September 8 2003

The Voyage of Dick Headley: Guano Islands

Hi David. Dick here. Thought I'd e-mail you. Not sure why. I must be missing the rough and tumble of the old message board. Talking of rough and tumble, that Frances must have been a hurricane and a half. Started as a tropical storm around Cape Verde. As you know, warm humid air rises from the ocean and creates a low pressure area in the troposphere. Winds get drawn in creating a vortex. The side effect of all this atmospheric activity makes Headley incredibly horny. The sails fill, the mast bends and we fly across the water. I send Danny up to trim the jib. We're on a long beam reach. Should reef the main a bit but sod it. One hand on the wheel, Nyum in her harness clipped to a jackstay, I rip her rigging off and shove one up her sterngland greaser. God it feels good with the wind howling and the spray on her face and her arse all dripping semen and sea-water. One of the other girls sticks her head out of the saloon, sees what's going on and pulls it back in. Bit of a somtam party going on down there. Lot of giggling. As if I give a toss who sees what. This is what life is about. Fuck everybody!!!

Then off to the southeast I spot some land. Bugger me what's that? Can't still be Jamaica surely? Quick check of the chart says it must be Navassa. Just a low rocky looking lump, not much to look at but it has an interesting history. On his 4th Voyage in 1504, Columbus was on his way back from discovering Panama. His ships were full of worms and leaking badly so he had to beach them in St. Anne's, Jamaica and send for help. He sent a few blokes off in dugouts to try and reach Hispaniola. They ran out of water and landed on "Navaza" where they found a few birds eggs and iguanas to eat. A few of them died and the rest managed to get to Santo Domingo in their canoes. Nobody visited the island again until the 1600's when it became popular with pirates.

Your Ad Here

Then in the 1800's some enterprising Americans got interested in guano. In 1857 a Mr. Cooper supplied a $50,000 performance bond to President James Bucanan (as required by law) and two years later the President proclaimed that Navassa now "appertained" to the U.S. You can take the word appertain any way you want really. Legally speaking it means "loosely belonging to or temporary ownership." It's all explained in the Guano Act of 1859 (U.S. Code Title 48, Section 1411-1419) which goes something like this:-

"Whenever any American citizen discovers a deposit of guano on any island rock or key and not under the jurisdiction of any other government and not occupied by citizens of any other government, a the discretion of the President, he can say that the island appertains to America. " The Guano Act goes on to discuss the required filing of an affidavit and bond and discusses issues such as the President sending troops to protect the guano miners should they be threatened by other governments or pirates. Many guano islands were bought and sold. Not just the mining rights but actual real estate ownership. Geezer called James Jennett of Baltimore made a nice living discovering guano islands. He'd sell the guano rights as well as the islands themselves. Those were the days. Oscar would have loved the Guano Act.

Anyway, that's enough birdshit. Time to get some of that canvas down. There's supposed to be a jetty here somewhere but I don't want to chance it so we drop the main anchor and I tell the crew to get a bit of sleep. The wind's died down a bit but there's still a big swell. I don't entirely trust the anchor myself so I'm up here with the all-weather laptop watching the chain and waiting for the sun to come up. Won't be getting much sleep but that's the downside of being captain. As soon as it gets light it's all hands on deck and we're off to Haiti.

Dick Headley has now set up his own blog at http://dickheadley.blogspot.com

[Posted to Fiction by David]

Your Ad Here

Readers' comments

David says:

The comment threads have been reopened - but only to registered contributors.

Mango Sauce isn't a message board - it's a personal blog. This means that there are no moderators.

I'm not a policeman and I'm not available 24 hours a day so, from now on, anyone who abuses the system will be banned. No warnings or explanations will be given.

To everyone else - welcome back. I've missed your lively contributions.

September 8, 2004 4:31 PM

Check Six says:

David. Thank you. This is a port in a faraway land for a man who yearns to be there. Thanks for letting us visit and participate.

Dick, thanks for the interesting post. You're a true man of the sea. A true semen I mean. :-)

Good to have the boards back up! I for one welcome the interesting discourse.

