Shark Bait - Gans Bae, S. Africa - Aug 13, 2007

Bye, Bye Tuna - Hello Jaws

Survived the Dive!

Hi everyone,

No travel this week. Stayed home and finished the turkey instead. I thought from time to time it might be fun to re-cycle some past travel yarns. Here's one from South Africa last summer (their winter).

DAKTARI

FEAR FACTOR PART II: SHARK BAIT!
The largest predators in Africa are not the lions of the Serengeti. They’re the great white sharks of Gans Bay, South Africa. Rafe from Rio, Colleen from Newburyport and I are shivering with cold and anticipation as we wait to be picked up at 5:30 AM to go cage-diving with the Great Whites. Nobody slept very well last night. What am I doing this for? Just nuts is all I can figure.
Klara from the Big Apple and spouse Rena will get up late and take their “shark money” and go shopping. Sure sounds good to me!
The White Shark Adventure van pulls up. This is it. We drive to Shark HQ where a hot breakfast awaits. I hope the sharks are having a good breakfast too. Maybe they won’t show up today! This must be how gentlemen of the last century felt while waiting in the morning mist for a duel to begin. It’s early, it’s surreal and it’s scary.
We embark on “The White Pointer” – a 55 foot specially outfitted shark hunting boat. It’s a 45 minute ride through rough seas to the set-up point. The cage is lowered into the water. Tuna heads are attached to ropes as we attempt to imitate a smelly dead seal. Six of us suit up and clamber one at a time down into the cage. “It’s a tourist six pack,” I think to myself. We wait for the sharks. In addition to the wetsuit, I’m wearing a weight belt and a snorkel mask.
“Here he comes,” the dive master announces. I let the weights drag me under and breathe through my snorkel. The biggest creature I’ve ever seen cruises slowly by. Gotta be less than a yard away! It’s big, it’s toothy and it’s grinning right at me. “Do prey pray?” I wonder. Philosophy is interrupted as a wave swamps my snorkel and my left lung exchanges a bubble of air for a mouthful of water. Gagging and coughing I claw my way to the surface. But the lure of the great white is on me – I submerge again. In twenty minutes I see two more great whites. The last is bigger than our dive cage. I decide to call it quits.
I stagger out of the cage, grinning and high-fiving. Suddenly it’s too much – I jump to the rail for a quick puke over the side. I don’t feel nauseated or seasick. Just way too much adrenaline. Afterward I’m cold shivers all over and my knees shake.
Rafe goes in group #2 and stays in the longest- about 45 minutes. Colleen suits up but after seeing me grinning and puking simultaneously, she decides to unzip. I must be a scary sight! Only 9 out of 17 adventurers actually make it into the cage. And nobody wants seconds!
The wind picks up and the boat ride back is incredibly rough. One particular giant wave bounces Rafe off his seat and onto the deck. Ouch! A hot spaghetti dinner is waiting for us at Shark Headquarters. Surprisingly I’m starving and eat everything in sight. The van takes us back while the monkeys get married (in South Africa they say that whenever sun is followed by rain and a nice rainbow – in Brazil they say the widows are getting married. Same weather but different nuptials.) Tomorrow an even scarier challenge awaits – driving a rental car on the left hand side. Are we having fun yet?

Thanksgiving - Mount Vernon, Maine - November 22, 2007

Kirstin, Courtney, Zaire & Andy watching TV

Zaire trys an oyster!

Our traditional Thanksgiving is in Mount Vernon, Maine. The food is great and the company is always interesting. This year we had three families. Our hosts were Bob and Vicki joined by their daughter Anna and new son-in-law Mike. Mike’s parents, Evgeny and Svetlana, and sister, Anna, were with them. Mike is the youngest and his family escaped from Russia when Mike was about 6. So half the table spoke Russian and the other half English. Anna’s Mom (Bob’s ex-wife Barbra) rounded out the set. This was the first time that Bob and Vicki invited his ex- and it seemed to go OK. Families these days make strange bedfellows. Or maybe it’s, ‘bedfellows make strange families’. Or could be ‘bedfellows make estranged families.’ Somehow it all works out.

The other guests were Andy and Jan and Jan’s daughter Jill with her husband Tim. Jill and Tim have just gotten pregnant for the first time and are a very happy pair. Andy always brings the Cherrystones and P.E.I. oysters which he shucks for appetizers. A few of those and a little bubbly sets up the feast nicely. (see above)


Finally there was our little group – Rena, myself and Courtney with her sister Kirstin and daughter Zaire. Courtney is like a daughter to us and has been part of our family since age 8 when she first came to stay for 2 weeks as a fresh air kid from Roxbury. That’s them in the photo-- sacked out on Bob’s couch watching their traditional post-prandial movie. This year it was ‘Ratatouille’, a pixar animation about rats cooking the meals at a fancy Parisian restaurant. We coulda’ used a few rats doing prep work in Bob’s kitchen! Or at the very least washing the dishes.


Bob is a great cook. He does everything from scratch. Example: making squash soup. Step 1 – Boil the chicken to make stock. Step 2- Saute the seeds and strings from the butternut squash in a stick and a half of butter. Step 3- strain the butter and throw away the strings and seeds. (which are just for flavor). Step 4, 5, etc …… Who else has the patience for this kind of cooking? After dinner we talked about how Bob and Vicki should retire from the newspaper business and open a restaurant in their barn. The food is really that good!


