That Day
By Capt. Shawn Somers
3/30/06
I was just wrapping up a boat delivery. It was a 48’ sportfish and I was hired to deliver it from Sandusky, Ohio up on Lake Erie down to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. It had been a pretty good trip. I actually have a lot of stories about the trip, but this is supposed to be a “short” story so I’ll just save those for another time. Anyway, I was running with the new owner who was a Dominican that worked in the States. His name was Mel. We got along great and we both had enjoyed the trip and were feeling pretty good that we would soon be wrapping things up.
Now Santo Domingo is on the south side of the island and we were approaching from the north. We had to stop for fuel so we were going to stop in Luperon on the north coast and spend the night. We would take on fuel in the morning and get back underway to go around the island. Mel was getting very exited and rightly so, he was coming back home with his new boat and wanted to see his friends and family. Mel was bilingual and whenever he spoke on his cell to his friends at home it was usually in Spanish. My Spanish sucks and is pretty much non-existent so I never had a clue what he was talking about. He told me that we were going to pick up two friends of his in Luperon and that they would be running the boat for us. I didn’t really understand what he meant by “running the boat for us” but I was very busy navigating and trying to make landfall at night in a strange foreign harbor with the owner on board. I figured I would figure it out when we were tied up safely in an hour or so.
I found the marina and our slip. It did not look like a nice part of town. We had to do a Mediterranean style mooring where you have to drop the anchor and then back the boat into its slip and tie the stern off to, in this case, a broken up concrete wall, while you pull your anchor to set it. It’s not easy and it was only the two of us. Three or four crew members would have been nice. We were doing good. Mel and I were shouting commands back and forth, he on the bow working the anchor windlass, and me at the controls with my hands full. There was a small crowd of people that had gathered to watch us, all shouting Spanish that meant nothing to me. I saw two guys in the crowd dressed in normal ratty looking clothes. One was holding a shot gun and the other had some kind of rifle. Mel seemed to be very happy and not worried about it and there was no time to talk so I kept working the boat back into her slip toward the crowd. I called for Mel to dog the line down and get to the stern to catch the lines on the wall. We were about three feet off of the wall (and still working closer) when these two guys jumped from the wall to our boat like superman! Mel gives a line to one of them and the other races up to the flybridge where I was running the boat. He’s saying something to me in Spanish and he wants me to step aside and let him run the boat. I ordered him to get back and he did. He kept talking to me though, even though I didn’t understand a damn thing he said. He didn’t look or sound mad, but I was. I couldn’t believe that he had boarded the boat without permission while we were moving and then expected me to step away from the controls. It was a good thing I had my hand full and didn’t have time to bother with him.
Mel and I finally got the boat all dogged down and safe. Those two guys were running all over the boat checking things out and inviting others on board to look around also. Mel went up to talk with the two guys with the guns. I saw him flip them a few bucks and shake their hands. I guess they were security guards or police or something. He came back on board and I asked him who the hell these guys were. He laughed and yelled for them to come over.
“Shawn, this is Luis. He’s going to be my Captain. He ran my last boat for me. And this is Eddie. He’s going to be the Mate. From now on, I want you to relax and let these guys run things. I want you to be my guest now.”
Mel was very happy and very proud to be at home with his new boat. It wasn’t anything personal or smart ass toward me. He was thanking me for delivering the boat and he was sincere.
Luis and Eddie turned out to be pretty nice guys. They didn’t speak a lick of English so we both got very good at charades and drawing pictures if Mel wasn’t close by to translate for us. They worked their asses off and put in very long days. I swear they mere moving at a hundred miles an hour from 5:00 AM til around midnight every day. I had to give them an “A” for effort. They ran the boat pretty well. We took on some fuel that night and then we went into town to celebrate. Mel had those guys with the guns watch the boat for us. (I’ll skip the night on the town part. Again, this is a short story. I could write another short story just about that night!)
The next morning I was woken up to the sound of those two big Detroit diesels roaring to life down in the engine room at about 5 or 6 in the morning.
“What the hell?” I thought. “We’re not supposed to leave till 8.” I didn’t even show them how to check the engine room (there were some tricks) or anything. Damn it! I got out of bed and got dressed. I could hear them on deck getting ready to cut the lines and get under way. I got up there and tried to get them to slow down for a minute. I got Luis and showed him the things to check in the engine room. He looked and we were out of there. Just that fast.
