Sunday, October 29, 2023
Temperature: 92
Humidity: 73%
Precipitation: Unlikely
Monthly Archives: October 2023
Blacktip Island Prepares For Day of the Dead Festivities
Jessie Catahoula (left) and Hugh Calloway won last year’s Day of the Dead costume contest at Blacktip Island’s Heritage House. The small Caribbean island’s residents will celebrate the day all day Tuesday. (photo courtesy of 5chw4r7z)
Blacktip Island residents will spend this weekend preparing for Tuesday’s island-wide Day of the Dead celebrations, the post-Halloween day of remembrance honoring loved ones who have passed away.
“It’s a-historical, but it’s become a thing here the last few years,” the former Reverend Jerrod Ephesians, Blacktip Island Ecumenical Council president, said. “It’s a combination of older Taino tribal influences, West African traditions of escaped slaves and rituals of Spanish navy deserters. They all had the same general idea, so we just mashed them together. It really pulls the community together, regardless of backgrounds.
“All the events and festivities will be in memory of our friends, family and forebearers,” Ephesians said. “The night will end with a vigil at the island cemetery. Truth be told, though, it’s also an excuse to get dead drunk. That’s why it became so popular so fast. This is Blacktip, after all.”
Residents say the remembrances go beyond friends and family.
“The two main Taino gods were the booby bird god and the land crab goddess,” Donna Requin said. “No one remembers their names, so we just call them Fred and Ethyl. During the festivities people snack on gingerbread iguanas and spun-sugar land crabs. The frigate birds get nothing. They’re a-holes.”
Numerous activities will accompany the Day of the Dead-themed food.
“There’ll be costume parades, a tall-tale-telling contest and dancing. Lots of dancing,” Doris Blenny said. “All of it centers around the idea that any of us could die any time. Like Joey Pompano did last year during the final drink-off at the cemetery.
“Folks’re encouraged to dress up like skeletons, as best they can,” Blenny said. “Peachy’s store’s already sold out of pool noodles. And garden hoses. And white paint and black cloth. It’s appropriate attire since the night ends with those still conscious getting drunk at the cemetery and passing out. To honor the dead, of course.”
Locally-produced coconut mead will be provided by monks from St. Dervil’s singing iguana monastery.
“Our coconut mead is the libation of choice on the Day of the Dead,” Father Poppy Bottoms said. “A couple of shots of that, you’ll be by-God communing with the dead. In a good way. We do encourage all celebrants to eat heartily before and during the festivities.”
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Blacktip Island Weather
Sunday, October 22, 2023
Temperature: 90
Humidity: 72%
Precipitation: Incoming
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Sinking Blacktip Island Has Residents On Alert
Rising waters on Blacktip Island have many residents worried the island is sinking due to the weight of new construction. (photo courtesy of James Mann)
Blacktip Island officials, alarmed at island-wide flooding this week, warned residents the small Caribbean island may be sinking due to increased construction.
“The island can only support so much weight without sinking,” Public Works chief Stoney Macadam said. “It’s a small island, with a small base that’ll only support so much weight. We already passed balanced-building regulations to ensure if something gets built on one side of the island, an equal something gets built on the other side to keep us from tipping over, but we didn’t factor in overall island-wide load capacity.
“We also didn’t factor in the weight of island visitors and their luggage,” Macadam said. “Our record tourism numbers this year are great, but they come at a price. Plus, most of our guests are healthy eaters, so the weight-per-tourist ratio is spiking, too. And this is right before our busy holiday season.”
Some locals blame tourism in general.
“Never had this problem before they started building all these resorts,” Fanny Basslet said. “Lots of concrete goes into hotels and swimming pools and such. Sandy Bottoms’ big-ass resort by itself probly sunk the island a couple inches. We warned folks about this, but they were too greedy. Now here we are.
“Land crabs are swarming, too. That’s a big sign something’s up,” Basslet said. “You look on the Mayan calendar, it’s got a panel about just this, but people don’t want to believe. Overloading our environment, and now we’re paying the price. Flooded roads and ponds’re just the start.”
