Bailing a Dingy Walkabout (photo light, fair warning)

Early in the morning yesterday, between rain showers, I walked over to where my dinghy is tied up while I'm housesitting. It wasn't quite raining and it wasn't quite not raining; that sort of weather. The kind where not many people are out and about. My favorite sort of time. For about a day every once in awhile.

I walk a lot here. Walking helps you see what you easily miss when driving (not that I mind driving or being driven, mind you!). The changes on a house being worked on. The growth of plants around houses; blossoms, fruit, just a bigger profusion of green. Trash. Trash thrown out of cars, trash washed down the street. I only pick up plastic these days, maybe a habit from when the guy who used to pick up cans with his grocery cart was around. He was a good guy that way but I haven't seen him for years now. Too bad, there's lots of cans. Other walkers. I've watched children grow up on walks over the years, people I only see walking. People who I pick up if I'm driving or vice versa. So much to see.

By the airport there are big swaths of low ground. Land crabs have crossed the road in a couple of places, up by the fence, where I'd never seen them before. The best thing  seen was a a tri-colored heron and a mother duck with her babies, two of them, on the inside of the fence. The babies paddling around under the mother's watchful eyes.  Ducks! I mean, I've seen ducks before here, on the bay, on a pond, but inside the fence at the airport? Nope, haven't seen that before. 

A magical recovery also happened. A big thing on Culebra that doesn't, by a long shot, happen only to me, is running into the people you need to see when you need to see them. I ran into those people and got back something very important to me. An African mobile that my daughter Michelle had given to me years ago, that somehow mysteriously disappeared and then, two years later, reappeared. I'd never told her it was gone, because I felt so bad about it. But there it was, a lot of rust on those hand hammered bells, but intact and, aesthetically  the rust works.  

After the bailing of the dinghy, walking down that same street, it was empty. Those people were gone. A different minute, a different day, it would have been like that but Culebra rolls in a strange time frame, always. I carried it for the rest of my walk, listening to the soft cowbell like ringing, a part of me, a sound, a sight, brought back. I'll hang it on the houseboat in the place where it lives, smiling most every time I see it, a reminder that Culebra, as well as my daughter, is often magical.

Back at the house, across from the school, I sat on the balcony, listening to the  kids in some class singing. Loudly. Beautifully. Happily. It went on a long time, drizzling rain, grey skies and song. Another note of the day.

Later, after another walk, to town this time, I heard from a friend who has his boat near my dinghy. He told me it was caught under the dock the other day, not long from sinking, its gunnel a couple of inches from being underwater as the tide came up. He pulled it free, saving me from a salt watered engine. He told me not because he wanted to say he saved my dinghy engine but to suggest tying it up a bit differently. It was just timing luck, he said. Nah, that's just how things go here...over and over again.

I didn't carry my camera on this walk, because it was sort of raining and sort of not but could have rained a lot. So there are no photos to show. Not the ducks, not the porch railing with five incredible bonsai trees (someone is doing amazing bonsai; there was a bougainvillea with a trunk four or five inches in diameter, with blooms, that wasn't a foot high. A closer look next time will be taken, to see what the others are), not the new wooden house being built, not the funny little boat on land made of cardboard that I'll ask about when I see that guy. Not a walkabout photo to be seen. Sorry, but not sorry. 

This is all I got today, while waiting at Dinghy Dock to greet dear friends returned. 

Even that ripple went away, leaving glass

Sitting on the balcony typing this, last night, there was, out in some neighborhood, (maybe the gym behind Carlos Jeeps?) loud cheering going on. A lot of cheering. I don't know why but as long as it's happy sounds, I'm all for it. I'm sure it won't be hard to find out what went on, but right then, just hearing huge good noise? Yes, that's a fine thing. I can't take a photo of that either. 

Sometimes the camera leads the walk, sometimes the walk leads itself. If you don't do it a lot, take a walk sometime, from town to around Susie's. You just might be amazed. Take a camera if you think of it, and an empty bag to pick up the trash.

Have a saturated Saturday. Do something seeing.