MARIA log, November 26, day 65, Sunday

Sunday, November 26, day 65

Another no rain day. Could it be that we're actually going to have a winter dry season? We haven't had one in the last two years.

In the summer and fall of 2015 we were in a drought so severe that water was rationed in some areas. Then, in January, 2016, in what should have been the dry season, the Pacific weather patterns changed. The El Niño pattern, which means dry conditions for us, switched to La Niña, which means wetter weather. It started raining in January, 2016, and hasn't stopped. That's the biggest reason scuba diving has been so bad for two years. When it rains in the mountains, "stuff" washes down the rivers and into the ocean. That stuff from the mountains screws up visibility.

It would be nice to have some "normal" wet-dry seasons for a change. I say that recognizing that when we talk about weather, there is no "normal" any longer.

I got some things done today. I built the first half of the house fence gate and installed it. I hope to have the other half built this week. We moved the old not-working ice freezer from the bar to "Rancho Raquel" where the horses are. We've been storing grain and other horse stuff in it here at the house. Now we'll have lockable storage right on site.

We were home for dinner tonight. When we're at Carole and Rolf"s we have light because of the generator. We come home  to complete darkness and flashlights while we get ready for bed. Tonight it was darkness for the whole evening. It is really dark down here! But we can see a lot more stars.

MARIA log November 25 Day 64, Saturday

Saturday, November 25 day 64

Another sunny no rain day.

Off to Home Depot in Hatillo for fence posts. Not many people on the island seem to use T-posts but suddenly they are a hot item. The 50 posts that were "no problem" on Wednesday? Today there were only 38 posts in Hatillo. The Home Depot in Bayamon had 0. Ultimately we need 80 new posts. Oh well. We'll start with what we have.

Even more than usual we have to piece things together. It is very rare to find everything we need in one place. Most projects take at least two an frequently more stops.

After my early morning trip to Hatillo, we decided to check out the beach and the water at Wishing Well. Wishing Well, or Peña Blanca, has always been one of our favorite snorkeling spots. The reef, with beautiful soft seafan and featherduster corals waving in the current, starts right at the beach. It is home to schools of blue tang, ocean surgeon, and sargent major fish and almost always a turtle or two. Or five. Or six.

Once little known and little used, the two beaches stretching on either side of a rocky point have grown in popularity in the past two or three years. Where once we could have the whole place to ourselves, lately it's been hard to find a parking place.

Today there is no sand anywhere. Both sides are bare rocks and boulders. The rocks are always there, they are just usually covered with sand. And it's not only the beach. In the water the sand was stripped away by storm-driven waves leaving a treacherous foot-grabbing rocky entry.

In the water we found pretty much what we've come to expect: visibility about 30' and murky. Most of the soft corals were stripped away. A few remain in some of the cracks and crevices where they were protected.

There is hope however. A number of small featherduster corals have taken hold. And, we saw a juvenile hawksbill turtle.

It's not the Wishing Well we've known; it won't be for a long time. But there is hope.

NOW...November 24.

I went back to dive Crashboat today, almost exactly a year after seeing it for the first time after the hurricane. There is more life, more fish, more species of fish, than when I saw it a year ago.

There is a lot of beauty. You just have to be a bit more patient and look a little deeper to see it.

Swimming through the wreckage I am still in awe of the power of nature, the power of wind and water to do this.

MARIA log, November 24, Day 63, Friday Collateral Damage

November 24, Friday, day 63 Collateral damage

A friend's co-worker was taken to the hospital last week with undiagnosed respiratory distress. She had no history of respiratory or bronchial problems. No history of asthma even though that is pretty common on the island.

(Puerto Ricans have a higher incidence of asthma than the general population. For a long time "they" [whoever "they" is] thought it was because of the dust from the Sahara Desert in our atmosphere [that's a story for another time]. It turns out people of Puerto Rican descent, even those who have never lived on the island, have the same higher incidence rate. No one knows why.)

For a while doctors weren't sure she was going to survive. Fortunately she pulled through.

She was one of many many people looking for medical help for new, never-had-'em-before respiratory ailments. At Helping Horses at the Picadero, we're hearing the same kinds of things about horses. Many horses are having trouble breathing, just like KTJ and Zip.

