July 1, 2017 John White

TURTLES OF RANGUANA CAYE (BELIZE)

NEWLY HATCHED HAWKSBILL TURTLE

Last year was an amazing year at Ranguana Caye. Max and I were fortunate to be the managers of this Belizean jewel. Situated in the southern region of Belize, Ranguana lays 20 miles offshore east of Placencia. My commute was an hour boat ride out and an hour back. Luckily, Ranguana has 3 Cabanas for overnight guests so I get to stay out here 3-4 nights a week. Even more exciting when Max joins me!

SHHHH! MAMA IS LAYING HER EGGS

Starting in June, 2016, we had our first turtle egg laying of the year at Ranguana. One of my staff woke me up late at night to let me know a large Hawksbill turtle had come ashore and is digging a test nest. She crawls over the island testing the sand to see where she wants to lay her eggs. Finally, an hour later she digs deep then lays over the hole and starts laying. It takes a lot of patience to wait for her to find her spot and then nestle in. I sat next to her and watched with my iPad. Awesome! I dug out more of the hole from the side and took pics and videos of the eggs laying. You would think it would bother her but once she is laying she is in her zone. The first turtle laid 138 eggs. So cool to watch. It was a lot of work on her part and she looked exhausted when all was done. She then covers the hole over and moves slowly back to the sea.

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July 14, 2015 John White

BREAKING THE LANGUAGE BARRIER (CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA)

It was 1978, I had hitchhiked across the South Pacific on other peoples boats and was living in San Francisco. I met some backpackers from Denmark who were on their way to Peru, South America. They had heard from other backpackers that the Incas have a Sun Festival called Inti Raymi that only happens every 300 years. It sounded so cool and what an opportunity if it only happened every 300 years! I was working and saving to continue my trip to England.

Well, I just changed my plans.

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May 23, 2015 John White

WHY I LOVE THE SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS!

1965 Age 13

It was 1962 when 3 American guys came to our local sand lot while my friends and I were playing Cricket in North Innaloo, Perth, Western Australia, the suburb where I grew up. They had all of this Baseball equipment with them. They were from the “Giants” organization and were out to promote Little League Baseball. I had been playing Cricket with the other kids in the area for years and soon we all converted to baseball. Two totally different games but Baseball gave every kid a more hands-on experience during the game. We ended up having 4 teams in our area. The teams were all named after American Indian tribes: Sioux, Apache, Kiowa and Shoshone. I remember it was so cool having a uniform and all the gear. I was 3^rd base then in right field for the Sioux. I remember bringing home a template to place over a white T shirt and then “apply with iron”. Very cool to do this as a kid. I played until I was 15 but after that there was nowhere else to go and play. The end of the road for my baseball career. I outgrew playing Baseball but will forever be a big fan.

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May 17, 2015 John White

THE OCTOPUS WON! (CARIBBEAN)

Octopus

It was out first night dive of the week with Whitey, Max and Denise. We had been out for about 3 days and done some fabulous diving and spear fishing. We were all comfortable diving with each other and at a perfect location to dive off the back of the boat for a night dive. We usuallystart a night dive as the sun is going down. 6:30 is night time – right? We find it difficult to do really late night diving as we are just too tired. As we prepared our dive gear, Denise looked at me and said ‘you’re taking your spear gun aren’t you?’ I thought to myself ‘Well I wasn’t going to’ but instead I said to Denise ‘Sure. If you are, I am’. So we took a giant stride in the water, Denise and I with spear guns and Max with the yellow game bag to carry the catch.

Arrow Crab

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May 9, 2015 John White

TALES FROM THE DEEP! (PORT O’CONNOR, TEXAS)

45 MILES TO THE OIL RIGS

I have a passion for spearfishing. As I have traveled on boats from Australia through the South Pacific to the Caribbean waters, it is my favorite sport. When the anchor goes down then it’s in the water to see what’s for dinner. The only line fishing I do is trolling while underway on our sailboat and casting from the dock or from the boat. I’d rather see what I am catching and it’s good exercise.

For extreme spearfishing, I join my mate Kurt and his friends in Texas for fun off of the oil rigs. We go out 45 miles from Port O’Conner and drop down on the rigs. The water is so clear and the coral growth on the structures are better than some of the reef systems in the Caribbean.

Oil Rig

Our last time out I dropped down to 130’ and just hung onto a pylon waiting to see what comes up from the murky bottom at 200’. There are plenty of snapper, grouper, ling and amberjacks. This day, the other guys were finding and leading their fish through the rig legs when a huge amberjack passed from my left to right just below me. POW! After a great head shot it didn’t move. This is a good thing. If you don’t get a good shot this fish will drag you all over the Gulf. Our spears are attached to the guns with braided leader wire, not strings. If a big fish wants to take you sightseeing then you have to wrap the gun or line around the rig. Without getting tied up yourself.

And more oil rigs

Snapper Catch

Looking at my dive computer I knew I had to do a decompression stop. I nailed the AJ at 180’. I tried to remove the spear from his head but it wouldn’t move. I wrapped him up in the wire and with my arm around him I started for the surface. After a couple decompression stops, I then did a 15 ft. safety stop with a regulator from the boat and breathing 80% oxygen to wash out all of the excess nitrogen in my system. The AJ hadn’t twitched the whole time I was surfacing. When I broke the surface I said to my mate Gary that the AJ is dead but I can’t get the spear out of his head. He pulled the big fish and my gun on board. All the sudden I heard Gary yelling Aussie adjectives…the AJ had come back to life!! He was thrashing all over the boat with a spear sticking out of his head. Gary was hopping all over the boat trying to get away from this thrashing 62 lb Amberjack. I’m glad he didn’t do this trick on me while I was surfacing.

Happy Whitey with his 62 lb Amber Jack

He finally settled down and it was another great day out with Kurt and the boys. We got our limit on Snapper, Grouper Ling and AJ’s. And on the way back, as always, we traded a case of beer for a garbage bag of shrimp on a Mexican shrimp boat.

Author Archives: John White