Tropical Storm Elsa is visiting Barbados

[Bajansailor]

Tropical Storm Elsa is sitting on top of us, and blowing a hooley - our power went off 20 minutes ago, and I am working on the UPS power supply, but it won't last long.
I have seen reports of 75 mph gusts, so she might well be a hurricane now.
Thankfully she is a fast mover, heading west at 25 knots, so should be past us soon.
Although those 75 mph gusts could be the predicted 50 knot gusts with the rate of travel added on.
Here is an impressive satellite picture -
GOES-East - Sector view: Caribbean - Sandwich - NOAA / NESDIS / STAR

This one is stronger than Tomas 11 years ago, and our power was off for 10 days after Tomas...... hopefully not so long this time!

Edit - just saw a report that Elsa has been upgraded to a hurricane.

 

[capnsensible]

Stay safe and hope it transits quickly.

 

[Frogmogman]

Hope she moves on without doing too much damage. Stay safe Martin.

 

[Bajansailor]

Elsa has passed us by - the power is still off, but I have a UPS connection for the modem, so just a quick update.
A couple of trees down in the garden, but all ok here otherwise.

 

[Mister E]

Glad you are OK

 

[atol]

Flooding in SVG

 

[Frogmogman]

Elsa has passed us by - the power is still off, but I have a UPS connection for the modem, so just a quick update.
A couple of trees down in the garden, but all ok here otherwise.

Let’s hope Elsa is as gentle with St Vincent, st Lucia and Martinique

 

[lustyd]

Someone named a hurricane Elsa and didn’t expect jokes?!

hope all calms down soon

 

[Bajansailor]

Quite amazingly, we still have internet (but no telephone line) - despite the trees (a Breadfruit and a Royal Palm) in the photo below bringing down the telephone cable. This is just around the corner from us, and this is our only access road, so I have not been very far today.
We shall have a bash at getting rid of it tomorrow with a couple of young strong lads to do the heavy work.

And the power went off this morning - we have the generator running now for a few hours, to charge fridges and computers, and a couple of lights. I think that there are probably many power lines down, and it will probably take a while for our power to be re-connected - our power was off for 10 days after our encounter with Tropical Storm Tomas 11 years ago.
I shall go and have a look online now to see how the other islands (and the rest of Barbados) have fared.

 

[Robin]

good luck, hope all goes well and fast

 

[Rum_Pirate]

From a friend on Barbados


Good morning all, I now have an opportunity to let you I am safe and well. However, I am still out of electricity this morning but the water is now back on.
Consequently, I am without internet and telephone connection. However, I was able to find my way between the fallen tree on foot to get out. The community in my area is completely shut off from access.
I am now at xxxxx residence and now able to catch up on my mail for a few hours.
Stay safe all and take care.

 

[Rum_Pirate]

 

[Bajansailor]

Yes, there is a lot of repair work to do here - and Elsa was just barely a Cat 1 hurricane, and she was moving fast at 25 knots. My mind boggles to think what we would be like if we had a Cat 5 sat on top of us, like what the islands further north had a few years ago when they got hammered by hurricanes Maria and Irma.

I have heard of one boat (so far) that broke her mooring in Carlisle Bay, and headed west - maybe somebody in one of the other islands will find her. I hope she did not sink - I am sure that the seas out there were pretty ferocious and confused with 70 knot gusts and the wind direction changing all the time.
This boat is the legendary Bruggadung, a 32' stripped out racer designed and built here in the 80's by Andrew Burke - she was shipped to the Canaries for the 1987 ARC, and did very well, winning her class with ease and beating many other bigger boats over the line.

 

[Rum_Pirate]

Yes, there is a lot of repair work to do here - and Elsa was just barely a Cat 1 hurricane, and she was moving fast at 25 knots. My mind boggles to think what we would be like if we had a Cat 5 sat on top of us, like what the islands further north had a few years ago when they got hammered by hurricanes Maria and Irma.

I have heard of one boat (so far) that broke her mooring in Carlisle Bay, and headed west - maybe somebody in one of the other islands will find her. I hope she did not sink - I am sure that the seas out there were pretty ferocious and confused with 70 knot gusts and the wind direction changing all the time.
This boat is the legendary Bruggadung, a 32' stripped out racer designed and built here in the 80's by Andrew Burke - she was shipped to the Canaries for the 1987 ARC, and did very well, winning her class with ease and beating many other bigger boats over the line.

I used to race against her many years ago.
I recall that even the through toilet hull fitting was removed, hole filled and sanded smooth. Even the bolts had the bits through the nut clipped off.
IIRC Ralph Johnson used to own/skipper at the time.

 

[Bajansailor]

I used to race against her many years ago.
I recall that even the through toilet hull fitting was removed, hole filled and sanded smooth. Even the bolts had the bits through the nut clipped off.
IIRC Ralph Johnson used to own/skipper at the time.

