The Backpacking Housewife

by Janice Horton

  Only to find that when I reached the surface they were still all around me.

  Ethan followed me up – seeing my bubbles coming out in one long scream as I surfaced.

  He took me back to the beach to calm me down and to educate me about sea snakes.

  He told me that yes, they were highly venomous, but they were very placid creatures who would rather avoid humans than bite them. He also explained how they had to come up for air to breathe. Who knew sea snakes had to breathe air on the surface?

  Ethan has such a calm and reassuring manner and he promised me I’d be completely safe.

  So, trusting him, I bravely agreed to go back in the water and take another look at the snakes if only from a comfortable distance. He encouraged me to take some photos of a large black and white striped snake curled up sleeping on the sandy bottom, which I later identify as the belcher sea snake, which just happens to hold the title of the world’s most venomous snake. ‘One hundred times deadlier than any land snake!’ I tell Ethan in horror.

  And he laughs, while casually insisting that it’s good exercise for ‘the old ticker’ to do something scary every now and again. I tell him that I’ve had a boa constrictor around my neck in Langkawi. I remind him that I’ve swam with a whale shark – the biggest fish in the sea – and now I’ve had the world’s deadliest snake within a few feet of me, so my old ticker is getting quite enough exercise, thank you very much.

  Interestingly, when I ask what scares him, he quickly changes the subject.

  Out in the deeper parts of the sea beyond the reef there are also scary looking giant fish. They seem to appear from the blue quite suddenly and the first time you see them you can’t help but think you might be eaten alive. It’s quite terrifying to suddenly see a long silvery barracuda swimming alongside you and to realise that, at six feet long and with a mouth full of razor sharp teeth, he’s looking at you as if he might be weighing you up for lunch.

  Then there’s the enormous bumphead parrotfish with their wide eyes and sharp toothy overbites. Underwater, everything is magnified, but these creatures look big enough to be a fleet of submarines moving through the water. We come across several of these on our dive today.

  With great enthusiasm, Ethan tells me he’ll take me diving with sharks before we leave here.

  He says there are lots of placid, indeed playful, nurse sharks but at deeper depths.

  To dive deeper, I’ll need my advanced diver qualification.

  But I really want to do it and Ethan says he will teach me.

  Well, look at me now. One year ago, I might have agreed to playing a game of snakes and ladders. There’s no way I’d have considered diving with snakes and sharks!

  It’s Christmas Eve and I’m lying stretched out on the sundeck of the dive boat in my bikini. My now darkly tanned body is glistening with perspiration and sunscreen. Temperatures are high today and the sky is clear and blue. There isn’t one single cloud or even any lines from airplane trails. I’ve noticed that here, where the Sulu Sea meets the South China Sea, we are simply too far from anywhere to be on anyone’s direct route to anywhere.

  I can’t help but wonder and imagine what everyone back home is doing today?

  I can imagine my two sons and their girlfriends, swathed in coats and scarfs and hats and gloves, battling through icy rain or snow on the high street to get the last of their Christmas shopping done. I can picture my mum sitting in her armchair by the fire watching TV with the lights of her little Christmas tree on. I feel distant and my own situation seems surreal.

  We’re tied to a buoy just outside the reef. The boat is rocking gently from side to side in a sleep-inducing sort of way and I’m humming along to the music playlist coming from a speaker in the wheelhouse. Right now, it’s playing Bing Crosby’s White Christmas.

  From my horizontal position, lying on my front while tanning my back, I can see down into the water and Ethan’s air bubbles rising to the surface. The water here is so clean on the edge of the reef that I can clearly see him kneeling on the sand below photographing a free-swimming octopus. Soon, he comes to the surface and from the ladder he passes me his camera and his fins and he climbs aboard to remove his heavy air tank. Once he is free of it he unzips his wetsuit and plants a salty kiss on my mouth and wishes me happy Christmas for about the sixth time today. Then with Jingle Bell Rock blasting out over the air waves we are riding the sea waves back to the island. Suddenly there is a yell from the wheelhouse and Ethan is pointing ahead of us. The next thing, he kills the boat’s engine and we come to a silent stop in the water.

