Fire in Fresh Creek! Bereavement at Sea.

Hello again - well its been a busy week (aren't they all).

This week we are in the final prep for First Penance and First Communion for 20 children. Spread out over 3 churches we have children from 8 to 15 years old. But, as you can tell from the title of this blog - while that may have been the plan for our week, and it is where we spent the bulk of our time, something else took center stage.

Early Tuesday morning I went downtown to order flowers for Mother's Day (a simple corsage for the Mom's of the parish). On the way I noticed a field was being burned - a pretty common site here on Andros, but this was right next to one of the largest buildings in town. A few hours later we were working in the office on the CCD lesson for that day when we heard alot of commotion outside. When we stepped out of the office and looked toward town, this is what we saw.

Well we hustled down the hill toward the fire and it was clear that this blaze was out of control and there wasn't much we could do but provide moral support for the locals dealing with this horrific fire. The only business still operating in this building was a liquor store and we made a line of people to get cases and cases of the stores inventory out of the building. We were able to save alot but the heat grew and eventually much was left inside. Over the liquor store were four apartments. Occupants were throwing their belongings down to others in the street and they were able to save most of what they owned and nobody was hurt.

This was the largest building in Fresh Creek, a two story complex of three buildings. The end of the building facing you had four apartments on the second floor and the first floor had a small fish and tackle shop that'd been closed for years - and the town liquor store. In the next building was an open patio with a common roof/attic, and the furthest building was a disco/nightclub that had also been closed for several years. All together, however, they made up a city block and this fire was intense.

A major concern of mine was the grey roof you see in the forground of this pic. That is the home of one of my parishioners. The little black line to the left of the peak of the roof is not a beam in the burning building, it is Hugh, my parishioner, standing on his roof with a garden hose.

The fire burned for hours and the US Navy base sent its fire truck to help with the blaze (our town has no Fire Department). Their large truck was too large to get over the Fresh Creek bridge so all they could send was the pumper. The fireman told me that they almost had it under control but they ran out of water and had to go refill their tanks. When they returned it was too far gone and all they could do was watch it burn itself out.

I was really rather concerned for Hugh who owns the home on the corner in this pic. Throughout the most intense heat, with flames shooting 30' into the sky, Hugh stayed on his roof with a garden hose, soaking it down to prevent its catching fire as well. All anyone could do was watch the drama play out - in the end Hugh saved his home, but the entire block this building took up was a total loss. Here are a few better pics of Hugh on his roof towards the end of the blaze.

You can not imagine the impact this has had on the town. This was the largest building in town and its gone - but for many, the fact that this was the only liquor store in Fresh Creek was the biggest concern - both a comical and sad commentary. Once the fire was out, and the building had cooled so you could get close to it there were crowds of young men trying to get into the building and get bottles of rum that hadn't been saved or burst in the flames. Police were on the scene but I saw several armloads of bottles being carried home, and the next day saw a few with bandaged arms and hands who had scorched themselves trying to pick up the hot bottles. Pretty sad.

With the fire burning itself out, there was not much more for us to do so we headed off to the AUTEC base for our scheduled 3:00 CCD class. When we came home all that was left was a smoldering hulk, with young guys still trying to rummage through the wreckage to salvage a bottle or two.

The next day I got a call from the Navy Base that one of the sailors at sea had just been informed his wife had died and they were taking him off the sub to send him home. He'd be arriving at the base around 10 - could I get there to provide him some support until they could get him on a plane? So I went from the flames to the frying pan.

He was a young man and it was a sad story. They'd dated for about a year and had only been married since December, five months. Suffice it to say all I could do was be there for him as he called home, heard the details of her death, cried, and began to grieve as only a young husband could for his new bride. Its times like this I wish the Navy could afford a full-time chaplain but I was glad I could be there to help. His name is Bruce and if you could keep him in your prayers I am sure he'd appreciate all the spiritual help he can get.

Speaking of prayers, keep us in your prayers too - we need it!

Fishing In The Bahamas

Well I have been remiss in not blogging my first real fishing trip while here so this is it.

After Easter, but before Fr. Martin's departure, one of the parishioners in Cargill Creek offered to take us fishing and we took him up on it.

Jim Johnson is a local Bahamian who has a boat and offered to take us out. Fr. Martin and I met him at the dock in Behring Point and off we went. This is a pic of Jim at the helm as we cleared Cargill Creek and headed out to sea.

When we first arrived on the boat there was another man on the boat, his name was Christian and, after we had cleared the Creek and were out in the ocean Jim stopped the boat and Christian donned a snorkel and mask and slipped over the side. We weren't sure what or why this was happening until Christian slipped below the surface of the water and came up with two big conch shells. Now these were not the pretty pink conche shells you see in the tourist shops. They were dirty and covered with sea grass - conche in the wild.

We trailed Christian for what seemed like 40 minutes and he kept handing us conche after conche and (since I'd given Jim $50 for gas) I was beginning to wonder if we'd ever actually toss out a line for fish. Turns out this was part of Jim's plan - conche was bait.

With a boatload of bait off we went to fill our coolers with fish. We caught several variety but by far the most common was the Bahamian Porky. Isn't he cute? Let me tell you, once we fileted this little cutie it was great white meat. What a fish-fry!

One thing about this fishing trip is that while I used my 9' Ugly Stick and fancy Daewoo reel with all the bells and whistles, Jim and Christian basically used a spool of line, a rust nail for weight, and a hook - regardless of what equipment we used, we all caught fish - you can guess who caught more (I think the secret was their rusty nail sinkers).

Nothing better than a drop line and knowing when to yank it.

Suffice it to say we had a great day and weeks later, Ginni and I are still eating fish from this one fishing trip.