Eating with Peter by Susan Buckley

Author:Susan Buckley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2018-03-02T05:00:00+00:00

At the end of our idyll on the Honduran reefs, hungry but happy, we crossed “the blue”—the deep, deep water between the barrier reef and the mainland—and headed back to the camp. It was the end of our Lobster Period and the beginning of our Conch Period. The cook at the camp, Somers’ wonderful wife, did not have a lot to work with. She made conch fritters and conch stew and conch cakes. And then she made that repertoire all over again. If you’ve never eaten conch, it’s the very tough and relatively tasteless meat from the animal that lives in a conch shell—a bit like abalone.

There were other things besides food to entertain us back on land, however. As we prepared to leave British Honduras, a rollicking group of filmmakers arrived on the scene. Documentary filmmaker Stan Waterman and his crew had come to the camp to shoot underwater footage of sharks out on the reef. Fresh from filming the fabulous great white shark movie, Blue Water, White Death, Stan was something of a celebrity, a witty, lively, handsome man who was an underwater pro. In short order, the hotel tables were covered with fascinating underwater camera gear, and he and Peter were trading stories and sharing mutual friends.

Stan Waterman had exquisite manners—a quality that stood out the night Mr. H. suggested a trip into town to the Hotel Internationale. This sounded intriguing, so we all piled into the boats and then the cars to go to town. When we arrived at the Hotel Internationale several things became quickly apparent. One was that the Hotel Internationale was a house of ill repute—aka a bordello. And the second was that Mr. H. was “a regular.” “Sultry” was the word that came to mind—from the men lounging languidly on the veranda in front of the building to the even more languid young women who greeted Mr. H. warmly when we entered the dance hall on the ground floor. Mrs. H. had elected to remain at home, for reasons that were now obvious.

While Mr. H. was occupied with one of the women of the establishment, the music started. The next thing we knew, Stan Waterman was dancing what appeared to be a waltz with a rather flamboyant young lady. “My God, there’s my father, dancing with a tart!” Gordy, Stan’s charming twenty-something son, exclaimed. After the first dance, though, Stan brought her over to the table where Peter, Gordy, and I were sitting, watching Mr. H. with one eye and Stan with the other. Since Peter spoke fluent Spanish and Stan did not, he wanted Peter to explain to the young lady that he hated to occupy her time, since he was not going to accompany her upstairs. While Peter dutifully explained the situation, Stan bowed slightly—he could have been at a tea dance at Yale—and took his leave.

Nothing else on land quite lived up to the Hotel Internationale, and soon it was time to leave British Honduras behind. For decades to come, though, dive trips were part of our life—always with spoons at the ready.

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