In September of 2017 the Disaster Response (DR) Team of MAF send me to St. Marten (Sint Maarten) after hurricane Irma devastated the island. Irma was the first Category 5 hurricane to strike the Leeward Islands on record, followed by hurricane Maria two weeks later, and is the second most costly Caribbean hurricane on record, after Maria.
Years earlier I was a tourist in St. Marten, and loved the little half Dutch, half French island. There were scars from previous hurricanes when I was there, but I did not think I would ever see the place just days after one hit.
Since I was a child, communication systems have interested me. When I was a teenager my mother bought a used 10 foot TV satellite dish. At this time Dish TV systems were just coming out, but they were so new that few people had them. So I was tasked with assembling, installing, and pointing an used 10 foot dish. All of this was pre-Internet, so I could not just look up how to do it, and I did not have a manual. What I did have is a lot of second hand knowledge. More importantly I had a tenacious attitude.
After getting all the parts together, and buying bags of concrete and other hardware, a few friends came over to the house to help me plant the dish. My family and I lived on the Washington State coast, which is very windy, so anchoring the dish properly was important. Amazingly that night we watched Canadian TV.
That satellite receiver served my family for years, and really implanted the understanding of how geosynchronous satellite receivers work. When I learned that the MAF disaster response team had an inflatable satellite dish (GATR) for disaster response, I signed up to learn more. Eventually I became trained and certified in installing vSat (very Small Aperture Terminal) dishes. After that there were several deployments, but there were more experienced and qualified people that went. And in the time that they were usually deployed, I was preparing for a worldwide hackathon. Not a good time to run away to a disaster area.
In September of 2017, on a Friday afternoon I was at my desk working on the preparations for the hackathon, and maintaining several flight support system around the world. At about 4:30 a co-worker, Brent, stopped by my cube. MAF is a friendly place, and co-workers stop by regularly for social visits as well as work. But the question Brent lead with took me back a little.
"Are you free to go on a DR (Disaster Response)? I would go, but I have a family event this weekend, and everyone else is out of the country."
I replied, "I am working on the hackathon, so we need to clear it with my boss. And I have the camping trip this weekend, but I can miss that. So I am the last one on the list?"
"Yes." He smiled. "We are talking with a contact in Bonnaire about sending the GATR dish to Saint Martin. It would be about a quick trip, returning sometime next week."
Nervously I said, "Oh shoot, I have a vacation in Europe planned in 8 days."
Brent assured me, "You should be able to get there, install the dish, and get back. John will be back next week, and can take over for you then."
After that there was a flurry of phone calls, e-mails, and searching for flights. By 5:30 we got the order to prepare for me to leave. Brent did a great job of setting up the GATR dish, and packing emergency equipment for me. An hour later I was driving my car home, packed to the roof full of equipment. It was not until about 8pm when I got the final approval to purchase the tickets. That night I bought airline tickets to the island of Bonnaire. There was only two flights a week that took less that 26 hours to get there. And the flight I bought a ticket for was leaving the next morning.
That night I went through all the equipment, paring it down, and packing it around the other equipment as much as possible. Moving seven large bags through airports, customs and more was not going to be easy. At this time I knew the plan was to get to St. Martin, but I only had tickets to Bonnaire, a Dutch island near Venezuela. How was I going to get across the Caribbean to St Martin? And how was I going to get back for my vacation?
One of the first things I threw out of my bag was a sleeping bag. I looked up the average night time temperatures, and each night was over 80°f. I had no idea where I would be sleeping, but it was a good bet to dump the bulky sleeping bag and carry light weight tarps and a sleeping net instead.
There was no room for bulky food like MREs. And I did not want to show up in a disaster area and ask, "What's for dinner?" So I packed as many Clif Bars as I could in and around the satellite equipment.
I stayed up past midnight repacking my bags, and preparing for the worst conditions, while prioritizing the communications equipment. This was a real leap into the unknown. I had no idea how I was getting to St. Martin from Bonnaire, where I was staying, if I was sleeping in a yard, or wandering the streets. And I did not know how I was getting back to start my pre-paid vacation in Europe. All I has was a one way ticket to Bonnaire. But I had faith, and a love of adventure. These unknowns just made the trip that much more exciting.