There were so many people reporting respiratory distress the specialists (breathologists?) got together to talk about it.

Their conclusion is all these people - and animals - having breathing issues are collateral damage from the hurricane.

I've never heard this phenomenon discussed after any other hurricane or disaster. When we think about hurricane damage, we think about - and the media focuses on - in damage to stuff: houses destroyed or damaged by wind, rain, or flooding; downed powerlines and trees; blocked roads; grieving people. In the aftermath we are fed images of lines for gas, food, water, medical attention.

Slowly, those lines disappear. Things appear to return to some semblance of  "normal. The public - those who aren't directly involved - get tired of the disaster. The media moves on to the next big disaster somewhere else. Meanwhile, there are people and animals with on-going respiratory ailments and only a handful of people are asking "why?" and "why now?"

When Maria blew through the island, she stripped all the leaves, broke limbs and toppled many many trees. Estimates are between 60% and 70% of the trees on the island were damaged or destroyed. Fields and pastures were stripped of grass and other vegetation. "Things" in the soil below were stirred up into the air.

Those trees were a massive air filter, changing CO2 for O2, capturing dust and spores and goddess-knows what else, cleaning and filtering our air.

We talked in the first days about how bare everything was. The hills and cliff sides looked like they'd been hit by a devastating forest fire, except the spider-y trunks and branches weren't black.

In the second week after the hurricane, when the first tentative flashes of green appeared, we remarked how quickly Mother Nature was rebounding. Now, two months later, there is lots of foliage returning.

But it is an illusion. It is just a fraction of what it was.

Every truckload of debris - and there are hundreds, thousands of them - is full of trees that used to clean our air. The huge dumpsites around the island are the repositories of thousands, maybe millions, of leafless lifeless trees. Even those that survived and have new foliage are caricatures of themselves, trees from a Tim Burton movie or a Dr. Seuss book.

With 90% of the island still without electricity thousands of gas and diesel generators bun constantly. Now that gas is plentiful and relatively cheap ($.70 - $.75 per liter, roughly $2.66 - $2.85 per gallon) traffic is worse than ever.

The diggers (front-end loaders) and dump trucks block roads as they scoop up the bones of trees, stirring up the dust those same trees used to protect us from. Long lines of cars back up behind the diggers and trucks. Memories are short: people have already forgotten about the lines for gas just a month ago. The sit in lines, going nowhere, with engines running and air conditioners going full blast.

There is no wonder that people and animals are having difficulty breathing.

NOW Thursday, November 22, Thanksgiving

"We are born in one family. If we are lucky, we get to choose another family in addition to our birth family. I choose this family. And I am so grateful!"  --Carole Dyce, Thanksgiving, 2018

And we are a family! We've been through so much - good and bad, mostly good - together. This year we are especially grateful for the members of our chosen hurricane family who couldn't be with us for Thanksgiving last year because they were stuck on "the other side," off-island: Anna, Penny,Vivian, Lee.

What a difference from a year ago! We have lights and water and more people.

And even more food. Last year our turkey dinner was a surprise. On Tuesday night, just two days before, we talked about which of our post-hurricane dinners we would have for Thanksgiving. Grilled cheese? Peanut butter and jelly? Tuna salad sandwiches? Pancakes? Yes! Pancakes for Thanksgiving! How appropriate! And then Jeremy showed up with a turkey. In the immortal words of Arlo Guthrie, "we had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat."

This year we were back with Carole and Rolf, in what has become one of my favorite places in the world - their back patio. And to quote Arlo again, "We had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat."

But the best, the part of this I am most grateful for, is the people, our extended chosen Puerto Rican family. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving.

To  our birth family and our friends wherever you are, we love you and miss you, more than you can know. We are so incredibly grateful for your love and your support. We hope your Thanksgiving was full of love and joy and wonder and gratitude.

Ours certainly was.

MARIA log Day 62 November 23 Thursday

Thursday, November 23 day 62

Happy thanksgiving! Amid all the chaos and craziness, we have so much to be grateful for, starting with each other. I don't tell here nearly enough but I am beyond words grateful for Elaine in my life. I can't even imagine going through this with anyone else.