  I’m looking ahead. I’m looking all around. What has he seen?

  A fish boil? A whale shark?

  And then I see what he sees – I see dolphins!

  Lots and lots of wild dolphins!

  They are swimming at high speed straight towards us, leaping and diving, their shiny grey bodies arcing and twisting and moving like quicksilver through the water. I’ve already grabbed my snorkel gear and I’m quickly over the side. I let my body sink down and when I open my eyes and look through my mask I find I’m eye to eye with a dolphin and I have around a dozen more heading my way on a crash collision course. With a quick flick of a tail they divert around me, just inches away, and I can see their faces so closely – they really do look like they are smiling at me! Although they are all clearly all en route to somewhere, they circle around us and the boat and come back again to play.

  Suddenly, I’m swimming in a pod of at least two dozen dolphins.

  Underwater I can hear their – and my own – high-pitched squeals of delight.

  Then they regroup, and they leave us as fast as they arrived, and I watch them go, feeling so happy and so elated that I’m weeping with joy. What a truly special moment in time.

  And yet another big tick off the bucket list.

  What a wonderful Christmas present!

  I’m not only in paradise – I’m in heaven!

  ‘Last Christmas, I gave you my heart…’ I sing, chopping the ingredients for our Christmas meal. I’m preparing a vegetable salad and a mango pudding while Ethan has gone out to catch our main course. From my spot in the kitchen, through the breezy open window, I can see the tropical beach and the blue lagoon and the palm trees swaying and I’m all too aware that one year ago this very day, through a steamed-up window, I’d have been standing at the kitchen sink peeling carrots and preparing sprouts and the Christmas day turkey would have been in the oven. I’d have been looking out at my small, cold and winter-ravaged garden and I’d be expecting our boys and my mum to arrive for dinner.

  And I’d have had no clue whatsoever that just one year later my life would be so different.

  It feels terribly ungrateful to let my mind wander back in time and over so many miles.

  I know I really should be fully focussed on being here in this paradise and on my new life, but I’m being haunted by the Ghosts of Christmas Past. I’m missing my family and I’m wondering how they will spend their day without me? I wonder what gifts everyone’s bought each other this year? Is it snowing there, I wonder?

  It’s hard to imagine cold and ice and snow when I’m boiling hot and wearing a sarong.

  I expect they’re all thinking about me too. Not right now obviously, because I think it’s probably the middle of the night there. But later in the day, I’m sure they’ll be missing me just as much as I’m missing them. Not Charles though, of course. Not missing him will be mutual. I pause my chopping to imagine him lying in our marital bed next to Sally.

  A moment later that ugly dark image is replaced with a sunnier, far sexier one.

  I can see Ethan coming back up the beach in his dive gear.

  No man has ever looked more handsome than Ethan Jones in a wetsuit carrying a huge lobster. Okay, enough is enough, I tell myself sharply. I’ve reminisced and I’ve wallowed in how much I miss my kids and my mum and my dog and I’ve given myself an unhealthy dose of heartache, but right here and right now, there is a
gorgeous man lighting my barbecue and there is a bottle of chilled champagne that needs opening.

  Christmas present and Christmas future cannot be ignored any longer.

  And of the future? Well, Ethan and I haven’t discussed what happens next or where we will go from here when the time comes to move on. We’ve simply been focussed on living in the moment and enjoying each day and getting to know each other better, especially as, in just a couple of days, we’ll have company. We are making the most of every moment in the here and now. And I’ve never had such an easy and amicable lifestyle. I’ve never had it so good.

  I ponder once again on the words of the young monk in Chiang Mai.

  And I wonder if along the way I’ve somehow missed the sign he promised?

  Had it been far too discreet for me?

  Because here I am. I’m in my place of happiness with Ethan.

