Life, Death, and Lobster
By Kelsey Timmerman
[email protected]
www.kelseytimmerman.com
(Summer 2005)
“Dem divers be crazy,” Benito says, flashing his golden grill of teeth.
Benny, referred to as “Benito” by everyone but the passing hookers, is the
chubby-cheeked second mate of the Lady Dee III, a lobster boat that I’ve been
trying to talk my way onto for the last two weeks. We’re standing on a wooden dock
that juts into the sea from Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast like an old man’s finger – long
and boney and barely functional. The dock is the lifeline of the city of Puerto
Cabezas. But as lifelines go, this one is rotting.
The Lady Dee’s stern is tied to the dock with two weathered and thistled lines,
as are the other boats lining the dock, their bows pointing to the sea. As the ships
rise and fall over the passing waves, they jerk at the dock. With an extra big jerk,
coupled with a mistimed step, you could find yourself falling through one of the
many holes into the Caribbean ten feet below.
Fuel and ice trucks drive onto the dock, despite its state of dilapidation, to
restock ships. Fish and lobster are hauled away. Along the shore, fishermen in
smaller boats with pieced together engines wade through the shallows with their
catch.
Overall, fish exports from Nicaragua account for around $100 million. But
without a doubt, the largest fish export of all is lobster.
“You’re really going to go?” Benny asks.
“I brought my fins, didn’t I?” I point to the fins jutting out the top of my
backpack. Benny grabs one of them and begins to examine it.
“These are grande,” he says. “The buzos’ (divers’) fins are only this big.” He
spreads his hands no farther apart than the length of a small snapper. “I don’t
know…diving is very dangerous. The divers…sometimes they get very sick or worse.
And all the time they ache. They smoke the marijuana and snort the coke to help
with the pain, but…”
Benny’s thoughts trail off. He’s like a concerned big brother. He should be.
The Miskito Indians are dying for Lobster.
-There always seems to be a wait to get into Red Lobster, leaving you plenty
of time to consider the bubbling tank with live lobster staring out. I don’t quite get
why the restaurant thinks it’s a good idea to let patrons dole out death with a point
of their finger. It’s kind of like having a pen of cows in the lobby of a burger joint.
The lobsters in the tank are American lobsters found mainly off the east coast
of the United States from North Carolina up into Canada. They inhabit cold, shallow
waters. They have claws and are typically caught in traps.
When you order rock lobster at Red Lobster, you aren’t served one of the
poor display lobsters in the lobby. You’re served a lobster that has traveled much
farther, although rock lobsters don’t arrive so intact. Before making the trip from
Honduras, Nicaragua, or wherever they were caught, the lobsters’ tails are twisted
by hand from their carapace. I’ve done this myself – grip, twist, and pull. With the
tail in your hand, the lobster’s scrawny legs and antennae struggle after its tail has
been removed. It’s the ocean’s equivalent of a chicken running around with its head
cut off. Most patrons don’t realize this. They have the romantic notion that a rugged
Maine fisherman pulled up every buttery bit of lobster on the menu. Perhaps the
tank in the lobby is an effort to shield patrons from the truth, which is far less
appetizing.
Rock lobsters have been making the trip from warm southern waters onto
American plates for decades. The commercial lobster industry in Nicaragua began in
1958 with the arrival of a processing plant established by U.S. interests. Six of the
first seven vessels that trolled the waters for lobster came from Key West. The
industry didn’t get its first big boost until 1975 when the Bahamas restricted U.S.based boats from fishing in their waters. Soon after, the number of lobster boats in
Nicaragua doubled, but experienced a decade long setback in the 1980s when
President Reagan labeled the country a “Communist threat” and enacted a ban on all
goods. Once a democratically elected government came to power in 1991, the ban
was lifted and the industry returned to full strength.
Today, 90% of Nicaraguan lobster is exported to the U.S. and Canada.
Darden Foods, the parent company of Red Lobster, and Sysco Foods, a wholesaled
distributor, purchase the majority of the region’s lobster. In an attempt to separate
themselves from the tragedy of lobster diving, both Red Lobster and Sysco have
claimed that the lobsters they import from the region are trap-caught. But diving for
lobster is thought to be three times more efficient than trapping, half of all lobsters
are diver caught, and there is no adequate way to distinguish between a divercaught and trap-caught lobster in factories that handle both. Critics continue to wag
their fingers at the companies.
