A Babe in The Jungle: Caesar Vs The Ocean (1071 hits)
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Submitted by The Caes (View user info) at 2006-05-09 22:03:52 EDT
And on the second day, I entered the ocean.
I've seen the Atlantic once before; at a wedding in Virginia beach. However, it was colder than a step-mother's love, so I didn't go in. As far as bodies of water go, it's not terribly awe-inspiring to just see it. It looks like a large lake, or a bay. Larger than usual, but still.
But once I was in the water, I could FEEL it was different. Not the texture or bouyancy of the water, but its nature, its motion. Its intention. I felt like the ocean was alive, and it wanted to kill us.
The flag flying on the beach was yellow. Green means smooth sailing, red means, "Hey, maybe you'll die, maybe you won't." I got the impression that the colours could just as easily be referring to the ocean's mood as it could its condition. I stood in waist deep water, and I paid attention to the movement of this giant monster I was wading in. It pushed at me, and tugged at my legs, and tried to raise up and strike me. The conditions were relatively mild...they had placed these giant sandbags in the water, tracing the coastline some forty or fifty feet out, and they broke the waves before they hit shore. But still.
I know it sounds ridiculous, but I felt that the ocean was somewhat malevolent. It was kind of like getting attacked by a small toddler who hates you. The child can kick and punch and push but nothing it does will cause you the slightest injury. But you know that one day, he'll be big and strong and he'll hate you just as much and you won't see it coming. It kind of felt like that. "One day I will kill you. And I am patient." Anyway, enough poetry.
Oh, and the other thing that distinguished the ocean from a lake or bay or pond became IMMEDIATELY apparent after I got my first mouthful of seawater. It was like a warm salty oral injection, and I did not like it even a little bit. And somehow, it surprised me EVERY single time it happened. Every time: "PFFT! What the fuck?? Did the ocean just eat six tons of red meat and ejaculate into my mouth? JESUS that's salty!!" Seriously though, every time I got water in my mouth, I was surprised until I remembered oceans are made of saltwater.
(To be fair, I've spent 99.9% of my life walking around without a salty explosion going off in my mouth for no reason. It's not the sort of thing you get used to happening after a few minutes.)
Anyhoo, we were floating in the ocean, just past the breakers. Four of us drifted a little further out, I could just barely touch the bottom with my toes. I still had my glasses on, content to float instead of swim for the moment. As my friends and I chatted (pausing periodically to spit salty water out of our mouths), we ended up coming closer to this dead-in-the-water catamaran.
It was a small catamaran, big enough for maybe two people (well, definitely two people because that's how many were on it). It looked kind of like one of those wind-sail things that surfers sometime ride. A woman was trying to get the sail to catch wind, but she was completely unsuccesful. Her daughter, who was probably about eleven, was laying down in the canvas that stretched between the two pontoons, watching her mom with a somewhat bored expression.
For close to ten minutes this woman struggled with the sail. She actually drifted within arms reach of us as the water pushed her back towards the shore. We kind of stopped paying attention to her. Then one of my friends pointed and said, "Uh oh."
She had finally got the sail up and had caught the wind with it. And she was bearing down on us. Fast. Faster than I expected that thing to be able to move. "Watch out," she warned helpfully when she was about five feet from me. Thanks, incompetent-catamaran-lady.
Two of my friends avoided her completely, managing to swim off to the sides. Myles got caught by her, but he grabbed the right pontoon and sort of dragged himself around it. I, on the other hand, was in the dead center of the thing, and the canvas that stretched across the two pontoons hovered above the water at about the same level of my throat as it came towards me. Well, I had never been in a situation like this before. Really. Who gets run over in the ocean by a fortysomething woman driving a catamaran?? Lunacy.
So I held up my hands and caught it at the centre. I threw one arm over the surface of the catamaran. The velocity was enough to make my toes brush up against the bottom of the craft. I was face to face with the woman's daughter, who was lying down casually and watching me with interest. She had a lot of freckles. "Hi there," I said as I adjusted my grip. "How's it going?"
"Good," she giggled.
"Glad to hear it," I mumbled absently as I assessed the situation. The situation was this: I was being dragged out to sea at a disturbingly rapid rate and I wasn't quite sure what to do about it. I thought about climbing aboard, but decided it would be rude to do so uninvited. I briefly -- VERY briefly -- considered holding on for a while to see where we would go, but that was just retarded. I kind of tried shimmying around to the side and letting go, but the speed at which we were moving was kind of freaking me out, so I quickly decided I'd just go under the thing.
