part 3

AZUL GRANDE

"Roll up your windows, and lock your doors," said Gene as we drove into the outskirts of Belize City. Mike, Gino, and I locked and rolled quickly. We'd read there was a serious danger of being robbed in Belize's largest city.
We actually expected to leave town with more money than we had on arrival, thousands more. The money would come from the sale of Azul Grande, the big blue van we had driven from California through Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Belize. Selling an imported car is legal in Belize, and the capital city is where the official appraisal is made and the taxes paid. The tax is based on the appraised value, so we hoped for a low valuation.
We had a plan for protecting ourselves and our possessions while looking for lodging in this dangerous city: two of us would check out the hotel while the other two remained with the van. We wanted a telephone in our room, a feature that wasn't standard in that country in 1992. We needed to call all the people who had shown an interest in buying Azul Grande.
As soon as we'd crossed the border from Guatemala to Belize, we'd put a sign in the back window in Spanish, "Se Vende," and English, "For Sale." During the following month, half the population of the small Central American country had inquired about the particulars. The asking price was $3,500 U. S., and the buyer would pay the taxes.
We pulled up in front of a hotel and were met not by a doorman or parking attendant but by a ten-year-old boy with a bucket in his hand. "Wash de car man?"
"No," said Gene. "We may be here only a few minutes." As he and I got out of the van, he said to our brother Mike and our thirteen-year-old son Gino, "Lock and roll."
Mike sang a barely altered chorus from a song by “The Rolling Stones" - "I know: It's only lock and roll, but I like it, like it, yes I do." Mike was a red head with a mustache, a strong man in a fragile body. His neck no longer turned independently of the rest of his body. He had two artificial hips, trouble with his knees, and walked with the use of a cane that he now held at the ready as a weapon. He didn't have to hold it long before we returned.
"Too expensive," I said. "It's not worth $30 a day extra just to have a phone in the room."
"Can we go eat as soon as we find a place to stay?" Asked Gino. He has my coloring: dark hair, eyes, and skin and his father's deep voice and muscular physique. He was large for his age with an appetite to match.
"I'm hungry too," said Mike. Those two are always hungry.
Our next stop, the Mopan, is a landmark house on Regent Street with a large screened porch across the front. Like most of the buildings in Belize City, it looked a bit shabby. We were following our looking-for-lodging-in-a-dangerous-city routine. As Gene turned to lock the door on the driver's side, a man came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. Gene whirled on him with every muscle in his body tense, the veins in his bullish neck showing. He was over reacting because the touch had caught him by surprise when he thought he was being alert to danger. We called Gene our muscle because of his powerful upper body and because he took his role as our protector seriously. Ordinarily, his blue eyes had a calm innocence that he was perfectly capable of exaggerating when it suited his purpose, but now his eyes were blue flames.
The man took a step back. "I just want to wash your car."
"Stay away from my car."
"I’m only trying to make an honest dollar," he called after us as we walked away.
They didn't have phones in the rooms at the Mopan, but the owner said Gene could use her office phone and that she'd send someone running up the three flights to get him if he received calls. We got the only room with a view of the bay, #303, at the end of a wide covered verandah. We brought our luggage and two folding lawn chairs up from Azul Grande. Mike stretched out on the bed for a few minutes while Gino set the chairs out on the verandah where there was already a bench. I unpacked the toiletries and set up the coffee pot. Gene made a quick repair on the ceiling fan. "Okay," he said. "Now we can go eat."
Waiting outside is the car washer. "This machine really needs cleaning," he said.
He was right. The mud of many rivers and the dust of many miles made the van more gray than blue. The washer man was old, and Gene was feeling mellower now that we were settled. He said, "I'll let you wash the car later, but not till I tell you, okay?" He explained to us, "I want the van dirty for the appraisal. It might make it lower."
An armed guard stood outside the entrance to Mom's, our dinner destination, so we knew Azul Grande was safe. Mom's is a funky old favorite with travelers from the United States, recommended to us by a friend. Besides tables and chairs, there is a lunch counter. Electric fans keep the warm air moving. Gene and I order Mexican food and Belikin's, a local beer. Mike is the most adventurous. He has Gibnut, a Creole specialty. Also known as Paca, Gibnut is a herbivorous rodent about the size of a badger. Although it is served with a tiny bit of fur still attached, it is fall apart tender and very tasty, somewhat like pork roast. Gino orders a hamburger, French fries, and a vanilla milk shake. The shake is thick but not too thick. His fries are golden brown. The meat tastes like hamburger. The bun is homemade, fresh and fragrant, and every condiment of choice is available. He’d been served enough disappointing burgers in our travels that he thought this meal was a minor miracle. We all agreed we'd return to Mom's.