On the way home, poor Rena hit a deer with her new Suzuki. I wasn’t in the car. I was driving Zaire with the leftovers and the folding chairs in the old Pontiac. Rena was behind us and was only going about 30 MPH when the deer jumped in front of her car. Everyone was OK, the Suzuki was drive-able and nobody wanted to stop and see how the deer made out. It’s hunting season and according to Maine’s road-kill laws we get to keep the carcass. But not tonight deer! After dodging bullets all month, the poor critter gets run over by a carload of vegetarians. A definite case of bad deer karma. Best to leave well enough alone! Perhaps in a past life she/he/it was a Maine hunter. In that case, would he/she/it be caught in a karmic loop from hunter to hunted and back endlessly? Maybe Maine needs an experienced karma-kanic to sort out various repercussions of deer-hunting on the astral plane. I know Rena has a Suzuki that could use one to repair its front bumper.


Anyway, I wish good Karma to all those who read this blog and Happy Thanksgiving too! That’s all for now,
Daktari

Ogunquit, Maine November 17, 2007

Me and the Great Pumpkin

Rena at the Rockmere Lodge

Hi everyone. This is my first blog.
Hope you enjoy it!
Daktari

Ogunquit is the southernmost resort area on the Maine Coast with a significant sand beach. It's just 37 miles from our Amesbury, Massachusetts home but still qualifies as a target for a getaway weekend.


In the second week of August, Ogunquit is known to locals like us as "the Canadian Riviera". In sunny weather, bare chested French Canadian males stalk the shore in black speedos while their wives and girlfriends herd shoals of shivering 'enfants' into the waves. The water is very shallow, relatively warm and the sand is so soft it squeeks! Ici parlez Francais!


But in the second week of November, Rena and I are just thankful that the sun is shining and it's not snowing. It's only 40 degrees F. and the surf sparkles under a sky of crystal blue. Our destination is the Rockmere Lodge - a gambrel Victorian home converted to a delightful and quirky bed and breakfast by our hosts Doug and Andy. The place is chock-a-block with bric-a-brac. Even Queen Victoria would be amused!


Our room is the 'Anne Marie' decorated in yellow, green and salmon wallpaper with creamy French provincial furniture. Opening the door for the first time I exclaim, "Wow this is so ....." And I halt, at a loss for words.
"Over the top?" supplies Rena.
"That too!" I reply. " But you really gotta love a getaway retreat where even the wallpaper is busier than you are."


The Rockmere is situated on a beautiful walkway called the Marginal Way that hugs the rockbound coast for about 2 miles. Before dinner we stroll along it, taking in the sights and smells. Very bracing. We dine nearby at the Five-o Restaurant and then check out the Marginal Way by moonlight until our noses and toes are frozes. There's no fireplace or hot tub in the 'Anne Marie' but the room is as quiet as the wallpaper is loud, so we sleep exceptionally soundly.


The next morning, the sea air gives us an appetite and Andy and Doug give us fresh fruit, vanilla pancakes with cranberry marmalade and homemade blueberry muffin-ettes with unsalted local butter. Yummy!


A gentle post-prandial stroll takes us to downtown. Downtown Ogunquit is small and features friendly natives, scattered off-season tourists and a leftover display of very large Halloween pumpkins. I sit down with the largest - the so called Great Pumpkin - and wish for world peace and a hot cup of coffee. I settle for the coffee.


We also take in Kennebunkport - home of George I, the father of our current Bush. We fear at any moment we may be surrounded by Republicans and run out of town. (Rena's car sports a prominent Obama for President bumper sticker.) Our excuse is that the shops in Kennebunkport have more stuff. Also a Great Pumpkin prayer is maybe a little more efficacious if you say it in a seat of Presidential power like Kennebunkport. We drink some more hot coffee.


Ogunquit, small as it is, boasts one of the truly outstanding restaurants in the U.S.A. Arrows Restaurant on Berwick Road may just have the best food I've ever eaten. We meet our friends Bob and Vicki from Augusta at Arrows for the six o'clock seating. Rena has a main course that features halibut prepared three different ways - including a tomato lasagna. And I eat partridge for the first time - stewed in apples and fresh prunes and served with a spiced cranberry puree. If you've never had partridge, it tastes a lot like ostrich only smaller. Also, the 23 layer Napoleon crepe dessert is to die for!


Night life does not exist in Ogunquit in the winter. End paragraph.


Sunday morning we awaken to another bright blue, sunny day with the thermometer at 32F. The fountain in front of the Rockmere has sprayed the area with ice crystals. Our breakfast features Doug's special cheese omelet, fresh fruit with yogurt and pumpkin muffin-ettes.


After breakfast we skip the Marginal Way and proceed directly to the beach. We cover about 2 1/2 miles of the Canadian Riviera at a brisk pace. I do not wear a speedo. I wonder if George Bush, the elder, ever wears a speedo. I wonder what Barbara Bush wears to the beach. Why do I not like this picture?


We drive home by way of Mt. Agamenticus. This is the only real mountain in Southern Maine and was a holy place for the local Abenaki indians - who were known as the Pennacooks.
I believe the Pennacooks are now extinct. Needless to say, we didn't do any hiking. Not in Maine in November where the same people who extinguished the Pennacooks are still out in the woods trying to do the same thing for Bambi.


Happy Thanksgiving!



Daktari