I am grateful for our kids, even the one who hasn't returned a message or phone call in almost two years. I am especially grateful right now for our renewed relationship with Steven. I am grateful for Amy's strength as she goes through a shit-storm with Miguel.

I am so grateful to our extended Puerto Rican "family" who have meant so much over the past couple of months and the past 11 years.

We spent a quiet but wonderful Thanksgiving evening with a big part of that family: Rolf, Carole, Jeremy, and neighbors Judy and Anthony. Huge thanks (again!) to Jeremy for getting the turkey and cooking it in his oven with power from his generator. An huge thanks to Elaine who spent most of the day Jeremy's kitchen fixing turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and apple pie!!!!!

Later in the evening we got to spend time with our fabulous musician friend Rique and his wife Raisa. We didn't know it but Raisa is a film maker. We got to watch a couple of her videos Very very cool!

Today was sunny and warm all day. Just a tiny bit of rain--barely enough to get the ground wet--in the evening.

We took advantage of the weather this morning to spend time with the horses. They all got bathed and groomed. Chocolate got a good workout (thanks to Marie, not me) which he needed. KTJ and Zip are both breathing better and KT is starting to put on weight, which is good. Maybe they are finally getting over their hurricane stress.

While Elaine and Jeremy cooked this afternoon, I finally got in the water at Crashboat. The legs of the long pier are like pick-up sticks. I just snorkeled today. Maybe next week I'll get to dive there. It's pretty surreal.

A least I got salt water on my skin!

MARIA log Day 61 November 22, Wednesday

 Wednesday, November 22 day 61

We go new fence wire today so we can fence new field areas For the horses at Rancho Raquel. A huge "Thank you" to the people at Jeffers for waiving the $86 shipping costs and for sending wormer for the horses. Such amazing generosity! And we truly appreciate it.

Now we need T-posts to put up the fence. T-posts aren't easy to find here under the best of circumstances; not many people use them. Home Depot is about the only place to get them.

In the aftermath of the hurricane T-posts seem to be a hot item. I drove to Mayagüez and they had one. Count 'em: 1! I had the Mayagüez store check with the Hatillo store. Yes, they have them. How many do you need? I need 50 6-foot posts. No problem.

I couldn't get to Hatillo today. I hope they still have them when I do get there.

On the way home from Mayagüez I realized that's the farthest I've been from home since the hurricane.

MARIA log, day 60 November 21 Tuesday

Tuesday, November 21, day 60

Wow! Clear, bright and sunny all day. No rain.

I started working on the fence around the house. It was completely wrecked by wind, flooding. and falling trees, but I managed to salvage most of the boards from the front fence. The bamboo fence and supporting framework is a total loss.

We waited all day for news of a shipment of horse supplies. Five pallets of stuff have been sitting at the airport in San Juan. Hacienda, the island tax department, wanted us to pay $500 import tax on aid donated by one nonprofit to another nonprofit to be given free to horse owners in need. It's taken nearly a week to straighten that out.

If this is the way all the aid to the island is being treated, no wonder so little is getting through to those who need it.

The truck with the supplies finally arrived just before dark. Elaine ha a couple of friends/volunteers to help unload. In a couple of hours we had it all unloaded, sorted and stacked. The bad news is there were supposed to be five small generators in this shipment. Somehow, when they started loading the truck at the airport, the generators weren't there. Hmmmmm...

This isn't the first shipment that's gone missing. A pallet of 40 bags of grain went missing at the airport in Aguadilla about two weeks after the hurricane.

Back when we took the RAM (Remote Area Medical) people to Iglesia Ciudad de Salvación, I had a conversation with their pilot Ron about who should be providing aid. Based on his reading of writings of the Founding Fathers, primarily The Federalist Papers, his premise is the Federal Government has no business being in the natural-disaster relief business. In his view the proper providers are church and community groups like Iglesia Ciudad de Salvación. (There is a certain irony in his use of The Federalist Papers to support his position. The Federalist Papers were written to create support for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Alexander Hamilton and the other authors advocated a strong central government.)