In 2004 Sysco’s website promoting their “Classic Warm Water Lobster Tails”
said the tails were “trapped in the clear Caribbean waters of Honduras, Nicaragua,
and the Bahamas.” In 2009, perhaps in an effort to avoid the subject, the process of
how the lobster tails were obtained is much vaguer. The site states the tails were
“harvested in the clear Caribbean waters off the coast of Nicaragua.”
Chances are good that diners at Red Lobster are unknowingly munching down
diver-caught lobster; the same goes for the patrons of Sysco. But even if they
aren’t, Red Lobster and Sysco are supporting the lobster companies that buy divercaught lobster.
–
Each morning for the past two weeks I’ve navigated the dusty streets of
Puerto Cabezas to the dock where Benny would give me his report – “No action. We
still waiting on the ice. Maybe mañana.”
If it wasn’t the ice, it was the ship’s engine or the air compressor or the
weather. Benny was always given a different reason by the captain. I tried not to
show my frustration. I was getting sick of hearing “mañana,” but it was worse for
Benny and his crew. They only got paid when they were at sea, and are forced to sit
a patient vigil just in case “mañana” happens to be today.
We waited together in the relentless sun day after day. Each time I pulled
out my tube of sunscreen, Benny had to explain to the newcomers why I was
rubbing white cream all over my body just as he had to explain to them what the
heck I was doing there in the first place.
Puerto Cabezas is on Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast and not the kind of place
where gringos show up. If they do, they’re missionaries who don’t wander far from
their mission. They definitely don’t hang at the dock with the sailors and the
hookers. It’s not an easy place to get to. Two flights a day go to and from the
capital, Managua. Before boarding one of these flights, the airline didn’t just weigh
my luggage, they weighed me. There’s also a bus that comes from Managua at
irregular intervals. The journey takes a couple of days depending on the number of
holdups, such as flat tires, and actual “stick ‘em up! Give me all your stuff!” holdups.
The people of the Mosquito Coast come from a variety of backgrounds. At the
dock questions about me would be posed to Benny in Creole, English, Spanish, and
French. But they were all accompanied with the same look, “What’s he doing here?”
They would stare at me as Benny explained that I was a writer from the United
States who was interested in learning about lobster diving, and that I was going to
go to sea on the Lady Dee III.
A gringo out to sea was shocking enough, but what really dropped their jaws
was when Benny told them I was going to go diving. “Yeah…right…diving. What a
silly gringo.”
Benny was right, diving is dangerous. All you have to do is take a short walk
through town to see that.
Men much too young to be using them rely on canes, crutches, and
wheelchairs to get around. Some of them have rigged up adult-sized tricycles that
they pedal with their hands. Others, with lesser injuries, herk and jerk from place to
place like zombies. All of the men were once lobster divers.
Legend has it that the divers’ injuries result from an encounter with a paleskinned mermaid known as the Liwa Mairin. It is said that she haunts the depths
and punishes those who take too many lobsters. I’ve seen her myself. Once. Beneath
the Atlantic, off the coast of Key West.
–
Bubbles burst forth from my regulator – the sound of distant bowling pins
falling over, a cry for help. And with each cry, I was one breath closer to my last.
Suspended in limbo, 130 feet from the surface and nearly 100 feet to the
sandy bottom, I watched the bubbles. They playfully danced around each other
expanding, breaking, conjoining, chaotic, but always up. The ever-changing surface
glimmered above – where air meets water, where life meets death.
From the beginning this day was different from others I had spent working as
a SCUBA instructor in Key West. Aboard the Island Diver, technical dive gear
pitched with the rolling of the Atlantic. Back-up plans for contingency plans were
discussed. We were hosting a dive event sponsored by Skin Diver magazine. The
magazine had recruited a group of beginner divers to train, advance, and transform
into “Tec-Divers” – divers certified for depths exceeding 100 feet and breathing
special mixtures of air. This dive was a culmination of months of training.
With double tanks, large lights, and a spider web of hoses, the divers had
claimed the majority of space on the boat. My equipment on the port stern looked
shabby and overly simple – one tank, half as many hoses. It was hard to believe we
would be diving on the same shipwreck.
My job was to tie up to the wreck, The Kurb. I had done this two days
previously and didn’t have any trouble. This day was different though. The first time
I had jumped in with a line that I hooked to the wreck and then swam back to the
surface; I had completed the task with ease. On this fateful day I hopped in with
nothing but a lift bag. I was to swim to 130 feet where I would find the exhaust
tower of the ship with a line already connected to it. I was to fasten the lift bag to
the line and fill it with air from my regulator, causing it to float to the surface. The
Island Diver then would see the bag, pull up the line, and clip into it.