“Ok” I figured. “I’ll be a guest. Screw it. Let them run it” I wasn’t mad. It was just hard for me to “let go” and let them do it. The Captain in me didn’t want to. Not at all. It was also hard for me to be out of the loop. The language barrier was a pain in the ass and Mel didn’t see that. He figured I would just make myself a Margarita and work on my tan on the front deck and forget it. He wanted me to be a guest. That was the hardest part of the trip.
So there we are, running down the coast and (I thought) heading for Santo Domingo. Everything was going fine. Mel comes up and says that he has contacted his wife and that she is going to meet us in Punta Cana, about another few hours ahead of us. He wants to spend a few days there. He told me that we will be staying in an all inclusive resort and that he has two rooms reserved there, one for me, and one for his wife and him. Luis and Eddie would be staying on the boat. Maybe I could be a guest? I’m just kidding, it was still hard, but I was starting to soften up.
We got there and Eddie helped Mel and I with our bags. We checked in. Mel’s wife would not be joining us til tomorrow afternoon. Mel wanted to go swimming so we changed clothes and went for a dip in the pool. The server girls kept bringing us drinks. It was nice. Now that I was off of the boat, I finally felt like I could relax a bit. I think I even felt a bit of pressure come off of my shoulders. We went back to our rooms, got cleaned up and I met Mel in the dinning room for dinner. It was a great meal. A very nice relaxing night. Mel told me that he had Luis and Eddie getting the boat ready for some deep sea fishing tomorrow morning and that we should better get some rest. We turned in early and I slept like a log.
The next morning, we met early at a beautiful outside dinning room for breakfast. They had a huge buffet set out, so we dug in. We were sitting at our table enjoying the morning when this beautiful blond German girl, about my age, walks up to our table holding a plate of food and asks if she can join us for breakfast. Mel and I just looked at each other with our eyes just about popping out of our heads. After a second, I jumped up and invited her to join us. It turned out, she was just on a vacation by herself. She liked to travel and had saved up some cash and thought that Punta Cana sounded right. The three of us had a nice breakfast and she asked if we would like to go do something today. Mel told her that we had plans for the morning but that we would be free this afternoon. We made plans for her and I to meet up later on. Mel politely excused us and said that we must get going, and that the guys were waiting.
I was pumped! I had a great nights sleep, I just had a great breakfast in a beautiful resort were I met a smokin’ hot girl and I set up a date for later that afternoon. Not only that, but believe it or not, I had never been deep sea fishing before and I was really looking forward to this. All this and it wasn’t even 9:00 AM yet. This was going to be one hell of a day!
We walked down to the dock and were greeted by the guys. They had the music cranked up so loud that I’ll bet you guys heard it all the way over here in the States. The entire boat was washed, the inside was spotless and they had all of the rods strung up and ready to go. They had a whole cooler filled with bait and another one filled with beers and stuff on ice. These guys must have been up all night long. Mel and I stepped on board, off went the lines, and away we went, charging off to the open water to do some fishin’!
After we were out a bit, we slowed down and dropped the out-riggers and got some lines in the water. Mel told me to watch the lures, which were trailing along behind us about 150’ back.
“How do you know when a fish hits it?” I said.
“Oh you’ll know!” he laughed.
Eddie and I got comfortable and sat there soaking up the perfect day while we watched the lures run along behind us. I noticed that the VHF radio was doing an awful lot of squawking but everyone was speaking Spanish and I had no idea what they were saying. Just then Mel jumped up and ran downstairs. I figured he had to pee or something. Luis and Eddie just kept doing their thing and so did I. I was just relaxing and finally feeling like I was liking it. I had a smile on my face. This was nice. Mel came running back up to the flybridge and looked me right in the face, and said
“You’re in deep shit” He had a very serious look on his face. What made it even more startling was that Mel is a very large man. Not fat. Muscular. He was not playin’
“What did I do?” I said.
“They’re bombing the United States” He said “Two have already hit New York and one hit D.C. We have to get you home” With that he yelled something to the guys and they jumped up like they had lightning in their pants and reeled in those lines faster than anything I have ever seen. Luis mashed his fist down into those throttles and those Detroit’s roared to life as we tore the hell out of the ocean heading for the dock.
