Sunday, January 9, 2022
Temperature: 83
Humidity 63%
Precipitation – Soon come
Category Archives: Caribbean
Blacktip Island Quarantiners Create Zoom Jigsaw Sessions
Blacktip Island residents home-quarantined due to positive COVID tests have banded together to do identical beer-label jigsaw puzzles in online group sessions. (photo courtesy of Wendy Beaufort)
Blacktip Island residents trapped in home quarantine this week created an online forum to simultaneously complete a communal jigsaw puzzle in real time, forum organizers said.
“There’s a shipload of Blacktippers testing positive for COVID, symptoms or no,” Kay Valve said. “We’re all stuck in our houses for two weeks, bored out of our minds and looking for something—anything—to do. Wendy Beaufort mentioned doing jigsaw puzzles, and the lightbulb went off. We may be isolated, but we can still do things together.
“Peachy at the store had a stack of identical ‘beers of the world’ jigsaw puzzles she got shipped by mistake, so she donated one to each person who’s been quarantined,” Valve said. “It’s been a sanity saver. And what’s more appropriate on Blacktip than a beer puzzle? We can all sort out puzzle pieces while we drink beer. What else are we going to do?”
Group members praised the sense of connectivity puzzling brings.
“We were all going bug-nutty trapped alone at home,” Jack Wrasse said. “The group started with Kay and Wendy on a Facetime call, then, when they realized how many people were quarantined, Kay created a Zoom room where we could all work on the same puzzle at the same time. Mentally, that’s huge.
“It’s not the same as being together in person, but at least there’s interaction,” Cobia said. “It creates a sense of community while we’re all stuck inside.”
Some noted a competitive turn to the puzzle solving.
“It started as a social thing, sure, but cooped-up folks can get belligerent,” Gage Hoase said. “Especially with their nerves on edge thinking they might have The Vid. Started with Sally Port and Lee helm racing to see who could put together the Heineken label first. Next thing we knew there were six, seven people all trying to get it first.
“We had to end the call once obscenities started flying in four different languages,” Hoase said. “There’s still puzzlers in the group who won’t talk to each other. And Lee’s set a real Heineken bottle on his puzzle table, just to rub it in.”
Others praised the competition.
“It lifts peoples’ spirits, the arguing and the oneupsmanship,” Stoney MacAdam said. “There’s no real violence or hard feelings, just a bunch of jawing. So far. And there’s usually multiple beers on the line for each puzzle piece, so it gets pretty heated.”
Island authorities encouraged the sessions.
“It keeps people occupied and in their homes, when, before, they might have been tempted to break quarantine,” public-health nurse Marissa Graysby said. “Also, when they’re in the Zoom room, I know right where they are. Anybody goes missing, I call the constable straight away.
“The big worry now is Peachy’s store’ll run out of beer,” Graysby said. “Beer consumption’s gone up 15, 20 percent in the last week, and if folks run out of beer, they’re likely to go roaming the island looking for more and start an uncontrolled virus outbreak.”
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Blacktip Island Weather
Sunday, January 2, 2022
Temperature: 85
Humidity 67%
Precipitation – Seriously?
Happy New Year!
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Blacktip Island Business Releases ‘G-oprene’ Anti-5G Scuba Hoods
The ‘G-oprene’ anti-5G wetsuit hood is the latest technical breakthrough developed and marketed by Blacktip Island dive equipment manufacturer Bamboo You. (photo courtesy of Peter Southwood)
Blacktip Island scuba equipment manufacturer Bamboo You this week launched a line of enhanced neoprene scuba hoods designed to block the effects of 5G transmissions above and below the water, the company’s owner said.
“With everybody wound up about these 5G waves zapping their brains, we decided to seize the opportunity to make scuba diving safer for everyone,” Bamboo You founder Piers “Doc” Plank said. “We put a layer of stretchable titanium-and-manganese webbing between layers of neoprene. That suppresses any harmful high-frequency electromagnetic fields.
“This isn’t some whack-a-doo, tinfoil-lined cap craziness,” Plank said. “Foil only protects up to 3Gs. G-oprene blocks everything. University tests proved it. And combined with our G-oprene masks, it’ll block COVID, too.”
Local scuba divers praised the hoods.
“Folks laugh, but the hoods work,” Chrissy Graysby said. “Since I started diving with G-oprene, I can concentrate better and don’t panic during dives like I used to. On the boat, my head’d buzz whenever anybody’d pull out a cell phone. Now the voices have stopped. The fish can talk to me, too. I can’t talk back, of course, but still . . .”
Others stressed the hoods functioned when not diving.
“I wear mine all day, even at meals,” Rocky Shore said. “Used to be, I’d hear music buzzing through my teeth. Show tunes. Always damn show tunes. You can only hear ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ so many times before you go bug-nutty. Now, wearing the hood, I finally got some P-and-Q.
