A birthday memory from Amazon John Easterling
I remember the first birthday when we were together and I took Olivia on a week-long adventure in the Out Islands of the Bahamas surrounded by beautiful, peaceful, spectacular turquoise water. I rented a house on an island with no roads so we got a boat to go with your house and we would take our supplies over to the house which had a generator. If we wanted to go to a restaurant we could always take our boat to another island. There are so many islands there you almost always have an island in sight when you’re out on your boat. It was private, it was wonderful, and we would take the boat to uninhabited islands and beach it and just explore - just the two of us.
One day we took the boat up to Great Guana Cay and on the return trip the wind started picking up, the clouds started rolling in, the sea got really choppy and turned gray and then the rain came. The wind was howling the boat was rolling and slamming into the waves, rain was stinging like someone throwing thumbtacks in your face. Olivia got behind me holding tight as I was navigating this 23-foot-runabout with a center consul. The only instrument was a magnetic compass.
I had a bearing on Elbow Cay but there was no visibility. The sea was rolling and chopping and after a few minutes I was wondering if the currents and the wind had blown us between two islands and maybe we were out in the open ocean just headed to Africa. But, as quickly as the storm started, the winds died down, the rain stopped, the sun poked through and the seas turned back to that beautiful turquoise. As the mist cleared you could see the Hopetown Lighthouse on Elbow Cay and we were perfectly on course. The rainbow started on the left and crystallized all the way over - horizon to horizon - and that’s when the dolphins started jumping at the bow of the boat leading us under the rainbow.
Olivia looked at me like I was a superhero and I knew it was mostly blind faith and dumb luck. As the dolphins led us over the gorgeous aqua water, under the rainbow towards the lighthouse, we both recognized the fingerprints of the supernatural were all over this - and that’s the way we lived our life.
Every day with Olivia there was a hint of magic and everyday day with Olivia was a bit of the supernatural.
Happy Birthday Honey - I Love You!
- Amazon John