Highlight 4th to 6th Sept 17
Hurricane Irma
The whole week has been a bit edgy; everyone has been watching the weather closely. Hurricane Irma has been developing for the next week or so across the Atlantic, and it looks like it is going to be bad for the northern Caribbean islands. Irma has steadily progressed from a category 1 to 5 in less than 3 days. We are talking of winds up to 200kms an hour. We’ve had some good thunder and lightning shows in the evening, out to sea. We’ve had practically no wind in the bay and no rain either and just a bit of a rolly sea. I guess the weather system further north has sucked out all the wind from down here.
Irma is going to devastate many if not all of the islands in its path. There is a sense of impending doom hanging, the cruisers net, the local radio and all the conversations are focused on Irma. We are over 250 miles away, tucked up safely, from the expected impact which is between Anguilla, St Martin, Barbuda, but the mood is sombre. I guess we are all too aware that this kind of winds will wreck havoc on all the communities touched. According to the local radio, some of the islands have been evacuated and help is on its way even before Irma hits. The French and the British navy have sent vessels with emergency personnel and equipment so they can get to work as soon as it is safe to land. It is the worse hurricane in years. It is very unsettling especially as hurricane Jose, already a category 3, is also set on the same path and might completely obliterate what has been missed by Irma. Hurricane Irma finally hits on Wednesday/Thursday this week and as predicted it is carnage. I have avoided looking at videos and pictures on the internet, it would be too upsetting. However, the boat community sprung into action immediately, donations (fuel, water, clothes, medical and other stuff) were collected and a few boats were sailing up to assist as soon as the weather improved. It is nice to see. Fortunately, all the people we know are safely away from the area, which is a blessing. Shame it had to hit all the islands we had on our list for next season. We’ll be fine in Antigua but anything further up will definitely be devastated, we may have to rethink our plan. Not sure that the islands will be in a fit state to have visitors although they might be grateful for the low impact tourism. Yatchies are usually low impact on the resources as we tend to largely bring everything from water to food. Guess we will have to play it by ear and see nearer the time.
Apart from that, not much to report, we have been working hard during the day. I am on the last stretch of the varnishing and Ian has been busy organising the new cradle for the life raft, the main sail annual check up, and other stuff for the boat. We have taken to TaiChi, twice a week at the Tikki bar. We’d never done it before and it is really good. Pierre Yves is teaching and spend his time admonishing me to breathe! I do like it, it is quite hard, loads of stretching and remembering the moves is a challenge. I find myself very often standing on the wrong leg! I also meet Gigi in the water ever afternoon for a bit of noodling… she has the best noodles in town, twice as fat as any we have seen so far. We usually spend an hour in the water playing around, chatting and she’s also showing me some exercises to do in the water. I kind of like this noodling lark, we might have to invest.