s/v Annah Foster - My Last Adventure by Dennis Doak: September 2010

When I awoke this morning, I could not have imagined how this day would turn out, particularly after suffering through this miserable cold for the last 6 or 8 weeks with the accompanying bad attitude.
First of all, I was up much of the night, riding out the Tropical Storm Mathew, which, fortunately for us here on Roatan, took a more southernly route, hitting the mainland hard with rains and flooding, but sparing us here. Gusts to 50 knots were reported but at the dock where I have AF tied up, I heard nothing so severe, mostly because I am shielded by trees and we lay just behind a crook in the island where the waves do not reach. Still, it was a rough and rocky night and about 3am, I went out and tied an extra bow line on AF to the dock, as she was tugging and pulling at the bow, and I have little faith in this old dock, to hold us fast. I walked about half of the perimeter of Fantasy Island, looking for damage and trying to look out in the dark to the reef to see how big the waves were. It was hard to see in the dark, but there certainly was a very large white froth out there, and the wind tried to knock me down a couple of times, and the main beach at the resort was decaying, due to the waves passing over the protective reef and continuing into the normally passive little cove or bay in front of the resort.

Each time I experience a bad storm, it takes me back to a few days after my November '09 departure from Norfolk, when the remnants of Hurricane Ida broke my steering, 135 miles from Bermuda, leaving me helpless for 36 hours, as I tossed, pitched, and rolled in that angry sea. It was a very scary time for me. During the worst of it, when I really expected to die, I would look up at a picture of my Dad's smiling face and say "Well, Pop. What do you think of this mess I got myself into?" And he would look back at me from that picture, with that wonderful laughing smile, and make ME smile. We would share one more laugh together and afterwards, I felt that whatever happened, it would be OK. I would make the best of it.

This morning, when I awoke, I walked the resort again, this time circling the whole 21 acre island and sure enough, there is a tremendous amount of beach missing.

2 days ago, while checking on my friend, the octopus, I was in wonder when I saw a seahorse swimming by in the same shallows, but did not have my camera at hand to film it. I want to try to translate to you how amazed and grateful I am that I seem to be living a life that others view on Discovery Channel or National Geographic. Wow. I am regularly amazed at what I find in my new back yard, and the seahorse, and of course the octopus, really have brought that message home to my heart lately.
(Similarly, I remember my 3 months on Key Biscayne and noted that 'road kill', unlike Pennsylvania with its possums, squirrels, and ground hogs, there, is iguanas.)

So this morning, I pocketed my camera as I departed, expecting to post some pictures of damage, but it really was not that bad, and since you don't know what the beach used to look like, it would not make a great visual statement to show you the damage. But let me say this: A few posts back I referenced sitting on a lounge chair with a palm frond blocking my view, and this morning that lounge chair would be in 6 or 8 inches of sea water.

