innocence was touching. The next day I took the whole gang snorkeling having promised I'd shoot them plenty fish, supper for their tribe.

In the Bahamas it is against the law to spear fish with anything but a Hawaiian sling. A simple tube-like device with a rubber that propels a shaft freely through the water. Such is adequate in the hands of an experienced spear fisherman. But it is far inferior to a good arbelette. And that's what I had smuggled into Eleuthera. Piece by piece spread out in all sorts of luggage. Having reassembled the gun, minus a particular lost screw that helped hold the front unit of the gun together, we spit in our mask and ventured out.

Snorkeling north with the current a little more than a hundred yards off shore we found ourselves in 30' deep water going over a dead reef with varying hiding places. I had shot a couple of small grouper and some grunts and snapper when one of the boys swam up to me to relay that a big cuda was coming around.

I told him not to worry.

We continued snorkeling and I got a big trigger fish and then found a lobster that was around ten pounds. Thought was unnecessary. The lobster was soon on the end of my gun coming to the surface. When I got back to the top three of the divers were huddled. The big cuda was getting braver and braver. I told them if he made another run, I'd take him. As I was cocking my gun I saw a big blacktip about twenty yards away. He was arched. When they do that, they're soon coming. We were at a place where the reef broke the surface and I tried to get the kids near me where I could watch over them. Mother hen as it were.

Then, almost unexpectedly, came the cuda. The six footer swam up close and glared. Joe Ohr, my old high school principal, use to look at me identically.

It was too much.

I plugged him.

A perfect shot. The Class of '69 was joyous!

Alas, Joe and that cuda---all in one! There was something wonderfully refreshing and vengeful in the shot. I felt complete. Almost heroic.

The cuda took off. For about five seconds with an audience in awe I had a strong hold on the beast. Then he made the most daunting of leaps and jerked the entire front unit off my gun and swam for freedom. Three times he leaped far above the water pulling my string, the unit and the rubbers. He disappeared some 100 yards away.

Meanwhile, the blacktip had gained a buddy.

I was left holding a metal piece of gun. There was a chance that I could have swam out farther into the ocean and possibly found the wounded cuda and the rest of my gun. But the odds were not good. Neither was the situation. When you wound a fish it never really gets away.  Life in the ocean is more ancient than land. Death moves swift. All is more dream.

The cuda was probably already gone. What a shark had not eaten, something else had.

A friend that I've met through correspondence, Durgan, is also a diver in Eleuthera.  Durgan related a story about a dive he made on the north end. A six footer came up to him and another diver. The cuda began popping its jaws, challenging them over a fish they had shot. This kept up for some time. Then the cuda came around and positioned itself directly at them holding his mouth open in a toothy display.

That's when Durgan's friend shot his Hawaiian sling. The spear went straight into the cuda's open mouth. It went through the length of the cuda and on out through it's body.

The cuda paused for a second. Then popped it's jaw and darted away, trailing blood, as if nothing had happened.

Durgan and his friend retrieved the spear shaft and continued diving.

Not far from Governor's Harbour airport in Eleuthera there is a marine biology school operated by a gent that found me in Mate and Jenny's one eve. At the bar, of course. After a drink, or was it three, perhaps seven, we had matched lies enough to go diving the next day. Inasmuch as we had one matter in common---our love for the ocean---------that was about where it ended. That, and an admiration for feminine pulchritude.

We left The Queen's Highway and went toward the ocean side of the island jeeping upward across a rocky region full of giant sinkholes and caves, some having banana trees arising from their depths as if some exotic weed working up through a crack. Actually, Eleuthera is nothing but a 125 mile coral head peeping up from the ocean. With no law of any consequence it is as close to heaven as any Estill countian could ever be allowed.

Once we topped our eventful rise a panorama of endless pale sky, moonscaped cliffs and perfectly clear ocean abounded in all direction. Having come from a mired Appalachian existence wherein all the trees had been butchered and the river made into a sewer, I felt inspired. I smiled at the marine biologist and we were soon in the ocean snorkeling with the north current. An hour later found us swimming up to a cliff with cave like grotto opened unto the ocean. We swam into it and climbed out.

Life leaves markers. Ah, truly, most queer it be. You never know when, where or what. Could be anything at anytime. Or a subtle accumulation of things over many years.

