belize poets & rhincodon typus
Are there any poets in Belize? My research to date has turned up very little. There are Garifuna/ Garinagu musicians galore, but Garifunas poets?
Someone, somewhere, might be sitting in Jake's Purple Space Monkey Internet Cafe, in the village of Placencia, composing a sonnet about tubing down the river in Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary (and Jaguar Preserve) or a trip up Monkey River to see howler monkeys, crocodiles and manatees? Maybe, or maybe not; one of the limitation of the Internet is you only know something exists if a person bothers to post it. I must not be so jejune (my $20 thesaurus word for the day) in my assumptions about the world. The world's greatest poets never used the Internet.
But what excites me this morning and put a spark in my java is finding out about the Whale Shark tours. Like the Pacific California Gray Whales that migrate from the Alaskan waters each year to Baja California to give birth, the world's largest fish, Rhincodon typus, the Whale Shark, ends up in March, April, May and June off the barrier reef of Belize in the Caribbean waters to spawn.
For some light reading, here is an article from Placencia on an attempt by locals to turn their end of the whale shark migration into their own eco-conservation tourism.
My bible of travel, Lonely Planet, (their motto: Belize is good for your blood pressure) says this about diving off Placencia:
Whale sharks can be seen at Gladden Spit & Silk Cayes Marine Reserve, north of Placencia … what attracts the whale sharks is the same thing that attracts divers and snorkelers - lots of species of fish. Only, the whale sharks aren't interested in seeing the fish, they're interested in the eggs of the fish, which spawn in great quantity after the full moon. (page 202)
And for all of us in cold, snowy northern climates; for all of us who needed to shovel a path from the front door to auto to get to work; for all of us who have not seen the sun in days due to the heavy blizzard that has settled down for what feels like the next ice age — it is 73 degrees and mostly cloudy right now in Placencia with a mild wind. Humidity is at 88%. Mmmm …