While I absolutely agree that the people at Iglacia Ciudad de Salvación are doing an infinitely  better job than either the Puerto Rican or U.S. Federal government of getting relief in the hands of those who need it, their efforts, like ours with horse owners, points out the greatest inherent weakness of this system: resources.

Even now, more than two months after the hurricane moved on, there are still a huge number of vulnerable people--and horses, dogs, and cats--on this island.

But the hurricane is history, old news. People in the States have given, donated, sent care packages, supplies. The storm is over. Things are getting better, getting back to "normal." Right? There is gas for cars. So 75% of the island still doesn't have electricity. Generators are back in stock at Home Depot. Even the grocery store has generators for sale. Yeah, some things are hard to come by but there were plenty of turkeys in the stores for Thanksgiving. For those who could afford them. And those who had a way to cook them.

Ciudad's big stocks of supplies are gone. Except for small trickles of individual donations, there aren't anymore supplies coming, for either people or horses.

Don't get me wrong. I do not believe the government has a duty to feed our horses. I do believe the government has an obligation to help people. The government has the continuing resources and the ability to deliver them as long as the need exists. Community groups, like the church and our local efforts to help horses, only have resources as long as donors keep them supplied. Once those donations dry up--and they are drying up--community groups have nothing left to give, no matter how much they want to.

MARIA log day 59 November 20 Monday

Today's best moment: talking with our friend Nancy in Kalamazoo. Nancy has gone through several years of major health and medical issues. She and Elaine started the "Best Moments" movement to help Nancy focus on positive things when her world is so full of negative.

Well before the hurricane, Nancy sent me a hat that has "Life is Good" on it. Little did either of us know at the time how important that hat would become.

Every day since the hurricane, every time I go out, whether standing in line for gas or money or going to the grocery, I've worn that hat with that message. Life is Good! In some of the darker moments that hat is a reminder to me and--based on comments I've received--for others as well.

Today I got the chance to thank Nancy personally--even only by phone--for her great gift.

No rain today but cloudy all day.

Wipes. You know like baby butt wipes. Who besides parents of small kids knew how important they are?!

Since the hurricane, wipes have become an integral part of everyone's kit. Early on, when there was no water for showering, wipes were critical. We washed our hands, faces, armpits, necks, and other parts with wipes.

Now we don't know how we ever got along without them. We have them in the car, in the truck, next to the bed, in the kitchen, the bathroom, with the horse tack. I haven't been diving yet but I'm sure I'll find a reason to keep them in my dive gear tub.

Thank you to everyone who sent us wipes! You have no idea how useful they are.

MARIA log, Day 58, November 19, Sunday

Sunday, November 19 day 58

Now 60 days without electricity.

Aye!Early morning rain--again! In fact it rained on and off all day.

In between raindrops I started rebuilding the wooden front fence, We not sure what we're going to do around the rest of the yard where the bamboo fence was before the hurricane. Anything is going to be expensive. For now we're putting up web construction-site fencing. Its not exactly secure but at least it marks limits.

We went to see Sprocket and Kiki and Kieshla today. Kiki is doing a great job with Sprocket. That boy just looks better and better! Kiki is actually riding him.

MARIA log, Day 57, November 18, Saturday

Saturday, November 18 day 57

Light but steady rain most of the morning. then grey all day.

The rain and the fact that today is the biggest cabalgata on the island made it a slow day at Helping Horses.

What's a cabagata you ask? In the simplest terms, think poker run or pub crawl on horseback. In a normal cabalgata 10 or 15 or so riders get together for an afternoon and/or evening of riding, drinking, partying, and fun.

On this weekend every year riders and horses from all over the island descend on Aguada, two tows south of us. They come in custom-made trailers and home-made trailers, in the backs of fancy pick-ups and POS pick-ups. Locals just ride their horses. In a good year 2500-3000 (no one know exactly how many) horses and riders pack the streets and back roads of Aquada. Whole streets and neighborhoods are closed by the horse traffic.

Most of the time the horses manage to find their way back to their trailers or stables. Which is good because a great number of riders are in no condition to navigate. They probably shouldn't be on horseback at all.

One of these years we're going to ride in the Aquada cabalgata. Or maybe just go watch from a bar.