When I climbed out I felt a magic. The diamond way the light reflected from the sandy bottom back up into the grotto's roof. The break of yellow to blue shades. The slipperiness at the water's edge.  The smell and ever-so-slight movements of creatures so foreign to a hillbilly. How long had current and storms taken to carve this temporal sanctuary. Ah yes, Quicksilver was about. The little boy in me knew it.

When I returned from the dive I petitioned my daughter, Nancy, to venture with me back to the grotto the next morn. She was apprehensive. Several times I had knocked sharks off of her. She wanted no more of such. I promised that I would not be spear fishing. But that I would take a small pole spear for protection. She readily agreed.

The next morning found us swimming to the grotto when two Bull sharks swam straight at us and then divided, each making a curious pass. Heavy, six footers. I said nothing. I did not want Nancy to quit or become excited. Swimming on, we kept a careful vigil. Out there you are totally on your own. There is nobody to shout to. No help to be had.

Coming to the grotto I was glad that I had brought an underwater camera. One of those cheap disposable ones good for about nothing. Once Nancy climbed out I began taking pictures. She appeared a pale blue image, something haunting, as I focused on her. The best times of our lives had been around the water. There was so much of my dead mother in her. Her skin, her build, the way she looked at the ocean. Ah yes, haunting.

Nancy had been a competitive swimmer all her life. Was the best on the High School swim team when she was in the fourth grade. Transylvania University's top swimmer on full scholarship when a freshman.

She knew water.

She couldn't have been my daughter and not.

When we got ready to return back into the ocean Nancy held still.

There, black, something large, appeared in the entrance of the grotto.

The object was alive. Moved ever so singular.

"Is that a shark?" asked Nancy.

Some eight feet high on a landing inside the cave we held contained, looking outward and down into the water. The object changed in every way. Once it would be eight foot. Then, six. It would disappear and reappear. An eight foot mirror working voodoo.

"Its not a shark," I said. "Sharks don't do that."

Then the black object reappeared. An instantaneous transition. Nancy's blue eyes were intent. "What is that?" she begged.

"Cuda," I said. "That's a barracuda. The biggest I've ever seen."

Twice the cuda raced back and forth from side to side of the entrance. Then it stopped dead still before doing the same performance again. Then he turned his body perfectly downward, his face pointing at the bottom. His tail gently broke the surface for thirty seconds. Then the giant dove straight down only to abruptly turn and leap out of the water toward the ocean. In seconds he returned. He owned the ability to selectively darken or lighten his lateral blotches, individual or all.

"What's he doing?" asked Nancy.

"I don't know," I answered. "I've never seen any fish do what he's doing. I think he's just playing. Go on. Jump in. I'm right behind you."

Nancy continued looking at the cuda. It was near the surface holding stationary, locked in black coloration and directly facing us. "You go, dad. I'm afraid."

"Honey, it's just a cuda. Cudas won't hurt you. They're big bluffs."

"I don't care. You go."

I stared at the cuda. There was something about him. It was not only his size and performance but also his aura. The mystery of the sea within him.

I put on my flippers and mask. Instead of jumping at the height that we were at I decided to climb down and go from a lower place. The moment my left foot touched the spot where I was going to jump the cuda made carefully controlled advance. My flipper was about a foot deep. I still had not put my other foot down. Upon doing so, I planned to dive in. I looked up at Nancy. "I believe that damn cuda is going to hit me," I said. Before taking the next step I turned toward the cuda, pulling the rubber back on my pole spear. It was one of those cheap three piece pole spears that you can get off of ebay. I no sooner had the rubber pulled back as far as it would go than did the cuda make it's attack.

It was so quick.

I was in a bent position with one foot in the water and the other just going in. I had just placed my spear in the cuda's direction just below the surface.

Some four feet away my spear went through the cuda's left eye and out behind his left gill.

It happened so quick. Instinct. A shot for life.

Pure luck.

The adrenalin pumped. Bent over, I straightened my body, lifting the cuda from the water. He did not know he was shot. He continued working his body toward me. Determined. Trying to bite. His eyes were matched only by his fangs in death. Thick blood oozed down the shaft. The beast was bigger than me. I slammed his head against the cave's wall. Nancy screamed. I slammed again. And again. And again for all I was worth. At last, the strength of the fish waned. I drug the fish over the coral and looked at Nancy. "God, "I said, "can you believe this?"