Yes, Ralph commissioned Andrew to design and build her (Andrew was one her regular racing crew, including the 1987 ARC) and she was quite unstoppable, had a good rating, and won a lot of hardware over the years.
They had 8 crew on board (on a 32' boat....) for the '87 ARC, and the boat was very basic - 4 pipe cots down below for the off watch, a basic galley, maybe a head (or maybe it was just a bucket) - and they sailed her across the Atlantic in similar fashion to if they were racing on a Saturday afternoon here - ie intensively, 4 hrs on, 4 off, with 4 crew on watch, flying the kite the whole way. But I remember they all looked totally exhausted when they arrived here.
And this was the days before affordable freeze dried food ands water makers, so they only carried enough water for drinking, and tinned food and biscuit - no fridge on board.
Andrew had previously (in the 70's) built his first boat for himself, a half tonner called Nefertiti, and she did very well in all the regattas then. He subsequently built another much more radical boat called Countdown - think of an over sized 32' Moth with wings, with some very basic accommodation, and that was Countdown.

Getting back to Elsa, we still have no power yet, so I have the generator running again this evening - we ran out of juice for the genny this afternoon, so had to go hunting for a petrol station that was open. The first two were still closed, but then I found one that was open. Got US$75 worth in jerry cans, (our petrol is very expensive, almost US$8 a gallon), and this should keep us going tomorrow and into Monday for a bit if the power isn't back by then. This is just for a single cylinder Briggs & Stratton 5 KW beast that is generally quite tempermental, but so far it is holding up well.
I saw power company linesmen working on poles earlier on my way to look for petrol, and they are getting closer to us, so hopefully we will get power back before too long. Our water supply came back this afternoon, but we have a good supply of water in tanks, so not too concerned about that.

 

[Bajansailor]

An update on Sunday evening at 1900 hrs - our power is still off. The water came back briefly yesterday evening, then went off again, but no worries there, we have nuff water in tanks.
Here is a photo of my collyfoxed new fuel tank for the generator.
To Collyfox is a nice Bajan expression meaning to bodge / improvise.
The tank for the generator was a 2 part plastic thing glued together in the middle (like an Easter egg), sitting on the framework around the generator (the generator came with it). I filled it up this morning, it started happily and then I found that it was leaking, and dripping fuel on to the hot engine - not good!
I shut it down quickly. Removed the tank, and decided to use a standard 6 gallon red plastic petrol tank for an outboard motor - this is the set up we have for the diesel tank on our boat Phoenix. Except that the tank is here, but the hose was on Phoenix, ashore about 20 mins drive away.
So I went down to Phoenix this morning to get the hose, and connected it up, and touch wood, it seems to be running well, with the tank sitting on the ladder next to the generator. I also bought a new spark plug for the generator and it seems much happier now.

On my travels I saw linesmen from Light & Power working on poles - one pole had a transformer that was totally black. It must have burnt out quite spectacularly. They seem to start at Bridgetown re fixing, and radiate outwards - so they are getting closer to us, 10 miles out in the boonies.
Maybe we might get power back on Monday, but I am not counting on it - Elsa had more punch than Tomas 11 years ago, and our power was off for 10 days then.

 

[Rum_Pirate]

Cadare, Martin, dat deer generator look like it gorne through de edoes.

 

[Bajansailor]

Cadare, Martin, dat deer generator look like it gorne through de edoes.

It is still gallantly working; and defiantly clambering through those eddoes - but it has been dropping hints that I should look into acquiring a new one, preferably with an electric start facility.
A mate of mine has one that runs on propane, with electric start - I am going to visit the place he got it from this week, and place an order for one (as I think everywhere here is sold out now).

 

[Frogmogman]

Here is a photo of my collyfoxed new fuel tank for the generator.
To Collyfox is a nice Bajan expression meaning to bodge / improvise.
View attachment 118309

Top collyfoxing. Particularly like the step ladder. You are truly Barbados’ answer to MacGyver.

Very glad to hear everything is ok with you.

 

[Bajansailor]

Monday morning, it is sunny and calm outside - and we still have no power. The collyfoxed generator is still running happily, but it definitely needs to be upgraded.
The mains water came back for an hour or two, and then went off again - but no worries, we have plenty water in tanks.

@Zing makes a good point about running away from a storm (like what my pal Dave did here with Elsa) in post #16 in this thread in the Liveaboard forum - much better than relying on the 'safety' of a hurricane hole.
Moving to the Caribbean

Dave arrived here on his cat a few weeks ago from Gibraltar - rather than being a sitting duck (or cat rather) here they set sail on Thursday morning, heading south - they went about 60 miles and then hove to for the night. Elsa clobbered us hard on Friday morning, but Dave later reported that they only had a few squalls, and about 30 knots maximum.
Then they enjoyed a nice downhill run with a southerly on Friday back to Barbados, arriving in the evening - Elsa had been moving fast and was already west of the Windward Islands.
If you do not have any ties connecting you to the shore, then I would agree that the best thing to do is to run, especially if you have enough warning (and we had plenty of warning re Elsa).
Elsa was 'only' a tropical storm before she arrived here, but then was later upgraded to a hurricane when she got here - even though she was 'only' a Cat 1, many houses here lost roofs or were even demolished, and many trees came down, along with some poles for electricity and telephone.