Here Comes the Sun

Weather has finally broken. The sun shines for days at a time, punctuated by occasional electric storms. Lightning breaks Ben Beo Harbor’s black night, exposing pontoons of boats and floating houses in a momentary mockery of washed-out daylight as rain drives into the bay, sheets of water obscuring everything in sight.

The view from the roof is spectacular. We’ve recently moved hotels from a residence on the waterfront of Cat Ba Town to Ben Beo, a short drive across the island’s southeast peninsula. Our new hotel is blessedly mold-free (at least for the present), has wrap-around balconies on every floor and a constant sea breeze. We’ve traded an overabundance of cockroaches for snakes sunning themselves in our courtyard and a miniature black and white cat yowling through the night from a small floating market next to the pier. The building sits so close to the harbor’s crag that a person could literally step off our roof onto the rock. To the north we look out over the island’s floating fishing village; to the south, through an island channel to open sea.

With the season’s change we’ve begun waking to unscheduled island-wide power cuts, arriving at the office to battle our cranky generator. If it turns on business continues as usual, albeit with an abnormally large proportion of staff plugged into the company’s modem. If not, we plunge a few decades back, recording all transactions and logistics by hand in a dimly-lit room without access to email or previous records.

It also currently appears to be the time of year for Lucky Money, as officials drop in to collect what they view as their fair due for not making our lives and logistics more challenging than necessary at various harbors and points of contact in the government. It’s during these times that Western employees tend to find reasons to conduct business from outside of the shop for several hours.

Changing weather brings changes on the bay, as well– jellyfish have surfaced in droves, massive blobs of color dotting the bay’s emerald channels. We’ve begun carrying limes and vinegar with us; the things are absolutely everywhere and surprisingly fast-moving.

With their appearance emerge jellyfish boats. A tall, slender bamboo pole stands at the basket boat’s prow, a spotter standing atop small crossbar fixed half way up. The boat pirouettes through the water as the spotter directs the driver and a third crew member, who scoops absolutely massive jellyfish with a net on a three-meter pole and piles them into the boat behind him. Their catch is staggering.

We’re also in the process of introducing Stand Up Paddleboarding to the company’s repertoire, which has served to highlight spectacularly the challenges of accomplishing goals which would prove so simple in the Western world. Our Vietnamese (Korean?) boards, promised to arrive with leashes and reinforcements for use in the bay, showed up with neither. Since the boards have demonstrated an alarming tendency to pop below recommended pressure, we’re playing a delicate game of trial and error as we determine best methods for safe storage and use. The distributor himself also appears to be denying responsibility for damage done to the boards while they’re in repair– not exactly sure how he figured that one out. When everything works out, however, navigating the bay by SUP is So. Much. Fun.

We’ve been without our usual boat for over a month now while it’s in repair, our interim boat has brought a new crew. One of the crew, Hung, a constantly happy guy in his mid-twenties, has taken it upon himself to introduce us to squid fishing on overnights. After dinner, we load into kayaks and paddle a short distance to where a family has a fine net submerged in the water beneath a glaring light in the otherwise black night. As we watch from the bamboo rails of the family’s fish farm, schools of squid circle beneath the light and a small child practices casting a lure to pass time. Eventually the lights dim and the men raise the golden net from the water, bringing with it dozens of small, translucent squid.

We paddle back to the boat through water glowing turquoise with plankton and eat squid with beer for dessert. Their ink turns our mouths and teeth black, and I manage to appall the crew by following their urging to turn ink into war paint smeared across my face.

As the tides shift (we’re on a 25-hour cycle here, with only one tide per day), DWS (deep water solo) season has also arrived. Getting onto the rock is a challenge in itself, since sea life and waves undercut walls throughout the bay. We chalk up and move to the boat’s prow, rocking in swell and chop, grasping onto specific handholds to pause as Anh Sang backs off to let us climb without the danger of falling from the wall onto the tender boat.

Climbing with nothing but water below me proves both exhilarating and terrifying, especially since I’ve never been fond of heights unless I’m attached to something. Emerald water waits below, however, and after sucking up for a jump or fall from the rock the sea welcomes me in a refreshing embrace before Sang circles the boat back around to retrieve me.

The man’s skills captaining a boat are nothing short of phenomenal (Although apparently he once parked a boat to wait for some climbers and managed to beach it as the tide receded, punching a hole through the bottom in the process). And on a personal level, I plan on getting a whole lot better at cliff jumping over the next few months.