The future? One word. Plastics!

Hi kids!

We are lolling about, wasting time on a remote uninhabited Bahamian
island again. This time it's Shroud Cay, near the top of the Exumas
chain.

'Shroud' can mean several different things. It can be the cloth a dead
body is wrapped in for burial (ee-yoo!), a cover (an engine shroud) or
a piece of boat rigging that runs from the mast to the beam of the
ship to support the mast. Isn't it funny how the same word can mean
different things? Like 'kid' could mean you, for example, or a young
goat or a kind of joke. Man, language is great. But I digress.

The Bahamians have established this national park here on a stretch of
small islands out in the middle of nowhere. It's about a 22 miles long
and 8 wide. There are twenty named islands and many small ones. No one
can fish or hunt or take anything from the land or sea here. It's the
place where a fish is allowed to be a fish, a bird can be a bird and a
conch's day is worry free. They say this place is the source for a
lot of the good fishing in the other islands since these fish grow up
and go get a job on another island when they're bigger.

We went exploring in the mangrove forests in the interior of the
island. Here's a picture of old Angel Jen lugging plastic crap
shefound on the beach back to the ranger station so Mr. Park Ranger
can dispose of it.

We hate people who throw plastic in the water! It always washes up on
shore and makes a mess and plastic is forever. If you throw out a
paper towel, that's not good but the bugs in the dirt or water will
eventually break it down. Nothing eats plastic. It lasts for hundreds
of years, literally. In this case some nitwit threw an empty five
gallon pail of diesel oil overboard, a whiskey bottle, an egg carton
and a hunk of black rubber. So, like a good, conscientious hard
working Protestant Camptown woman, Angel Jen is soiling her hands
lugging trash out.

Well, kids, be good. Don't litter! And sail straight!