“Your head sweats a good bit, and the smell’s pretty ripe at the end of the day, but it’s worth it,” Shore said. “My wife’s not a fan, but, bottom line, it’s not any more pungent than a nice Époisses cheese. The main drawback’s it makes me hungry. But it does pair well with a young Côte de Beaune.”
Some local divers remained skeptical.
“I’m not buying into that nonsense,” Nelson Seagroves said. “You look the damn fool. And are out several hundred quid. From what I’ve seen, they actually do quite the opposite of what Doc claims—they make people crazier by bouncing all their brain energy back at them. Or not, depending on the person and their brain. Or lack thereof.”
Island retailers have embraced the new hood technology.
“I don’t give a damn if they work, so long as they sell,” Eagle Ray Cove resort owner Rich Skerritt said. “And they’re flying off the shelves. Are they goofy looking? Sure. That’s how fashion crazes start. Give it a year or two and folks’ll be wearing ‘em everywhere.
Some islanders, meanwhile, saw more nefarious uses for the hoods. “Hostile foreign powers co-opted Doc years ago,” government watchdog Wade Soote said. “Got to be an idiot not to see he’s totally compromised. The Cubans’re using him and his gizmos to control peoples’ thoughts. Turn us into communists. Or socialists. Or whatever the bad people who aren’t like us are.”
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The Last Dolphins of 2021, Headed for the New Pier . . . er . . . Year
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Blacktip Island Weather
Sunday, December 26, 2021
Temperature: 86
Humidity 68%
Precipitation – Not a chance
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Nativity Battle Over Baby Jesus Erupts Between Blacktip Island Churches
Baby Jesus, currently in the Nativity display at Blacktip Island’s Interdenominational Baptist Church, is at the heart of multiple fights between the small island’s religious factions. (photo courtesy of Jerrod Ephesians)
Ownership of a Baby Jesus figurine in Blacktip Island Nativity displays this week exploded into multiple physical altercations between members of the small Caribbean island’s two Christian churches, church spokespeople said.
“It started with the Protestants stealing Baby Jesus from our outdoor Nativity scene and putting Him in theirs,” Our Lady of Blacktip’s Father Audley Crossblesser said. “Somebody swiped Him one night, bold as brass, and the next morning He was in their Nativity. We took Him right back, and the two congregations’ve been snatching Him back and forth like clockwork ever since. Last night we thought Dermott Bottoms was guarding our Nativity, but it turns out he was just passed out in the bushes and we lost Jesus again.
“There were fisticuffs at both Nativity scenes this morning,” Crossblesser said. “Those Baptists’re sneaky—they dress up like our parishioners, and even tried to buy some of us off. We walloped every one of ‘em we could find, though, and excommunicated all the traitors in our midst. Now we just need to get Jesus back. We got volunteers with lionfish spears planning a raid, but I can’t say more than that.”
Protestant church members disputed the claim.
“That figurine’s part of our Nativity. Always has been,” Blacktip Interdenominational Baptist Church’s Reverend Pierre Grunt said. “When we were unwrapping the figures this year, little Jesus was missing. Then, lo and behold, it turns up in Our Lady’s Nativity. Damn right we took it back. And smote the thieves in the process.
“This morning we wrapped in a bare, 220-volt wire around Baby Jesus to zap any would-be manger robbers,” Grunt said. “Lee Helm tried to snatch it around sunrise, and the current knocked him six feet across the parking lot. Serves him right, the filthy little Jesuit. They’ll need rubber gloves and gum-soled boots to steal Jesus this time. If they get past our congregants with broom handles.”
The island’s Ecumenical Council urged peace from both sides.
“It shouldn’t need to be said, but none of this is in the spirit of the season,” the former Reverend Jerrod Ephesians, council president, said. “Big picture, it’s a time for hope and for rebirth archetypes—Mary and Jesus, Isis and Horus, that kind of thing—not religious gang fights. We’re urging both sides to share Jesus until a replacement can be found. An empty manger’s a bad visual. Theologically, the message there’s pretty bleak.”
Others in the community want to eliminate the Nativities altogether.
“Those little statues’re graven idols, dude. That’s a big no-no,” Alison Diesel said. “And coveting a graven idol of Jesus? That’s fourth- or fifth-level of Hell stuff. Plus, Baby Jesus electrocuting people’s over the top even for this island. Fun as hell to watch, but over the top.
“People need to skip the bogus dioramas, chill and enjoy the season,” Diesel said. “Do a double shot of eggnog and watch the holiday movie of your choice. Or not. Just don’t be an a-hole or electrocute anyone.”
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Blacktip Island Weather
Sunday, December 19, 2021
Temperature: 84
Humidity 66%
Precipitation – Not today, Satan
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The Blacktip Times 