A Vieques Hitchhiker

So here I am at the beginning of 2009 on Vieques and I’m in a slump. I have yet to land a bonefish this year and it hasn’t been for lack of opportunities. Our Christmas trade winds died off just before New Year’s Day and the conditions have been outstanding. I should be racking up bones left and right but I’m becoming convinced that the fishing gods are conspiring against me.

Take last Saturday for example. I had a very skilled angler on my boat, a young college student named Kurt who was a real artist with his fly rod. He had great eyes and spotted every fish I pointed out to him. On top of that, he followed every single direction I gave him, starting his casts and presenting his flies exactly when I asked. In other words he was a guide’s dream, and he didn’t catch a damn thing with me.

Kurt had great shots at over a dozen bonefish and actually had two eat his flies, but both came unhooked through sheer bad luck. Sometimes my most deserving anglers are the ones that come home empty handed. So after six hours and nothing but pure frustration, we gave up and headed back to the beach.

I launched my boat that morning at a spot called La Platita, a little clearing in the mangroves out in Ensenada Honda. This is at the end of a five mile dirt road just a few miles short of the old Navy bombing range on the eastern tip of Vieques. After I put in at this spot I’d park my Jeep and trailer way back under the mangroves and go fishing.

When we came back to shore and hauled out the boat I noticed something unusual tucked into a corner of the Jeep’s canvas top. It had a lot of hairy legs and clearly did not belong in my vehicle. I poked at it with my keys, hoping to convince it to leave. But the Giant! Freaking! Spider! had other ideas. It dropped right into the passenger’s foot well and then disappeared. I wasn’t exactly sure what species of spider this was, but it was definitely a member of the I-Really-Don’t-Want-This-Damn-Thing-In-The-Car-With-Me! order of arachnids.

Kurt and I spent a long time poking under the Jeep’s seats hoping to chase the spider out into the open, but it didn’t happen. We finally climbed in and headed down the bumpy dirt road, hoping the monster would stay hidden and not crawl up one of our legs during the next half hour. Talk about a long ride home. When I got back to the house I emptied half a can of Raid under both seats. Goodbye, spider.

So the next morning I decided to head down to Encampment Beach for some wade fishing since I had the day off and really needed to catch a bonefish. I'd forgotten about my troubles from the previous day's trip and was just enjoying a drive through Vieques on a warm January morning. Life was good. Then I looked down and THERE‘S MY BUDDY!

Yes, it was a definitely a tarantula. He was climbing up the steering column and clearly getting ready to do something radical, like drop right down on to my crotch. If I were James Bond driving his special Aston Martin I would have hit the ejection seat right there. Unfortunately, the ‘89 Jeep Wrangler didn’t come with that option so I aimed for the sidewalk and jumped out when the front tire smacked the curb.

Tarantulas are actually common on Vieques but rarely come out in the daytime. I’m not arachnophobic and I’ve gotten quite used to finding them in the dark corners of my garage or laundry room but this was too much. Why can’t they at least chirp like a friendly cricket to let you know they’re coming?

This tarantula avoided the Raid fogging and was clearly trying to make a statement. He crawled to the top of the steering wheel and was staring me down when I finally stepped back towards the Jeep. This was one tenacious spider with a twisted sense of humor, so I decided not to kill him. I snapped his picture to send to my spider-hating friends up in Florida and flung him on to the road with my ball cap.

I could write a whole book on all of the creepy-crawly things I’ve encountered down here in the tropics and tarantulas are far from the worst. They’re totally harmless and their bite is no worse than a bee’s sting. No one has ever died from being bitten by one, but if I'd been careening through traffic in San Juan instead of cruising an empty road on Vieques, I may have become the world’s first tarantula-related fatality. What a humiliating way to go that would be. On top of that fun little incident, I didn’t even catch a fish when I finally got to the beach. That was a really great morning here in Paradise.