With effort I managed to drag the fish up to Nancy. Only one photo was left on the camera. I did all I could to pull the fish up to me while she took the photo. I laid the great fish out in a shallow pool back inside the grotto.

When we got back to our place it was hard for either of us to tell Chesteen what had happened. It didn't matter. It was something just us two would ever own.

Nobody would ever believe it.

And that's OK.

Spooky.

That's what this thing is. I'd forgotten when I saw my first barracuda. But now I remember. I woke in the middle of the night last night. Mom was back alive. Such a kaleidoscope of memories.
I was five years old.

In the apartment that I grew up in there was an opening between our kitchen and a pine den. In it, there were four windows overlooking the Kentucky River and the mountains.

In the opening between the rooms my parents made a table at which my family ate all our meals. At the end of the table my mother kept a small aquarium full of guppies. The exception was one angel fish, her favorite. Above the table there were two fish mounted on the wall near the ceiling. One of the fish that was blue, green and gold with speckles had a small mouth. It was arched and had a long fannish dorsal fin---------a dolphin. The other fish was a little smaller and less arched. Silvery. Fierce eye and teeth.

That was the first time I saw a barracuda.

Dad had caught the dolphin, mom the cuda. Trying to keep pace with our wealthier relatives my parents had had the exotic fish mounted. Their presence helped negate an otherwise boring area of an Appalachian apartment. Many a roach inspected those strange objects. Even a rat or two had arched their neck to see if they were edible. Dad's beautiful fish was just that. But it was mom's fish that owned my attention. I spent many an hour trying to envision mother landing the thing.

Even the exotic becomes common in time. The cuda grew dusty. Was all but nothing for a long time.

Then mom and dad moved to their dream house out on Main Street. The cuda went with them.  Got mounted in their new den. Parties came and went and the fish was seen by all manner of drunkards and outlaws alike.

A few years later Chesteen found mom dead on the couch close to the cuda.   Mom had been dead for several days. Heart attack.

Nancy. That was her name.

A short time after dad got another woman.  One that was anything but like mom. Mom had worshiped dad. She was at his side through thick and thin. This new one was only after dad's house. She hated anything to do with mom's memory. Anyone that knew my mother couldn't hate her. That's why this new woman did. Dad ran over the dogwood planted in moms honor by her friends. It was never replaced. And dad concreted over mom's name by the doorway of their dream home. Everything mom was trashed, yard-sold and thrown to the winds. Dad would yard sale mom's barracuda if he hasn't already.

When cudas lay eggs they never acknowledge their children.

You can destroy anything.

Except memories.

Whale Point

3/1/2015

by
No Sweat

The airport on the north end of Eleuthera was about as big as a rich man's closet. When we flew into it I was told by the natives that my luggage didn't arrive. It was around noon and I told my wife and daughter to go on and take our rental jeep to the house we had rented some sixty miles south to Govenor's Harbour. A swanky place called THE TWIN COVES back in the jungle and secluded on the ocean. I told my wife, Chesteen, that I would wait for the next flight to come in hoping to retrieve our luggage which included my spear gun and diving gear as well as my metal detector. Eleuthera was settled by the English in the 1600's and the island is covered with the skeletal remains of English and Dutch houses from the 1700's --- a paradise for metal detecting. No one on this outer island in the southern part of the Bahamian chain cared anything at all about old stuff.

PART TWO

As I contained myself, all but alone at the airport in the typical Bahamian heat, I felt an Estill county urge to locate a beer colder than a mother in law's love. I had left the mangling strife of Kentucky some 1,200 miles north and my inner domain begged to keep it there. Attached to the airport was something of a liquor store no larger than a poor man's closet. Sitting on a chair was a native guarding over a cooler. The Kalik beer inside it was $5.00 each. I looked at the quart bottle of coconut rum proudly standing behind him. It was $6.00.

Now, I was never worth a damn in math. The only significant accomplishment I can recall regarding anything at all to do with the horrible subject was when I led an expedition one Halloween night omletfying my high school's algebra teacher's house, vehicle, and husband.. We spent a lot of money on those extra large jumbos. A whole case. Twelve times twelve. It was a glorious moment in math.

"Give me the bottle of rum," I said. "And would you be so gracious as to give.

I was just finishing my first large cup of rum when the next plane came in. Little planes, the kind drug runners appreciate. No luggage again. The next plane would be in another hour or so. The only sure thing in the Bahamas is that nothing is sure. I managed more ice and poured another cup.