Back at the hotel, Gene began to call the men who'd been serious enough about buying Azul Grande to give him their phone numbers. The only one who lived in Belize City was the Reverend Browning. We'd met him in Punta Gorda, a simple village on a narrow road that hugged the water. Reverend Browning visualized eight of his flock being transported to church services and socials in "the Van of God." The Reverend wasn't home. Gene left our number.
Rodney of Dangriga was home. Punta rock played in the background. He was still interested but hadn't got the money together yet. "You have 24 hours," Gene said.
The man from Crooked Tree, where we'd gone to see rare five feet tall Jabiru Storks, didn't have the money either.
Zandy, whom we'd met at the archeological ruins of Altun Ha, wanted the van for his tour business. He offered $2,000.
Gene said, "I'll drive it back to California before I'll take that kind of loss."
Sitting outside our room, sipping Belizian "Parrot" rum, Gene admitted we didn't have time for the long drive home. Besides, Azul Grande was purchased specifically to sell in Belize. Parts were easy to get. It had the high clearance needed on the bad roads.
Mike said, "If you take a loss, I'll absorb some of it. It'd still be cheaper than renting a car would have been."
"Maybe not at $2,000."
"You'll get more than that."
"I don't know," said Gene. "It's a short list."
"It only takes one," said Mike.
"I'm hungry," said Gino.
"We have a tin of sardines left," I said.
"No thanks."
"Metamucil?" offered Mike.
"No," said Gino. "I'm trying to quit."
Someone was running up the stairs. A young man appeared at the end of the verandah. "There's a call for Gene," he said breathlessly.
"I'll bring you back something," Gene told Gino. Mike waved his cane. Gene nodded to him, understanding that he wanted a snack too. In ten minutes, he returned with soft drinks. "This is all I could get. The call was from the Reverend. He's coming by for a test drive in the morning."
After the drive, the Reverend offered $2,500. Gene held out for the full $3,500. Reverend Browning said he'd ask for guidance from the Lord and money from his congregation. They'd talk again.
In between Gene making and waiting for phone calls, we devoted a good deal of our time to dining. We liked to sit out on the covered porch of Four Fort Street, an elegant old home converted to a restaurant with a few rooms to rent upstairs. They are known for their desserts. Homemade soursap ice cream had an unusual sweet and sour flavor. Sour sap fruit is the size of a grapefruit with conical but harmless horns on the lime green exterior. We had plenty of time to ask to see the fruit or to discuss how they made the cashew jam that was spread between fresh baked sugar cookies. It turns out, the cashew has both a fruit and a nut.
After visiting the Baron Bliss Institute, we had pretty much exhausted the sights to see in the city, but we couldn't spend all our time eating. We used our imaginations and walked from the Mopan to a horror movie set of a cemetery with overturned headstones, overgrown grounds, and out of control mosquitoes. "You'd think they'd take better care of this place," said Mike. "People are dying to get in here."
We shopped for music tapes of Punta Rock and photographed a store window that displayed towels, disposable diapers, women's clothing, and condoms, all in one window. We crossed the Haulover Creek swing bridge many times and never saw it swing. Our filthy vehicle elicited such a look of disapproval from the doorman at the fancy Fort George Hotel that we thought he might deny us entry, but he didn't. We swam and lunched poolside overlooking the bay. Locals hung out at the public pier across from the hotel just as they did in Beka Lamb, the novel I was reading by Belizian Zee Edgell.
We still practiced the precautions of paranoia, but it seemed that the notorious muggers and pickpockets had turned to a life of car washing. Gene gave the old man outside our place some money to keep an eye on the van.
Three hundred flights of stairs later, Gene had a deal. Reverend Browning had come up with $3,500, but out of that, he had to pay the taxes. What was left over was ours. Gene and the Reverend would take the van in for the tax assessor's appraisal the next morning. We decided to celebrate by making our return visit to Mom's. "I'm getting the hamburger this time," said Gene.
"Me too," said Gino. "And another shake."
"I think I'll get Gibnut," I said.
"To make the musical chairs meal complete, I'll have to get Mexican food," said Mike.
But there were no buns for burgers, no ice cream for shakes, and no Gibnut either. "Not even a small piece of fur?" asked Mike facetiously. The waitress was not amused. It was Sunday, and she'd rather be out at the cays or at least down at the pier.
"You'd think they'd get extra supplies on Saturday to tide them over till Monday," I said.
"Not all mom's are as organized as you," said Gino.
The meal was seasoned with too much disappointment to be a complete success, but at least we weren't hungry when we stepped back out on the street. Gene stopped in mid-stride. "Oh my God," he said. We all stared in shock at a sparkling clean Azul Grande. A raggedy Rastafarian with dread locks down to his bare shoulders stood next to the van, waiting for praise and payment. Gene turned on the armed guard. "How could you let this happen? What kind of a guard are you?" Dumfounded that anyone would be so upset about their car being washed, the guard didn't respond.
Gene looked like he was going to cry. He said, "I can't give him anything. Thanks to him, that's probably the most expensive dinner we've ever had."
"It could have rained," I said.
"But it didn't," he said. "And what am I going to tell the old man on Regent Street?"
Mike slipped Rasta man some money and said, apologetically, "He did a good job."
"Yeah," said Gene despondently. "The van looks great."

