Paradise Almost Lost

Alex was the ultimate planner of vacations. He would lay in bed with his ipad perched on his chest on top of a pillow.  He would endlessly search for the perfect undiscovered paradise.  How he figured out in 1986, without the use of Google or the world wide internet (a phrase he often used),  that St. Kitts was a magical island that would provide magical memories that would unfold to this very day, is uncanny.  His commitment to vacation-planning tasks is how we ended up traversing the Grand Bahamas in 1984 on a twenty-five foot sail boat with two other couples. It is also how we ended up in St. Kitts on our honeymoon following our wedding day, July 11th, 1986. The unknown and unexposed was his relish.  

Thanks to his beloved life-long friend and college roommate Kevin, who heroically and sleepily drove us from Austin to San Antonio in the wee hours of the morning after our honeymoon, we did not miss our early six a.m. flight to our tropical destination.   I remember being curled up in Alex’s arms sitting on the cold tile floor in the San Antonio airport, as we leaned on a wall and tried to stay awake.  I was dreadfully hungover and anxious about the six and a half hour flight to the tiny island of St. Kitts.  We landed safely on the small West Indies island in the middle of the West Indies/Bahamas in the early afternoon on a Sunday.  The weather was beautiful.

I took his hand and followed.  We were in a place far different from most of our prior adventures.  The small sparsely populated island welcomed their visitors with their fate-tempting short airport runway and a schoolhouse terminal.  The appointments were simple but sufficed.

Per his impervious record, our honeymoon experience was beyond expectations.  Memories made that will never be forgotten.  One, in particular, is when Alex saved my life.

Jak Tar Village was a mid-level, mid-starred resort property brightly painted with light blue trim.  This virtually undiscovered island in our big world delivered clean and adequately furnished amenities.  A refreshing pool, and an all you can eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks, etc.  The Atlantic beach side of the island, a short walk due east of Jak-Tar, was there for the adventuresome traveler — surf was consistently choppy and somewhat turbulent coming in from the Atlantic.  The relaxing allure of the calmer Caribbean was merely a mile away in the opposite direction — beckoning guests to the black sand beaches and Monkey Bar Beach charm.  

Having been the beneficiary of Alex’s well planned tropical vacations, I had experienced the beauty of snorkeling off the coast of Cozumel and Tulum, and Green Turtle Cay in the Bahamas.  Floating effortlessly in all of these calm beautiful waters, the closest I had come to my demise snorkeling was off shore in Cozumel where the small rented boat was fifty yards away from the not so small bull shark.  Luckily the encounter was uneventful and very brief.

On our second day on our seven day stay, we walked to the calmer Caribbean side of Jak Tar and decided to explore snorkeling right off the black sand beaches which were sprinkled with Kittitians relaxing on sturdy beach furniture.  Immediately, the large sand dollars and conch shells came into view, along with brightly colored small fish.  This underwater world made me giddy as we floated fifteen to twenty feet above.   The description is cliche: beautiful, crystal-clear, blue-green waters, playing host to the most colorful fish, eels, coral reefs, and other beautiful creatures.  The magnitude of Alex’s research was paying off as our bodies floated twenty feet above some of the most pristine waters we had ever experienced.  

But, as quickly as we let our thoughts and minds succumb to this new world of beauty, something else was tracking from the Atlantic.  The swath of land from from the Atlantic shoreline to the Caribbean Sea was perhaps less than two miles shore to shore at our particular location.  Storms and squalls coming from the Atlantic side would travel across the island quickly and often.  

The ease and excitement for this unescorted and spontaneous snorkeling excursion pushed our limits as we ventured further from shore and closer to the open Caribbean sea.  Rounding a peninsula opened up another set of tropical wonders.  Translucent shrimp and other larger fish made appearances.  We were thrilled at our new discoveries but decided that it was time to turn back to shore.  As quickly as the small fish could dart behind the coral reefs, the skies darkened to midnight blue,  and our calm waters started to churn.  The brightly colored blue sky quickly filled with torrential rain and the shoreline was replaced with whitecaps smashing us in the face, blocking our view of the shore.  

A seasoned surfer and snorkeler, Alex stayed close to me.  Blowing the water out of the small hose that served as my oxygen lifeline was less familiar and practiced to me in my limited knowledge of calm water snorkeling.  My snorkeling training was self-taught and always in calm waters.  But now,  I was quickly taking in water through a tube that was supposed to be filled with air.  My panic took over.  How did the sky become so dark and the waves so big so quickly?  How did we not know there was a storm on the horizon? There was no warning to this nightmare.  The fins were no match to the beating waves that wanted to take me the opposite direction I needed to go.  In minutes I became exhausted from the pounding waves wanting to take us out to sea.   Alex began to dive underneath me and push me up to the surface for air.  He screamed over the waves and through the pounding rain for me to blow the water our of the tube but I panicked and couldn’t grasp the concept, and my arms were becoming jelly.  Over and over he would dive underneath me and push me up for air.  I could hear the fear now in Alex’s voice as he willfully screamed for me to use my snorkel and blow the water out.  He was tiring as well, and we were easily over a hundred or so yards from the shore that we could not see and a storm that would not stop.  The peril of our situation was becoming real.  Our screams in the squall for help would have been futile.  Diving underneath the water and pushing me up for air took the place of Alex’s calm, effortless and relaxing float.  Now the only effort was to breathe.  I remember our eyes meeting and that we both were fearing the worst.

The whole event probably took place in three to five minutes.  Our savior was God and mother earth.  As quickly as our safe waters had turned to whitecaps and turbulence, it just as quickly melted into velvety smooth waters once again as the rain disappeared.  The squall had performed its tasked of watering the island and quickly made its way to the open sea.  The sky opened up to the brilliant blue it had been before.  We could see the shore.  Our elation that we were not going to die was palpable.  We swam with urgency and care to shore.   Still exhausted and weak, Alex yelled for help to assists me from shore to black sand.  Our shore mates clueless as to the amazing life-saving rescue Alex, my brand new husband, had just performed.  He then headed to the Monkey Bar for a couple of Guinness beers made fresh on the island.  He was then and still is my hero.

Birds of Paradise were our flowers of choice for our wedding. We loved the bar Paradise on 6th Street in Austin, Texas, where Alex bartended for seven years prior to his teaching career. Our wonderful friends Ron and Mel reluctantly allowed Paradise to shut down early as my over served self and attendees of my bachelorette party took over Paradise on 6th! One of my proudest and hardest fought moments!