Terror is a bandied about word. "I was terrified." "he was an absolute terror."
Being pursed by a lover, a big lover, a 450kg lover, whose sole purpose is to mate, now that's terror!
This bristly, blubbery, barnacled, beast lives at Port Resolution on the volcanic island of Tanna in Vanuatu about an hour and a half out of Port Vila.
We were there to photograph this leviathan of the deep and the local children were only too keen to jump into the shallow water and slap with their cupped
hands on the surface until the snorting, obese, overblown, corpulent mammal broke the surface and headed towards shore. The speed with which the little
children jumped out of the water should have been a warning.
A dugong is a cross between a walrus and a whale, neither known for their slender form. The back end has a tail like a whale and the business end is
walrus like with little flipper fins like arms. I ventured into the shallows and was immediately bumped over, a sign of affection perhaps? These creature
live on sea lettuce. Since there was none in the area, he was not overly friendly and definitely did not want to play. Some years ago the locals turned his
girlfriend into a party snack, the result - an overweight, sexually frustrated 450kg Casanova, who had no idea of foreplay.
However, at this stage we were still under the impression that he was just a big old friendly fat thing. How wrong we were!
The underwater cameraman, Andy Belcher, ventured out to take a snapshot of this seemingly docile dumpling. Whether it was the flash or being out of his
depth, the outwardly mild dugong, rolled upside down, not to smile for the camera, but to present a President Clinton invitation into the Oval office.
The dugong grabbed Andy in his small but powerful flippers and drove him through the water. From the surface it looked as if Andy was water-skiing, it
was only his terrifying screams amplified by his snorkel, that indicated he wasn't having a great time!
Eventually, the blubber beast let him go. We quickly swam to his aid and as a group of four headed him back to the beach. The dugong, fearing that his
date was leaving the party without a final kiss goodnight, attacked again and again, tearing off fins and leaving football sized love bites.
As we sat on the beach considering what might have been; the romance, the conception, being dragged to the bottom underneath 450 kgs of chubby lovey
dugong, no one suggested a cigarette or an exchange of phone numbers.
But the moral of the story is like your mother always told you, if you don't know whom you are dating, make sure you don't get out of your depth.
Unfortunately, since writing this feature the dugong has departed for the great sea lettuce patch in the sky, mostly likely from old age but the
locals say he had a broken heart - you can view the skeleton in a makeshift memorial at Port Resolution.