At the tax appraisal, Reverend Browning pulled Gene aside and asked, "Why'd you wash it?"
"I didn't." Gene told him the story.
The Reverend laughed. "If a car wash is the worst thing that happens to you in Belize City then the good Lord must be looking after you." He paid $600 in taxes. We left town with $2,900 and the knowledge that Azul Grande's dirty days were over.

*****************************

photos: first – Gino, Mary, & inspector at Guatemala/Belize border, second – another road less paved, to Punta Gorda, Belize,

Part 1 - Belize

DRIFTING TO HONDURAS


Many of our friends and family thought we were crazy when we decided to drive from Northern California to Belize by way of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. It was a drive some of our peers made in the early 70’s, but when civil war and horror story violence broke out in Guatemala, that country fell off the tourist map for Americans. By 1992, things had calmed down, so Gene and I decided to make the longest road trip of our lives. Our youngest child, Gino, would accompany us. He would celebrate his first teenage birthday on the road. Our friend, Michael of Venice, would meet us at the great archeological ruin of Tikal and continue traveling with us through Belize.
When my sister, Barbara, and her husband, Phlete, drove the same route to Tikal, back in the day, the road was not paved. A black panther ran across the road in front of them. After all those years, the road still is not paved, but there were no panther sightings. We were warned that the road was not safe, but the dangers were guerillas or army. It was too late to turn back. It was illegal to sell the car in Guatemala, Honduras, or Mexico. We wanted and needed to get it to Belize. We decided, if someone tried to stop us, we would floor-board it and get away from them as fast as possible. The plan was concocted before we crossed the Rio Dulce and said adios to any hint of pavement. Things got so much slower then that an able bodied adult could run as fast as Azul Grande, our vehicle, and if they wanted trouble, trouble there would be.
A flat tire turned out to be our only problem, and we were successful in getting a room for four at the Jungle Lodge, right at the archeological site of Tikal. Our guide book said all the lodgings at the site were over priced, but we wanted to be there for the birds at sunrise and sunset.
This was not the first time we’d met up with Mike at an exotic location, and it was not to be the last. We’ve had foreign rendezvous with others, too, and it is always exciting. Whatever Mike lacks in physical dexterity, he makes up for with a flexible frame of mind and a sense of adventure. We climbed to the top of Mundo Perdido at daybreak and were rewarded with amazing wildlife sightings from this flat top pyramid. We didn’t see the elusive jaguar, but we saw monkeys, toucans, macaws, coatamundi’s, oh so much. We wandered around the huge site the rest of the day in an archeological ecstasy. We could have spent much longer, but Belize beckoned. It was a new country with more archeological ruins, wildlife, and snorkeling.

