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The Spanish Galleon
My short Taino life
Karaya and Ni were known by their tribe as the Bimini Boys. They were twin brothers who were always challenging each other to feats of strength and endurance.
In another life hundreds of years ago I was Karaya. In the ancient and now forgotten Taino language, Karaya meant moon and Ni meant water. My twin brother and I were water and moon.
One day we were walking along the beach along the bay of our Caribbean island. To us, that island was the entire world and our entire world was surrounded by water.
As teenagers Ni and I were always competing with each other. We raced against each other to see who could run the fastest. We raced against each other to see who could climb a tree the fastest. We competed against each other to see who could catch the most fish. We competed to see who had the biggest muscles. We competed to see who could capture the attention of the most girls.
One day we were walking together along the beach of the island’s bay when we spotted a Spanish galleon sitting out in the bay. We had seen these ships before. They came from another world far beyond the horizon.
Ni and I had many swimming competitions. Often, we would swim out into the ocean as far as we could before turning back and swimming to the safety of our island. The one…