Also, when I awoke this morning, my heart was low, as today, back in Pennsylvania, the family of a departed friend is receiving visitors and I will not be there. Wally was an incredible man - US Marine - naval aviator, entrepeneur, successful businessman, and was half of a pair that I have described for many years as looking like 2 new $100 bills. As a couple, Wally and Lucy always looked so - what should I say here? - rich? happy? handsome? beautiful? successful? I don't know how to describe them but maybe that is not important. They are beautiful in their hearts, and an exceptional couple, and just scream out a joy of living. Wally and Lucy are part of my childhood - I will never forget that Chrysler Imperial sitting on King's Highway - green, right? and adulthood; mother and father to 2 classmates - one older and one younger - from kindergarten through, I think junior high, when our local school system sort of took a dive, and they were sent to private schools. (They had a wonderful dog that I think was the first really cleverly named pet that I remember - Danny Murtaugh.)
Annie and Nancy were 2 that I shall always hold dear to my heart. Annie, because she matured into a beautiful woman with, apparently, an incredible heart, and Nancy, who seemed to inherit every good gene possible from 2 beautiful parents, and I have had a crush on since about 6th grade. (She probably has a beautiful heart too, but, give me a break here - I remember the crush first.) Will never forget seeing Annie in '76 at the 4th and her telling me that finally, FINALLY, her hair fit the style of that day, as it had always been 'frizzy' or something like that - I don't know what - it was a girl thing. But, confiding in an old friend took a certain amount of self confidence, and I loved her for it - inviting me into her heart a bit. Nancy will never know how her smiles when we were singing - I think the Battle Hymn of The Republic in parts, not unison, in, for me probably 6th grade, made my heart flutter - a first love, or rather some fledgling version of it. In the family are also older sister Martha and young brother Robbie, but my memories center on Annie and Nancy. And Danny, too.
The other half of this pair - Lucy - probably will not remember this, but it was a BIG day in my childhood - My cousin Earl - an incredibly athletic kid - and I were playing on his front porch, and he showed me how he could go over the railing to the outside of the porch and inch across it until over the garage door, and then climb back over it to the safety of the porch. Me? I had to accept the challenge, and just like our friend Dick being able to climb up through his laundry chute, Earl could do it and I failed. I found myself hanging by my hands after my feet slipped off the little concrete ledge, and I was hanging for dear life with feet and legs waving around, looking for a toe hold. Earl must have been trying to hold on to me and pull me up, but I surely outweighed him by a considerable percentage, and my fate was certainly to drop to the driveway below, probably ending up with a broken ankle or leg. But up the hill - Alden Road - came Lucy in her Earl Sheib turquoise blue, bullet nose Ford, and hearing the commotion, stopped, jumped out of the car, and ran up Uncle Sam's driveway. Standing under me, she tried to get my feet onto her shoulders and lower me safely down, but, being the chubby, un-coordinated kid I was, I remember just lettting go, falling on her which blocked most of the fall and only having a hole in my scalp from a rock in the rock garden instead of what today, I sure would have been something broken besides skin. Crying like a 'little girl' I made it home to have my mom patch me up, and I am not sure to this day if Lucy got the credit for trying to save me.

Annie sent me a message the other day on Facebook, telling me that Lucy had asked her specifically to send me the bad news of Wally's passing, so that "I didn't hear it from someone else several months from now." I was so touched and really don't know why I merited such an honor, as well as wondering HOW she even thought of me at such an incredibly numbing moment in her life. But, it seems that Wally enjoyed following along with my travels and new life on this blog, and also was proud of me for the care I gave my parents. Those are two really cool things to hear, particularly from someone I admire so much.

So, this morning, knowing that 'el huricano' had missed us and that I was missing an important day back home, I set off to view the damage. (I want to say at this point, there really is something that is going to tie all of this together.)

One of the things I have wanted to do since arriving here, is to walk up onto the hill which is the center of Fantasy Island's 21 acres - a plateau or bluff. It is not part of the tourist's packet, but I had heard that there was a boa constrictor up there big enough to have eaten a fawn of these tiny deer here so I strayed to see just what was up there. The first thing I saw when reaching the plateau was a 30 yard long line of leaf cutting ants. An incredible sight. I almost stepped on them before I realized what I was looking at and then, that this was something I had only seen on TV. Below are 2 videos of them.
After walking a bit, sitting down for a break and cigarette, I realized that I was just in the middle of several bucks and a doe in their daytime beds, and disturbed their rest enough to make them get up and walk around. Also had several of these local critters - similar to capabari's or large hamsters - and got a video of one of them walking very close to me. Each seem to have little fear of me.

OK. This really is going somewhere, just abide with me another paragraph or 2. As I returned to AF, I stopped again to check on the octopus, and there in the water was a small fish nosing around for something to eat after the storm. It was a cow fish. Like the octopus and seahorse, I have never seen one of these in the wild. My video is pretty bad, but if you look carefully you will see it. Why is this related to Wally and Lucy?

