STRANDED ON SOCOTRA
On March 13, 60-year-old retired schoolteacher Ray Montoya arrived on the Arabian Archipelago of Socotra, intent on landing what is thought to be the first permit on a fly from the war-torn country of Yemen. Three weeks later, the talented fly-tyer, photographer, artist, and angler was still there, grounded like the rest of us. But Montoya is not like the rest of us. A Navy veteran, he grew up in a third-generation military family, bouncing around the U.S. as a kid. He became a teacher after college, and in the late’90s began teaching internationally with his wife, Kerry. After a four-year stint in Papua New Guinea, the couple has spent the past 18 years living and teaching in Muscat, Oman. Montoya has landed more than 200 permit from Omani beaches, which stretch for more than 1,000 miles along the Arabian Sea. On April 2—Ray’s 22nd day on Socotra—he made an Instagram post of his temporary home: a mosquito-net-covered mattress lying next to a nylon tent, both sitting beneath a small, date-palm shelter at a skinny-water refuge called Detwah Lagoon. His post: “The line between camping and homelessness is beginning to blur.”
At just over 1,400 square miles, the island of Socotra is roughly the same size and shape as New York’s Long Island. But there are fewer than 60,000 Socotrans, so Long Islanders outnumber them by nearly 8 million. Politically and economically, the island is part of Western Asia, since it belongs to the country of Yemen (or , until June 20, when separatists backed by the United Arab Emirates seized control of the province. More on that later). Geographically, Socotra is more closely tied to Africa, sitting only 150 miles from the East coast of Somalia, and nearly 250 miles from the south coast of Yemen. A UNESCO World Heritage site, the island is believed, in some ancient writings, to be the original Garden of Eden. The place is so remote, so unique