Others scoffed at the idea.
“This is more of Stoney’s attention grabbing,” Tiperon University-Blacktip geology professor Leigh Shore said. “Water’s high, and roads are flooding, because of all the tropical storms. The ponds always fill up this time of year. I’d love for Stoney, or anyone, really, to explain, geologically, how the island could sink. Using examples and as much specificity as possible. This is self-imposed ignorance.”
The announcement has also sparked an island-wide surge in boat sales.
“Anybody didn’t have a boat, they got one now,” Peachy Bottoms said. “Most’re strapping ‘em to the roofs of their houses, so they’re ready to go if Blacktip sinks in a hurry. Got mine rigged up like that, packed with all my stuff. And I’m sleeping in it. Soon’s the water hits the top of my roof, I just cut the straps and away I’ll go.”
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Blacktip Island Weather
Sunday, October 15, 2023
Temperature: 92
Humidity: 74%
Precipitation: 50/50
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Drunk Drivers Enlisted In Blacktip Island’s Anti-Litter Campaign
Piles of empty beer bottles along Blacktip Island’s roadways sparked an island-wide anti-litter effort aimed at residents drinking while driving. (photo courtesy of Hwuongkom Yueiompua)
A marked increase in empty beer bottles along Blacktip Island’s roadways this week prompted island officials to launch an island-wide anti-littering program focused on the small Caribbean island’s drinking drivers to safeguard its tourism industry.
“Overnight the roadside beer bottle numbers have just exploded,” Chamber of Commerce Harry ‘Scratcher’ Wrasse said. “There’s always empties along the road, but this is out of hand. Island visitors are noticing, and commenting. Some have threatened not to come back because of it.
“We pitch Blacktip as a green, eco-friendly vacation destination,” Wrasse said. “Masses of empty beer bottles undercut that. We have roadside cleanup events, but we can’t keep up with it. I don’t know what’s causing it, but it has to stop.”
Island authorities have asked for locals’ help.
“We’re asking motorists to please keep their empties inside their cars until a suitable receptacle can be found,” Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. “We’re also asking island bars to not let patrons leave with open containers of any kind. Drunk driving’s a sport on this little rock, and there’s no practical way to stop it, but it shouldn’t be so messy.
“We hope residents will comply, and have been clear on what the next steps will be if they don’t,” Marquette said. “If folks won’t self-police, we’ll break out the roadblocks and breathalyzer tests. I don’t want to arrest half the island—we only have two cells in the jail, and if folks back me into a corner, I’ll be shipping them off to Tiperon.”
Environmental activists say the problem goes beyond esthetics.
“The bigger issue with all these glass bottles is they destroy wildlife habitat,” Greenpeace president Harry Pickett said. “The land crabs and iguanas can crawl over them just fine, but the hermit crabs are trapped on the roadways. They can’t get to food or water, then cars run them over. And some of the bigger ones are using empty beer bottles as makeshift shells.
“We’ve started nighttime patrols and stakeouts in problem areas to identify the miscreants,” Pickett said. “We’ll be naming and shaming whenever we make an ID. If shaming’s even possible on Blacktip.”
Other locals said the measures go too far.
“Got no right to tell us where to put our dead soldiers,” Dermott Bottoms said. “Been chuckin’ ‘em out the windows for generations. Don’t want that rattlin’ ‘round in the car. Part of island life. And island ecology, too. Only problem comes when somebody forgets to roll down their window, like James Conlee did last week.
“Tourists don’t like seein’ ‘em, they can go pick ‘em up,” Bottoms said. “Give ‘em another fun vacation activity, since they complain there’s nothing to do on Blacktip. Make a weekly contest of it, with free beer for the winner.”
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Friends And Neighbors, It’s Wednesday:
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Blacktip Island Weather
Sunday, October 7, 2023
Temperature: 93
Humidity: 76%
Precipitation: Not today
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The Blacktip Times 