I was walking home from school on Thursday afternoon when I ran into my friend Manny on the island's main path. He mentioned that he was about to go on a kawonwon, which means "sea turtle hunt", with a few other men from the village. Having only my lessons plans and a nightly routine of shower-read-sleep to look forward to, I did the prudent thing and invited myself along. I had resolved to break my monotonous daily after-school rituals, and this seemed like a good opportunity to make myself a more integrated member of the community.
"Will we be gone long?" I asked.
"No," he replied, "not long."
Perfect. I ran home, grabbed a camera and my life jacket, and headed for the lagoon. Preparations were already underway--rinsing out snorkels, spooling endless amounts of fishing line, and loading the snacks--in this case, an entire pandanus fruit, which was large enough to serve all six of us taking the trip.
We motored out into the lagoon. As many times as I experience the crossing of the reef's edge into the open ocean, I can never get over the sublime end-of-the-earth feeling it gives me to see such an awesome drop down into the rich blue water. Things got a lot less picturesque about five minutes later, as we entered into some heavy swells, which persisted for the rest of the hour it took us to reach our destination- a small, uninhabited island about 2.5 miles from Aur.
We tied up the boat and went ashore amid a storm of terns and frigatebirds, and hauled our supplies onto the beach. We followed the tracks of a turtle up the sand, a 3-foot wide pattern of dragging bulk and shuffling flippers. Manny immediately set to work with a long, sharp stick, driving it into the dune where the tracks ended. He was not disappointed--his fifth thrust saw the stick's tip covered in yellow goo, and he began shoveling with his hands until he uncovered his prize--a cache of perfectly rounded, soft-shelled turtle eggs. We collected these in a bucket and set them aside for dinner.
Afterwards, I went on a jambo (hike) with Herby and Timothy, two of the other men on the expedition. Five minutes into the walk, they had each wrangled a shiny black seabird with their bare hands. Timothy is lean and quick, but Herby is bigness incarnate, and I was pretty impressed by his nimble grab. They were beautiful birds, too--jet black with white crests, and beaks like knitting needles. Neither the men nor the birds made much fuss during any of this, as though each of them knew their roles perfectly.
We circumnavigated the whole island in a matter of 25 minutes or so, including a brief jaunt through one of the most ethereal collections of trees I've ever seen. They were towering, without branches for the first forty feet or so, and their bark was almost silver. The whole thing looked like Middle Earth transplanted in the jungle.
The sun was setting as we arrived back at camp, and the dinner preparations began. Those majestic birds whose praises I have sung quickly had their necks snapped and feathers plucked, and they were soon spitted on green saplings over a tidy cooking fire. On a separate blaze five feet away, the gigantic pot of turtle eggs was put on to boil in saltwater. At some point I began to wonder a few things: When would the 'turtle' part of our turtle hunt actually begin? Was this an overnight activity? Would I be playing hooky from teaching the next day, in pursuit of something whose taste I didn't even particularly enjoy? Luckily, Manny was able to illuminate some of the finer points for me while the eggs boiled and the birds roasted.
"When it gets dark, we go to the water. After we catch the turtle, we go home. Maybe soon, maybe middle of the night. Okay?"
Fortunately this was okay with me, since I didn't really have another option. While the food cooked, we began drinking coffee. Far and away the most successful western import in the RMI is coffee, and Marshallese men in particular fiend for the stuff in a fashion that would put to shame all of the Starbucks-addicted girls I knew in college. Each man also has his own strategy for making the perfect brew, though to my uninitiated palate, the instant coffee-powedered creamer-sugar triumvirate tastes exactly the same no matter which order you put them in or how slowly the creamer is added. We talked (okay, they talked, I barely understood a word) over a few cups of it and eventually dinner was ready.
There's a reason that stores put juicy chicken legs and breasts on display, cleaned and separated from the body, before sale. Mainly it's because it looks a whole lot more appetizing than being served the whole bird at once, from the tip of its beak to its kinked neck to its blackened feathers to its roasted lungs. This thing truly looked like someone had taken a flamethrower to Beaky Buzzard at close range. But hey, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, and when in the Marshall Islands, ask as few questions about your food as possible.
Down it went, tasting slightly more agreeable than the stuff you scrape off your grill after a 5-hour 4th of July barbecue. I managed to take the edge off with a few turtle eggs, which unfortunately do not nicely harden after boiling like a chicken egg does. While they actually taste pretty good, they retain their (to put it mildly) semen-like consistency even when cooked, and it can get all in your hair and nose and drip off your face if you're not careful with your mouth. But I digress.
Darkness fell. Manny and Herby donned their goggles and snorkels and fired up their flashlights as they hit the water, wielding a big coil of rope and a brutal-looking gaffe. After a time, we saw them signalling with their lights from somewhere a few hundred yards off shore. We jumped into the boat and sped off in pursuit. We pulled up alongside them, and Herby tossed the weighted end of the rope into the boat as Manny struggled with something under the water that clearly outweighed him. We hauled at the rope, and Herby came up underneath the turtle to shove it on board as we tugged on it.
This thing was an absolute beast. Massive, glossy shell; pebbled, scaly flippers; a tail like a tapered club. It didn't seem to struggle or protest much, but it waved its tail like crazy for the first few minutes. We roared off in the boat, the men whooping up their triumph, and headed for home under a blanket of stars. On the way back, we met those same ugly swells head-on, and within five minutes we were absolutely drenched. By the way, whoever decided to use the name "Ocean Spray" to market a line of sweet, refreshing juices clearly had no idea what they were talking about. There is nothing tasty or refreshing about the spray of the ocean after the third or so shot to the face. I found it comical at first that grown men who weren't swimming would put on Snork-worthy goggles to take a boat trip, but they had the last laugh as I tried to keep my eyes open in the cold, salt-stinging spray. I also got hit by a flying fish at some point. Our boat passed through a number of swarms of bioluminescent jellyfish, their electric blue glow helping light the way home like miniature neon signs. Or tazers.
It would feel disingenuous not to mention that on the ride home, I also pissed myself a total of three times. The first two times were out of urgency--the coffee absolutely doing me in--and the third time was out of convenience, once I realized how warm I had gotten the first two times. So this trip marked a number of firsts for me: first seabird dinner, first time helping hunt an endangered species with intent to eat, first time struck by a hydroplaning fish at high speeds, and first time pissing my pants in front of five grown men. Thankfully, it was pitch black and we were being constantly soaked anyway.
I would like to add, in conclusion, that despite all of the weirdness, there was not a single unpleasant moment in the six hours that we were gone.The company and the experience made all of the minor inconveniences seem like something thrilling and fun. I've discovered during this island year that I truly love being on boats of any kind, especially when piloted by a race of people who are some of the most impressive ocean navigators in the history of the world. This trip was no exception. As we sped towards the warm lights of home, with the cold sea in my face and warm piss on my legs, I couldn't imagine feeling more alive.
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