I'm finally back on line albeit via a VERY SLOW dial-up connection until my ISP can repair the wireless antenna on my house which went out during the fire.
Many thanks to all of you SB'ers for your concern and kind thoughts. It was definitely a very disturbing 24 hours. Fortunately I was never concerned for my life (heck, it's an island; we're surrounded by water and I'm a diver). However, I was very concerned about my house and thought I'd lost it at least twice. Fortunately the fire was stopped about 150 yards from my home and only 50 yards from Bob & Tina Kennedy's of SCUBA Luv. As VistasBelow said, CDS's warehouse and stored inventory in the back canyon were destroyed.
I was evacuated again today as there were six hot spots within the small canyon my house is in alone. We reported one that flared up to the Sheriff and a helicopter water drop appeared to have knocked it out. However 30 minutes later he flared back up with a vengeance and took a dozen fire fighters and two water-dropping helicopters several hours to knock it back.
I'll post a more complete report latewr in a separate thread. However, I did want to thank everyone for their concern not just for me, but for the entire community and this beautiful island. Thanks to the incredible efforts of the firefighters (including SCUBA Luv owner and Mayor Bob Kennedy who was among the first responders when it started out in the interior), Avalon has survived and will soon be ready to greet divers and even landlubbers from "the Big Island" over there.
I am concerned about my original island home at Toyon Bay where the fire is still raging, as well as the rest of the interior at this end of the island. Fortunately this is SoCal vegetation and fire is a natural part of the ecology. I've already suggested to the head honchos at the Island Company that they take this opportunity to teach our visitors about the role of fire in SoCal ecology as a means of making our interior tours meaningful and enjoyable inspite of the "devastation." There should be some rather interesting plants that make their appearance as "fire followers" this winter.
Speaking of winter and rains, I am concerned that the loss of vegetative cover will result in increased runoff and sediment loading in our nearshore kelp beds. Not only will this affect vis for divers, the abrasive nature of silt and other sediments can have substantial imnpact on the microscopic young stages of giant kelp.
Again, thanks to all of you for your concern. Come out and visit us as soon as things settle a bit. Maybe we can hold a big party about the time of my (ugh) 60th birthday which it looks like I'll live long enough to see!
Support your local fire fighters and other service personnel. I have stopped to say thanks to every fire fighter, sheriff and CERT volunteer I've seen in town... and been brought to tears a number of times by the emotion welling up inside.
I must admit I haven't seen Avalon this empty since the off-season in the late 60's abd very early 70's when the only boat that served the island was the 60-passenger Cabrillo and you could shoot a cannon down Front Street (Crescent Ave) on a Friday afternoon. I could have done it today... and took lots of HD video to prove it (also recorded the fire and fire fighting efforts with my new HC-7 HD camera).
Many, many thanks to everyone for their concern for our little remote community.
