Monday 18 sept to Wednesday 22nd
We have been waiting for a weather window to go down to Trinidad and we have been watching the weather very closely. Another storm is forming over the Atlantic and it is soon named as hurricane Maria. She is gaining in strength all through the week and although she will not hit us directly, the effects are felt even here. There are lots of disturbances, wind, squalls, and sea. The anchorage has been very rolly, night and day. It has been driving me nuts, so we have spent a lot of time in the Tikki bar. The anchor ball has been playing games too, we have found it anywhere but where it belongs, at the front! A bit worried that it is caught somewhere and that it will be a drama to get the anchor up. Better sort it out as we go and get water and fuel. We still can’t leave; the wind is still south east, right where we want to go. So we re-anchor.
All this while, Maria has been wrecking havoc on the islands in the north, 2 weeks after Irma, the same islands and a few more are right in the middle of its path, from Martinique to Cuba. And with the same strength of Irma, category 5, what has been left standing by Irma is for sure going to be flattened by Maria. The news trickle down slowly over the next few days: Dominica, St Martin, St Kitts, Porto Rico and Cuba are devastated. We feel particularly sorry for Dominica. We have been there, seen and enjoyed the island and its people. And we know that the last hurricane, Erica, 2 years ago had already destroyed some infrastructures which had not been replaced as yet. The most amazing thing is the wave of generosity sweeping Grenada and all the other Caribbean islands. The cruisers net has been trying to organise supplies to be delivered to a few boats going north since Irma. There have been bins to collect food and emergency supplies for the last 2 weeks in all the supermarkets but the drive is upped in the last few days for Dominica. So when a call comes through on the cruisers net to ask for help loading a boat with emergency supplies, we feel that we should really go and give a hand.
Read more about our day on the carenage loading the Flying Buzzard