I wasn't real sure about the metal detecting laws in the Bahamas. That's why I had taken my metal detector completely apart and placed it in several different pieces of luggage. I did know what the laws were regarding bringing an arbelette spear gun and that is why I had done the same for it. I tried to make them look like something they weren't. Something innocent. A part of a tripod. Or part to a pole spear.

With my cup empty the next plane came in. Again, no luck. I did the only thing any Estill countian could do.

I went back for more ice.

That quart was over half gone as I began pouring my third drink. It was stagnant hot but I felt nothing. I asked the ice giver about old stuff and he looked at me with pity. You could see what he thought of me. Not much. The last plane of the day came in. Short of the rum, again, no luck. It was past suppertime and I went over to a dirty old Ford van. It was my chariot. Not what I had rented but what I had got. I got in it and swiped the dust off the seat and dash. Nothing beyond the bare basics on it began to work, hadn't worked in years. I fired her up took a big huge drink and headed south.

An hour later, I was back where I had started.

The quart had been licked dry. The sun was beginning to drop. My gas gauge was kissing zero. I knew I had missed my turn. This time, I wouldn't.

In the Bahamas, you are supposed to drive on the wrong side of the road. When you are dogface drunk from Estill county nothing could be more challenging, especially in a Ford.

PART THREE

This time locating my correct turn which was indicated with a purple painted two by four I applied my sandal engaging the engine into warp force. Well, not actually. But almost. I sped by quaint residences with the solo thought of reaching my loved ones before dark . I envisioned a return of brave Ulysses, minus the luggage. As I approached an area called "WHALE POINT" I came onto a straight stretch and met a taxi torpedoing directly at me. The fool, I thought. Why doesn't he get on his side of the road? Can't he see me?

Just seconds before the head on I cut hard to the right and went off the road flipping my van upside down. As I slid over an embankment I could hear the jungle around me scraping everything. Downward I continued realizing that the next stop would be the last layer of Dante's Inferno. I tried to quote the 23rd Psalm but forgot the words. I really didn't have time to say it anyways.

Then, the van slid to a complete stop, wedged in between two coconut trees growing precariously at the edge of a cliff where on rare occasion a whale is spotted. The two coconut trees may well have been the very trees that donated the coconuts used in my rum. Little things like that have a way of sneaking their way into a true story. You couldn't have guided my van upside down and wedged it in between those two trees with finer precision.. At first I had trouble realizing I was still alive. Then, I knew if I died I sure wasn't going to wake up and find myself on some beautiful island in the Caribbean. Yeah, still alive. Wild drunk. Hurting. Looking at reality upside down. That's customary for me.

PART FOUR

Eleuthera often has those BALI HAI sunsets wherein the island whispers and calls to you. This wasn't one of them. As the sun disappeared into the ocean I found myself crawling out of the window. On the cliff above a small girl was standing and holding the taxi cab driver's hand. "HE'S ALIVE!" she shouted, pointing down in my direction. My left side was in pain. The double edged rum was helping me hang on. I felt like I was in a bad dream. I crawled up the cliff to the two observers. At their feet I rolled over looking at them.

"You are very lucky," spoke the taxi cab driver. "God has saved you for a great purpose. Another man went off this cliff two weeks ago. We never found his body."
"Do you know where The Twin Coves is?" I asked, standing.

"Yes. But I need to call the police."

"Let's leave the police out of this."

"I have to call the police. If I don't I could lose my license."

PART FIVE

Just what I need, I thought. You get fed every third day in a Bahamian jail. A small fish head. Raw. The eyes are desert. Fish scales serve as toothpicks. For just a micro fraction of a second I wished I was back in Estill County. At least there you could pay off officials and get out of a mess like this. All my Estill county blood wanted to run. I stood there in the dark like some early French missionary awaiting a Huron inquisition. If there was a rack on Eleuthera I would be ten feet tall by dawn. I had to hold positive. I thought of MIDNIGHT EXPRESS and THE COUNT OF MONTE
CRISTO. I wasn't sure if they had electricity on Eleuthera. If they did I was confident it would all be used on me. The Germans at Nuremberg couldn't hold a candle to what I had coming.