  My only complaint would be that I was hoping for somewhere more enduring.

  Somewhere to settle down in everlasting happiness.

  Like a fairy-tale. Like a happy-ever-after.

  Maybe Lord Ganesha thought that I was asking for far too much?

  Maybe I was … and if that’s the case then I’m grateful for what I have right here, right now.

  We cook the lobster wrapped in banana leaves on the barbeque grill and we eat our Christmas meal under the shade of a palm tree on the beach. We drink champagne from coconut shells and we spend our afternoon lounging on a sheet laid out on the sand, chatting and laughing and making love, with another bottle of bubbly chilling in an ice bucket and with the sun on our skin. I’ll admit it feels a bit strange to be on an island with no other people.

  ‘Come on, let’s go skinny dipping?’ Ethan enthuses, as the hot afternoon sunlight creeps across our previously shady napping spot. I’m a little reticent at first about walking along the beach or swimming in the lagoon completely naked, but once I get used to it and accept that no one else can possibly see me, then it feels truly amazing and entirely natural.

  We swim in the lagoon and we laze long into the evening when, after dark, we walk by torchlight out onto the jetty to lay together side by side on the smooth old wooden planks.

  Looking up, holding hands, counting shooting stars, and making wishes.

  It’s very special and very romantic to be living here on this island like castaways.

  Except, of course, with supplies.

  Chapter 20

  Destination Unknown

  Just before noon, on the 27th of December, Kiko’s boat reappears and four more people step ashore. Ethan and I have been busy preparing for their arrival all morning and we rush down to the beach to welcome them. I am introduced to Jamie, an American, and Tom, a Brit. Both are highly experienced marine biologists who have worked with Ethan on many previous occasions, here on Reef Island and on several other marine projects around the world. The two girls, Immi and Kara, are younger, in their mid-twenties, and both South African. They studied Marine Ecology at a top university there and, like me, they’re both Open Water divers. I’m impressed to hear from Ethan that the girls are part of this venture because they won a hotly contested international environmental conservation competition run by GGF for their innovative ideas on artificial reef development.

  All four of them are obviously very excited to be here.

  ‘It’s such a great pleasure to finally meet you, Mr Goldman,’ Kara starts to say.

  She and Immi both look a little wide-eyed and shell-shocked.

  ‘Oh, call me Ethan, please. We’re all on first name terms here,’ he insists.

  I feel quite taken aback. Mr Goldman?

  But Ethan’s last name is Jones?

  Why has she confused him with the billionaire philanthropist?

  Well, I suppose she is jet-lagged and she seems a little nervous. Maybe, she thinks because Ethan is the boss here that he must be Mr Goldman? Yes, that’s the simplest explanation.

  ‘Let me help with your bags and show you to your rooms,’ Ethan offers.

  ‘And then lunch will be ready,’ I say, as I’ve been cooking all morning.

  ‘And let me tell you, Lori is an amazing cook!’ Ethan enthuses.

  They follow us up the beach, the guys chatting together and the girls stunned into silence and awe at the absolute beauty of the place. We let them get settled into their rooms and then we all meet up for lunch, which is a great opportunity for everyone to get to know each other a bit better. After we finish eating, Ethan gives a short welcome briefing.

  ‘I also just want to explain our schedule. We have a lot to achieve in a short time here.’

  He outlines the nature of the work and explains how we’ll all be working on a shift system in our buddy teams. ‘This means there will only ever be two teams in the water at any one time. One team will provide diver back up, boat, or land support. Safety is paramount.’

  Looking around, it’s clear that everyone understands. Immi and Kara, in particular, are hanging onto Ethan’s every word.

  Ethan also explains about the shift system to cover the more mundane jobs of cooking and dishwashing and housekeeping, so we’re all treated as equals and nothing is ever left to just one person. For this, I’m grateful. I’d hate to be stuck in the kitchen just because I’m not a scientist.