We found the mainland community of Placencia, Belize, at the end of a peninsula. On the approach, there is a laguna on one side of the road and the Caribbean on the other with only a few palm trees in between. The road runs behind the community but not through it. The main thorough fares are narrow sidewalks and pathways in the sand. One must get out of the car and walk around to find a place to stay or eat. From one end of town to the other is no more than half a mile.
We were told by two travelers we met elsewhere to eat at Brenda’s. It turned out to be next to where we were staying – all three tables. They sat directly on the sand, under a thatched roof, looking through hibiscus and palms to the water. Brenda was a huge black woman. Her menu was a small chalkboard which listed, “fish, shrimp, conch.” I ordered shrimp, and she said, “No shrimp.” So, two of us got fish, the other two conch. Conch is very much like abalone in taste and texture. Both come out of beautiful though dissimilar shells and need to be pounded to be tender. The fish and conch were accompanied, as practically every meal in Belize is, by coleslaw and Belizean rice and beans. The rice is cooked with coconut. Sometimes it is mixed with the beans; other times they’re served separately. It was all excellent.
Before we were through, two men from England arrived and asked if they could share our table since there was no place else to sit. We agreed, and Brenda promptly brought them plates of shrimp. “What’s your secret?” I asked.
“We ordered earlier,” was the reply.
“You want shrimp tomorrow?” asked Brenda. “No problem man. Anything you want, just tell me man.”
“Could you make up conch fritters?” I asked.
“No problem man! I’ll have some conch fritters and shrimp for you guys tomorrow night.”
On the short walk back to our lodging, it amused me to think we were walking to paradise. That was the name of the place we were staying – paradise. It wasn’t a hotel, motel, Bed and Breakfast, and it sure wasn’t paradise. Our two rooms were basic Belizean – mismatched, tattered bed linens, no closet, trash can, TV. The shared bath was in a separate building out back. A deep screened-in porch across the front faced the Caribbean. Brenda’s was next door, and at the end of a pier in front was an open air, thatched roof bar. I always want to be right on the beach, to go to sleep and wake up to the sound of the surf, to zone out just watching the waves come in and the waves go out. Between our porch, the bar, Brenda’s, and the picturesque community of Placencia, maybe it was paradise after all?
We weren’t able to get out on the water the next day because the weather was stormy, so we explored the village and played many games of Triominos which our daughter, Fawn, had given us for the trip. Gino did some of his independent study homework. Finally it was time for dinner at Brenda’s, and it great.
In no time at all, everyone knows what you’re up to in Placencia. Brenda asked, “You guys want some breakfast before you go snorkeling tomorrow? I’ll make you some sandwiches to take too.”