Five minutes before arriving above the ship I started to feel a bit anxious.
Normally, I didn’t dive deeper than 90 feet. I could swim the shallow wrecks and
reefs off Key West with my eyes closed, but the Kurb was still new. And deep.
The air in a SCUBA tank, like the air we breathe is 21% oxygen and 79%
nitrogen, but our bodies don’t use nitrogen and, under the increased pressure of
being underwater, nitrogen accumulates in the tissues of our body. The deeper you
dive and the longer you stay, the more nitrogen bubbles accumulate. When you are
at depth, this isn’t a problem, but sooner or later you have to ascend.
Most dive instructors use a bottle of soda to demonstrate this process. The
bubbles in the soda are invisible when the cap is on and its contents under pressure.
When the cap is twisted off – or the diver ascends – the pressure is released and the
gas comes out of solution to form bubbles. In soda the bubbles give our soft drink
bite, but, in diving, bubbles can accumulate around joints and the spinal cord. Pain
in the joints, unconsciousness, paralyzation, and death can all result. These types of
injury are known as decompression sickness and are commonly referred to as “the
bends.”
I was not afraid of the ocean or its creatures, but bubbles worried me. I
nervously drank water till my stomach and bladder were full and then I drank some
more. Each drink of water was a safeguard against bubbles. When a diver is
dehydrated, bubbles accumulate more readily.
The boat slowed to an idle and I donned my gear and stood on the dive
platform at the stern, staring up at Captain Roy. When he gave the signal I took one
giant step backward and began the descent.
Sky diving in space – that’s what it’s like to sink as quickly as possible with no
bottom and no wreck in sight. Down, down, as I fell through the water my eyes
searched for something on which to focus. Head first I aided gravity with a few kicks
of my fins. It was important to find the ship before the current blew me off its
location. The water from the depths rushed up to meet me, growing colder and
darker with each passing foot.
The tower, first a ghostly dream, became more defined as I closed the
distance. The line was attached on the support beam between two stacks. A current
ran from the bow to the stern of the wreck; I kicked against it to stay in place as I
began to pull the ends of the line up. The line from the towers ran down onto the
deck below where it snaked in and out of wreckage. When I tried to pull up the line,
it became ensnared. I jerked it and cursed through my regulator when it didn’t
come free.
The tops of the stacks were at 130 feet. At that depth I could stay down for
around five minutes without being concerned about “the bends.”
What should I do? Abandon my duty and return to the surface, to the boat
full of newly trained tec-divers and one Skin Diver magazine writer, in shame?
A certain machismo exists in the diving world. I blame Sea Hunt and James
Bond with their underwater wrestling matches. Divers often brag about how deep
they’ve been. I had never been deeper than 130 feet and to kick down to the deck
at 150 feet, where the pressure was five times the surface pressure, was a foolish
thing to do, and would be giving in to a whole other kind of pressure – peer
pressure.
Against my better judgment, I swam to the deck as fast as I could and freed
the line. Back at the stacks I recovered both ends in my hands and attached the lift
bag. I filled the bag with air and watched it rocket to the surface – triumph – before
jerking to a halt well below the surface – defeat. I looked down at the deck of the
ship and saw the line caught again.
That’s when my brain stopped.
“Nitrogen narcosis.” I always remember to bring it up to my students since
the topic is good for a few chuckles. “It’s like being drunk…a feeling of euphoria. If
at anytime you feel this during a dive, ascend slowly until you are at a depth where
you no longer feel it.” Jacques Cousteau referred to it as the “rapture of the deep,”
elevating the phenomenon to boogie man status.
Like the boogie man, stories
circulate in the diving community:
“I heard of a guy who had been diving for thirty years that got ‘narced’ really
bad; the poor fella didn’t know which way was up and swam into the abyss to his
death. His body was never recovered.”
“Did you hear about the guy who had a few too many nitrogen cocktails and
forgot to keep his regulator in his mouth? He tried to give it to a fish. Can you
imagine that? He drowned with half a tank’s worth of air left.”
The exact cause of nitrogen narcosis is not known. Scientists believe that it is
the result of nitrogen’s increased partial pressure at depth interacting with
neurological processes. The effects can be greatly enhanced by a build up of carbon
dioxide, which happens when you exert yourself by doing things like kicking against
a current. Euphoria, unexplained fixations, anxiety, unconsciousness, can all be a
result of narcosis. Small problems can quickly become big ones.
I hung on the line near the tower. Minutes passed and I did not move or
think.