"See you later," I said to the freckled girl. She waved goodbye as I grabbed my glasses and pushed myself under. The catamaran passed over me (and i almost dropped my glasses, which would have sucked pretty hard, because i need those to read, tell time, and recognize people from distances greater than three feet away). I emerged, put on my glasses, and looked back at the lady (who, I noticed somewhat bitterly, had not said one word to me while I was clinging precariously to her Deadly Catamaran of Watery Doom). And man, they had moved quite a ways from where I surfaced.
I swam back to my friends. It wasn't that far, really, but we all agreed that she went from zero to speedy very unexpectedly. We looked out and her little catamaran was quite small in the distance. With her obvious lack of sailing skills, I kind of wonder if she ever managed to make it back to shore. I mean, really, if it takes you ten or fifteen minutes to figure out how to position the sail to go WITH the wind, how long should it take her to position it to get the wind to move her in the direction opposite to where it's blowing? Yarrr.
So, there you have it. I got run over by a catamaran.
And on the third day, I got my ass kicked by the ocean.
The next day, we went on a 'beach crawl.' We loaded up into this "party bus", which was this bus with a thatched roof and no glass on the windows. They played vaguely terrible Spanish party music and served beer and rum and cokes and such. Clearly, a method of conveyance suited for people who are bigger party animals than me or my friends. The party bus took us into one of the nearby small towns, into a small harbor called Grigri Lagoon (so named for the types of trees around the water).
We waited for a little while for our "speedboat" to be ready. In the meantime, little Dominican boys offered to shine our sandals for a dollar. Really. Who gets a sandal-shine? Better rethink your business model, kid.
We got into our speedboat, which was basically just a thick, sturdy fishing boat with a single outboard motor. We puttered out into the lagoon. The water was very clear...you could see rocks as far down as about 45 feet (according to our guide). Fish scooted around everywhere in the shallows, and the trees in the lagoon had roots that snaked into the water like tendrils. Lots of white crane-looking birds flew around and watched us from the trees.
He took us into the ocean. The water had patches of blue, darker blue, green, and all of it was very pristine looking. He backed us into a natural cave that the waves had worn into a cliff, and that was pretty neat...we were sort of simultaneously underground and on the water.
Then we drove along the rocky coast until we reached a small beach, the name of which I can't recall or pronounce. A few locals were swimming around. It was beautiful. You could really see the difference between the man-made beach on the resort and this natural one. The sand was a light golden brown, the water was this pure bluish-green (but just as damn salty)...and as I found later during a little exploring, the surrounding rocks were like fucking cheese graters. The water had turned them into jagged, pointy nastiness. If I were to walk on them barefoot, I think I'd get as many puncture wounds as if I walked on a bed of nails. It was too bad, because I wanted to do some climbing and some haphazard-jumping-off-stuff.
We were allowed -- nay, encouraged -- to rent a snorkel and some flippers for 10$ US. I thought I'd give it a shot, but it turned out to be a waste of money. The waves were fairly energetic, which is not ideal for snorkeling (and even if they were, I couldn't see very much without my glasses). It felt like the flippers were designed to drown me, as the currents kept pulling them this way and that. Trying to walk out of the water with them on your feet felt like you had tied twenty pound weights to your toes. And after sucking back five burning lungfuls of saltwater through the top of my snorkel in about two minutes, I decided that snorkeling sucked ass and I was just going to swim around like a normal person. Fuck you, Jacques Cousteau.
The waves were a bit bigger this time around. I enjoyed just experiencing the movement of the water, surging and retreating. It was really cool. I never really imagined that the water really worked that way, you know? At one point a wave kind of pushed me up, and when I came down I stepped on a rock (perhaps the only rock within twenty feet of me in any direction) and felt a sharp pain. Later I would find out that I had driven a small piece of...something into the side of my foot. The problem was not immediately apparent, and the placement of it made it almost impossible for me to remove myself unless I first removed a couple of my vertebrae. I got it removed in Canada about a week later (after a four hour wait in the clinic). I think it was a piece of a shell or something...it was purple and shaped like a cone. It was only two or three millimeters long, but you try walking on that for a few days and see how nice it feels.
Hmmm. Hopefully whatever it was didn't lay eggs or anything.
After a hour or so, during which time some beach vendors approached us and tried to sell some intricate jewelery and wood carving, including a finely polished wooden dildo, our party bus arrived to whisk us away to our second beach.
