Sea turtles and 'agua mala'

     Simply meaning 'bad water,'  the phrase 'agua mala' is used locally to describe most any kind of stinging thing that floats along this part of the Caribbean, including jellyfish.     
     For the first time recently I saw several of another kind of agua mala:  Portuguese man o'war.
     There were no live ones visible while I was in the water, I'm glad to say; but several had washed up along the beach to die.  Their stings, leaving red welts that can last for days, rarely cause human death; but the venom causes intense pain.          
     This particular agua mala, the Portuguese man o'war,  is a common part of the diet for loggerhead turtles.  It's said that when you see lots of these around - in or out of the water - the turtle population is down; and we know that turtle populations are down world-wide.  
     The fact that they eat these things is one more reason among many I can think of to not kill sea turtles.  

    

How to open a really big seed

     Coconuts are just really big seeds.  People with experience can separate a coconut from its heavy outerwear with three machete strikes and a few pulls - and make doing it look easy.  But that kind of expertise takes a lot of practice.
       Finding coconuts for practice isn't the problem it used to be.  Before there was a constant presence at False Bluff our coconuts disappeared as fast as somebody could knock them off the trees. Now we pick up nearly a dozen a day. 

            
     But getting at the useful parts of the coconuts can be a whole other story.   Mr. Allen (see a couple of previous posts) has opened a lot of coconuts and he coached.  

Seeds

     A common vine that creeps along the sand close to shore creates these seeds, some of which I put in a bronze cup.  Each seed is slightly different....size, thickness, color...

The gardening challenge, part 2

     My first post about the problems of growing things like cucumbers and tomatoes at False Bluff was in the December 11, 2012 post;  and it took us less than a year to learn that the approach I wrote about then does not work.  The heat, the intense sun, the salt spray, the sometimes-heavy winds, and the sometimes-heavy rains aged the protective structure into uselessness.   Sure, I could have a longer-lasting wood cut for poles and set them in concrete, or paint everything, or buy and install real thatching for the roof of the shade house.
     Or I could have a living, productive defense against the worst of the weather:  banana trees.   
     Banana trees aren't entirely immune to the problems of things that grow near the sea, but so far the worst damage I see to the banana trees we have already have growing close to the sea is some scalding that puts brown patches on the leaves.  I haven't noticed any decrease in fruit production.  
     So, the first line of defense will actually be two lines of defense:  one straight line of banana trees; and about fifteen feet away from these (and to the south) a second straight line of banana trees.  Each tree in the second line will be planted in the spaces between the trees in the first line.   Together, the two staggered lines will present sort of a wall between the Caribbean and vegetable plants.
     Bananas grow and clump up pretty quickly, but it'll be at least a year before we'll start a vegetable garden.   In the meantime we'll probably add a few more rows of banana trees so that we can plant vegetables between rows.  That way when the trees are grown they'll provide some shade from the worst of the overhead sun.
     Here's the process....

From a clump of banana trees choose a tree.

and separate that tree from the clump,

 Prop up any tree that decides to come along.

Plant the tree...

and admire your work.

Voila!  The first row of defense in place.

Coconut trees...new and old

     We've planted hundreds of coconut trees.   After the clearing began came additional coconut trees to join the ones 'uncovered' by the clearing.   Initially we had to buy these small trees to plant because at that point in time the coconuts on the trees at False Bluff disappeared before we could harvest them for food or for sprouting.
  

     We used the tallest trees we could purchase to line the avenida, or main roadway...the one that bisects the section that we cleared first.  The rest of the trees we planted in the way we hoped nature might have planted them.   We've lost some of these young trees to one thing or another and have replaced them as needed.   But even with planting replacements, we seem to keep on finding new places to put more coconut trees, like those near the palapa where the sea turtles come to lay and hatch.   And, of course, the trees have grown.