That’s when she came – my very own Liwa Mairin. She was fat and ugly, a
Volkswagen with fins that divers in their right mind would recognize as a goliath
grouper. With a menacing grimace on her face, she swam to within a few feet.
Then she talked, “Bark! Bark!” Her words were felt as much as they were
heard.
My consciousness crept out of its silent prison and I looked at my gauges.
“Where had the time gone?” I thought. My dive computer started to flash
things I had never seen before. It was telling me that since I had been so deep for
so long, I should immediately ascend to a certain depth for a certain amount of time.
This is referred to as a decompression stop.
“Where had the time gone?” The computer’s reports were not good. My
estimated amount of air left was less than the amount needed to make the
necessary decompression stops.
My conversation with myself continued.
“This is not good.”
“Calm down.”
“I am calm.”
“Breathe nice and easy.”
“I am.”
“What should I do? I need more air.”
Thoughts came slow and were interrupted by minutes of blackness.
I clung to the rope and stared up at the surface. I could muster no solution
and with a calm resolve, I pondered my death. I would run out of air, spit out my
regulator, and my lungs would fill with salt water. My grip would lessen on the line
and finally let slip. The current would carry me away into the abyss.
My gaze went from the surface toward the wreck. The bright orange lift bag
floated in mid-water and gave me an idea. I pulled out my knife and cut the line
that prohibited the lift bag from surfacing. Upon reaching the surface it would signal
my location to the boat, and that there was a problem. It rocketed up like an out of
control balloon. Before reaching the surface it flipped, releasing its pocket of air and
sunk to the bottom. I watched it fall, slowly spiraling, drifting like a limp body
forever lost in the ocean’s current.
“Go up or you’re dead. Go up!”
The eerie part was that death neared and I wasn’t afraid. I knew I wasn’t in
my right mind, but there was nothing I could do about it. I thought about how the
narcosis was my ultimate curse, yet my altered mental state was a sort of blessing.
I would die, but at least I would die peacefully.
When I heard the boat, I watched its dark shadow on the surface as it passed
over and paused before motoring away. A small portion of its shadow remained. It
moved, had arms, and legs. It came down, grabbed my arm and led me to the
surface.
It wasn’t until I reached the surface and saw the fear in the eyes of the divers
and of Captain Roy that I became afraid. I had been to 150 feet and my total
bottom time was near 30 minutes, about 25 minutes longer than I should have been
down. As the narcosis subsided, my thoughts turned inward. I imagined the
nitrogen bubbles floating around, piling up around my spinal cord. At any moment I
might lose consciousness forever. I might die. I grew pale and began to shake. My
right foot went numb.
The Island Diver met the Coast Guard back on the island and I was
transported to the naval station where I spent six hours in the hyperbaric chamber
that would crush the bubbles until they had been exhaled.
I emerged from the chamber bubble free, but bubbles leave a mark. My left
elbow ached for weeks – a scar left by nitrogen gas. Occasionally to this day when I
am nervous, stressed, or exhausted, my elbow will ache.
I had training. I had top of the line equipment. Yet I still found myself in a
situation in which, if I had not been treated properly, I faced death or paralysis.
I was lucky.
The Miskito divers aren’t.
–
“This month we’ve had four divers in the chamber,” Evenor, the divers’ union
president, told me during an afternoon of waiting for no action.
There is a decompression chamber in Puerto Cabezas; however, most injuries
happen out at sea sometimes as far as 100 miles and the chamber isn’t used. In
fact, often the lobster boats won’t even turn back to seek medical attention for an
injured diver because they aren’t willing to take the financial loss.
Evenor is tall and thin with a moustache. He looks as if he would be typecast
as a hardnosed, no-nonsense cop of color in a 1980’s detective drama. “Oh, no! It’s
Evenor,” the bad guys would say before abandoning the troubled neighborhood once
and for all.
“My boys receive no training,” Evenor said. “The diving started in 1990 with
only a few divers. Then the lobsters were not deep or hard to find. In 1993 the
business boomed to 100 divers and four or five lobster boats. Now there are fewer
lobsters and more divers, about 5,000 divers on 24 boats.”
Fewer lobsters and more divers is a deadly combination. The shallows have
been picked clean and divers are forced to hunt farther offshore in deeper waters.
“I tell the lobster companies that my boys need more training,” Evenor said,
“but they don’t listen.”
Recreational SCUBA divers receive at least a few days of training and are
introduced to the open water under the watchful eye of an instructor. They are
taught how to calculate dives using standardized tables which tell them how long
they can be down at a depth before having to worry about making decompression
stops.
