A Real Job, A hurricane, and A New Home

Divi St. Croix was one of many resorts built by a man and his friends from Sryacuse, NY. They were a hotel and time share resort chain. They had time share exchanges within their own company and throughout the world via II or RCI. This was my first knowledge of time shares and I thought they were a marvelous idea and I couldn't wait to get my own someday. Well, I'm still waiting but I will have one some day. Resales can easily be bought now at great bargains. I'm waiting until I have the time and the money to commit to using it each year.

Karen Cryderman was the Divi manager over all of the OPC managers. She had the perfect job. She lived in St. Maarten and got to travel to all of the Divi resorts on a regular basis. They were located in Barbados, Aruba, St. Maarten, St. Croix, Cayman Brac, Bonaire, and Antigua. She hired me as the St. Croix OPC manager and I was given my own office and turned loose to build my team. She was to come back from time to time and check on my progress.


I got to work right away and hired a few OPCs in various locations. One was at a car rental store, another was at a hotel and I had a booth at the airport where we handed out a free sample drink of rum punch to the new arrivals. Although I had never actually done the job myself, I knew what it took to get the job done and could explain it to them well enough that they seemed to do well and the tours were coming in.



I was enjoying my new job and doing my best to maintain a professionalism in everything I did. I dressed nicely and sent letters to businesses asking for an opportunity to meet with them and place an OPC on their property. I sent one to my former employer at Mile Mark and she seemed surprised and impressed that I could go from a bikini clad beach bum to a marketing manager just like that. Even though I had mispelled her name, I was granted permission to place some literature on their hotel property but they did not want an OPC. I understood, not everyone did and they had good reasons.



My job got me out and about the island. I saw and talked with many people. I enjoyed the freedom I had as my own boss and making use of my time as I needed to on the job. I was thrilled to have a salary. I had moved into an apartment in town on the top of the hill for a while with a roommate named Ted. We didn't see each other much at all and he seemed very shy, never having much to talk about. I had only lived there for about a month when my sister Mindy told me she wanted to come down and live with me so I began looking for another apartment that we could share and each have our own rooms.

This turned out to be a three bedroom condo in an area called Welcome. It was a tri-level and the owner was a man from Maine named Doug who travelled quite a bit and was really never there much at all. He had the back of the unit for himself and Mindy and I would share a bathroom upstairs where we each had our own rooms. These rooms were empty which meant I had to find some beds. I asked around at the Divi hotel where I worked and was lucky to find that they were replacing some and I could get them for free and they were in good condition. They turned out to be the only furniture we got for our rooms.

The only time I recall Doug being in St. Croix he had brought a friend who was a commercial diver and told me stories about how he dove for remains of the Challenger explosion and worked on the Titanic expedition and others. I thought all that was fascinating. He gave me a wet suit which I still have and my daughter has worn but outgrown already. He said it was given to him and he gets lots of free gear, all the time. I was fascinated about his career and excited to have a wetsuit to keep me warmer when I went diving. It was nice. Here is a picture of me in it. I liked the way it fit tight but it was really almost too tight.

I had learned to dive for free while I worked for Mile Mark. They offered the course to all of their employees. I really enjoyed it. My instructors name was Bonny, who was great, and I got an employee price on all of my gear. The only things I bought were a mask, snorkel, and fins because I could rent the rest any time I went diving. I ended up getting all the other gear eventually and I still had my original mask and snorkel up until a few years ago when my daughter, Shannon, and I went to St. Croix for a visit and I left it on the back of the car when we rushed off, after snorkeling, to catch a boat. I was so dissapointed. I still miss it.

At work I had begun a project to have a large tropical bird painting made for the back wall of our inhouse OPC desk in the lobby of the hotel which, I thought, needed some color. I was busy setting up my office and had been preparing to begin training sessions with my staff. They were few but I was trying to add a couple of news one each week.

My sister, Mindy, came down and she got a job right away working with Mile Mark Charters in their store on the waterfront. She enjoyed working there and was having fun meeting people and soon began dating one of the men who worked with her named Gary. He was from New York City, very nice, and good looking too. He was also a gentleman.

September 15th, two days before Hugo, I was at my office and a couple came in with resumes asking about working OPC. Their resumes were incredible, they had both held many jobs and been to college. It was a strange experience for me to consider hiring them for they were so much more qualified than I for the job I, myself had. I told them they were more than qualified but they needed to check back with me in a week or so after this hurricane had passed because I had no idea what state the island or the resort would be in. The Divi resort didn't reopen for ten years after Hurricane Hugo.

We all knew the hurricane was coming and people everywhere were preparing. I remember seeing it on The Weather Channel at work and knowing that it was coming our way. I had the feeling that it was going to be a major event and things would not be the same afterward but I could never have predicted just how it would turn out. There was a charged energy about everyone. The grocery stores were busy and everyone who could leave did. The tourist, most of them who had planned to stay, got on the plains and got out. A few were still there and I'm sure they regretted it afterward.

My car had gone in the shop to get the radiator repaired, thanks to my little sister who had had a little accident. I had rented a car to use while mine was being fixed and I was glad I had it now because I had a lot of running around to do to prepare for the storm. I drove out to the airport to collect the rum punch that I kept there for my OPC to hand to the new arrivals. I knew, somehow, that it would not be there after the storm. The airport check-in and arrival area was open air/outdoor and very typical Caribbean.