In about an hour the only policeman and the only cruiser on Eleuthera pulled up. He looked over the situation. Measured that I had gone 300 feet over the cliff. Then he asked that the taxi driver and I get into his cruiser. I sat at my normal place in such situations, the back seat. The officer held my license and read it with a flashlight. I sat in the middle of the backseat seeing the backs of two human shadows. Through it all I was still plastered.

"Mr. Robbins," spoke the officer not turning around, "Have you had anything to drink?"

"Yes sir," I answered, too drunk to lie. "I bought a quart of coconut rum at the airport and drank every drop of it."

The officer raised his head and looked at the taxi cab driver. The taxi cab driver looked at the officer. There was the longest silence after I had spoken. That officer was allowing matters to digest. "Well, Mr. Robbins, I am not going to do anything to you. It is so rare to meet an honest man. I knew how much you drank. The man that sold you the quart called me. He said that you might have trouble making it. All I ask is that you go to our station sometime before you leave and make a statement. There will be no charges."

PART SIX

After the law left I felt like Charlton Heston looking back at having crossed the Red Sea. For $100 the taxi driver would take me to The Twin Coves. Everyone on Eleuthera knew where the house was located. A bunch of drunks from England had just filmed a movie entitled THREE at the very place. The sex kitten, Kelly Book, and Titanic's star, Billy Zane had tried to give the film credibility. Ah distinctly I remember, though my body hurt, but limber, Mingo, the name of the driver. The green branches of so many tropical plants slapping our window as we spiraled through the heart of darkness.

And then we were there. One yellow outside light reflecting my dream.

Mingo helped me up the steps and into the house. I laid on the floor looking at the shadow of a ceiling fan as Mingo explained all that had happened to my redheaded wife, Chesteen, a beautiful lady and school principal.

"Well, you've got us off to a great vacation," spoke Chesteen. "I hate to think how much you'll owe for the van." She walked to a bedroom and said that it was mine. Then she walked past me disappearing to the other side of the large house.

My left side was beginning to increase in pain. Needles were jabbing into me. It was all I could do to breathe and not cry. I felt like Richard Burton in NIGHT OF THE IGUANA. I went to the adjoining kitchen. It was a huge old yellow tiled thing built at the end of WW2 by New York millionaires. I opened the refrigerator. There, alone, queerly, stood a quart of unopened coconut rum. The exact same brand I had battled all day and night. I had no pain pills. Mingo had not offered me any marijuana. I did the only thing an Estill countian could.

I took the bottle.

I crawled back to my bed and unscrewed the top. Profusely, I drank. I had to fight the pain. In a while I was back into coconut heaven. In my mind as well as outside the tallest of Palm trees swayed against an island sky. And make no mistake. The night sky of the outer islands is special.

And then the bed collapsed. Not all of it. Just the two legs at the end where my feet where. The drop had jarred my body sending pain. I took another drink. I laid there a few minutes with my body inclined looking at the ceiling fan remembering Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now. Then the ceiling fan stopped and a small electrical fire began at it's center. I got to a switch and turned it off. Again the pain continued and I had another drink. Or was it two. At some point as I lay silken sad I thought I felt something lick my toe. Was I dreaming? A few minutes later I felt the lick again. Yes, it was real. I was certain. I leaned to turn on a night lamp near the bed, again feeling
sharp pain. After locating the chain I turned to see a rat. Not just any rat. A rat as big as a groundhog. The rat was at the bottom of my bed. Quite tame. He stared at me with all the indifference in the world and wondered why I had interrupted his Kentucky toe dinner.

PART SEVEN

As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly, I sprang from my bed. It was not the night before Christmas. Far from it. For a full minute I was Errol Flynn in Captain Blood. Only I was naked. My sword was a rum bottle. And All the King's men were one growling rat. For some time I jousted, employing all my Estill County instincts. Estill County is loaded with rats. All in high offices.

Attack and defense. Man verses beast. At long last my willpower won out and I cornered the giant in the kitchen. As Thor I burst the bottle over the rat's head exploding the floor in brains, blood and coconut rum. I fell to one side like Spartacus and in came Chesteen. She had no idea of the struggle or what had led up to it. "YOU'RE REALLY SETTING A FINE EXAMPLE FOR YOUR DAUGHTER!" she declared, shaking her head in disgust, turning off the light, disappearing. I struggled across the floor. The kitchen looked like the end of the third day at Gettysburg. I felt like Lee. The rum was vanquished. The word, Eleuthera, is a Greek word meaning, freedom. I didn't feel free. The ocean smell of morning was near, my comfort. I was never meant to live in Kentucky. I am one with the sea. But for all my sins I have been exiled there. The very worst of all tortures. Particularly, Estill County.