MARIA log, Day 56, November 17, Friday

Friday, November 17, day 56

Woke up this morning to the sound of rain! Imagine that.

Fortunately today was just morning rain. This afternoon we got a big load of stuff for Helping Horses: 43 bales of compressed alfalfa, 23 bales of hay, bags of grain and alfalfa cubes. It wasn't raining when we unloaded all that.

Pizza night with Carole and Rolf. It was kind of a subdued pizza night.

NOW October 26, 2018

For me lately it's been all about the horses.

First it was the rush to get ready for Cass's arrival. Getting him here took a couple of days longer than we anticipated. He finally arrived safely, if a bit scraped up from his experience. He adapted pretty quickly to his new home.

After Cass got here, we had two weeks to get ready to move our other four horses. We had to build two more corrals, another pasture, and a training square pen. All of our corrals and pastures are fenced with electric fencing, not hard boards. For one thing, electric fencing is a lot less expensive than board fencing. It's easier to repair and it's easy to move or reconfigure. Normally  we use metal T-posts for the electric fences. Because most of our T-posts were already in use in the existing pastures, we decided to use "palos"--Puerto Rican cut-from-the-woods fence posts--for the corrals. Using special insulators, we can attach the fencing wire to the wood posts.

So what's with electric fence anyway? For those who aren't familiar, it is a fairly common fencing in the U.S. Here in PR, not so much. We use a poly rope with wire embedded in it for the line. An energizer--a source of electricity--is attached to the lines. We use solar-powered energizers. We don't need a connection to electrical service so we can put them anywhere, even in remote fields where there is no electricity. They can generate up to 7,000 volts. But--and here's the key--it is at very low amperage, less than one-half amp. If you touch the line it, will give you a jolt. but it won't hurt you. It startles and stings the horses. They don't want any part of it so they stay away from the fence.

The horses seem to know when the fence is on or off. I don't know if they feel it or hear it, but somehow they know. If it's on, once they've been "tagged," they don't challenge it. If it's off, well, they just might.

The one place we're not using wire is the training pen. That is all palos, both for the posts and for the rails. We're getting the for a little over $1 a piece. That's a whole lot less than $13 for 4"x4" posts and $5 for 2"x4" rails. And I really like the way it looks.

Our friend Moses has been amazing. He arranged to get the wooden palos for us. He put most in most of the palos in the corrals. He pretty much built the training square. Because so many of our T-posts are still in the old pastures, the new pasture is a mix of T-posts and palos. Moses put in all of those palos as well. I absolutely could not have completed this without him.

Last Sunday we moved our four horses to their new home. Elaine and Marie rode KTJ and Zip. We trailered Chocolate and Sprocket, They too seem to be settling into their new home.

We now have a routine to work the horses every day. This is the first time they have been consistently regularly worked since before the hurricane. They all need the exercise. We've ridden a couple of times this week. I'm kind of alternating between Chocolate and Cass. Choco is still gaining strength back in his leg after tendon pull so we're taking it slow with him. I'm grateful that I have another horse available to ride.

Since our horse are now here, we've taken down all the fences at the old place. Now I have T-posts and wire to start fencing new fields. 

There is a little bit of flashback to the months after the hurricane for me right now. I'm not shooting surf pictures any more, at least not for now. Between waves and bad visibility caused by rain, I haven't been diving in nearly two months. Add to that all the horse work and it feels like after the hurricane--all work and no play. I need to change that. My soul is crying for time in the water.

I thought about going diving today but Elaine and Marie are across the island evaluating horses. The two mounted police units on the island are disbanding. The Department of Public Security is planning to donate the horses to non-profits that work with their communities. Hmmmmm! So they are meeting with people from DPS and checking out more horses. She's sending me photos of horses as I type this. Oh. dear goddess--more pastures, more corrals.

Well, I think you're up to date now.

MARIA log, Day 55, November 16, Thursday.

It's the raining season. It rains every day. Sometimes afternoons, some days mornings, sometimes overnight, some days all of the above.

Last night we had a huge storm. Okay, Maria was a huge storm!

Last night we had blasting bolts of lightning, huge shake-the-house-and-scare-the-dogs thunder claps, sideways rain driven by the wind.

