What a strange dry season…I think we’ve had one day without any rain since November…that was Thursday or Friday last week…that must have been our ‘dry season’…very weird weather…we’ve had more overcast days this month alone than we normally get in a year…and downpours in February…everything is topsy turvy…the biggest blessing is that the water tanks are all full, and the shrubs and flowers are all looking gorgeous, plus the trees that were damaged in Hurricane Tomas are sprouting new shoots…

We lost electricity shortly after I posted yesterday…first the internet went, then my husband said he was shutting off the tv as the cable picture was defragmenting and we were getting a flickering signal and the lights were browning down and back up…and then the electricity went off…it was very frustrating not having any means to monitor what the storm was doing…our radio was useless as I was only able to bring in a station in Venezuela, presumably the Vincentian stations must have lost electicity as well…we were 24 hours without electricity here at Spring…some areas got their electric back on by 8 last night but the remainder came back on at varying times through the day today…

The wind hit right about on time, about 2 pm, and it hit with a vengeance…and blew and blew…I was surprised to see the palm trees in the plantation below us blowing the opposite way to the way they normally blow…I guess that was the counterclockwise swirl as we were on the south end of Tomas…and it rained and blew, it was quite loud…rain was pretty much horizontal…our French doors across the front deck were wet up to the top pane and that doesn’t happen normally…lots of tree damage, as the wind blew and we heard trees snap, we moved from door to door and window to window to see what had broken, after the worst of the wind seemed to have past, it just poured…at the end of the day when we finally got a break from the rain, I took the dogs up to the road for a little walk, and found our road was completely blocked with 9 very large limbs and small trees over it…we got that cleared last night before the light went and before the rain started up again, figuring that it would be a good idea in case we needed to get out for some reason, and we’d heard a car going down the hill so we knew that the main road was cleared at least enough to get passed…we spent a good amount of time today cleaning up, but in the garden we’ve barely made a dent in all the broken limbs of trees…actually my husband got a good section of the garden cleaned up from fallen limbs on the one side of the house, but we need to have somebody come in with a chain saw to take care of some of the damaged trees…

I phoned friends and employees this morning to see how everybody fared…many parts of Bequia seemed to have more wind today than they did during the hurricane…sounds like the worst hit parts of Bequia were Spring and St. Hilaire out beyond Friendship Bay Hotel…as far as I’ve heard so far, the only damage in Bequia has been to trees, nobody mentioned any roofs or any other damage…not so lucky St. Vincent…

So far it’s been pretty much a non event in Bequia…we’ve just had a nice lull in the showers, which was a good time to get the dogs out to do their thing…sea is wild on the Atlantic side, I can see rain coming again…but we’ve only had ½ an inch of rain…wind is starting to pick up a bit with some good gusts…fingers crossed that this is as bad as it gets, but from the satellite it would appear that most of the system is still to the east of us…

It was a quiet night last night, a few showers and some wind, but nothing outstanding…it’s not very windy right now, but the sea is wild and it’s raining…

We moved more furniture in off the deck just in case…looks like a long wet day ahead of us…hopefully not too much tree damage or worse…fingers crossed…

I’ll take a photo of the sea and try to post it…

We just had a brief thunder storm…thunder, lightning and heavy rain for about 5 minutes…

Finally broke down and decided I should turn on what passes here for a radio station…sounds like a used car salesman…he said ‘rain comin’ then a little later he gave the report but downplayed it to rain all weekend with wind, possibility of it developing into something more…he might be right, but I don’t see any sense in downplaying that it might become a tropical storm or a hurricane before it has passed us by…oh well, so much for the local reports, I’ll stick to the satellite photos and reports from National Weather, etc.

I don’t know why we aren’t hearing more about this invest, depression, tropical storm, whatever it is, that according to the satellite photos is coming soon…however, the rain has started…I just got the porch and pool deck cleaned off of anything that might blow, when the rain hit and I remembered that there was some laundry in the sun in the courtyard…my house now looks like a laundromat with sarongs and towels hanging all over…as I write the rain has stopped and the sun has come back out for now…when the next shower will come who knows…is this something to really worry about, who knows, but I’m doing my best to be prepared without going to extremes…

There was no rain today in Bequia…finally, after 5 days of frequent heavy downpours, thunder and lightning…I thought that system was never going to leave us, but it finally moved north and hopefully will be out of the islands soon…

I didn’t hear of any flooding or land slippages in Bequia, but I believe there were several in St. Vincent…certainly traffic was really bogged down and detours were required…

The past two days have started off with rain showers, but then the weather has cleared and we’ve had glorious crystal clear days…the rainfall that we had sure cleared out a lot of dust I guess because the hills are so very intensely green…glad to see Igor is heading north and won’t be hitting any of the islands…

Yippee, the sun has finally broken through, my case of S.A.D. from one day of gloom is lifted…I’m such a wimp…going by all reports and the satellite photos, it looks like we are in the middle of the Tropical Low…with more drenching showers to come this afternoon…another 1 ½ inches of rain last night…some land slippages apparently with garden walls falling down…the wall behind my housekeepers house fell down in the night onto the patio…good thing it was at night and not in the day as the patio is in use all day long…she was telling me that another house that she takes care of had a wall fall down as well…

I’m beginning to wonder if this Tropical Low is ever going to move away from us…thunder and lightning with scattered showers off and on yesterday, but rain through the night and most of the day today…it’s very gloomy and has been all day…we’re so spoilt, one or two days of crappy weather a year and we complain about no sunshine…well, after a week of no rain, we were happy to have the rain, it’s surprising how dry things get in just a week...the pasture below us is now a lake, and everything is looking much greener and fresher…only 2 inches here at Spring, but we’re grateful for it…the mossies are awful, and last night we had the little flying ants in abundance…I’m happy to see that Igor is already further north…let’s hope he keeps tracking north before he comes too much further west…

That will teach you to complain how dry it is!. June in Mustique was the wettest ever with over 8 inches of rain. More than we have had in the last six months combined. Half of it came when the “embryo” of hurricane Alex passed over us! We are expecting the worst for the remainder of the hurricane season and are taking the necessary precautions (making sure the wine cellar is full J)

Best Regards

Stan

Firefly Hotels

stan at fireflymustique.com

www.fireflyhotels.com

Tel. 784 488 8414

Fax 784 488 8514

"The only privately owned hotel on the private island of Mustique"

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Loving the rain…we are all happy campers…our water tanks are filling, pools are overflowing, plants are growing…

And the pups Ricky and Lucy are tracking in mud…oh well…lots of water to wash their feet and the floors …

We’ve had 7 inches over the past few day…wonderful…