Keeping On Our Toes

By now you all know how much we love and appreciate a sick sense of humor, and how we ourselves pride ourselves on our own. However, we do not appreciate when Mother Nature decides to try out her newest stand up act.

Tuesday was just another normal day. Sun shining, blue skies, and a little blob of clouds crossing the lesser Antilles south of us as a slightly disorganized tropical storm called Dorian. We were watching it and all forecast tracks were sending him around 100 miles to our south west.

Fast forward to Tuesday evening, and okay he’s grown a bit, but no storm advisories for the BVI. Our neighbors in the USVI and Puerto Rico were issued tropical storm warnings so we figured we would just get some nice rain and a bit of a reprieve from the scorching heat we have been having. All fine and good.

As we tucked in for the night on Tuesday the BVI Department of Disaster Management our out a notice to check the 11 pm tropical update as there just might be a watch issued last minute for the BVI.

11:15 pm: no update…. phew. Sleep here we come!

3:00 am Wednesday morning: wooooosh! Here’s the rain! Quickly jump out of bed and check the windows are all closed. Glance at the phone… well crap… there’s that advisory from the BVI DDM. BVI is now under a Tropical Storm Warning, and we can expect to feel the effects within the next 24 hours. Not much we can do at 3:00 am, so back to sleep.

6:45 am: Woooosh! There’s more rain! Okay getting a little blustery out there now. Quickly check the 5:00 am update and still looks much the same as the 11:00 pm update from last night, though looking outside tells a different story. BVI DDM alert: Flash Flood Warning issued for the territory…. well, we have all been saying we need some rain but Mother Nature took our rain dances a little too much to heart.

8:00 am: all scheduled staff clock in and get straight to work securing all of the patio furniture at the cottages and villas. Again we are so grateful for an extraordinary staff who always go above and beyond! They got everything put inside and headed home to hunker down (As you East Coaster’s say).

11:00 am: here comes the “breeze” … just a bit more than we anticipated! The governor has issued a curfew from 2:00 pm Wednesday to 6:00 am Thursday…. so that means it’s going to be worse than it is now… okay. Fill the sink and buckets and wait for the power to go off.

2:00 pm: update now says we are under Hurricane warning. **^%#*!

2:03 pm… electricity goes off. We were lucky enough to have power up until then anyway as it had been off in the north sound from 10:00 am.

2:15 pm… Tina calls Michelle …. “the power is out and I’m not turning on the generator until this evening, but now all the computers, server, and satellite equipment are beeping at me! What do I do?!” ….” it’s past curfew Mom, sorry…. not coming out 🙂 power off the battery backups and the beeping will stop. “ Now, not many of you know this… but Tina is not so electrically inclined. Surprising we know, since she can do just about anything! Michelle can usually figure this stuff out…. when she’s looking at it, but it was the blind leading the blind. Tina: “which button on which thing do I press?” Michelle: “the one that’s beeping at you?” Okay, all comedy aside, Tina did press the right button in the end… well, we think so… tomorrow we will know for sure!

4:00 pm: the winds and rain start to subside a bit. Power is still out so just have to wait it out.

6:00 pm: Tina reports in that all is well at Guavaberry! Yay! No trees down, the beach tree stood strong, and the Deltecs took Dorian like a spa day!

8:56 pm… electricity is back!! Thank you oh so much for the hard working crew of the BVI Electricity Corporation!

Now we can rest well and enjoy the weather as we were EXPECTING to before… a cool breeze and soothing rain. Thanks Mother Nature, you sure do keep us on our toes!

(Jackson propping up one tree casualty)

(Ixora standing strong… missing foliage is thanks to a pesky bunch of goats)

(Hibiscus as good as can be)

(The tamarind tree still flourishing… the guinep tree had a bit of a mishap a few weeks ago)

(Water as calm as can be the day after Dorian. The waves were more rough than swells so the sand is barely disturbed!)