We were told this beach wasn't for swimming, which I could understand. There was a lot of crap on the tideline of the beach...wood, shells, cans, shoes, etc. But the beach was still fucking gorgeous. To get to it, we had to walk down about 71 long, flat concrete steps that took us down from the road and through the woods (or jungle). The beach kind of sat in this sandy bowl, with sheer cliffs on either side. One was striated rock, the other side was covered in trees and vegetation. It was like, "Fucking right on." Nature rules. Er...when it's not trying to kill you.
We moved on after about half an hour, had lunch at a nearby eatery, and went to our final beach. This one was definitely the best of them all. It was this big, beautiful beach named El Playa Grande. Which I'm pretty sure is Spanish for "big beach." Dominicans. Not as creative as I thought.
Anyway, where the other two beaches were maybe 100 meters long or so, this one stretched out further than I could see, and it was just as nice as the first beach. We were immediately approached by a handful of merchants, plying their necklaces and wooden cocks and boogie boards. They were insistent, but eventually went away.
I met a dog. A skinny little dog (well, not Chihuahua-little or anything). He came right up to me, which hadn't happened thus far. I'd seen dogs lying around here and there, but this is the first one who seemed interested in any of us. I scratched his head, and just like that, we became Best Friends. "Jesus, did you feed him or something?" My friends asked. He was running around me and darting through my legs and stuff. I called him "Bitey" because he seemed to enjoy playfully gnawing on my forearms when I went to pet him. He was kind of skinny, so I guess it's possible he was trying to eat me but was too weak to break through the skin, but he didn't seem malicious. I ran around a bit with him. Then I saw the waves.
The wind must have picked up. The waves were big. Not exaclty a surfer's paradise, but bigger than I had ever seen...maybe 6 to 8 feet tall. I saw them rise up and crash down with this awesome sound, and thought, "I must get hit by them."
Bitey waited for me at the edge of the water, but I stayed in the ocean for a long time, and he eventually got tired of waiting and moved on. That made me a little sad, actually. He was a friendly and happy dog, and I think he loved me. Or she, I guess.
The next hour and a half was the best time I had the entire trip. Man. If I thought the ocean wanted to kill me before, now it wanted to rape me, kick my cat, kill my mother, pull out my eye and skullfuck the hole until my brain leaked out of my ears. It was...seriously, just...wow. The waves just pounded away at anything in front of them, relentless and untiring. Again, I found myself fascinated with hydrodynamics.
One moment, you're standing in chest deep water. Then, there's this WHOOSH, and all the water rushes past you, getting sucked BACK INTO the ocean. And it tries to suck you in with it. I had to lean back at a 45 degree angle in order to not get pulled forward. So the water drops from chest height to about knee height, and all of the sudden you're staring at a wave that's taller than you. And then BAM!! It fucking smokes you. A big wave would toss you about twenty to thirty feet closer to shore.
So that's what I spent an hour and a half doing: getting the shit kicked out of me by the ocean. It beat me like I owed it money. I tried to position myself just at the point where the wave breaks -- otherwise, it just kind of goes under you and you bob around on it until it passes by. I tried everything I could think of once the wave was about to hit.
I tried jumping over them. I tried going under them. I tried diving through them. I tried riding them. I tried tackling them. I even dropped a few HBK-style elbow drops on top of them. But my most favorite thing to do -- and I think this is a somewhat telling statement of my personality -- is just to stand right in front of the waves and let those big bastards smoke me.
Sometimes I tried to resist, other times I just let it toss me around. And man, did they toss me around. I got bounced off the sandbed from every conceivable angle. The water just pitched me around like a fucking doll. It was abusive. "That wave just pushed sand into my brain," Myles said after a big one bitch slapped us all. I got hit by a wave right behind the ear, and it gave me a headache. I took a few waves in the side, and I actually grunted when the water smashed against my ribs. I also, unfortunately, took a wave in the cock, which is something I didn't think could ever happen. A fucking wave ballsacked me. I was watching this wave, and I was going to let it hit me, and I figured it would smack me in the chest, but it dropped and hit me much lower, and then I fell down. "That wave just kicked me in the balls," I moaned to my friends.
Stupid fucking ocean. Think you're pretty funny, huh?
During one particular underwater tumble, I of course couldn't see anything, but I had a thought: "I bet I'm going to smack face first into the sand in a couple of seconds." Just to be sure, I put my hands out, and sure enough, my palms and elbows hit the ocean floor, and I stuck there in a quasi-handstand for a couple of seconds. My front was still facing the ocean, and the wave still had a hold of my legs. I heard/felt three cracks in my back and felt something slap me on the top of my head. It was my own foot. The ocean made me kick myself in the head.
Ocean -- two. Caesar -- zero.