Morning broke clear and bright. We were excited that we got to make our snorkeling trip. Although Belize has the second longest barrier reef in the world, you can’t reach it from the mainland shore. A boat ride is required, or you need to be staying on an island.
After breakfast, we go down to the pier with our gear and the bag lunches Brenda prepared for us. The sandwiches were scrambled eggs, bacon, and tomato, a Caribbean specialty. We would have breakfast again for lunch.
The two guys who shared our table the first night were going out on the boat with us. The captain of the boat, Franklin, might not look any older than Gino if he didn’t have a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Gino is actually taller than Franklin, but he is also now taller than his Dad by a fraction. We just noticed this a few days ago, and Gino declared it the happiest day of his life. The previous happiest day of his life was also on this trip when he and Gene found a copy of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue on sale on one of our many stops in Mexico. Gene was tactful enough not to admit to such elation himself.
So here I am, not magazine material, but still looking pretty good in a bathing suit and feeling even better at the prospect of a boat ride, seeing some beautiful fish, and having a picnic lunch on a little tropical island.
Franklin takes us to an island inhabited only by palm trees. It is so close to the reef that getting into the water without getting cut by coral is tricky, but the fish are plentiful, varied, and beautiful. When we get out to rest and have lunch, Mike gets a nasty coral cut on his shin.
No sooner had we finished our picnic than a sudden, torrential rain descended. When it let up a bit, Franklin said, “We head back now.” None of us argued with him.
At first, everything was fine out on the water in the boat, but then the sky and the water became an identical silver gray. There was no horizon, no differentiating between the sky and the water. Franklin turned off the motor. “I’ll save the gas for when I can see to get us home,” he said.
Now I realized how deserving we were of the name of our group of friends from college days – The Fools. Fools do not concern themselves with whether the boat they are going out on has a two way radio, flares, lights, extra gas, paddles, or buckets for bailing. We hadn’t insisted on life vests, and there were none. We started off with food, but we’d already eaten that. We hadn’t even demanded an adult to captain the boat. Gino was the only one on board younger than our captain. – Our very nervous captain.
The dad, the Boy Scout, the adult in Gene kicked in, and he leaned in close to the young man. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything is going to be alright.”
Franklin nodded.
Gene asked, “If the wind keeps going in this direction, where will be end up?”
Franklin said, “Honduras.”
So: we’re drifting to Honduras. We’ve already been to Honduras, but we drove rather than drifted. It was a long dirt road from Guatemala to Copan, Honduras. There are many major roads in Central and South America that are unpaved. Traveling them is almost as slow as drifting, but drifting to Honduras is not as scary as drifting out to sea. I don’t think they have sharks in the Caribbean, and I’m not going to ask. The party atmosphere has dissolved onboard, but nobody is panicked. We are cold but only in an uncomfortable way, not a life threatening manner.
“Does anyone have water?” asks Michael.
Before anyone answers, Gino calls out, “Look! There’s an island!”
Franklin starts the boat right up and heads for the island. “I know this place. We are not far from home.” There is a one room cabin on the island that we all crowd into. We barely fit. Franklin lights a cigarette. Everyone but Gino bums a smoke from him. We haven’t smoked in years, but this seems like a good occasion to make an exception. We probably wouldn’t object if Gino had one. Within half an hour, the weather clears. It isn’t blue skies and sunny, but it is clear enough for Franklin to steer a course back to Placencia.
As we walk past Brenda’s on our way back to Paradise, she calls out to us, “Hey, man! I’m barbequing chicken tonight.”
“Sounds good. Count us in.”
After getting into dry clothes, we walk out to the thatched bar at the end of the pier in front of Paradise. We drink and play Triominos until time for dinner. Tomorrow we leave Placencia for another adventure.

photos: #1 - Gene & friend atop Mundo Perdido, Tikal. #2 - Gene, Mike, & Gino in front of Temple 5, Tikal. #3 - partial map of Placencia. #4 - islet off Placencia.

