Just Plain John Wayne

Ya'll bear with me a bittill ya see EOM on the last post before any comments if ya would.Reason being I want to keep the photos along with the text. I havenot the skills others do like Catahoola Fan does in making aprofessional lookin' presentation. It will I am sure take me a bit toget it all in so the whole writing flows from one page to the next.Thanks in advance.. JW


Now I have said before,and I will do so again; that when I did come to the DAC (DangerousAtlantic Coast) of Nicaragua in the fall of 1991; it was right Wild,like was written about of Texas in 1880.


Everyone had AK 47's intheir homes, on their meager fishing boats and I think even must havehad them in the outhouses. I never did meet any people that had“Indoor Plumbing” at the time.


To see people going aboutarmed was nothing at all; even if they had one in a rice sack walkingdown the street, you knew what it was. I kinda liked it to tell thetruth. There was not a problem with the drugs, muggings, assaults,and other forms of violence as is now that all of those arms areillegal and only pistols, rifles and shotguns can be owned but haveto be registered and permissions granted for them by thegovernment....


Like Uncle Ted Nugentsay's, Armed people are Polite People, unless they are bad people tobegin with or deranged, same thing.


But anyway here I go offon a rather fond memory of an adventure I did have in Nicaragua in1991/1992.


Free elections had beenhad that resulted in really nothing more than a cease fire for bothsides in the infamous “Contra War”. As the people had had abelly full of fighting and killin' and tearing up each others thingsand supply lines. All most all of the people here just wanted was toreturn to work and be left alone.


Hell that is what theMiskito Indian on this side of the country was a fightin' for anyway,To be left alone. But trust, or the real lack of a deep trust madethe Indians at the time not put their arms away for good. This wasnot to actually happen for another year or two on down the road oftime. And being the distrustful people of any governments not oftheir own people; I am sure they still have in places a stash ofthings to reek havoc with if needed. As they say, “Won't be likeFirst Time”


My partner at the time hadbeen here a month or so before I got here and he had met with keypeople from one of the main fishing communities and they had beengiven from some program or another, a diesel powered breathing aircompressor for charging SCUBA diving tanks. These are used in theharvesting of the warm water lobsters in the Caribbean Sea. The localpeople could not keep it working properly, they just didn'tunderstand the machine.


All the young men thatwere left had only studied fighting and tearing up things, had verylittle business experience or mechanical experience to do what neededdoing in that direction; but they had the desire and will to go backfishing as their predecessor's had in the past. That is where I camein when I got here. I had wanted to go lobster diving originally butthere was absolutely no land based infrastructure to support any ofthose activities as is required in the industry.


In the group I was with Ihad copied a successful portable seafood processing operation thatworked well in the States; that could all be packed into tworefrigerated truck trailers and it all set up in a matter of a coupleof weeks on a site even in a rather semi remote area.


Properly staffed it wascapable of processing about 1500 pounds a day of frozen lobster tailsand had a holding capacity of some 35,000 pounds between shipmentsand a 5 ton per day ice production for the fishermen and theprocessing steps in the little “Portable Plant”.


So we made a deal with theIndians to repair their compressor and to make sure it got the jobdone and in exchange they would sell their lobsters to us at anagreed upon price. I was to go with the compressor some 35 miles fromthe mainland to their shanty built on stilts fishing camps centrallylocated at Morrison Dennis Cay as it is known on all navigationalcharts.


It is actually only ashallow Turtle Grass atoll covered with mangroves with no dry landanywhere. There is on one other cay. That cay they call “The BigKey” (Miskito Cay) is what that one is known as on the navigationalcharts. It even has some 40 feet coconut trees on it in the center ofit. But evidently not large enough to support any permanenthabitation.


All around the area thereare slues going to some 60 feet in depth; all around for some 25miles with numerous low tide coral dry rocks. And acres and acres ofTurtle Grass. Beautiful place really; I would call it “Pristine”even today.


Photos courtesy ofPapatara, a TRN member and a friend.