But no flooding, no pieces of roof flying off. Just a good ol' fashioned tropical thunderstorm. Lying there listening to the storm, I couldn't help but think of people like our neighbor Robert, riding out this storm in a tent behind the remains of his house, destroyed by Maria.

Or the people still living under tarps instead of roofs. How did this storm have feel to them? Was it like deja vú?

We were safe in our intact house, under our solid roof. And we are incredibly grateful!

A NOW moment: We had a HUGE thunderstorm--lightning, wind, rain, THUNDER!--last night. Okay, not Maria huge, but big. I was reminded--again--how little lightning and thunder there were during the hurricane. I expected more.

Maria log, Day 54, November 15, Wednesday

Travel around the area has become a cha-cha--one step forward, two steps back, slide to the side, repeat.

FEMA-funded (we think) crews are everywhere picking up debris of the sides of roads. Electric crews are starting to show up as well  When the crews are out, roads are blocked, sometimes completely, sometimes for hours. Sometimes there are ways around the block, sometimes not.
We usually don't find out a road is blocked until we get to the actual work site, to the actual block.

Back up. Turn around. Look for another route to wherever it is you're trying to go. Often as not, that route is blocked as well. Back up. Turn around. Look for another route.

On the one hand it's frustrating and time consuming trying to get anywhere. On the other hand, "you must learn patience, Grasshopper." These are signs something is happening, that something is getting done.

Maria log, Day 53 November 13, Monday

Monday, November 13

We had our first complainer at Helping Horses. This guy was spreading all kinds of horse manure--that we weren't distributing the food properly, that we were selling grain "under the table," that we were keeping most of the grain for our own horses. He said he had pictures of "someone" loading 28 bags of grain in a truck behind the police station. It "had to be someone in cahoots" with the police taking the grain for themselves.

Yeah, he saw someone loading grain at the police station. Me! He apparently didin't see me and our friend and volunteer Ivan driving those 28 bags of grain to the Picadero and unloading them. Then coming back to the police for two more loads totaling 50 more bags. This was the grain the police brought from the race track, the load from when the truck broke down and we had to haul it the rest of the way.

The irony is this guy came the first day and got more aid than almost anyone else. He kept coming back asking for more.

Actually we did have one other person complain. He complained to Annie that we were only doing this in Isabela and not in Ponce. Hey, dude--you're welcome to come join the party in Isabela! Or feel free to start your own program in Ponce.

But stop f-ing complaining!

Caught up in the NOW, October 7

 Flashback to a year ago: Rolf's post-hurricane birthday. Carole wasn't sure she could get a carrot cake--Rolf's favorite--because the bakery in the grocery store wasn't  sure they had enough carrots. I didn't take any pictures this year because I was the cook, flipping pancakes by request.

It may be "now" and the hurricane may have been a year ago, but flashbacks continue.

Last night we celebrated our friend Rolf's 89th birthday. It was a flashback to a year ago: thunder, rainy and cloudy and gloomy all day (after the hurricane, it rained every day for a month; the sun barely showed it's face ). When we got to Carole and Rolf's house, we were serenaded by the neighborhood-wide song of generators. The power was out and had been all afternoon. So like a year ago, we made dinner and sat in semi-darkness, listening to the rain. And like a year ago, our "family" was all together, this year including Jeremy's wife Anna and their daughters Penny and Vivian, gathered around the table, and we celebrated another year of life!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: Last week Michelle, one of our friends and colleagues from Rincon/Aguada, told us she has to return to her home in the UK for a few months. She asked us if she could board her horse Casanova (usually shortened to Cass) with us. We went down to Aguada to see him and--yeah, we'll take him. He's a quarter horse, bigger than Chocolate, not as big as Zip. Nice horse! He'll actually be a good horse for me to ride, especially as Chocolate is recovering from a leg injury.

But--she's leaving Monday and needs us to take him right away! So I've spent the last week putting up an electric fence corral for him and fencing the first pasture area. This is all stuff that needs to be done so we can bring our horses down to Castaways in a couple of weeks. The prospect of bringing Cass in just accelerated the timetable.