From upstairs, 2011

    From upstairs, 2013
     (definitely not the rainy season)

picture by Andre Shank

Horses and hair sticks

     Three generations of the Julio Lopez family in Bluefields carve items mostly from rosewood and mahogany that they rescue.   In Virginia, when the utility company clears power lines, the trees that get taken down are usually oak, or pine.   Near Bluefields it might be mahogany, like the piece they took home to cure not too long ago.   
     Their creations include items that the Lopez family already knows will sell quickly as well as items that are custom made.  And their work has traveled far:  a group of Peace Corps volunteers recently collected pre-ordered plaques and there's a piece of the family's work on display in the Nicaragua's Embassy in Washington, D.C.  
     I have what was to the senior Lopez a piece of trash:  a mahogany rocking horse (minus the rockers obviously). The first horse of a custom order didn't meet his pretty exacting standards and so was discarded - literally dropped on the ground where it propped up one end of a low seat for years.   The horse now hangs on a wall at my house in Virginia.  

     

A recent visitor to False Bluff custom-ordered hair sticks made of rosewood....

    

 and then gave a pair to a member of our False Bluff family.

     My friend Sylvia Fox - who is more like a sister I never knew I had until I got to Nicaragua - liked the idea of the hair sticks enough to make her own from a pair of bamboo skewers she found in the False Bluff kitchen.  

...and beach treasures

     Not everything that washes ashore is trash.   I have bowls of pumice (see July 23, 2011 post) scattered throughout the house.   

...some even with remains of sea creatures still attached.

Beach trash

     For decades very few people visited False Bluff because the only way to get there was either to hire a boat and travel a costly distance up the Caribbean coast...or to slog a half-mile through a swamp, very uncomfortable in the dry season and hell during the wet.   
     So there's not been much effort to clean up the trash that washes ashore.   It's easy to see it's been coming in for a long time because some old stuff has been buried deep, uncovered as the sand comes and goes.

     I've tried to figure out where the trash comes from.   The closest land to the east where humans live and produce trash are the two Corn Islands, Big and Little.   They're only forty miles off shore but a lot of what has washed ashore at False Bluff isn't the sort of stuff that would have come from either place.   I think most of it's the residue of decades of cruise ships jettisoning their trash into the Caribbean.  
     As recently as 2009 many of the islands and countries in and along the Caribbean sea had not adopted the United Nations dumping ban that requires cruise ships to treat ship-generated garbage on land.   The Marine Pollution Control Act bans cruise ships from dumping plastics anywhere but they are permitted to dump garbage into the sea if it's been ground into smaller pieces (whatever 'smaller pieces' are).  

     I've begun to wonder over the last few years if maybe publicity about their dumping has caused some cruise ship lines to re-think their policies and take some ameliorating action.  (They make much of their money off the Caribbean, so to me it's logical that they'd invest in taking care of it.)  I think this because much of what we clean up are 'vintage' products, often quite easy to determine by labels; and because less and less 'new' stuff washes shore.   
     Maybe that last is wishful thinking on my part, that part about less stuff washing ashore because of a cruise ship line's efforts.   And that in reality we've cleaned up trash that took decades to collect and so we're seeing less now simply because we're making constant efforts to clean up, not waiting decades between clean-ups.
   

picture by Andre Shank

     Maybe the trash is still coming in on each tide the way it always has, and the difference is that now someone's taking the time to pick it up before it collects.  Who knows...but we'll just keep cleaning the beach.



   

Landscaping with swamp lilies

      The palapa near the end of the main roadway sits right at the edge of the beach.   Before the house was enlarged to include a kitchen, the palapa was the kitchen, with plastic sides and a primitive stove (see April 24, 2012 post). 

     Sea turtles nest in the sand just to the right of the palapa so after we removed the larger of the two buildings that were there, we thoroughly cleaned the area.   We also planted some coconut trees and swamp lilies nearby but we did nothing that will get in the way of the turtles.  Neither the small trees nor the swamp lilies give much of a show right now, but in only a couple of years the lilies at least will look as though they've been there a long time.

Swamp lilies

     I have no idea what this plant's called but it grows well almost everywhere...in sand close to the water and in low swampy land along the edge of the creek.  It's got a huge bulb that looks like an onion, with fleshy roots; and though it grows into a large clump it doesn't spread fast or far enough to be invasive.  

     And its exotic bloom's so white it seems to glow.