My dad kept an incredible variety of 'stuff' in his top drawer, and as a kid, I thought it was a great treat when he took it down and put it on the bed to let me look through all those neat things - from an incredible collection of odd cigarette lighters magic tricks and old fountain pens and straight razors to a shot glass that, when held up to the light, had a slide of a naked woman. You just never knew what odd piece of junk Dad had brought home. It was so important to me that I took a box with some of them to Dad's memorial service, beginning the it by repeating this story, and pulling out some to show the folks who had come to pay respect. One of those things was a dried cow fish. Another was a dried seahorse. (Also included were an opium pipe and a miniature statue of the little boy peeing, the story of which Dad liked but that has nothing to do with this story.) It's the seahorse and cow fish. Stuff I had brought to demonstrate one little bit of what my father meant to me. And now in the last 2 days, I had seen both again, alive, in my 'back yard' and couldn't help but think of Dad.

Well, I can never forget Wally and Lucy that morning at the service, who had driven half way across the state for the memorial, as they were sitting directly in front of me as I stood at the pulpit - Lucy and Wally alternately laughing and then crying as I poured my heart out, trying to make a memorial suitable for my father. No public speaker, I had to hold the sides of the pulpit to steady my hands from shaking, I was so afraid. The top of my notes was for myself - "SMILE. TAKE A BREATH and SLOW DOWN". I cannot forget watching Lucy dabbing at her reddened eyes with a tissue as tears roll down her cheeks as we all sang Dad's favorite hymn - Jesus Loves Me - all the verses in the hymnal - and to this day, do NOT recall how I made it through them, or for that matter IF I made it through them. But I remember glancing up from the hymnal at Lucy at that moment, and the recollection comforts me for some reason.

So, to tie this together - The storm. The sea horse. The cow fish. Dad. Wally. Lucy. Maybe it doesn't really tie together, but is just a couple snapshots of how my thoughts progressed as the day went by.

With all the love in my heart, I dedicate this incredible day - no hurricane (thank God) and things happening that prompted me to return to a day 4 years ago when I showed those people Dad's silly dried seahorse and dried cow fish - this amazing day that reminds me what a great life I am living - I dedicate it to the memory of Wally, and wish I had been there to hug Lucy - share a laugh or tear - to see that beautiful face - those sparkling eyes. To stand with Annie, or Nancy or Martha or Robbie, as they said some last goodbye's to their dad, as I have mine. I cannot speak to feelings at the loss of a spouse, but if my life is any fair example, then the kids may rest assured that their dad will live on with them, silently guiding them, comforting them when down, smiling at their triumphs and laughing at the good times, as my dad does for me each and every day.

Well, after sailing through 2 Tropical Storms, it looks like I might see my first hurricane. The rains and winds have picked up since last night. Invest 95 (a designation of NOAA or the NWS for watched, numbered low-pressure systems) was upgraded and named Tropical Storm Mathew today. The tracking map above, from Weather Underground, an online weather site I use, is estimating now that Mathew will upgrade to a Cat 1 hurricane sometime Saturday night or Sunday morning just a 100 miles or so ENE of my location. The last green dot before turning to yellow, on the map above, is about where Roatan is located.
Today I saw that a few, or perhaps all of the boats on the front side of the marina have moved and tied up to trees on the very back side between Fantasy Island and Roatan Island proper. The front side is much less sheltered and it is a wise thing to do, but I am not sure what to do here, other than doubling up lines, perhaps to trees instead of the dock. The local weather forecast never shows really high winds - between 30 and 35 knots. I have been on anchor in worse winds than that.
(As an aside - I looked up the history of Hurricane Ida today, online, because I never really understood what exactly struck me last November. The internet shows the track onto the US coast but stops as, I think, it quickly degraded. But the weather system that continued north east looked like a huge thunderstorm, covering many states, and killing 4 in the US as it passed back offshore into the Atlantic. I heard from friends in Norfolk that the surge put the water almost to the top of the floating dock pilings, where I stayed prior to departure. But I have always imagined that Ida remained an organized storm and strengthen again after moving back offshore. From the historical weather maps, it just appeared as a huge rain storm. Now I know.)
So, for now, I will remove all I can from the deck and see what tomorrow looks like.