Windy day
06 February 2015
• Hope Town Abacos Bahamas
by Mike
We awoke this morning to a howling wind and the shore power off. It blew so hard the photo in this post blew over. Like I said yesterday the quiet was like the calm before the storm. There was some rain last night but not too much. Not enough to fill the water tanks so we will be running the water maker again today after choir practice, if there is a choir practice. The power came back on again after about an hour outage but with the wind it might drop again. If there is no power in the settlement this afternoon there will be no organ and since it's an electric piano there would be no piano either, but Barb reminds me that they do have a generator for the church. I hope the power will be back on before that. In a post a month or so ago I believe I mentioned the condition of the overhead wires in Hope Town. I have been told that most of the power failures in storms comes from these wires swinging and touching something they are not supposed to, grounding out and shorting something like a transformer. In minor cases it is just a case of a technician coming down to repair the damage but in more severe cases if there is a fire it will sometimes require a new pole or something.
The shape of the Abacos is such that although the general lay of the chain is North South, there is a sort of boomerang shape to them so that if the wind is directly from close to North the southern part of Elbow Cay is in the lee. This means that the local fisherman Local Boy often goes out when you think he must be crazy. I guess if it means dollars in your pocket and supporting your family you don't have much choice. The one time I went out there was a bit of a sea running and even on the large sport fisherman that I was on there was a lot of rolling. So much so that I was forced to indulge in a little involuntary chumming. Justin on Local Boy must have a steady stomach.
Finn MacCool was setting up their suitcase generator yesterday to augment the little that they were getting from their solar panels. I hope they were able to get it running. They have it set up on their swim platform astern and were concerned about disturbing their neighbours. The mooring they were able to pick up was right in front of the trawler with the yappy dogs so I think their little generator would be the least of their neighbours complaints. They have invited us over for dinner tonight.
On the cruiser's net this morning there was all sorts of concerns about weather cancellations which will give you an idea of the conditions. Cruising seems to be a series of lessons one after the other. In the past they tell me they almost never had cold fronts marching through one after the other like they are these days so it looks like with climate changes and all perhaps the trick would be to come to the Bahamas for November, stay until January and then heading south to the Exumas for better weather. Of course we haven't been there yet this year so we'll let you know for sure after we have.
The mooring field is filling up. I'm not sure if it's because of the storm system coming through of if it's due to the summer peak season beginning.
The Book of Negroes is airing in CBC and BET and our daughter is videoing the scenes that I am in and sending them to us. I am hardly a featured performer but if you look closely there are several scenes with a stocky white bearded guy walking along or standing there watching what the actors are doing and every once in a while getting involved in the riot or something.
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