Huckjive

There’s a big difference between purposely immersing your person into fresh water versus ocean water. First, what lives in a brown, mirky, slow moving river is quite different than what lives in the ocean (there’s no sharks in rivers as far as I’m aware). Second, when you step down on something mysterious and gross with your bare feet in fresh water, you squirm with disgust as you retract your foot from whatever rotted nastiness your toes are squishing between. Yuck! When you step down on something mysterious and gross in the ocean, you retract your foot much faster for fear of losing said foot. Yikes! I know all of this from experience.

There’s something else too. Bacteria. Now, I’m no germ-a-phobe, but I do know one thing: if you expose a wound (or actually INCUR a wound) while in the stagnant waters of a tropical creek or river, you’re going to get a NASTY infection. Usually within minutes. On the other hand, you expose a wound (even an actively infected one) to ocean water, it will get naturally cleaned out, disinfected, and put on the path to a quick healing. How do I know all of this? Well, from several painful experiences.

==========================================

Painful Experience #1:

Skimboarding in a tropical creek.

Purpose: FUN

Result: Multiple areas of near gangrene on my legs.

My buddies, Craig, Joey, Steve, Donnie, and Paul and I would every day after school skim board in this creek by my house.  The creek was glass-smooth, very shallow, and very black.  Anytime you do anything that involves standing on a moving board, you will fall.  Guaranteed.  And when you are moving very quickly on that board, you will fall hard.  Hard enough to lose skin.  Then, the black creek water of necrosis gets that new wound all nice and soggy, introducing all sorts of microscopic interlopers into your body.  My mom banned me from skimboarding in that creek after noticing the flies make camp by the dozens on my multiple oozing wounds.  Of course, that didn’t stop me, that only encouraged me to perform a painful daily rub down of rubbing alcohol on my exposed, rotting wounds.  Now THAT’s painful.

==========================================

Painful Experience #2:

Suffering the embarrassment of girls watching me in shock and repulsion as I repeatedly threw my scared dog into the ocean’s waves.

Purpose: Heal my dog’s open head wounds

Result: Trixie healed with a slight bald spot.  Conversely, I had suffered for months not being able to shake the “pet-abuse” label.

So, Trixie, our mutt terrier had somehow managed to not only get run over by a car in front of our house, but to also survive.   She was as good as new with the exception of a four-inch diameter lack of scalp.  She looked like she had just walked out of a doggie-labotomy hack job gone bad.  My dad’s philosophy on spending money on animals was limited to generic food (never the moist stuff).  Taking a pet to the vet was not an option in our house.  ”Dog’s can be replaced within an hour’s trip to the pound,” is what my dad would always say when we were crying over our beloved sick cat or dog.  So with Trixie, I bandaged her up as good as I could, but to no avail: – her head got infected.

This time my dad took action.  Take her to the vet?  Oh my no.  He and I drove Trixie to the beach to let the miraculous powers of the ocean water heal Trixie’s head.  That was the theory anyway.  The problem was that Trixie didn’t like water.  The other problem was that the beach was crowded that day with many of my peers that also included many very cute girls.  I groaned with my head hung low while carrying a violently resisting Trixie towards the crashing waves.  I prayed nobody would notice.  When I first threw Trixie into the water, it was too shallow.  Oh, sure, she tumbled around and got her head wet, but not a true SOAKING.  So I picked her up again and waded out deeper.  She whined and bucked hard as I went.  At this point, I had not only that feeling of being watched, but of being loathed.  I looked over my shoulder and sure enough some girl was pointing at me while her mouth was in mid yell.  I immediately dropped Trixie in a few feet of deep water.  Then after a quick, nervous glance at all the angry girls, I started waving my arms pretending good old Trixie and me were engaging in some sort of bizarre beach play.   This time it worked.  Her head was completely drenched.   I quickly scooped her up, muttered a few “good girl”s to her and bee-lined it to my dad’s truck.  I was glad it was over.  I was ready to go home.  My dad had other plans, however.

“She barely got wet,” he said.  ”Go back and dunk her over and over so the healing can really seep in.  Hold her head under the water if you have to.”  I resisted and argued,  but in the end, I was back in the water in front of many horrified beach-goers who were no doubt wondering what the dog could’ve done to deserve a public drowning.  Poor Trixie.  But hey, it was for her benefit, right?

So why do I mention all of that?  Because of the Pororoca.  

The Pororoca is a yearly weather phenomenon that creates a truly endless wave in the Amazon.  Surfing in that would be a total rush.  Minimal paddling! Maximum surfing!  But I can only imagine what risks and creeping death these guys are inviting into their systems as they ride the mighty Amazon.  Forget sharks, what about peronas?  Forget salt sting in your eyes, what about the Freaky-Amazon-Bacteria-Of-Death that get into your ears, mouth, wounds, and…eew…elsewhere… that do who knows what to you.

Maybe I am a germ-a-phobe.

Anyway, watch the video and enjoy.  Stay healthy.

Related posts:

1. Women’s Rights In the March 2010 issue of SURFER magazine, there’s a...