Islands in the Stream

I've been following the path of Category 5 Hurricane Dorian for several days now as it inexorably swims through the West Indies toward my hometown of Jupiter where my dad, his wife, my aunt and uncle, and brother, sister-in-law, and nephew all live.

The hurricane is -- for now -- forecast to turn north and then northeast, barely missing them and, perhaps, the entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States, though the forecasted turn has yet to come and rather then continue a westward march, the storm has stalled completely over the Abaco islands of the Bahamas, creeping a measly one mph, slower than a crawl.

In doing so, it continues to ravage catastrophic destruction on these vulnerable islands. In tracking the storm, I was more focused on if and when it would strike Florida and didn't give much thought to what impact it may have on exposed, low-lying homes a mere fifty miles east of the Florida mainland. Stories making its way out of the small island country are not good. Houses reduced to match sticks. Roads flooded. And the rain is still falling. 

As small boys growing up in South Florida and having a boatsman and fisherman for a father, trips to the Bahamas by boat were a not uncommon feature of our youth. Kids in other parts of the country may have gone hiking or camping. My dad took his twin outboard sport fisherman fifty miles east with a friend or two and his three sons for several days spent constantly covered in salty sea spray. To say the trips were memorable would be an understatement.

There is no one specific trip that stands out. Rather, all of the trips have melded into one amalgamated memory of running barefoot on wooden docks, falling asleep on the fibreglass deck of the boat, shirtless, thin, youthful arm hairs coated with salt water and fish scales, shorts stained with chum and blood, exploring dark island hotels, thin, industrial-grade carpeting underfoot, power off or flickering in long, hot, air conditionerless halls, as a diesel generator struggled to stay on somewhere outside, and yet there was always cold drinks and beer for the adults behind tiki bars with a sole television set turned to the Weather Channel. 

We didn't stay in hotels often or eat at restaurants frequently. Usually, we slept and ate on the boat, anchored in a protected harbor. We literally ate what we caught. We would spend hours trolling through grassy flats 10 to 15 feet deep in search of conch. My dad would throw two ropes off the back of the boat and pull two of his son's behind him. When we saw a conch, we would let go of the rope, swim to the bottom, pick it up, and swim it to him waiting for us in the aft. If the lip of the conch was too thick, as though the conch had been punched in the mouth, the conch was inedible. We would learn to identify these conch before bothering to bring them back to the boat and just leave them at the bottom of the sea. Though you couldn't know if a conch had a thin or thick lip until you turned it over. They slept at the bottom of the ocean with their openings down, toward the sandy bottom. 

We would bring the conch back to the marina where a local Bahamian boy would crack them open for us with a knife, chiseling a hole in the conch shell, then inserting the point of the knife into the hole to cut the conch foot from the shell. The conch once pulled from the shell was a long white slimy, shapeless sea snail. The conch then needed to be "cracked", or turned from animal to meat. This involved placing the conch under plastic wrap and beating it with a mallet to tenderize it. This was a good job with someone who had a lot of pent up aggression and usually fell to me. Not because I had a lot of angst to expel, just because I was the strongest of the three boys at that age. The conch would eventually become conch fritters if we we're lucky, cracked conch -- fried whole like a chicken fried steak, my favorite -- or made into a conch salad with diced tomato, green peppers, and onion. 

We also speared for lobster. My dad would drop us off around a coral head. We would drive to the bottom, looking for a pair of spiny antennae. The lobster lived at the bottom of the coral, hidden in crevices in the rock. In the Bahamas, you can fish for lobster with a pole spear, a long slingshot with a hook at the end like a harpoon. In Florida, you can only catch lobster with a net and a tickle stick which is much more challenging. You have to position the net behind the lobster, then tickle him into it with the metal stick like a collapsible car antenna by tapping him on the antennae. Easier said then done. Spearing then was more efficient and satisfying. A successful hunt was the boy, spear held high above the water, swimming back to the boat with a lobster flapping its tale, impaled on the end of his spear. 

And, of course, we fished. On one occasion I clearly remember we caught enough yellowtail snapper to fill a plastic garage can, bringing them over the gunwale as far as we could lower the bait into the water and reel one up. 

We slept on the boat, too, on inflatable rafts under the stars, or, if it rained, in the cabin below. On one of our last trips to the Bahamas with just us three boys we spent one night in a protected cove near Marsh Harbor. The next day the seas had picked up, stranding us in the cove behind a prison of rocks. We tried to make a run for it in the afternoon when the seas laid down slightly, but we couldn't navigate the narrow passage for the waves and turned back. We spent a second night, all four of us crammed into the cabin below. I wouldn't hear the end of that night for a long time. Evidently, I sprawled out in the middle and slept that way all night without stirring. 

Days were long and the seas were wide and endless. Perhaps, a good respite for a young mind learning to be still. I imagined a life on those islands, very simple, in a cottage or shack along the sea. My daydreams were very Hemingwayan. I don't know if I could have been happy with a life that slow when I have consciously chosen a life so much faster. 

Sadly, now, it would be some time before I could go back there or take my own kids on such an adventure, if we wanted. Though this disappointment, too, is selfish. For a greater loss is the lives and homes washed away in the storm, never to be brought back.