And among the guests an artist

     Andre Shank, one of the guests from Virginia, is an artist.  He's  a prolific painter so he's adding new work to his blog pretty regularly.  I've got two of Andre's paintings, one a gift from him and two of the other guests; and one I bought later.   
     Two of the paintings on his blog are portraits of people he met while at False Bluff.  Mr. Allen (also see May 8, 2012 post) and Mr. Allen's neighbor Ariel, both of whom live on the beach north of my place.   You can see Andre's work, including the portraits of Mr. Allen and Ariel on horseback, at his blog.   Check it out to find the portraits of these two people:

http://thebombproof.blogspot.com/

     Mr. Allen and Andre at the Caribbean Dream Hotel on Bluefield's main street.

     

     Ariel heading past False Bluff on his way to El Bluff and then to work in Bluefields.

Guests

     Five guests from Virginia visited False Bluff recently.

  

Passion fruit

     Another flower...pretty like the water hyacinth; but this one is more than just pretty.   The passion fruit, known in Nicaragua as calala, produces a delicious fruit as well as a pretty flower.  Different varieties of passion fruit grow in a lot more places than Nicaragua, including Virginia in corn and tobacco fields.   
     According to some sources the name 'passion fruit' is attributable to early missionaries somewhere who compared parts of the flower to the 'passion' or torture of Jesus:  the three stigmas of the flower reflected the three nails that nailed him to a cross; the twisty tendrils of the vine were like the whips that were used on him; and the ten petals of the flower 'resembled' the apostles (although I heard somewhere there were twelve apostles).  All whimsy, but a lovely flower nonetheless.
        

   
     And from each flower comes a fruit.  In markets in Bluefields the variety of calala for sale is smaller than what we have growing wild at False Bluff; and the fruit in the markets there have yellow, wrinkled skin.  
       Below are shown two vines that grow right outside the kitchen.  We made some serious inroads into this batch on a recent visit. 

  

     

     We pick our pale green variety, slice off the top 1/4 or so, and scoop out and eat the insides with a spoon, seeds and all.  The fruit also makes a delicious drink. 

Late for the party

     The guest that didn't make it in time for the birthday cake.

A birthday party

     Choreographed better than the Bolshoi Ballet, a birthday party 'arrived' at False Bluff early on a February day.   We were making breakfast when a boat from Bluefields - loaded with people and food and balloons and a huge cake and tables and chairs and gifts and party favors - came up the creek. And what a surprise it was!  

     Not even a bit of rain slowed things down for long.

     Three hours later everybody and everything had been loaded onto the boat and was headed back to Bluefields....except for a week's worth of left-overs, a cooler full of ice, and some memories of very good friends.

WTF

     Never know what you'll find....

Bermuda grass....maybe

     There's a really interesting grass that I think's in the Bermuda grass family.   It grows lavishly all over the Corn Islands but at the start of this project, not at False Bluff.....probably because when I started the project there wasn't any place for grass to grow.  Here's what it does on Big Corn where it seems to have an affinity for coconut trees, piling up against the base of a tree trunk like a ten car crash in a snow storm.  

     There's not very much of this grass to be found in Bluefields.  But there is some in the elevated front yard of the Moravian School along the main street; and it had 'dripped' out of the school yard to spring up in the cracks along the sidewalk four feet below.  I rescued some from pedestrian traffic.
      I planted the few small clumps I took out to False Bluff at the base of coconut trees - five or six trees, I think.  The grass has established itself well enough that now we're taking clumps from those patches to put at the base of other coconut trees.  And we've got a lot of coconut trees.  The picture shows where hand-sized  divots have been dug out for planting elsewhere (those divots are the size of the original plantings).

     Some people really dislike this grass, but I find it a pleasure to see and a pleasure to walk on; and since it grows right up to the edge of the beaches on Big Corn, I know salt water spray isn't a problem.   Anything that'll grow and thrive in that environment is worth planting....as long as it looks good.
      But one of the things about this grass I didn't know is the way it grows when it's starting out.

Where the main 'avenida' goes

     So far there are two of these avenidas at False Bluff.  The short one,  branching off the main roadway, leads to the house. 
    The main one and its landscaping have taken up the three previous posts.  It goes from the end of our first dock (see July 30, 2011 post), past the house, and across part of False Bluff to a shady spot right at the edge of the beach....