I also went by the home of a retired couple who I had just met and talked to about working OPC. They lived in a mobile home park not far from the airport. I liked them and they liked me. I was concerned about them staying home during this storm. They were not worried. They believed God would take care of them and, it turned out, He certainly did. I revisted them in the week afterward and their home was the only one still in it's place and almost undamaged. They had debri all around them and the twisted and coiled metal of another's home piled right up to their wall but they were perfectly untouched and rejoicing.

I bought some groceries, thinking we would only need to have enough for a few days, until the regular flights returned and things were back to normal. I had left my office neat and ready for my return but put things up a little higher, just in case. There were other things I did that I don't recall but I remember being so tired from all the preparations that I was able to sleep through most of the storm which passed during the night of September 17, 1989.

Mindy and Gary were at the condo with me. Our landlord was not on the island. The condo had louvered windows that we could not close tight. I wondered about that, fearing that we would get too wet when the winds picked up. I was thankful for them after the storm when I realized that they had kept the pressure from imploding our unit by allowing some air in and out. Several others in our complex were not so fortunate and lost everything. It was through these louvred windows that we got our first glimps of the storms destruction the morning after when we awoke. The first words we muttered were, "OH MY GOD!"

The storm had started to blow in all day on the 16th and got worse as the day went on. We were as ready as we thought we needed to be by dark and settled in as the winds were blowing sheets of heavy rain at us. We had some water and lots of rum punch, flashlights, batteries, a radio, Doritos, corned beef, and a few other canned foods. I parked my rental car out in an open grassy area to protect it from falling branches, etc. The next morning, it was still there but had been turned sideways by the wind. Fortunately, there were no damages to it at all. I kept it for too long however, because the dealer I had rented it from was not there after the storm and the remainder of their cars had been stipped and looted in the days following Hugo. I thought I had done them a favor and I also had no way of contacting them. She still charged me full price for the two weeks I had it!

The island world as we knew it had changed over night. Things would be different.

A boat was sent over from St. Thomas three days after the storm. I heard about it on the radio and went down to take a note for someone to call my dad collect. They did and he was very relieved. I had talked to him during the storm on Sunday night but he didn’t know if we were ok until Thursday.

We were ok but the island was totally wrecked and most of the businesses were looted. Mindy and I got out the day after to see if we could find more food and found our local market roof torn off, windows all busted, the doors wide open and 30 or so people in there taking everything they could carry. It was strange. We went in anyway and looked around for things we thought we could eat. We saw the owners, an Asian couple, standing by the disheveled check out and offered to pay for our food but they said to just take it. I felt so sad for them and hoped they had good insurance.

About a week after the storm, the U.S. Marshalls came down and took over and many workers from the states came and started rebuilding the telephone and electric systems. Construction workers were everywhere. The only businesses doing well were the bars and restaurants. We didn’t have much to do or any place to go.

My boss Karen came by one day. I was in my bathrobe and offered her some rum punch. She started crying. She had been driving around the island looking for people she knew and most all of their homes were destroyed. She was surprised to find us ok. She told me to get out of there and come to St. Maarten with her on the Sea Dancer, which was, at that time, part of the Divi Resorts . She had come over with its crew to assist the hotel. I declined but if I had I would have met Steve that day. I just couldn’t leave everything then. My money was in the bank and it was not opened yet. My car was still in the shop.

I got Mindy on one of the first planes out so she didn’t have to stay and deal with the mess. I thought I was protecting her in some way. I wanted to stay and try to keep my job somewhere within the Divi system. I still owned a car and it was almost three weeks before I could get my money out of the bank.

I had to stand in line for a couple of hours to call Karen and ask her if she could get me a job anyplace else. She checked with her boss and they arranged for me to go to Barbados for a couple of weeks. There I stayed and met the people there who did what I did on St. Croix. I was bored and lonely but it was a nice place. I think people started to get suspicious that I was trying to steal a job though and they asked me to leave. Karen told me I could go to St. Maarten and stay at her apt and use her car.

My ticket took me through Antigua where I had a pilot friend that I had met in St. Croix. I got lucky and saw him at the airport. He invited me to stay a few days with him. I did and while I was there I checked on getting a job at the new Divi resort that was being built but they were not hiring yet. I went water skiing in the cove and busted my knee on the ski. It has never been the same since. I went on to St. Maarten where I stayed in Karen’s apt and drove her little, European car to the beach everyday. I just went to the beach for about three weeks. I really didn’t know what to do with myself. I was as tan as I could be. I had a deep dark red/brown topless tan. I wish I had a photo of me then. When Karen saw me her jaw dropped and she could not believe my color. I didn't know I could get so brown.

The day after Karen returned, she took me over to the Sea Dancer to meet the crew and see what they were doing that Saturday. As it turned out they had a free day because their guests got snowed in someplace. I met Steve that day and we all went to the beach. We spent the whole day and evening together. It was a lot of fun and very memorable.

Now that I had met someone I found a job at a bar but it only lasted a day because I got a job on the Sea Dancer with Steve. I would take the place of a girl who wanted to get a break for a few months. It was temporary but just where I wanted to be.