Captain’s Log 12/14/19, Floating Body Discovered

This blog is about living aboard a boat in the Pacific Northwest and snow-birding to Arizona while training an artificial intelligent mental health virtual assistant named Rubi ready to provide support in the traumatic aftermath of COVID-19.

I woke up late and when I went up to walk the dogs on the trail of the park, the dock was swarming with emergency workers, marina personnel and the police. The first thing I thought was, “Where is Ron!?” He was older, and though nimble due to yoga for an 80-year-old, I worried about him. I was happy to see his smiling but concerned face as he was walking back from the head of the dock while I was on my way up the dock after the responders. “What happened?” I asked.

All he knew was that someone had a medical emergency. We walked together back to the head of the dock and passed an empty gurney with a defibulator laying on it and no sign of a patient. We both looked down the dock puzzled. There were grim looks everywhere and the responders weren’t sharing any information.

I continued on my walk alone along the long trail with the dogs and on my way back there was a young couple holding each other watching from the head dock. They must know something! I approached them and right away the young man said, “It’s so sad!” I told them that I didn’t know what had happened.

They shared with me that their dock mate next to them on O dock had drowned and floated over to, my P dock and was found this morning. He had been missing a couple days and there had been a big storm. He was an older gentleman and was last seen at the local pub. I imagine he may have come home a little tipsy and, in the storm, it would be easy to misstep from the dock to boat and fall in. He wasn’t noticed as missing for a couple days until they found his body floating at the end of P dock this morning. It was sad indeed.

It was even sadder that the marina didn’t bother to fly the flag at half mast or acknowledge what had happened. This accident made us all aware of the safety hazards of living so close to the water. My friend Linda started exclaiming on how there are very few dock ladders to swim to if anyone fell in. Though it would be terribly cold, I wasn’t too worried about falling in close to the boat, as we had a ladder, I could easily fold down from the swim step, but ladders were certainly few and far between at the marina. It made me wonder how to petition the marina to install more ladders.

That evening, I had Ron over for drinks and dessert and noticed the lone galley fridge making a different noise than usual but was too busy enjoying Ron’s company and reflecting on the days events, I forgot to check into it.