Oh, and during one other wave, I got tossed around underwater and landed on my feet with the wave still crashing over my head. I planted my feet and touched the sandbed with my right hand. The current pushed me back in that pose, digging three little trenches where my hand and feet dug into the sand. For a second, I felt like I was a character in the Matrix or something -- you know, where Neo or someone gets hit and skids backwards along the ground, carving up floor tile and such? That was a pretty awesome feeling, I ain't gonna lie.
So yeah, the hour and a half I spent getting my ass kicked in the ocean was the best part of the whole deal. Going along with the turbulence thing, why is it that I seem to be most happy when my life is in slight danger? I got out of the ocean because it was just about time for us to go, but also because it was getting hard to see and breathe. The salt water was burning my eyes, I had so much of it in my mouth that I didn't need to salt any of my food for three days, and my nose...holy shit my nose was on fire. My nose was running like a hose as it tried to flush all the salt out of my nasal cavities.
I left a lot of spit and snot in the Atlantic that day, I tell you what.
Also, a little pee. Suck it, ocean. Kick ME in the balls. YOU LIKE THE TASTE??
I wish I had some more pictures of this day, but we didn't bring the digital camera with us, to my eternal regret.
Next time: Caesar visits the rum factory, right next to Sauron's house
User Reviews
Submitted by Alter (user info) at 2007-09-26 21:57:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No, Comment.
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2006-07-26 12:43:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ess-arr (user info) at 2006-05-12 10:53:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
alba: narrow ass + black joke good combo
Submitted by consuelo212 (user info) at 2006-05-11 15:35:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"it was colder than a step-mother's love"
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-05-11 04:33:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-05-10 22:21:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by corn_nugget (user info) at 2006-05-10 20:45:03 (#)
Ranking: 2
Did you get water-cooties?
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You mean, did I get a horribly itchy rash that resembled a legion of steriod-enlarged mosquito bites like I did from swimming in that uncomfortably BROWN lake in Michigan? No, no I did not. Further proof that the water there was poison, and that it was indeed a turd that we saw float by us and not a stick like I'd hoped.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-05-10 22:19:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by BadAssJulie (user info) at 2006-05-10 19:53:44 (#)
Ranking: 2
That and you really suck at swimming in the ocean, dealing with waves, and snorkeling.
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What?? Lies, all lies! Okay, except the snorkeling thing, I sucked at that. Otherwise, I was like a freakin' dolphin out there.
If there's a better way of dealing with an oncoming crushing wave of doom, I don't want to know about it.
Submitted by corn_nugget (user info) at 2006-05-10 20:45:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Did you get water-cooties?
Submitted by matnotharry (user info) at 2006-05-10 20:03:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"I tried jumping over them. I tried going under them. I tried diving through them. I tried riding them. I tried tackling them. I even dropped a few HBK-style elbow drops on top of them. But my most favorite thing to do -- and I think this is a somewhat telling statement of my personality -- is just to stand right in front of the waves and let those big bastards smoke me."
-- FUCK yes
Submitted by BadAssJulie (user info) at 2006-05-10 19:53:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2006-05-10 10:00:52 (#)
Ranking: 2
it's weird to me reading about a grown-ass man enter the ocean for the first time.
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That and you really suck at swimming in the ocean, dealing with waves, and snorkeling.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-05-10 19:30:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2006-05-10 08:40:10 (#)
Ranking: 2
FYI, the furthest point inland in the UK from a beach is over an hour away (Leicester), not 20 min...trust me, I was there for work...I so wanted to visit the Dover cliffs.
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I know, I was just exaggerating to make a point...still. An hour drive. I wonder if Berty could walk to the ocean in less time than it would take me to drive there.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-05-10 18:37:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Professional_Peon (user info) at 2006-05-10 08:59:04 (#)
Ranking: 2
I grew up seeing the ocean in all its glory off the Jersey shore. It wasn't until I visited Florida when I was about twenty or so that I found out that BROWN was not the color the ocean was supposed to be!
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Ew
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-05-10 16:40:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
auto +2 for travelogues
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2006-05-10 15:29:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Durae (user info) at 2006-05-10 10:40:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2006-05-10 10:00:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
it's weird to me reading about a grown-ass man enter the ocean for the first time. but i guess there are a lot of people in the middle of canada and america who have never seen a wave.
peon- it blows my mind when shitty ass jersey people are 100% convinced that the Jersey Shore is the best ocean in the world. jersey people suck.
Submitted by Professional_Peon (user info) at 2006-05-10 08:59:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I grew up seeing the ocean in all its glory off the Jersey shore. It wasn't until I visited Florida when I was about twenty or so that I found out that BROWN was not the color the ocean was supposed to be!
