Super-Butterfly

[Martin Hash]

My son, Heath, and daughter, Heather, came to visit me & my wife, Gwynne, on the island of Grenada in the Caribbean. They had been brought up as adventurers & wanted to experience the extremes of the island, the most infamous being jumping off each of the “Seven Sisters” waterfalls. Like danger magnets, we attracted other young people who had been wanting to go but could not find anyone to go with, so our small handful of intrepids took an island bus, private minivans that would take you anywhere for a few dollars, up to the trailhead.

I never went anywhere without my iPhone, especially an adventure, because I GPS-spiked every location we visited so I could eventually make Google Earth fly-thrus of everywhere we've been. I'd lost an iPhone by getting it wet before, accidentally dunked in the Dead Sea, so I brought a waterproof beach pouch which had been given to me by one of the island's many cellular service providers, and I dutifully put my phone into it, zipped it shut, rolled the top over & fastened the velcro. I couldn't actually use the phone though, which brought into question the utility of the pouch, but it was better than losing it.

After being dropped off, while we were walking along the muddy path towards the falls, a youngish local man appeared out of the thick vegetation. He was wearing a bright yellow running suit with a red bandana around his neck.
“Hi,” he introduced himself. “I'm Super-Butterfly.”
As a child of the 1960s, I got the reference but I don't know if my kids did? “Hey, Super-Butterfly, what's happening?”
“You need da guiding?”
“Seven Sisters?”
“Ya, man. I da best.”
Actually, he was. I'd heard about Super-Butterfly from other adventurers. They'd said he's the one to ask for if you want to illegally jump all the falls that could break your back if you landed wrong.
“How much?”
“Two dolla each.”
“Do you do all the falls?”
“Ya man, but we gotta be on the low down. They be watchin' now.”
Jumping off all seven falls, when most people rarely got to do anything but see the biggest one at the bottom was an awesome opportunity. Cheap at any price. “Let's go,” I agreed.

Super-Butterfly.jpg

7 Sisters 2.jpg

Great trip. Exciting. Dangerous. I would take my iPhone out of the waterproof packet at each fall & get a spike before leaping off. When we got to the 40-footer, Super-Butterfly warned. “You watch it. Da big jump, it rip that t'ing off you neck.”
So I dutifully tied the packet onto a beltloop & put it into a large pocket on my shorts & buttoned it in. Super-Butterfly looked at me suspiciously but didn't say anything.
When it was my turn, I dutifully showed no fear & jumped feet first over the raging water. OMG, it hurt the bottom of my feet on entry, plus my legs were numb from the impact & the cold. The thousand so gallons of white water cascading onto my head wasn't making it any easier. And my right-side ribs hurt like an SOB. One-armed, I awkwardly dog-paddled to the shore. Whew, that was a bad one. I figured I was finished after I took a spike & took pictures of my wife & kids coming over. But my iPhone was gone! On impact with the water, the plastic packet had been ripped from the pocket, smashed against my right ribs leaving a purple welt, and torn off my belt-loop. Nothing was left but a dangling belt loop. I was devastated. I couldn't even enjoy watching everyone else's faces as they leapt off the clifftop.

Heath was appropriately sorry for the loss of my precious iPhone with all its pictures of our trips & GPS spikes, not to mention its invaluable contribution to my everyday enjoyment of life. We talked about renting scuba gear & hauling it up to the falls but finding anything in that raging torrent seemed problematic at best & most-likely dangerous. However, we couldn't think of any other options so we asked Super-Butterfly what he thought.
“You canna scuba here,” he warned. De current rip off de gear.” We were crestfallen. “I get it for you.”
“What? How? That water's to dark & deep, how could you see? Impossible.”
“No. I be Super-Butterfly. It no problem,” and he bound out into the water.
For about 5 minutes Super-Butterfly remained bobbing behind the wall of water. “What's he doing? Did he chicken out?” Heath asked, perplexed.
“He's hyperventilating,” I answered. “So he can stay underwater longer.”
“Dude!” Heath exclaimed.
Then Super-Butterfly disappeared.
“He'll never find anything in that,” Heath opined, and as the minutes ticked off, he became concerned. “Is there something we can do? He's not coming up!”
Another minute went by... Then another.
“Oh my god, he drowned,” exclaimed Heath. And just then an arm burst through the surface holding my iPhone. And it still worked.

As a tip I gave Super-Butterfly all the money in my wallet, a couple hundred bucks. Cheap at any price.