As dawn made it's presence I thought of The Bataan Death March. There's nothing like being on vacation. All year long I had lied, stolen, cheated and even worked to be here.

PART EIGHT

While I nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. Who else but this big guy named John that I met at The Sunset Inn a year ago. I'd promised I would take him diving upon my arrival. He hadn't forgotten. He owned all the patience of a giant termite. I had absolutely no idea who the man was or what he did. Well, I did have suspicions. I figured with all his talk of owning several homes, jet-setting around in the Caribbean and his mention of Columbia more than once, that he was in the sugar business. And not Betty White's. He had made a manic cut through the jungle showing me one of his houses. I'm sure we left a muffler and transmission somewhere in the thick. So goes a rental. But hey, who was I now to talk of treating rentals with kindness. He also showed me a sailboat he winched to that house. The boat supposedly hit a reef out in the ocean in front of his place. Who knew? You could see right off he had a lot of Estill County blood running in his veins. The way he treated beer with no mercy I was sure he was from Estill County whether he knew it or not.

Chesteen directed him off in my direction. It was as though she was directing the garbage man to where the garbage was located.. I was peering at a coconut tree when he entered my bedroom. "Are you ready?" he asked.

Pain dominated my left side. I felt like I'd been shot out of a cannon to a planet yet discovered. "I can't today," I responded. "I wrecked a van, went 300 feet over a cliff. My left side hurts. I can barely take the pain."

"Roll over," spoke John.

I wasn't sure why a drug lord was asking me to roll over. He proceeded to touch my side and ask me smart questions. He sounded just like some doctor. "You talk like a

"I am a doctor," said John.

"A real doctor?"

"Yes. From the best I can tell, you have four broken ribs. There isn't anything I can do. If you went to a hospital all they would do is wrap you."

"Just give me some time. We'll dive next week."

John left. I heard his rental knock down a tree on the way out. At least some fresh coconuts would be on the ground. I wasn't sure if voodoo was practiced on Eleuthera. He only said he was a real doctor. Never said what kind.

PART NINE

A week or so must have passed. My luggage arrived. I assembled all my illegalities. Treasure was out there. So were lobsters, both out of season. I had cried my 96 tears. Each droplet, the exact same solution as The Caribbean Sea. Only more polluted. Somewhere out of revulsion I Lazarusdized my begotten ribs.

I found myself in conversation at the Coco Demama's bar with a man named Jim. He was running some kind of marine biology school. There didn't seem to be a drop of marine biology in him. He bragged about the money he was clearing on his operation. He kept trying to feel me out. As the coconut rum continued I explained that I was a great archeologist. Kentucky's finest secret. I found lost cities as easily as you could order a happy meal at Macdonald's. After a few more rums I explained that Jacques Costeau and Mel Fisher didn't have anything on me. Or was it Mark Spitz?

PART TEN

Jim asked me if I knew about skeletons. The question was going somewhere. I told him that I had dug several hundred burials. Had degrees in anthropology. Was tutored about skeletons by Lathiel Duffield at The University of Kentucky. The best biological anthropologist in America.

PART ELEVEN

Jim eyeballed me right hard and asked if I knew a white man's skeleton from some other race. I told him that I was from Estill County. From the land time forgot. That evolution had been going backwards there since Adam and Eve. I explained that I knew the difference between an orangutan and a republican, which takes years of careful study. And that there was little about a skeleton that I didn't know, especially if it was the frame of some gorgeous dame. I'd been studying those skeletons a damn long time much to my travail. After hearing all that and me buying him four more coconut rums he concluded that I was an expert of some kind. He invited me to be at his marine biology school at dawn. I was told that one of Eleuthera's native bushman had found a secret cave wherein a skeleton was just inside its entrance. The Eleutherainian was afraid to go near. Jim wanted me to conduct a skeletal analysis.

When morning broke I was at Jim's place. It was a wonderful set up, thrown together with driftwood. Something like Swiss Family Robinson and Robinson Crusoe would have imagined. Chesteen tagged along wearing a black thong bikini. Correct attire for serious anthropological studies. Our Eleutherainian appeared. Jim's wife eyed Chesteen and slammed the screen door behind us as we left.