  Happily, now the team is here, things are going to run in much the same way as they had on Koh Phi Tao, except here there are no night-time shifts and our dives have to be properly spaced out to allow for surface intervals – meaning we all have lots more time to relax and to socialise. We even get a couple of hours extra off after lunch for ‘siesta’ time.

  Although, I find myself blushing every time Ethan mentions this word with such great gusto.

  ‘Siesta’ has become our secret code for a couple of hours of afternoon delight, now that being naked and frolicking on the beach has become unavailable to us.

  The days go by in the blink of an eye. We’ve all been so incredibly busy. Under Ethan’s guidance, we’ve fallen into a productive routine of sleep, breakfast, briefing, diving – siesta – more diving and dinner and then a few hours of socialising.

  Just like on Koh Phi Tao, we chat, hold quizzes, play games and cards and listen to music.

  Being amongst marine experts, our topics of conversation tend to be a tad scientific and I’m learning so much and finding it all very interesting. Tom and Jamie have reported excellent results in biodiversity – which is their specialist subject. Essentially this means they are finding growth in the numbers of fish and new species of sea creatures making the areas of restored reef their home. Immi and Kara initially gave us an interesting presentation on how their modular artificial reef system works and now we’re all involved in building it into a strong but flexible structure onto which we can transplant coral cuttings and restock the parts of the reef that had previously been wiped out by either natural bleaching or dynamite fishing.

  I’m diving with Ethan every day and he’s a great instructor.

  He’s also wonderful at pointing out to me all the little sea creatures hiding in the coral and in rocks, so cleverly camouflaged, I might not have spotted them for myself. He gives me such confidence. And together, I know we are just as strong a team as the others.

  Yesterday, Immi, Kara and I started our advanced diver training with Ethan.

  Last night, as part of our course, we all did a night dive, which was truly amazing.

  It was dark, of course, but in the beam of a torch you can see so much life and colour around you and the water itself becomes strangely invisible so that you almost become unaware of it.

  I can only liken the experience to what it must feel like to be an astronaut floating around in space. It felt wonderful. I wasn’t afraid at all – even when I finally found out what freaks Ethan out.

  It’s jellyfish, which are often translucent and so much harder to spot in the water at night.

  When we came into close proximity with one, I heard him squeal in an explosion of bu
bbles underwater. I thought he’d been stung but it turned out he hadn’t. I delighted in teasing him about it mercilessly afterwards. Reminding him that it’s good exercise for ‘the old ticker’ to do something scary every now and again. What I hadn’t realised at the time of course, was that the object of his terror was a Box Jellyfish. It’s quite deadly. And, unlike sea snakes or sharks, it can and does cause many fatalities every year!

  After enjoying perfect weather and idyllic diving conditions, today we get some bad news. This part of the world is known for its quickly changing weather situations and volatile storms that can quickly become tropical depressions and even typhoons. For this very reason, Ethan has been checking in with the meteorological department as a matter of routine on the radio every morning. Today, he hears that the stronger seasonal sea currents that don’t normally affect this area for another month or so are predicted to arrive sooner than expected. Experts in weather patterns say it’s due to global warming.

  Sadly, this means that our time here on the island has been cut short.

  In his briefing today, Ethan explains to us that while we still have calm seas and good weather over the next few days, we should work to complete all our tasks before we leave.

  We’ve all managed to pull together really well over the past few days to complete all our projects ahead of schedule. All the data has been collected. The award winning artificial modular reef is now in place. And finally, we are confronted with the question of what happens next? Ethan tells me he’s waiting for a call back to confirm his next assignment.

  I guess we’ll have to be patient.

  Especially when today is not only our last day on the island, it’s also the last day of the year.

  It’s New Year’s Eve.

  We’ve all had a chilled-out kind of morning – a lazy lie in, a late breakfast and a dive on the reef for pure pleasure, and an afternoon preparing for our ‘Hogmanay’ party.

  The guys have all gone off to catch fish and to find shellfish to barbecue later.