So, a diver from Indiana who dives once a year on vacation knows more
about safe diving practices than a Miskito diver who dives for a living. But really,
since it is professional diving they are doing, the Miskito divers should receive
training more along the lines of commercial divers who train for months and work as
apprentices for years.
“I tell them that my boys need more equipment, like depth gauges, watches,
and pressure gauges.”
To any diver, recreational or commercial, a depth gauge and a time piece are
essential for safe diving, but diving without a pressure gauge which tells you how
much air is left in your tank is suicidal. The Miskito divers dive until they can’t draw
any more air from the tank and then race to the surface for their next breath and a
fresh tank. A quick ascent makes them more susceptible to the bends and
overexpansion injuries, which are caused by air in the lungs expanding with the
decreased pressure. They may do this as many as twelve times a day.
The plight of the divers is well documented.
A 1999 World Bank report said that “close to 100 percent of divers show
symptoms of neurological damage.” Few of them receive any type of treatment
other than masking the pain by smoking marijuana or snorting cocaine often
provided on the boat between dives.
The U.S. State Department’s 2008 Human Rights report on Nicaragua
mentions that “Twelve lobster divers from the Miskito indigenous community died
between January and September (2007) due to the failure of employers to provide
appropriate occupational health and safety training and adequate diving equipment.”
The report continues, “During October approximately 22 lobster divers died in
serious occupational incidents, one involving a man who suffered a coma and
cerebral aneurysm.” That’s 34 dead divers in under a year and that’s not counting
the injured.
Many of the divers don’t want Evenor’s help. Safe diving means less diving.
And less diving equals less money. While this job is easily one of the world’s most
dangerous, it pays really, really well. Divers earn nearly $3 per pound of lobster
which means that during a 15-day trip they can bring home $1,000, which equals
the per capita income of Nicaragua. This is like an American going away for two
weeks and bringing back $46,000.
“The lobster companies don’t listen,” Evenor said. “They tell me that diving
will be banned soon and they don’t want to spend money on equipment that won’t be
used.”
No one expects a permanent ban to take place, though.
When I asked one of the lobster boat owners about it, he laughed it off. He
told me a conspiracy theory about the politicians in Managua trying to profit from
selling the fishing rights to China. Even if the ban came, it’s doubtful that it would
be enforced.
Currently there is a temporary ban on lobster fishing from April to June to
allow the lobster population to recover. The ban is ignored by small scale fishermen,
and it has been a disaster for the sailors and divers employed by the industry.
Without a steady income, the locals go hungry. Coconut trees are picked bare and
crime goes up. You would think that the substantial income of the divers would be
enough to sustain them a few months, but it is well known that most of the divers’
earnings are spent on hookers and drugs.
Still, regardless of how hollow the government’s threat of banning the
practice altogether, the threat makes a convenient excuse for the lobster companies
to do nothing.
“Maybe you can help?” Evenor asked, after learning I’m a dive instructor.
“Teach the divers to be safe.”
“How can I help?” Teaching a diver who doesn’t have a depth gauge, watch,
or pressure gauge to dive safe is like teaching a skydiver who doesn’t have a chute
to safely jump out of a plane.
How can I help 5,000 divers?
If I had the money, I’d supply the divers with a submersible pressure gauge
(SPG) that would allow them to know how much air they have left. This would
reduce the need to shoot to the surface from the depths with an empty tank, risking
the bends and overexpansion injuries, and would no doubt reduce the amount of
injuries and the long term effects of diving. The problem is that to supply every
diver with an SPG would cost around $500,000. But if you look at each diver
individually, it seems much more possible. A single SPG runs around $100; that’s it.
For only $100 per diver, which is a tenth of what a single diver makes on a trip to
sea, diving for lobster could be made exponentially safer. There would be fewer
zombies hobbling around town, fewer paralyzed fathers who can’t hold their children,
and fewer widows.
I could teach them to be safe recreational divers using the dive tables, but
this would limit their amount of dives per day from twelve to four, greatly reducing
their income. That’s the kind of help divers don’t want.
Bob Izdepski of SubOcean Safety and a longtime commercial diver tried to
improve the situation before me. Bob first got interested in helping the divers when
an acquaintance suggested there was a lot of money to be made on lobster in
Central America. He told Bob, “You can buy these Indian divers for five or ten bucks
a day, and when they quit or get bent, that’s no problem, because there’s always
plenty more where those guys came from.” When Bob visited the Mosquito Coast he
was confronted with what he called “the moral Armageddon of the diving world, a
slow-motion underwater genocide.” Bob said that the lobster companies sending
untrained divers without the necessary equipment to scour the ocean floor for lobster
was “like a mine owner who knows the shaft is crumbling, but sends men to their
death, anyway.”