We jeeped northward along The Queen's Highway until we finally came to a turn off near Hatchet Bay. We drove over red dirt that supposedly blew in from the Sahara. Going past The Hatchet Bay Cove we went over a hill and eventually parked in grass that was the height of a basketball goal. In Kentucky it's the only measurement we know -- that, and how far it is to the nearest bootlegger.

PART TWELVE

We whacked through the weeds with machetes. I saw Chesteen and myself as Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger in KING SOLOMON'S MINES. You couldn't see where you were going. And only knew where you had come from by the trail you left behind. I trekked through the bush in boardshorts and sandals packing a camera, frog-light, and a quart of coconut rum standard Bahamian anthropological equipment. After much of going this way and that we arrived at the most queer of places. A naturally formed coral Stonehenge. Spiders were everywhere. Off to the left was a small overhang. The bushman pointed towards it and backed away. I leaned down and entered. Raising back up I saw a large room before me. The air was dank. In the middle of the foreboding room was a pond of water. Near my feet lay a skeleton. It was Indian. The teeth. Extreme cranial deformation. A male in his 30's. A smoker. Ate ground food. Had been strong and healthy. No trauma. An Indian, alright. An Arawak. The Arawaks were the first people Columbus met when he voyaged to the New World. They were a people having originated out of the Amazon. When Columbus came to Eleuthera it was called, Cigatoo. After he enslaved and Christianized the Arawaks they soon became extinct.

There are four tides in a day. We were lucky to be at this tidal cave during low tide. It allowed us to continue our journey. As we walked through the middle of the cave in the cool water our feet often sank in the mud. In the water we saw several skeletons. I continued to stop and talk about each one to Jim and Chesteen. Some skeletons were on high areas above the water. One male had a conch that had been made into ahorn beside him. After some three hundred feet or so we reached the end of the cavern. There at the back were three skeletons, an old woman with two young girls. There was something beguiling about them. I couldn't say what. But I felt their presence. Sometimes I feel things. Things that are haunting and true. They had been close to each other. A grandmother and her granddaughters. I counted eighteen burials total. It was the largest group of Arawaks ever discovered. Jim had a camera and was shooting the entire trip.

PART THIRTEEN

You don't always have to be blind stinking drunk to have a good time. But it helps. I was drunk on Arawaks. I picked up the skull near the entrance and without all the scientific clay modeling I could visualize the man's face. Very smooth features. Almost feminine. He owned a most dramatic sloping forehead. From his supraorbital margin his entire frontal eminence went straight back rounding off into something of a cone. Very extreme. Very beautiful. Such a shame that Columbus ruined everything. We should fly flags at half mast on Columbus Day instead of celebrating.

It was better than the front page story once headlined in Estill County's newspaper: "MISSING LINK DISCOVERED ON BARNES MOUNTAIN!" That wasn't news. Everyone knew that missing links lived on Barnes Mountain. On Pea Ridge and Cobb HIll, too. I got a gallon of second run off rye from them every Thanksgiving. Stuff that would make you slap your grandma.

PART FOURTEEN

I was a child and she was a child, in this kingdom by the sea. Chesteen, she watched as I laid the skull back down. It was vexing to hold the head of a man that surely saw Columbus. I kept pondering the cave. Both sexes. All ages. Dying at the same time. Does smallpox leave a sign on bones? There were voices inside that cave. I heard them. I felt an ethereal presence. Burial caves are like that.

PART FIFTEEN

The next morning Chesteen and I jeeped to the north end of Eleuthera to locate "Preacher's Cave." In 1648 Captain William Sayles and a group of Puritans set sail from Bermuda in search of religious freedom. They wrecked on the reefs and found refuge in a large blue tinted cliff where they lived and held sermons. Leastways, that's the story. I figured if any of it was true I had a chance of finding something. As fate dictated, I discovered a large iron chest several feet deep. Nothing was in it. It was too heavy to bring back. I salvaged its odd iron and brass lock, wonderful workmanship for the period.

On our way back we stopped at The Rainbow Inn to have a coconut rum, or was it two. I noted black glass bottles from the 1700's and the 1800's standing at various places throughout the bar. After hurricanes, the bottles were found in Governor's Harbour.

