tcm
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Tropical Storm Chantal swept through the Caribbean last night, but nothing at all felt here in St Martin. This is the third "named" storm of the season, the others being Barry and erm, another one, beginning with A. Anyway (no, the first storm of the season wasn't called Anyway, this is just a new sentence)...Chantal passed over Domenica, the island north of Martinique and south of Guadeloupe, with winds to 60mph, so 50knots, which is proper Tropical Storm (sustained over 35knots) . For reference, Antigua is the next again north of Guadeloupe. St Lucia is the island south of Martinique. St Martin (where we are) is bout 90 miles east of the BVI and 90 miles NW of Antigua. In the Eastern Caribbean. Western Atlantic? The big wet scary blue thing on the OTHER side of the Needles Fairway Buoy.
The news from Dominica where the storm passed directly overhead is that they stopped the ferry services and closed airports. I dunno where the ferry service goes, and didn't know that the Domenican airports were plural, but I bet they close the airport(s) every evening anyway. Whatever.
During the actual storm, several roofs got ripped off, it says in the local web news. Although if you've seen houses in Dominica it seems that the roofs (and walls) were all ripped off/borrowed/found from somewhere else, plonked on top of the house after a previous storm, and might be made of cardboard. More like a sunshade than a roof.
However, not getting complacent, ooh no. The full-on hurricane season is 13 weeks from July to end September and we've only had a week and a half so far. I might do more of these, but heh, if it's a full-on hurricane the wifi wouldn't be working, would it? Although that's pretty much like all the TV news anywhere really - huge disaster, dreadful catastrophe... although almost never so bad that loads of news bods and camera people can't get to it, and often loads of other people doing Youtube stuff. Hum.
The boat is on a so-called hurricane mooring ($150/month) and we're mostly staying ashore. Experienced types say you should have 4 weeks food, so we got loads of tuna and cereal and bottled water. I also bought a petrol-powered chainsaw, possibly to saw my way out of the place if needed, and/or praps to hawk off to others at vast profit since this was the last one in the shop.
Edit: thinking about it, I'm wasn't actually "on the spot" really, was I? I was NEAR the spot, about 200 miles away. Sorry.
The news from Dominica where the storm passed directly overhead is that they stopped the ferry services and closed airports. I dunno where the ferry service goes, and didn't know that the Domenican airports were plural, but I bet they close the airport(s) every evening anyway. Whatever.
During the actual storm, several roofs got ripped off, it says in the local web news. Although if you've seen houses in Dominica it seems that the roofs (and walls) were all ripped off/borrowed/found from somewhere else, plonked on top of the house after a previous storm, and might be made of cardboard. More like a sunshade than a roof.
However, not getting complacent, ooh no. The full-on hurricane season is 13 weeks from July to end September and we've only had a week and a half so far. I might do more of these, but heh, if it's a full-on hurricane the wifi wouldn't be working, would it? Although that's pretty much like all the TV news anywhere really - huge disaster, dreadful catastrophe... although almost never so bad that loads of news bods and camera people can't get to it, and often loads of other people doing Youtube stuff. Hum.
The boat is on a so-called hurricane mooring ($150/month) and we're mostly staying ashore. Experienced types say you should have 4 weeks food, so we got loads of tuna and cereal and bottled water. I also bought a petrol-powered chainsaw, possibly to saw my way out of the place if needed, and/or praps to hawk off to others at vast profit since this was the last one in the shop.
Edit: thinking about it, I'm wasn't actually "on the spot" really, was I? I was NEAR the spot, about 200 miles away. Sorry.
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