#celestum

Celestum, Yucatan – A sandy little town on the Gulf of Mexico with a salt water lagoon which is one of the few places in the world to see flamingos. We disembark and cross the street to the beach where we arrange for the launch to take us out on the lagoon and into the mangroves. It is my mother and I and 3 cubanas who speed over the shallow water before drifting in towards the lines of pink to get a closer look at the birds feeding, with the odd take-off and landing when they are disturbed by one of other boats out on the water.

When we’d seen enough, we speed along the mangrove line and then hooked a hard left into a hidden channel and started to explore the narrow waterways known only to the boatmen. We arrived at an “ojo de agua”, a beautiful bright blue spring of freshwater flowing up from the ground and into the mangroves before mixing with the saltwater lagoon.

As we disembarked onto the small wooden jetty, the boatman said that there was time for a quick explore or a short swim if we wanted to. The water looked exquisite, crystal clear and full of colourful little fish. I stripped off and dived right in – it felt exquisite too and even tasted a little sweet (“agua dulce” is how they say freshwater). I was splashing around and chasing the fish through the water and having a great time, when I looked up it seemed the others had decided to explore the mangroves on the boardwalk.

I swam across the pool to where it narrowed and flowed out to the lagoon and I followed the channel along a little way, it narrowed further sill and, suddenly, I felt a bit too close for comfort to the bank of roots; I had visions of snakes coming out from between them and decided to turn back. As I paddled round to my right I looked up at the bank just a couple of meters away and saw – black, green, black, green…the unmistakable camouflage of a crocodile tail. I panned right along the length of its body and head to the tip of the row of teeth and my blood ran cold. My mind race with half-forgotten, apocryphal advice on what to do in such situations – dogs smell fear, sharks smell blood, bears can’t run uphill, cows can’t go downstairs – what was the crocodile one? Should I splash and make noise to scare it or will that draw its attention to me!? In the end I did a bit of both as I half-crawled as fast as I could back up the channel and across the pool, with my head turned back, ready to go full speed if I saw it slip into the water after me, and with part of me expecting a blindside attack from its mother.

As I reached the steps, I couldn’t pull my legs out of the water fast enough; I scrambled up the slippery rungs and onto the deck looking wildly around to ensure that there weren’t any more of them lurking around the pool. As the relief washed over me I felt a wave of panic at how close I had been; in the water I was focused only on a swift and silent escape but the full horror of the situation now dawned on me and I let out a sob or two as I did a fearful little hop on the spot. Mother came back round the corner and asked what on earth the matter was, I whimpered and pointed to the further bank and then she spotted it – “Oh, Thomas!” she breathed! And then, “wait a minute, was that there the whole time? I was taking photographs of you”. We checked through the latest shots on the camera and sure enough, there I was, even closer than I had been in the channel, splashing and waving for the picture with the crocodile looking over my shoulder.

To this day I don’t know if it was sleepy, or simply full from the last lot of tourists that had been foolish enough to swim in there but I think I can consider it a lucky escape. One thing is for sure and that is that if the croc had come into the water after me, one of us would have gotten hurt!

Back on the open water with the wind in my hair, the shock and horror gradually faded and I realised that not only had I escaped with my life, but also, with a pretty cool story.