The next morning found me at low tide in the middle of the settlement on the Caribbean side. I was amazed to see so much black glass washed ashore. Necks to rum, wine and gin bottles. Pontilled bases indicating the1700's to the 1800's. Pieces of early crock and transfer ware as well as iron buckles were there for the taking. I smelled a wreck. I walked out to waist deep water continuing to find Dutch and English pieces. Then I saw the most beautiful blue something. I reached down and got it-- a glass bead. It was multi-sided. Each side owned several cartouches. Egyptian. How a relic from Egypt made its way to the Harbour was a story in itself. An Estill Countian finding it, another.

PART SIXTEEN

The early morning buzz is well the best. Estill Countians know this. And inasmuch as that may be correct it wasn't correct the next morning. The tapping at my chamber door was a representative from Stanton Cooper, the gentleman that rented me the Ford van. I was handed something of an itemized bill for the destruction I had wrought.

$16,543.

I looked at the bill with Estill County eyes. The way those numbers trailed off. Bogus bills are bread and butter in Estill. I had never seen so much scribbling, inserting and corrected erasing. This guy needed formal Estill County training. "Come on in," I said. "Would you like to have something to drink?" You could see the man was standing there wide eyed and rather expectant that I was going to reach into the atmosphere and hand him around twenty grand. A rich tourist such as I had money coming out of my ears. Or so he hoped. I went into the kitchen and emptied out nearly a half quart of coconut rum over ice into two large glasses and returned with a smile. He took a sip and then another. I knew he would. If it's anything Estill Countians have an instinct about it's a fellow con artist and drunk. Both just have a natural way of going together. I asked the man about the merits of fresh coconut water and gin, a most prescribed concoction employed by the natives. He smiled, knowing we were on the same wave length. "Look," I said, "I'm not rich. I work in a warehouse. I've been demoted all my life. Sometimes they have to create new positions just so there is something lower than I already am. My father was born in a tent in a coal mining camp. He sold fruit and vegetables on the street. I was raised on whatever went rotten."

The man threw back his head and downed the whole cup. I did the same. I exited to the kitchen and emptied out the rest of the bottle. I didn't throw the bottle away. You never knew when another rat would appear. Four or two legged. Jousting with the two legged variety is always more formidable. Fortunately I had lucked into a universal weapon. I returned to my bill collector handing him the drink. I held up the piece of paper. Hardly a word was spelled correctly. There were three different instances where the same destroyed item was listed in different places. "You have down that I owe for a broken antennae and radio. There wasn't a radio in that van."

"Did I put that down there?"

"Right here. Six hundred and fifty four dollars and thirty two cents."

I almost appreciated the way the man had the cents figured in on each item. It almost gave it that feel of being a real. I handed the bill to the man. He took another big drink and starred at it withdrawing his pencil from his shirt pocket. He began erasing several areas and re-adding. He handed it back to me.

The bill was handed to me. I liked these figures but they still needed improving. "My uncle is in the used car business," I informed, "a stalwart within our community. Occasionally, I go with him to the sales. I know what vehicles cost. And I know that that van wouldn't have even got a bid. It was nothing but scrap. It's a testament to my driving abilities that I was able to get it as far as it went."

The man finished his drink and asked for the bill. He took his pencil and markeda giant "X" through everything and wrote a number at the bottom.

$1,000.

I looked at the figure. It was round. This was more like it, an honest bunch of numbers. After all, the van had already been salvaged. God only knew about what was what regarding insurance. I never could get a straight answer. The Ford was over in the bushes. The natives had picked the skeleton down clean. This is still a little high. But I guess fair is fair. I can't give you the thousand right now. I still have two more weeks vacation. I don't know how my money will hold. I've got a family to worry about. They have to eat. Give me your name and address. When I get back to Kentucky I'll send you the money."

PART SEVENTEEN

I always go to the sea. When I am not there I am still going. I always go to the sea. If not in body, then in mind. I love her and she loves me.

The End.

Chesteen & Lance, Charleston

3/1/2015

Palm Beach, Florida 2011

3/1/2015

1. Nancy and Matt
2. Nancy and her two boys
3. Chesteen and Barrett
4. Charlie and Chesteen
5. Chesteen and Nancy
6. No Sweat and Lance
7. No Sweat and family, Charlie's Crab, Palm Beach

<<Previous

No Sweat

﻿Categories﻿

Archives

Categories