It turns out that all of the talking on the VHF radio was from all of the fisherman talking to each other (in Spanish) about the story that was coming over the local news right now about the “bombs” hitting the U.S. Mel had heard them talking and ran downstairs to listen to the local news on the FM radio. Sure enough, those fisherman were right. Someone is dropping “bombs” on the U.S. I was in deep shit. As we were racing back toward the resort Mel and Luis were making plans. After they were finished he turned to me.
“Shawn, we have to get you home.” He said. “When we get back to the dock you have to run, fast, back to the room and get your stuff and get back to the boat. We can get you to the airport faster by boat than we can by car. Don’t mess around. We’ll all meet back here.”
As soon as we bumped the dock Mel and me were off heading for our rooms. I got there and turned on CNN while I packed. It turned out that the local news and the fisherman had the story just a bit off. They weren’t “bombs”, they were planes. Planes filled with people being flown into buildings back home in the States! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. But Mel was right. I had to get home. At this point we didn’t know if this was happening all over the States or if other bad things were going on like war or riots. I only had time to see about a minute of CNN. If something bad was happening, I wanted to be home with my family to help out, whatever it was. I grabbed my bags and ran. The whole resort was pretty crazy. People were running out carrying bags, yelling at the girl at the counter or sitting in the corner crying.
Mel’s wife was just getting to the resort and Mel told her to turn around and that we would see her at home. We got on the boat and Luis took off like a rocket. I guess I wouldn’t be making my date that afternoon with the German girl. Damn it!
I don’t remember how long the trip took us from Punta Cana to Santo Domingo but we made it before sundown. It might have been about 5 hours but it felt a lot longer than that. We didn’t hear anything else on the radio because we were so far away from any big towns, we couldn’t get a signal. We had no clue of what was going on back home. The guys tried to cheer me up by telling sea stories and talking about the Dominican Republic. Mel helped out with the translation. When we started getting close to Santo Domingo, Mel’s cell phone finally got a signal. He started making calls to get me on a plane ASAP back to the States. He found me one but it wasn’t until the next day.
“Shawn, when we get back, we’re going to pack your things and you are going to stay at my house for the night. Your flight isn’t until the morning so we’ll drop you off then” Mel told me. We arrived in Santo Domingo and got the boat tied up in Mel’s marina. Mel and the guys were very happy and proceeded to crack open a few coldies to celebrate. Mel had called a few of his buddies to meet us at the dock and check out his new boat. They cranked up the stereo again and everyone was relaxing and enjoying the completion of a long safe journey and the arrival of Mel’s new toy. They kept trying to get me to join them and have some fun and I tried, but my heart wasn’t in it. I had my mind on other things. At this point I still didn’t have any more information about the situation back home than I did when I ran out of the resort with my bags earlier that morning. I was worried, nervous, a little scared, and I really wanted to find a TV that had CNN.
Mel ordered out for dinner and we all ate down on the boat and on the dock. After a while , Mel and I grabbed out bags, said goodnight to everyone, and one of his friends drove us to Mel’s house. It was a very nice place. We put our things away in our rooms. Mel came out to the living room and turned on the biggest wide screen TV I had ever seen and turned it to CNN. I sat there on the sofa, with my eyes glued to that screen for several hours. I absolutely could not believe what I was seeing. As bad as it all was though, I was, in a way, relived that that was all it was. You see, this was the first true account of the story that I was getting. Over twelve hours late. Up until then, I was pretty much going on information from Spanish speaking fishermen and their messed up local news. I had caught a bit of CNN that morning in my room at the resort, but I don’t think I was even in that room for two minutes. I didn’t get to listen to much. That whole day on the boat, I had been sitting there imagining riots, bombs and all sorts of terrible things going on back home. Maybe even all out war, either on our soil or else where. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I asked Mel if I could call home to my family to let them know that I was alright. I got ahold of them and spoke for a few minutes. It was good to hear them and know that everything was alright back home.
When I was finished with the phone, Mel made a few calls. When he was done, he told me that my flight in the morning was canceled and that no other flights would be allowed to the States.
“When can I get a flight” I asked.
“I don’t know, but my travel agent is on it and she’ll tell us as soon as she gets something. Until then, you can stay with us and relax” He said.
I was grateful for the hospitality, but I did want to go home. Inside, I still had fears that something else might happen back home and if it did I wanted to be there. I wanted to be there to be with family, to protect them and my home or do whatever else had to be done. I was trapped and I wanted out. I tried to act polite and thankful toward Mel and his wife and I think I did a good job, but I think they could tell that I had “things” on my mind. It was getting late, so we turned in for the night.
