Never Never Nassau

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the Nassau airport, more flies swarm the ointment. I wish that was a metaphor but there are flies buzzing about the Nassau terminal............

That is all that is left of a 1200 word blog I wrote to be published in this slot. It was the story of a very long day spent trying to get out of Nassau. The sea was so angry it caused the captain to miss his first approach to the Nassau dock.  We had to circle and try again to slide the ship between two others against a vicious wind. The operation was frought with peril and at one point a question whether we would actually be able to make it in to Nassau. Although the captain finally treaded a 130,000 ton floating needle into a dock slip, it caused an hour and a half delay in the scheduled.

This event scuttled our plans for getting back to Los Angeles on our original itenerary, setting in motion a day of frustration and dissapointment. This shit storm was followed by moments of pure magic and miracles to make the last flight available to Los Angeles. It had all the elements of stories I love to tell. It had moments of sheer failure followed by impossible success in spite of all the odds against it.

It was a long essay born of six hours of down time at the Nassau airport and 6 hours flying home. I was proud of the work and it was purification of all negativity the day seemed to be full of.  A confession, if you will, of my own lack of hope and my wife's insistence that things would work out.  I thought it had the humor and the self effacing life lessons that were at the same time a cautionary tale and a comedy of errors. I was so proud of the piece I wanted Sandi to read it the moment I had corrected all the mistakes.  

As she read it my iPad froze instead of scrolling to the last paragraph.  Lack of response to my repeated finger jabs to the screen was followed by a complete black out.  It was as if someone had poured black ink on the entire page or that moment when the film frame burns in the projector.  It was gone. 

After a reboot only the title and the first two sentences above remained. 

It was the tragic end to a perfectly horrible day of travel. It was the final straw that broke my will to continue. Like the one that got away I will probably consider in hindsight that the essay was some of my best work. Sandi seemed to think that it was, at least until the last paragraph.  In actuality it was just another blog. Perhaps if today had gone better I would not think twice about it... but for a moment in time I thought frustration and disappointment was the muse to something better.  It was naught but the continuation of "one of those days".

As you were,

Jay