CaribSeek Books | Snake Valley | The Adventures of Captain Don by Donal A. Stewart

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Snake Valley

Snake Valley is a part of the Alice in Wonderland double-reef complex that includes Punt Vierkant, Lake [Bowker], Angel City, Alice in Wonderland and Invisibles. Captain Don explored and named many of the sites there, marking his trail with inflated condoms as seen in the photo above.

"Look out! It's loaded!"

I looked up to see several people move quickly away from the bar. Wancho Obersi appeared to be right in the midst of the confusion. His hands in the air as if warding off a hold-up, he danced away from the bar and cried out, "Be careful! It could explode!"

"Let me see that thing," a strong voice shouted. "I'm NRA and there's not a gun made I don't know about." He picked up an old flintlock pistol from the top of the bar.

Odd that Wancho no longer appeared to be involved. Then I saw him slip a bottle of Dewars from the shelf, pour several fingers of booze and move over to a table to watch.

I rounded the counter and took a chair opposite him. His chest was heaving as he stifled a laugh, but I remained silent. Nothing, but nothing, ever surprised me. However, when it came to Wancho ...

He was openly laughing when Mr. NRA moved over to the table. "Very funny!" said NRA as he rudely dropped the pistol on the table in front of us. I glanced down at it, looked at NRA, and then at Wancho.

"Very funny!" I mimicked and picked up the pistol to examine it. A flintlock, cocked, and in pretty good condition, considering the remnants of coral still clinging to the butt.

"Deep?" I queried. Wancho stopped laughing, looked me directly in the eyes, and replied, "Two hundred plus." He waited for my reaction and then asked, "Want to go?" I poured some more hot I whiskey into his glass, chucked it down, and then handed his glass back to him.

"Weather side?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"Willemstoren?" I tried again. I thought for a moment, then growled, "You bastard. You got the 1 Sirene." The Sirene is a Dutch Man-o'-War that went down off Bonaire in 1831 and was lusted after by 1 more of us than I care to imagine. My old crewman Ciro spent many a day looking for her when I needed him on board the Valerie Queen.

"Don, if I found that one, would I be here talking with you?"

Insulted, I asked, "Is that so? I Where would you be?" Wancho thought about that and added, "You're right. I'd be right here drinking whiskey with my old friend Captain Don. Except I'd own this place, and you would be working for me."

I never coaxed him, but finally, Wancho did leak a clue. "The new Trans World Radio tower... straight out to the second drop-off. " I cleared my throat, tried to relax and appear nonchalant.

Photo © Bruce Bowker

Wancho chuckled and shoved the pistol across the table at me. "Now where was I?" he questioned. "At 250 feet!" I exclaimed. "Awwww yeah, 250 feet...," he said. Then he picked up the pistol, knocked back the rest of the whiskey, and headed for the door. "Ciao!" and he was gone.

I sat in thought until the NRA fellow came over to the table and said, "Sounds to me like that fella's setting you up." NRA appeared to think a bit, then added, "Maybe!" I could see he was thinking about the pistol, too.

It was several days before I got free for a private little dive. I loaded the old '57 VW van, topped off my tank at a full 2400 psi, tested my "J" valve, bought a pack of Trojans at the gift shop, and finally cut myself a 10 inch piece of red ribbon.

The route south could scarcely be called a road and the old VW knew it. I reached the tower and pulled close to the water's edge. There, almost unseen, was a motor-bike, leaning against a rock. I gave it little attention until I saw the NRA sticker on its fender.

What the hell, I thought, he's probably fooling around in the shallows. Forget him and get on with the dive. I secured the ribbon to the left side of my mask, the Trojans in my coin pocket, and my archeological hammer in my belt. I had never felt so overdressed.

It wasn't too long before I was over the drop-off and looking for reference points. Then I saw my guy, down in the corals, resting like a lizard fish, legs spread for balance. He had a spear gun about six feet long, and his breathing was deep and slow. I knew I was watching a hunter.

I shoved my regulator in my mouth, exhaled deeply and started to drop. At 40 feet I touched down in a sand clearing just ten feet behind him. The speargun was an SMG with a balanced grip. Its stainless-steel shaft had an NRA sticker wrapped around it and was armed with a power head big enough to take out a small whale.

With my hammer, I smacked the bottom of my tank. The sharp ringing brought him off the bottom like he'd been snapped by an elastic band. His body swung like a gyro and he aimed that gun directly at my solar plexus. At that moment I thanked God that Mr. NRA was a conscientious hunter who never pulled the trigger until the kill was certain.

Once my breathing got back to normal I pried out the Trojan box, fingered out a single rubber, carefully inflated it to about two feet and secured it to a soft coral where it shimmered like an inverted teardrop.

We'd have to get rid of that gun and I had some problems signaling that to a hard-core hunter. Then I found myself staring down that underwater mountainside and wondered if the Sirene was really down there or if Wancho had set me up.

We left the spear gun with a Trojan standing sentinel on the edge of the precipice, started down the slope and coasted just above the reef. Soon we came to a flat sand platform. I pulled the ribbon away from the mask to study it: hundred, hundred-ten, maybe. The second Trojan was to take station there.

Visibility was excellent and I wondered how far the sand flat went. Maybe to Curaçao. There was nothing out there at all. Except for the snakes. Sand eels, actually, by the millions. The flat was alive with 'em.

We lifted from the sand and swam out perpendicular to the reef only three feet above the floor. I was exhilarated by the snakes. I stared them down and they glided back into their holes.

Five minutes into the crossing, I sensed company. There were two eight-foot sharks, coming in like gangbusters. I looked at Mr. NRA; no fear in his eyes, but lots of hostility because I'd made him leave that gun behind.

But he was all hunter; a gleaming knife, the size of a small sword, jumped into his hand. The sharks were now closing in and I began to understand his anger. I was defenseless with only my hammer; then, I thought, and my buddy.

Those damned sharks had us spinning like tops. Then as quickly as they arrived, they left. It had been a good show, but had cost us time. More than that, it screwed up our sense of direction. Like being at sea with no landfall in sight.

Then I remembered the current ripples in the sand. We had moved perpendicularly across them before we met the sharks.

As the ripples came and went, I knew we were getting closer to the pistols. I was fascinated by the snakes again, their tails deep in their burrows. I watched the back of their heads turn as we approached. And then the penny dropped.

It had been their faces we watched as we crossed, not their backs. I was 180 degrees off course. Don, you're an idiot, I thought, but NRA had known it all along. He was swimming furiously toward his gun and the shore. I bid him farewell, turned, and regained my course out across the wet Sahara.

Wancho was right. I did find the second reef, gliding over it to the far drop-off where I set my third and final Trojan then pointed my nose down at the Sirene and Wancho's pistols.

My ribbon was growing darker by the minute and I knew I had entered the forbidden zone beyond 250 feet when it went coal black. Every breath screamed and I had long forgotten how to recite my narcosis "pome." No pistols, but it was time to go up.

The trip back was uneventful. A vertical ascent to 20 feet; watching for the reflected beacons from my Trojans and enjoying what I could see of the double reef far below. The snakes in the valley were too deep to see, but I thanked them anyway for their help.

When I saw Mr. NRA the following day, I thanked him for his help and told him I thought that he dived rather well. He smiled his thanks and reached inside a large paper bag he was holding; his eyes never leaving my face.

Then, with a jerk of his hand, he pulled out a primed and cocked flintlock pistol with a brand new shiny NRA sticker across its barrel. "Wancho! You bloody pirate!" I screamed.

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