The next morning, Mel’s wife made a huge breakfast. We all ate together and discussed the upcoming day. Mel said he had a few errands to run and that I was welcome to tag along. After breakfast, Mel was doing some things around the house, so I jumped back over to the TV to watch CNN some more. I guess I just wanted to make sure that nothing else had happened overnight. I worried about that constantly. We got in Mel’s car and headed out. We were going to get new tires put on the car. While we were at the shop waiting, Mel made some phone calls. When he was done he told me that he had spoken with his travel agent. The US would not be allowing any planes to enter from outside of the States for an undetermined amount of time. Maybe a week.
“Shit!” I thought to myself. “I have got to get home”.
“She’ll keep on it and let us know when she gets something” he said.
The next few days were actually a lot of fun but I was always worried in the back of my mind. Mel and his family really tried hard to make me feel at home and to get me to enjoy myself. I met his sister in law Isabel. She was a few years younger than me and was very pretty. She came over to stay with us for a couple of days. She was a college student and she lived about an hour or so away I think. Every week, she had two or three days of classes and her college was very close to Mel’s house, so she stayed with them on those days to make commuting to classes easier. She was taking an English class so she could speak a little English. It was fun talking to her. She liked using her English and it was fun helping her. We still used a lot of scrap paper to draw pictures on and we certainly got our moneys worth out of that Spanish/English dictionary.
One night we all went to dinner. It was a nice place and we all had a few drinks. On the way home, Mel decided to stop at a cigar bar. Us guys got a cigar and a glass of wine and the ladies just got some wine. We sat around talking and relaxing. We got in the car to leave there and I thought, head for home, but Mel wanted to stop at another bar. We sat in an outside patio area of this nice bar and Mel ordered a round of beers. By this time I was getting pretty drunk. (I’m a lightweight) Isabel’s favorite beer was Miller Lite which she would pronounce “Meeeler”. I just thought that was funny and laughed about that all night long. I was nursing my beer for all it was worth because I knew that I couldn’t keep up with them and if I did they would have to carry me out of there on a stretcher. They all caught onto my little game real quick and forced me to have one more while Isabel ridiculed me for being a lightweight. All the while they were all suckin’ em down. Isabel included! That girl could drink! After I finished my last one we paid the tab and headed for home. We walked in the door and Mel and his wife said goodnight and went right to bed. Isabel wanted to get a snack in the kitchen and pulled me in there because she wanted to talk some more. I’m standin’ there holing on to the counter to keep the kitchen from spinning and she’s talking a hundred miles an hour. I couldn’t understand a single word. I was doing my best to force a smile the whole time. Just then it hit me…. “oh shit! I’m going to puke!” I held up my finger asking her to wait a minute and I told her that I’d be right back. I ran off to my bedroom and closed the door. Luckily I had my own full bathroom in my room. I went in the bathroom and closed that door also to keep the expected noise down. I proceeded to yack my brains out. When I was done, I quick brushed my teeth and headed back out to the kitchen. She had early classes in the morning and I was pretty messed up so we just talked for a while longer and then went to bed. I never did figure out if she knew that I had puked. I don’t think so. I tried to keep my distance so she wouldn’t smell my breath.
The next morning, needless to say, I slept in. When I got up, Isabel was already in class. That girl was tough! Mel’s wife made breakfast. Every meal she made was outstanding. I don’t know if they always ate like that or if she was just showing of for me, but every meal was amazing. There was always something new to try. I thought that I had tried every kind of dish there was, but she kept coming up with new ones. She had this soup that looked like a bean soup with ham in it. I wolfed down my serving and she grabbed my bowl and filled it up again. I kept finding little bones in it that you would suck clean and then put them on your plate. The soup was great. I asked her what the bones were and she started laughing. Mel translated that they were pigs feet. She put the whole foot in the soup and cooked it until all of the meat fell of into the soup and the bones just fell apart. You would just spit them out. Now I’ve seen pigs feet before, I’ve even taken a bite of one one time on a dare at Octoberfest. It was meat and it tasted fine but it was a pigs foot and you should just not eat a pigs foot. If I’d have known that before I tasted the soup, I probably would have still had some to be polite, but I may not have enjoyed it. As it was, I really did like the soup and would love to have it again sometime. She also made this drink made from puréed red beans. It was served warm and it tasted like it had sugar in it. That was very good. I’ve never seen that since. I enjoy tasting new foods. She was fun. Each meal was a surprise.