In 1995 Bob gave Puerto Cabezas its first decompression chamber which
treated more than 600 divers in five years. When Bob revisited the region in 2002
the chamber was covered in rust and no longer operational. Frustrated by the lack
of progress and the inability to attract the attention of the mainstream media and
organizations like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, Bob turned his efforts to aiding
banana and sugarcane workers in Central America who suffered from working among
chemicals.
Evenor watched as my wheels turned.
“I could teach them to ascend slower than the tiniest bubbles they exhale,” I
said. It was one of the simplest rules of diving. “And tell them to drink lots of
water.”
I watched the disappointment creep into Evenor’s eyes. He had no doubt
heard these things before. More than money, equipment, and training, the divers
need people who care as much as Evenor.
“Fight for my boys,” Evenor said, now much less no-nonsense cop and much
more after school special. “Make sure they are treated right and are safe.”
–
Benito hands me back my fins as a group of sailors approach bringing news of
a scary discovery. The Lady Dee’s sister ship, the Marco Polo, was found at sea
abandoned but for the captain and three crew members. There was no way to be
sure what happened on the ship, but everyone knew.
The Marco Polo had hit the jackpot.
Along the Mosquito Coast there’s big money in lobster, but there’s bigger
money in cocaine – referred to locally as “white lobster.” When drug runners from
Colombia are spotted by U.S. and Nicaraguan patrols, they chuck their cargo
overboard. When it washes ashore local residents grab it and stow it away in graves
dug for fictional loved ones. Colombian traffickers and Nicaraguan middle men buy
back the bales of cocaine for $4,000 a kilo. It is commonly held that anyone living in
a house made of concrete has stumbled upon some “white lobster.”
There was little doubt that the Marco Polo came across abandoned cocaine
and most of the sailors and divers chose to paddle off into the sunset in their kayaks.
“If we find drugs,” I say, “you sons of bitches better not leave me alone on
the boat.”
“I can see dem headlines now,” Benito says, ‘Abandoned Boat Piloted by
Gringo!’ or ‘Crew Finds Drugs; Abandons Boat and Gringo!’”
We all crack up laughing.
But on the Mosquito Coast drugs are no laughing matter.
“Negro!” one of Benito’s cohorts hollers at me. Negro was the nickname I
had been given over our weeks of waiting together during which I regularly protected
my pale skin with sunscreen. I like to think it’s a term of endearment, like calling a
fat guy Tiny or a short guy Stretch. “Tell dem how you’s a CIA agent.”
“Ah, man, not again,” I say. This was everyone’s favorite story. Any time
someone new joined our group, I had to tell it.
We had a few hours to kill before the boat was supposed to leave – if it was
actually ever going to leave – so, why not tell it again.
“All right.” I pull out my sunscreen and apply a thin layer across my nose.
Ribs are elbowed; giggles subside with a stern look from Benito. “I had just arrived
and was walking down the street when a man stuck out his hand for me to shake.
He had a friendly, round face that favored George Foreman. Wait, you know who
George Foreman is, right? Never mind…”
“Where you from?” he asked, as his paw-sized hand swallowed mine.
“England?”
I told him I was from America.
“Ah, American…” he said as his grip tightened. “I’m glad you come…what can
you do for me?”
I assumed it was a broken version of a much more polite introductory
question, like “What can I do for you?” or “How do you do?”
Our clasped hands rose and fell, but when I smiled, he abruptly halted all
courtesies and again tightened his grip.
“You owe me,” he said, his face dropping from George Foreman grill-seller to
that of George Foreman heavyweight boxer. “I fight against the Sandanistas.
Americans trained me.”
In the 80’s when the U.S. was trying to keep communism from creeping into
our hemisphere, the U.S. military trained contra fighters at the School of Americas to
put down the communist group, the Sandanistas. The school is often criticized for
the exploits of its graduates, some who have led death squads throughout Central
America.
“Why are you here?” He pulled me closer.
I told him that I was a tourist and a student.
“A student of the FBI!” he said.
Benito and the gang let out long wails of laughter and exchanged backslaps.
The commotion attracts some children selling popcorn and water.
The prospect that
I could be FBI is hilarious.
I didn’t so much deny the claim verbally as I tried to deny it with every ounce
of my body – my head shook, my shoulders and grip went limp. I might have eeked
out a ‘No.’
