Or When Paradise Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be
Have you ever found yourself lying in the bottom of a boat containing four or five inches of sloshing water with your head stuck in a small compartment as you try to fix a bilge pump at 2 o’clock in the morning? Probably not. I made it almost 65 years without having the pleasure. But in October, a month before that special birthday, that’s where I found myself.
I kept telling myself that it was better than pulling a sunken boat off the seabed, but I wasn’t convinced.
Feel free to call me ‘soggy bottoms.’
I chose to do this reenactment without water in the bottom
It rained for two weeks, the wind blew, and the seas were very ugly. We had eleven people at the resort who wanted—no, expected—to go diving, and I can’t blame them. People take time off work and pay good money to be here to dive, so the show (diving) must go on.
It didn’t rain every minute of every day but it sure seemed like it because the humidity gets so high it feels like it’s raining. I was taking off wet clothes to put on less-wet clothes; nothing dries in that weather. And, as one would imagine, the diving wasn’t very good. Wind and rain—mostly wind—gets the water silty, but if we picked our spots we could get 40-50 foot visibility. Our spots were mostly on the other side of the island so we had longer boat rides coming and going.
But luckily, everyone enjoyed their stay thanks to Elizabeth and Laurie. Laurie and Yajaira (our cook) baked and cooked up a storm, and Elizabeth and Laurie made everyone feel at home with amazing hospitality and good cheer.
And me? I fixed bilge pumps at 2 o’clock in the morning.
For eight to nine months of the year, it’s good being on the Northwest side of the island because the predominant wind and current comes from the east. In the rainy season, however, we get a lot of northerners (that’s storms that come from the north) and they hit us fairly direct. The northerners aren’t particularly dangerous storms as storms go but they sure can be bothersome.
The wind and waves constantly want to bang the boats against the dock and each other and it seems that if I’m not worrying about bilge pumps, I’m worrying about boats not being tied properly or lines breaking. I learned really quick that the raincoats I use at home are no match for conditions here. No one bothers with rain gear here. If the rain doesn’t get you, the ocean will, and if the ocean doesn’t get you the humidity will.
We survived our first big group, and we survived our first ‘bad weather’ group. Unfortunately, they happened simultaneously. But all’s well that ends well. We got a couple good reviews on Trip Advisor, and, for me personally, I learned a lot about knot tying and bilge pumps.
[FYI: this post has been a long time coming. I got Covid again shortly after returning home from the afore mentioned episode. I was—to one degree or another—sick for a month. I lost my senses of taste and smell that I’d somewhat gained back from Dec. 2020 and the brain fog thing is becoming annoying. Life happens. I will get things caught up—a lot has happened and I have stories to tell!]
Next post: The Smith family goes to the DEMA (Divers Equipment Marketing Assoc.) trade show to try to book much-needed clients.