After we ate, Mel told me that his wife’s family was having a reunion for the next couple of days and that we would be going to that. We would have to travel a couple of hours to get there and that I should pack my things. We got in the car and drove into the interior of the island. It was a very pretty place. It had huge hills, I guess you could call them mountains. They were covered in vegetation and some areas had a misty fog around them. The trip went very fast as I stared out the window taking in the sights. We arrived in a small town. We stopped at a building that Mel said was a hotel. They didn’t have enough room at his mother-in-law’s for me, so he was going to put me up there. I told him he didn’t have to do that, but he insisted. We checked in and then headed over to the house to join the reunion. Everyone was smiling and hugging and talking. They all introduced themselves to me and made me feel very welcome. You’d have thought I had been one of the family. Mel grabbed me and took me out to the garage. They had the door open and the place cleaned out. All of the men were out there sitting around in a circle and telling stories while they drank beers and ate steamed crabs. They had newspaper spread out on the floor and just dumped out a huge bucket of crab right out onto the paper. Everyone just reached in and grabbed some and started cracking into it and throwing the shells on the floor. It was very good and a lot of fun. When we were done we just rolled up the paper, shells and all, and just stuffed it all in a garbage can.
After that we walked outside in the driveway. All of the kids were playing and laughing. Just then a bunch of little girls grabbed me and drug me over to show me what they were doing. They were making jewelry out of beads. They were all wearing their handiwork and were very proud of it all. They really did do some nice work and I tried to communicate that to them. I think I got it across to them even though Mel was the only one at the reunion that understood what I was saying. I hung out with the kids for a while and played with them. Later, we were all called to dinner, so everyone made their way inside. They had a huge spread and everyone just fixed a plate and dug in. After dinner someone gave me a tour of the house and was explaining all of the family pictures on the wall and telling me about the family members. Between the Spanish and the sheer number of people, I was pretty overwhelmed but I still enjoyed myself and was honored to be a guest of the family. They were all so nice and they were all working to make me feel welcome and “part of the party”. They all knew about the situation back home in the States and I think that they wanted me to forget about it for a little bit and relax. It was very touching.
When it came time to leave I was saying my “goodbye’s” and one of the little girls ran up to me and took off her necklace that she had made and made me get down lower where she could put it on me. She reached around my neck and hooked the clasp and stopped to check out how it looked on me. Her neck was obviously much smaller than mine and she had made the necklace for her, so the necklace sat pretty high up on my neck. I guess she didn’t like the way it looked because she grabbed me and took it off of me and told me to wait. She took the necklace and looped it twice around my wrist and then proceeded to twist the strands into a helix like shape. She hooked the clasp and gave me a big smile. It was good. I still wear that bracelet to this day. It has only come off about three or four times and that was only because the fishing line that she had used to make it finally let go and broke. Each time I jumped to the floor to pick up any beads that had fallen off like they were diamonds and then proceeded to restring it and put it right back on. At work, at play, scuba diving or welding, whatever, it has never come off. It makes me happy every time I see it. It reminds me of Mel’s family and how they were so nice to me during my time in the Dominican Republic. Later that night they took me back to my room and I turned in for the night very happy.
The next day, Mel was on his phone talking to his travel agent and told me that he had found me a flight. I would be flying out, bound for home tomorrow morning. It had been a week since the US stopped letting planes fly into the country. I was very excited to finally be going home to be with family and friends. I still had worries that the terrorism might not be over yet but I still desperately wanted to get back. I also was a bit sad to be leaving Mel and his family. They had done so much, and had gone so far out of their way to make me feel welcome, that it amazed me. It was touching to know that there really are lots of great people, not just in the US, but also in the world, and that I was lucky enough to have met some of them.
Mel and I spent that afternoon running a few errands with his mother in law before we had to head back to the city to go back to Mel’s house. Once we were back, I spent the evening packing my things and getting ready for my flight. Very early the next morning, Mel and a buddy of his drove me to the airport to drop me off. The flight went well and it was good to be home.
I still think of Mel and his family quite often. They amazed me with kindness. It had been one heck of an adventure and one that I won’t ever forget. Thanks Mel.
Where were you on that day?