“A student of the CIA!” he said.
More wails of laughter rise up. This is the part of the story where we all
discuss the absurdity of my being an FBI or CIA agent, and how if we had a few CIA
agents and had to send one of them to Nicaragua to infiltrate the drug cartel, we’d
pick one that had dark Latino features, spoke Spanish, and hadn’t shot himself in the
leg with a BB gun (another one of the sailors’ favorite stories). The agent we chose
would be my exact opposite. If the agency ever needed a spy in, say, any lawless
Nordic nation I might be a viable option, but only then.
At the time I wished I were student of the CIA so I would have known some
type of Jujitsu to break his grip and the stamina to outrun him to my hidden
rendezvous where my backup would be waiting with my getaway helicopter or
jetpack.
“I couldn’t hurt a fly,” I told him.
I admit – part of me was thinking this dude thinks I am a CIA agent – Cool.
And then I looked at his eyes. The way they quivered hinted at a deepseated fury that looked as if it could explode at any moment and melt me where I
stood. The drama in the story had grown by the telling. Most of those listening knew
this, but appreciated it. We had a lot of boring hours to fill each day.
I stepped back; my hand still stuck in his grip.
“I’m Indian!” he said pointing at me with his free hand. “Don’t be messing
with Indians’ business. I know where you come from. I know where you are
staying?”
His hand popped open and I pulled my arm away. Such men can smell fear
and I must have been stinking of it. With his right thumb on the left side of his
throat and his left thumb on his right, he deliberately motioned a double slit from ear
to ear. At this point, I imitate George’s crazy eyes and the throat slit, and then pause
for effect.
“As if one throat slit wouldn’t have been enough,” Benito adds.
“I walked away trying my hardest not to look like a FBI or CIA agent.” They
all loved that part and always insisted on showing me their own non-FBI- or -CIAwalk.
The story was well circulated, so much, in fact, that at the dock absolute
strangers approached me, simulated a throat slit on their neck, and then smiled.
The story had won me widespread acceptance at the dock.
“Let’s get your gear on the boat,” Benito says, making a show of picking up
my backpack and tossing it to a sailor on the Lady Dee III. “Come, Negro.” He
motioned me to the edge of the dock.
To board the boat, there isn’t any sort of walkway, but only two ropes: one
for your feet and one for your hands. As the Lady Dee III pitches with the sea, the
ropes pull taut and, as she falls away, they go loose.
I put one foot on the bottom rope and death grip the top rope, making my
way across. This is real Cirque de Soleil kind of stuff.
Benito strings my hammock next to his and assures me that this is prime real
estate in the middle of the boat under a canopy. Space on the boat will be at a
premium. Between the boat’s crew, the divers, and the canoe paddlers, more than
60 will be living, working, and eating on the boat.
That’s when it hits me: we had toured the entire paint-chipped, rusted, and
salted ship, from the unkempt wheelhouse to the tiny galley, and there was one
thing that was noticeably absent.
“Where’s the toilet?” I ask.
Benito nearly falls out of his hammock laughing.
“We’s got a big toilet!” He says, as he points out and over the stern of the
ship. “You can’t miss.”
The laughter subsides. Benito to my left and another sailor to my right, we
swing in unison to the rolling Atlantic. I’m nervous. This hammock is my bed; the
Lady Dee III, my home; the ocean, my toilet. The living conditions are going to be
tough – I’ve never been to sea for two whole weeks – but, as I examine the racks of
tanks that have no markings of inspection (tanks should be inspected annually) and
the oil-stained air compressors, it’s the diving that has me really worried.
Both tainted air and a bad tank can kill a diver. From what I’ve heard so far,
maintenance and safety are seldom considered. No doubt the way you learn that a
compressor or tank is pumping out bad air is when divers complain about headaches
or, God forbid, a diver fails to return.
Night comes and after weeks of “no action,” suddenly there is a flurry of it.
Supply trucks come and go. Wood canoe after wood canoe is piled on the boat.
There wasn’t much room for 60 people before, now it’ll be standing room only.
The captain arrives and begins his inspection.
The divers start to gather on the dock and we join them. They’re mostly
young men in ratty T-shirts and flip-flops. They don’t look like they are the best paid
work force around. They carry metal poles with barbs on the end and short wood
paddles.
A representative of the coast guard calls out their names. When called, they
board the boat, crossing the rope bridge effortlessly, all except one boy who might
be 18. Benito leans over and tells me it’s the boy’s first trip.
