The Huge Lobster

Volume:

391

Some stories are too good to believe, and this is certainly one that someone had wished, and he used to swear that it was true. This senior citizen used to sit at the one and only barber shop in San Pedro and entertained friends and patrons with his tales. Don Chico’s barber shop was located exactly at Ambergris Seaside Real Estate.

There was this time in the 1940’s when this coconut farmer caught this giant lobster not too far from the beach. He actually saw these two posts shooting out of the water and he tied his dory unto them not knowing that they were the antennas of the lobster. He went into the bush to collect coconuts but upon his return, he noticed that his dory had been dragged to a different spot. As he approached his dory, he noticed that there was this huge brown animal which looked like a lobster. The man was obviously afraid but instinctively took the pole he used in his dory to attack the beast.

He pierced several times on the back of the animal which spun violently several times creating a mess in the sandy sea grass and its own blood. When he felt it was dead, he dragged it to shore with much difficulty, of course. He was sweating with exhaustion and fear when he was finished. Don Anselmo used his machete to carve out all the flesh from the lobster tail and loaded it into his dory. He could not contain his enthusiasm to bring it home to show off to his friends.

The believable part of the story is that he and his entire family and several friends ate different dishes from this one lobster tail for one entire week. But don Anselmo said that he also brought home the shell of the lobster tail and used it as a small dory by his children who play along the beach with their paddles.. Unknowingly to don Anselmo, this was San Pedro’s first Kayak as all other dories were dugouts from huge tree trunks. Fact or fiction twenty five years ago?

- by Angel Nuñez, Columnist