On Shelling Out

Big news here in Arrecife - I have a car! It's a 1995 Honda Civic, automatic (because no, I still don't know how to drive stick), power windows, CD/tape players, and a working A/C (somewhat rare for used cars on this island). It's an Asian import, so it's also a right-hand drive and the speedometer and odometer are in kilometers, which makes things tricky on an island where everything is posted in miles...



I thought getting used to driving on the "wrong" side of the road would be a big deal and that I'd screw up and crash first chance I got. Turns out all of that biking and bumming rides off of roommates got me used to the whole layout, and I haven't had a single problem yet. Even the many roundabouts haven't been an issue. Of course, now I'm worried that when I return to the States I won't be able to switch back...


I bought the car from an ex-CAOS employee who was leaving the island, so my car came pre-hippified. The upper sticker is protesting the proposed plan to put in a dolphin tank at the Turtle Farm so the cruise shippers can get the full Caribbean in Captivity experience... despite the fact that dolphins are virtually never seen around our island - it's just the wrong oceanic neighborhood to be seeing them. The lower sticker is from a solar energy company on the island, which is co-owned by the boyfriend of one of my other coworkers (and neighbor to the former owners of my car). Basically everyone on the island lives or works with everyone else. It's a very very very small world over here.

Anyway, I took the car (which needs a name, by the way - and it has to start with the letter G for reasons I will not disclose at this time) out joyriding the other day. On the way back I stopped off at our local beach, Smith Cove, to check out the neighborhood. Yes, I know I've been living at this apartment for almost three months now, but when you go to the beach every day you can't be bothered to visit paltry little things like this on your days off. Except now, apparently.

The surf was pretty big and I was there alone, so I didn't get in the water. Instead I wandered around the beach rock and watched the hermit crabs. After a little while I realized these were no ordinary hermit crabs... these were vicious, murderous hermit crabs! I had been wondering why I was finding so many Periwinkle snails upside down on the rocks, until I noticed that the hermit crabs were crawling around, popping the snails off the rocks, then scurrying over to the shells and trying to kill the occupants before they could withdraw completely. Sea snails have what is called an operculum attached to their bodies, which is a hard plate that acts as a trap door, sealing the opening of the shell when the snail pulls it shut.



I'm not sure if the crabs were on the prowl for food or shelter, but either way they have lost a lot of Cute and Harmless Points in my book.