David, would it be possible for you to post a visible "acceptable use policy" or somewhat? It seems that some bashing is okay within reason (Farang women) but some apparently makes you angry. If your concept of acceptable use was more explicit, it would be easy to steer within the lines. I certainly wouldn't want to offend, but it's nice to blow off steam once in awhile with a rant about this or that, within the bounds of prose and without any direct attacks against an explicit person of course.

September 8, 2004 6:03 PM

jdman says:

Yo yo yo David! Thanks for the reopening of the blog. I promise never to use the "H-B" word again if that caused any criticism of this fun site. My bad dude. Word!

September 8, 2004 6:29 PM

wilbur says:

On topic:
Now that the sun (sometimes) sets on the British Empire, we needed another way to make sure that every wart of land poking out of the water can eventually land in the hands (or maybe the portfolio) of a bazillionaire someplace. This type of legislation seems to be the key. Maybe we can get a similar UN resolution adopted?

Off topic:
Welcome back Mango Sauce! I was in Pattaya for all of August, and came back to find that the inmates had succeeded in taking over the asylum. I applaud David for his determination to provide a forum for us Flying Saucers to opine and bloviate (apologies to Bill O'Reilly).

With the rise of registration comes the demise of avatars, and I hereby present my cast of characters for a farewell curtain call:

Bruce Mangosteen: May all of you find happiness with the girl you love, regardless of her former circumstances. Bar girls can be rehabilitated, but just remember that you cannot reach all of them. Learn to tell the hopeful from the hopeless, and when enough is enough.

Ubangi Me, Ibangi You: It's been real. Real stupid. I was about outa here anyway. wilbur, take over, but if you wimp out, there'll be a spear sticking out of yer ass.

Ravi Shankar: Unfortunately, the world is sometimes revolutionized by those who mean the least good. I pray that the free flow of discourse should not be taken from us because some confuse "dialog" with "diatribe".

wilbur: I'm still here. However, I have some big shoes to fill. Hope I'm up to the challenge.

-------

I think that covers the lot, but maybe some of them missed the taxi from Pattaya. If anybody else shows up I'll permit them a curtain call as well.

By the way, I trust that the unmasking of my avatars illustrates why I used them. It had nothing to do with being somehow ashamed of my opinions. I just wanted to say Ravi things sometimes, and Ubangi things others, without confusing anybody or diluting the power of their respective messages.

September 8, 2004 8:46 PM

jdman says:

I liked 'Bruce' the best because of his sincerity. Sad to see him go if you are not jerking me (us) off. Oh well. Ravi and Ubangi can blow (gobble?) each other.

September 9, 2004 8:19 AM

wilbur says:

JDMAN:

Sorry, no handjobs on offer for ya. I swear that all these avatars are actually me.

Despite your derision toward Ubangi and Ravi (Ubangi's pee-pee is far too large for Ravi to handle, but Ubangi might gobble Ravi after he cooks him), I feel that they served useful purposes.

How could have I poured scourn onto Isabel/Beak/Godzilla using Ravi? He's far too nice and thoughtful. Bruce was too busy sorting out the various social challenges relating to Thai/farang relations to bother with that trivial triumverate. I, wilbur, was in Pattaya, enjoying its many vastly-overlooked treasures. That duty fell to our stalwart Ubgangi, and he executed his mission well (if saving too little of his essance for some).

As other posters have suggested elsewhere, e-mail addresses are easily had, and are only used to establish user names. Thus, I could have kept these avatars alive, or generated a new cast of characters. However, I have decided to stick with this single alter-ego. It seems important to some that a poster should have only one moniker, as though the single avatar "wilbur" means something special to me, and I will take his postings more seriously if I post only as him. *shrug* Whatever.

I'm afraid that this blog is now like a denuded coral reef. It will take time for the fawna to return. This is a shame, and I decry the fact that things got so bad that David pulled the plug.

C'mon back, posters. A blog without posters is more like a bog.

September 9, 2004 12:52 PM

Sandy says:

Were you Dean too?

I missed Ravi...

Sandy

September 9, 2004 2:07 PM

Bento Box says:

I feel like a naughty schoolkid who has been allowed back into the class on the condition that I stop pulling Astrid's hair and firing spit balls at the back of people's heads.

September 9, 2004 2:59 PM