Gentle's Cool Spot

GENTLE'S COOL SPOT

We were bumping and bouncing around Belize in Azul Grande, the big blue van we'd driven from California. My husband, Gene, and I, our thirteen-year-old son, Gino, and our brother, Michael, were looking for archeological ruins and wildlife.
A fellow traveler told us a man in Gale's Point could show us the rare manatee. We got out our map and found Gale's Point to be a little finger of land at the southern end of Manatee Lagoon, south of Belize City and north of Dangriga. According to our guidebook, the only place to stay was an expensive fishing lodge, but, since we'd been roughing it, we were ready for a hot shower, a private bath, or both.
The many glowing articles we'd read before our journey about ecotourism in this Caribbean country hadn't prepared us for the wobbly nature of their tourist infrastructure. With a few exceptions, nice comfortable accommodations were expensive. There was usually no range of choices. Travelers like us with more of a sense of adventure than a bankroll became intimately acquainted with threadbare linens that are not turned down at night or made up in the morning. We often felt in Belize that we weren't getting a good lodging value for the money spent, but there were always compensations. Seeing an anteater on a sunrise hike in Cockscomb made up for the ferocious insects that swarmed our ankles as we walked from the bunkhouse to the outhouse. Swimming with spotted eagle rays off South Water Cay made up for the lack of electricity and hot water in our $100 a day beach cabin, but it wasn't until Gale's Point that we realized how much our travel dollars were buying. We paid more than at a camp site, but we didn’t have to set up a tent or blow up an air mattress, and we got to see fabulous wild life and beautiful places.
The village had no telephone service, and there was no answer on the lodge's two-way radio. We decided to take a chance on arriving without reservations and pointed Azul Grande toward the manatees.
We were on a trip back in time. The road to yesterday was hard and slow, unpaved, unsigned, with a river crossing that didn't include a bridge. Grass grew between the two dirt tracks that bisected the peninsula of Gale's Point. No need to worry about street names. There was just the one road with humble homes on stilts scattered along either side. Electricity to the village had only been operating one month. There was no restaurant, no store, and, as it turned out, no lodging. The fishing lodge had closed. It was 5:00 p.m. and hours from anyplace else to stay. Azul Grande would sleep three but not four. We had sleeping bags but no tent. None of us wanted to sleep on the ground because since we'd been in Belize, we'd already seen two of the most poisonous snakes in the world: a colorful coral snake at Crooked Tree and the venomous viper with a lance shaped head, the fer-de-lance, near the Thousand Foot Waterfall. No. We didn't want to sleep on the ground.
We retreated to the only commercial establishment in the village, "Gentle's Cool Spot." A cool spot in Belize is an informal cafe. "Gentle's" had six tables with chairs in an open-air area with a roof. Like everything else in the village, it was on that one unpaved road. Most cool spots serve food and drink, but "Gentle's" only served soft drinks and Belikans, the beer of Belize. No place to stay and no dinner either. We were all hungry and disappointed, but only Gino and I whined. Mr. Gentle said there was a man named Chip who had two beds we could probably use. "How will I find Chip?" asked Gene.
"He's a tall dark man,” said Mr. Gentle. Gale's Point is a community of blacks, and all the men, and women too, are tall and thin. So we drove along asking every man we saw if he was Chip. Since the population was less than 300, we found Chip. He agreed to rent us his beds. Gene and Michael, ever gallant, wanted Gino and me to have the beds, but we chose the van. We didn't inspect the beds and then make the choice. Perhaps we preferred the van because it was more familiar, almost a home on wheels.
Mr. Gentle's wife had agreed to serve us "tea" when we returned. Instead of seating us at one of the "Cool Spot" tables outside, we were ushered into the family kitchen. Rather than tea, she gave each of us a cup of boiling hot instant coffee. Gino looked at me questioningly. I shrugged slightly. I wasn't going to fuss at him if he didn't choose this time to start drinking coffee. In the center of the oilcloth covered table, she placed a bowl of pureed corned beef and a large round loaf of bread that she'd baked herself. They called the bread a "Creole bun." It had coconut in it and was delicious. I wondered if Mr. Gentle's large family had to forgo this tasty treat in order to feed us hungry travelers.
It wasn't a great surprise to find out that Mr. Gentle was the manatee man. He agreed to take us out in his boat early the next morning. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that we'd see them.
Chip's place was across the road from the town pier. We took a bottle of chilled California Chardonnay from our ice chest out to the end of the pier and settled down to watch the night. With places to sleep, food in our stomachs, and a promise of manatee sightings, our spirits were lifted. Now we noticed how magnificent the coconut palms and spreading mango trees were, with more fruit than the inhabitants could consume. Every home had a view of the lagoon, a lagoon so shallow there'd never been a drowning in Gale's Point.
Now we could appreciate that Chip would give up his own bed for the night and sleep in a hammock. The other bed he was renting us belonged to their Peace Corps volunteer who was away. They were crazy about their Peace Corps worker in Gale's Point. She was teaching them that protecting manatee rather than eating them would help attract tourist dollars to their village, a hard lesson for a poor fishing village to learn considering a male manatee may weigh over 1,000 pounds. That's a lot of food. Our presence was proof that the Peace Corps worker was right.
The United States Peace Corps, the Audubon Society, and the World Wildlife Fund have all been instrumental in educating the people of Belize in the advantages of ecotourisim. Mr. Gentle was in the process of building a very basic cabin to house future tourists. The people who stay in that cabin will pay for more than marginal accommodations. They'll be contributing, as we were, to the survival of a special spot and species. If the tourist dollar helps Belizians protect their monkeys, coral reef, pyramids, birds, jaguars, and manatees, then the traveler has a bargain, and so does the environment.
We watched a full mango moonrise. The reflected moon quivered on the still waters of Manatee Lagoon. Silence settled on us like a soft feather comforter. It was the quiet of the wilderness, those places far from televisions, VCR's, tape decks, dishwashers, cars. Azul Grande was the only car in town that night. Soon the accouterments of electricity would be there too. We weren't really in the wilderness. We were in a place caught between yesterday and today, and we felt fortunate to be in that place.