Cass was supposed to come Saturday. Unfortunately, Cass was in an accident in a trailer in June. with that memory, when they loaded him in the trailer Saturday morning, he freaked out when they closed the trailer door. His corral and pasture will be here when he gets here. We're hoping that will be tomorrow late morning.

Our other horses are still up the road where they've been for a little over a year. Their living (pasture) space is shrinking as we take down posts to fence in fields here at Castaways.

While all this is going on, Elaine is busy getting all the paperwork--leases, insurance, non-profit applications--in order for Horses of Hope. By the way, we were not chosen as a finalist in the Chipstarter thing. We have to start looking for another funding source to build a covered arena,

It could be January for all the looking forward to an exciting future but looking backward and remembering what was happening a year ago we're doing. (The month of January is named for Janus, the Roman god with two faces, one looking to the future, one looking to the past.) Exciting times!

NOW, September 22, 3018

I wanted to see what Crashboat looked like a year after the hurricane. So, I dove there on Saturday, a year and a day after Maria.

I'm pleased to say fish were abundant, which means they are finding food on the ruins. Little things - tubeworms, sponges, little bits of coral are starting to grow on the wreckage. Watching the underwater renew itself is going to be one of the best things over the next couple of years.

We're supposed to have waves for the next week or more so there won't be any diving for a few days. More Maria log posts to come.

NOW and then, September 20

One year ago last night the lights went out. For us the lights didn't come back on for five months. Other people waited much longer.

One year ago today we hunkered down in a friend's concrete house, listening to the wind and the rain, no news, no contact with anyone outside our little box, not knowing what was coming or what to expect, but safe and together.

Today, now, it's calm, in fact, no wind at all. It's cloudy and might rain later, but that's kind of the way every day is this time of year. There are no tropical storms or hurricanes on the immediate horizon.

I am surprised at how emotional last night and this morning are, not just for me but apparently for many of us given the posts and comments others are making. But it's a very strange, odd emotionality (if that's even a word). I feel totally connected to the moment, to those around me who went through Maria whether they are right next to me or far away. At the same time I feel disconnected, like I'm watching from outside my body or watching a movie of myself. The calm is almost eerie, as unnatural in it's own way as the hurricane was. Yesterday was exactly the same kind of day but it didn't feel strange yesterday, only today.

As I've said before, the effects of those 30 hours a year ago are still with us. 

NOW September 17, 2018

Whew! You probably heard about that little storm--Hurricane Florence--that hit the East Coast this week. If you're far away from it, be grateful. If you're anywhere near Florence, our hearts go out to you. (Meanwhile, the Twit-in-chief can only rant that the nearly 3,000 deaths in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria are a political ploy by Democrats to make him look bad. As if he needed their help!)

A good friend of ours moved back to the States with her family after Maria. Part of the reason was her school-age son. But partly she--like many others--had a difficult time with the devastation and slow recovery after the storm. After things settled down (I won't use the phrase "returned to normal"), they came back. But things here on the island still weren't the same. It still wasn't "normal." she and here husband decided to move back to the States permanently.

They settled in. They just bought a house, just--as in two weeks ago, in North Carolina, near (but not on) the coast. And Florence hit.

Florence was not as devastating as Maria. It wasn't as powerful to begin with and diminished as it approached the coast. Still, the wind was near 100 mph. And the rain! And rain and rain and rain. Our friends apparently didn't loose electric, or if they did it was only for a short time, because she was able to keep posting updates on Facebook.

You could tell from her posts, both in what she wrote and reading between the lines, how incredibly stressful this was for her.

Folks, PTSD is real! And it sucks! And it is not reserved for combat veterans or police. No one who goes through something like Maria comes out unchanged. I wrote about this a bit earlier: different things set off different reactions in people. For Elaine, it's anytime there is a constant, persistent banging noise. It takes her right back to that night, listening to the wind and the banging of that piece of roofing against the door of the house where we stayed. She zones out and it takes a little time for her to come back.

I can only imagine what living through that--again--was like for our friends.  And for people on the other islands: first they got hit by Hurricane Irma. Before they had time to process that, Maria hit less than two weeks later. How do you deal with that?

It is almost exactly one year later. We are still feeling and dealing with the effects of Hurricane Maria.