I Beg to Differ

For years our friends on the island assured us that there were no snakes here. They would just laugh and say that snakes could not swim across the bay. So what, I ask you, is this then?




Yes, it's a boa. And no, it did not escape from the zoo or anything like that. They do live here although it is a rarity to actually see one. About a week after Hurricane Wilma passed us by, we were lucky enough to be driving along and see this guy. He was leaving the residential area and crossing the street to the mangrove swamps. A few seconds after I snapped this picture, the guy in the white shorts picked up one very pissed off boa and let it go in the trees by those motor scooters. Amid much screaming from the girls on the scooters! I wasn't sure he was going to be able to let it go. I don't think he was much of a snake handler because the thing immediately coiled all around his arm and he had a heck of a time getting it off.

In 17 years of visiting and/or living here, we have only ever seen three other snakes here. And two of those were dead. The first one was brown with a green triangular head, squashed on the road downtown! I have never been able to identify it but it looked like trouble. The second was only the back half of another boa. It was during Hurricane Ivan and it had been forced out of the bushes across the street (!) and somebody had chopped it in half. The third and ickiest was under a rock I moved by our garbage can. It eventually made its' way into the house next door, slithering in right between the legs of the snotty teenage girl who came to the door in response to my calls that there was a snake on their porch. High drama ensued!