When we met Mr. Gentle for our boat trip, he said sadly, "It's a bleaky morn."
Gene looked at the overcast sky with a frown and asked, "Will that interfere with us seeing the manatee?"
"Oh, no," Mr. Gentle assured him. He launched the boat, and we began our search for the herbivorous, docile, shy creature sometimes called a sea cow. At first, we thought Mr. Gentle was going slowly because we were searching, but he explained that one of the greatest threats to the manatee is boat motors. The big guys can't swim fast enough to avoid a boat moving at high speed.
Fifteen minutes out, he turned off the motor. We could see land but weren't near shore. "Now we will see the manatee," he said. Silvery Tarpon leaped around us. Two or three at a time were in the air. Were they taunting and tempting us? Did they miss the sport of evading a fishing lure? Or were they celebrating the closing of the fishing lodge? We were so enchanted with the sparkling silver spectacle that we were almost startled when Mr. Gentle said, "That is he." Mr. Gentle pointed a long finger at a large dark bulbous form just under the water's surface. The manatee was fourteen feet long and very near the boat. He stuck his nose out of the water, took a breath, and, with a stroke of the two paddle shaped appendages in front, disappeared. Manatee's are mammals and must come up for air every ten minutes, but what's unique about them is that they like to return to the same spot to breath. It's their version of "Gentle's Cool Spot." Now we knew why Mr. Gentle had been so certain we would see them.
We observed the manatee long enough for me to become convinced that they couldn't possibly have inspired the legend of the mermaid, as some sources say. We'd lost count of the number of noses that had surfaced when Mr. Gentle said, "Now we will see the birds."
That was the first I'd heard of birds on that particular outing, but we were always interested in wildlife. As we motored along, Mr. Gentle pointed out wild orchids in bloom and a long snake draped along a bare tree branch. He called the snake "walla."
When we reached tiny Bird Island in North Lagoon, he said, "This is what you came to see." Hundreds of white ibis, snowy egrets, and egret chicks were nesting together on the branches of low growing trees, the chicks as fluffy as dandelion puffs. "They're just so pretty," he said and repeated, "This is what you came to see." It was funny because it wasn't what we'd come to see. We hadn't known about the nesting birds, and we wouldn't have seen them if it wasn't for Mr. Gentle, a man who cared for many families: his own, the manatees, the birds, and the travelers.
"Cool," said Gino, the ultimate current compliment from a teenager. Indeed, there was more than one Gentle’s Cool Spot.

photos: #1 - Mr. Gentle & kids at his "Cool Spot." #2 - Crossing a river without a bridge. #3 - Our outhouse at Chips.