Whoda thunk?
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2006-05-10 08:40:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"Bitey"...hahahahaha....reminds me of how Bart Simpson named his pet elephant "Stampy."
FYI, the furthest point inland in the UK from a beach is over an hour away (Leicester), not 20 min...trust me, I was there for work...I so wanted to visit the Dover cliffs.
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2006-05-10 07:38:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-05-10 07:23:53 (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2006-05-10 03:39:15 (#)
Ranking: 2
You wouldn't even consider crossing over to Haiti but you'd befriend a mangy, probably AIDS-infested stray dog?
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How does a dog get AIDS? Never mind, I don't really want to know.
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Because Filthy has AIDs?
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-05-10 07:32:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Hmmm, this post IS pretty long. I probably should have broken it up into two pieces, but, meh.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-05-10 07:23:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2006-05-10 03:39:15 (#)
Ranking: 2
You wouldn't even consider crossing over to Haiti but you'd befriend a mangy, probably AIDS-infested stray dog?
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How does a dog get AIDS? Never mind, I don't really want to know.
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Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2006-05-10 05:10:06 (#)
Ranking: 2
I never believed I'd read an account of a grown man who'd never encountered the sea before.
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Well, of course not, you live in a land where the ocean is a twenty minute drive in any direction, you British bastard. For me to reach the ocean I'd probably have to drive about three days (two if I wanted to pass through a foreign country first, and a week if I wanted to visit the Pacific). Hey, are there any good beaches in England? It just occurred to me that though England is a big island, I never hear talk about its beaches.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-05-10 07:06:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by VelvetElvis (user info) at 2006-05-10 02:20:16 (#)
Ranking: 2
That "flag" with the red tie was a memorial to a lost surfer, hung from above by his buds, or for another local who drowned in the reef break. Santo Domingo, Punta Cana, I can't tell.
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No, it was just a plain red flag. It was the resort's way of notifying people what the conditions were. I don't think it had anything to do with a memorial.
And no, I didn't get any. It was less of a slutty-party atmosphere than you might think. (certainly less than I expected, anyway)
Submitted by Average_Dan (user info) at 2006-05-10 05:43:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice,
I live in Va beach. Growing up here, it's hard to imagine someone never having seen t3h ocean.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2006-05-10 05:10:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I never believed I'd read an account of a grown man who'd never encountered the sea before. Remarkable.
Submitted by georgemichael (user info) at 2006-05-10 04:17:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
WTF I'M NOT READING ALL THAT
Submitted by maiorano84 (user info) at 2006-05-10 03:39:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I skipped to the illustrations.
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2006-05-10 03:39:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You wouldn't even consider crossing over to Haiti but you'd befriend a mangy, probably AIDS-infested stray dog?
Pfft.
Submitted by The_Underdog (user info) at 2006-05-10 03:27:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
personally thought this was too boring to entertain me at work however nicely wroitten and put together
Submitted by VelvetElvis (user info) at 2006-05-10 02:20:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That "flag" with the red tie was a memorial to a lost surfer, hung from above by his buds, or for another local who drowned in the reef break. Santo Domingo, Punta Cana, I can't tell.
Virginia Beach, since you mentioned- the brown-pebbly sand there is always a bitch, holds the heat more than the quartz-white farther south with no surf. Good post. Cheers/clink. Now did you get any or no? I did warn you about the girls with goats on their roofs.
Submitted by sparkle_pink (user info) at 2006-05-10 00:29:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I am enjoying this little series immensely.
Submitted by deedee (user info) at 2006-05-10 00:19:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
that was class, had u seriuosly never been in the ocean before? ur childlike amazement is so much cooler articulated into adult speak, id love to have a friend who's never been in the sea n take em there to see if they reacted like u
priceless
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-05-09 23:42:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Benny, that occurred to me. There's something not right about drinking a beer while you're submersed in water from the waist down. I don't trust it. The temptation is just too great.
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2006-05-09 22:51:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It sounds like you had some very cool experiences. pool bars are pretty awesome but you have to watch out for the people drinking beer and never getting out of the pool. I mean where do you think the beer is going?
This reminds me a lot of the time I went to Bali which was the first country I ever visited.
Submitted by knucklesnelson (user info) at 2006-05-09 22:21:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i need a fucking vacation
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2006-05-09 22:13:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm too tired ot read all this now as i still have to call Caul a gay canadian several times tonight, I'll just assume it's +2 worthy and come back to it.