San Blas Reflections

Now that I have the time I'm gonna' do a little talk about San Blas.

The Booby (El Pato):
Within minutes of arriving on Uktuptupu we noticed this bird. When we had the chance we asked Alberto our Kuna guide/boat driver what the name of the bird was. He said he didn't know, but explained to us in Spanish (which I actually understood) about the story of the bird. the Kuna speak their own language to each other but many also speak Spanish. Alberto seemed intent on teaching me Kuna. Every time I spoke to him in my very limited Spanish he would tell me howto say it in Kuna. The next day I asked the 73 year old owner of the hotel, a Kuna named Juan Garcia, about the bird. He's one of the few Kuna who speak English. He didn't know the name of the bird either, but here's my recollection of what he told me in English:
"This bird every year he come and fly (making motions with his hands indicating a a flock of birds flying to the north) he no live here. He live somewhere. This bird (makes diving motion with his hand) in water. He eat fish. The fish big and (makes hand motion to throat) he choke. They find him in canoe and bring him here. My son-in-law take the fish out of bird and he stay. Every day he come to cocina (kitchen) and get three, four fish."

Around Ukuptupu the call the bird "el pato"--the duck.

BTW-Ukuptupu is an island of about 20 by 30 meters of sand ringed with stones. All the buildings are on piers surrounding the sand.

When we arrived at Rolf's in P.V. he looked at the picture on our camera and said it's a booby. He got his Birds of Costa Rica and decided it was a brown booby. Mystery solved.

Mariscos (Sea Food):
I believe the last itme I ate a lobster was over forty years ago on a vacation trip to Maine with my dad and it was somehow obligatory. On Uktuptupu meals were included with our stay. At our first day's lunch, which was conch, we were informed we'd be eating lobster for dinner. The lobster here are a different (clawless) species than those that live in the cold north, & they grow much faster. Richard, the young English gentleman who was one of our companions on the island, informed our hosts he didn't want lobster. Towards the end of that afternoon's excursion to Dog Island, Alberto said he was taking the canoe out to check other nearby Kuna canoes for fish. Shar & I asked if we could accompany him & he agreed. He went to three different boats around Dog Island calling out in Kuna, "Oohah Ooah" (Fish fish!). The canoes held catches of huge crabs & lobster but no fish. On the way back to Uktuptupu, he shouted to other canoes & islands we past, "Oohah Ooah." Folks just shook their heads. No fish. Richard was forced to eat lobster for dinner. During the meal Shar asked if he was allergic to shellfish. He replied no, he just understood that lobster was overfished & being depleted, and "I wanted to do the right thing--I didn't realize it was going to cause such a problem!" Shellfish appear to be plentiful here at present. I hope the fishery doesn't get overexploited. I'm currently reading Carl Safina's Voyage of the Turtle, which is an excellent overview of the current problems of ocean fisheries.