I remember my first time SCUBA diving in open water. It was in a stone
quarry. I was nervous, too, and all I had to do was go to 20 feet, perform a few skills
with my instructor, and call it a day. I breathed fast and couldn’t control my
buoyancy. I was either plastered on the bottom in the mud or floating on the top
kicking my fins in the air to no result. This poor fella doesn’t know the first thing
about diving, except that doing it has paralyzed, killed, and injured some of his
neighbors and supported the families of others. At least I had watched a couple of
videos and spent a few nights at the YMCA in the pool. He fumbles across the bridge
to the giggles of his new coworkers.
It’s a solemn scene, as it should be. Mothers try not to show too much
affection for their sons. Young fathers pass children to their wives. Other divers are
alone.
I stand on the dock and listen to their names.
Somewhere, someone in the U.S. is treating herself to lobster. That’s what
lobster is to us – a treat. It’s not a staple food that we eat on a typical Wednesday.
We celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, and milestones with lobster. We
don’t need lobster, but the Miskito Indians do. If the divers don’t catch a lot of
lobster their families might have to forego their own staple foods, such as rice and
beans.
That’s the thing I’m learning about lobster: to the people who catch it, lobster
is life; to the people who eat it, it’s a luxury.
The risks are great; the options nil; the list of names is long.
My name is never called.
--
(Winter 2009)
I’m sitting at Red Lobster in Muncie, Indiana, with my wife, Annie. I feel
guilty about it. But, darn it, their cheddar bay biscuits are so darn delectable.
The lobster divers of the Mosquito Coast have never been too far from my
mind. I think about them when I pass the Saran-wrapped tails at the grocery. Just
the other day I was at a sports bar in Chicago that had a claw game in which the
prize wasn’t a cheap, plush animal, but a live lobster. The game was called “The
Lobster Zone” and advertised, “You Catch ‘Em. We Cook ‘Em.” This is how far we
are from reality.
A Bears fan with a buzz hoping to land a halftime snack can put in $2.00 and
win a lobster. No doubt if he is successful, he would turn to his buddies and holler,
“Look at what I caught!” without the first thought about where the lobster came from
– the ocean floor – or who might’ve caught it – Miskito divers – or what they
might’ve risked – their lives.
The lobster zone website is equally out of touch as the Bears fan. From their
FAQs:
“Can the claw hurt the lobsters? Do the lobsters get hurt when they go down
the chute?
No. The plastic claw is engineered to close with a certain amount of air pressure,
making it impossible to hurt the lobsters through its hard shell. When a lobster is
released, the claw extends far enough down the chute so that the lobster slides down
a gentle slope and into a bucket. The lobsters cannot be hurt.”
We care enough for the well being of the lobster that a gentle slope has been
engineered by the “Lobster Zone” folks, but we still don’t care about the people
risking life and limb to catch the lobster.
It’s been five years since I visited Puerto Cabezas and the tragedy hasn’t
changed. Well, actually, it’s only grown more tragic. The lobster population has
declined 35%. Demand for lobster has dropped as America suffers through its worst
recession in decades. In the early part of 2009, divers earned $3.00 per pound of
lobster they caught and by June the amount dropped to $1.90 per pound.
Lobster boats are coming back with catches that don’t cover their costs. One
of the main processing plants in Puerto Cabezas has gone under. In June of 2009
following a 50% drop in lobster prices, a processing plant’s office was attacked. The
protestors ultimately pursued the local mayor to the church in which he sought
refuge and threatened to burn it down.
Darden foods, owner of the Red Lobster I’m sitting in, partnered with USAID
and a number of other organizations started the Global Fish Alliance (GFA) to
address the declining lobster population.
“It started as a natural resource question,” Ann, the manager of the Spiny
Lobster Initiative for GFA told me before comparing her work to pealing through the
layers of an onion. I asked Ann what was being done to help the divers. Was the
GFA going to train divers? Were they going to provide acceptable equipment?
They were going to end diving.
“But what about all the out of work divers?” I asked.
“We haven’t figured that one out yet.”
Our waiter comes with a metal basket that means one thing – Cheddar Bay
Biscuits! I unfold the napkin surrounding them and unveil the sweet, doughy smell
before cursing the economy – there are only two inside. Back in the days of plenty
the baskets were heaped full of cheddar goodness.
Before I shove one in my mouth, I pause, “By chance do you know where
your lobster comes from?” I ask the waiter.
“I believe all of our lobster comes from Maine,” he says, and shuffles off to
check on our meals – not lobster.