BAD TIMING
Many if not most of you think of Mrs. T as a 'woman of adventure'. And she does have a streak of doing things a bit out of the norm. But much of this stems from her lack of sitzfleich - she just cannot sit still sometimes. And she is working her 'bucket list' - my bucket has a hole in it. There is also her need to get away from the mundane, i.e., the editor. So occasionally she goes on a solo vacation or maybe with a small group of women friends. Sometimes she has a great time and sometimes things end up with a bit of tragedy. Remember the broken leg at the end of the whale shark adventure? Well, she felt the urge recently and she erred. Here is the first part of a long essay about her recent trip.
Well I had been under a lot of stress. (Probably caused by the editor -dt) One of my friends suggested a vacation. I talked to Dan about it. He was not going to take a - rude word - vacation. ('Darn' is a rude word for R. -dt) So I decided to go by myself. One of my favorite things is SCUBA diving. (The real reason I did not go -dt) I looked on the internet the best places for diving in the Caribbean were Saba, the British Virgin Islands and some others. The safest (Low crime -dt) places to visit included the British Virgin Islands (BVI) whose language was English and money was the US dollar. Well I signed up for a week for a nice little hotel on the beach. (Her travel agent made the arrangements. -dt) There was a little storm developing out by Africa but it would probably not go near the BVI.
The next week as he drove me to the airport Dan remarked, "I'm not sure you should go the way that storm is growing." "Oh I'll be fine I replied ," confidently. If you ever want me to do something tell me I shouldn't. (Amen to that -dt) Besides I was still a little grumpy that he wouldn't go. By the time I landed the storm had a name, Irma, and was headed towards the BVI.
Several hours later when I arrived at Sebastian's on the Beach preparations were under way. The owners suggested I have a good meal before the hurricane came. Although I wasn't very hungry I had a burger and fries. Victor the chef, a huge soft-spoken bronze man, was busy packing his pans and utensils. The meal he made for me was simple and delicious. In fact it was very life sustaining although I did not know it at the time. All the people at Sebastian's said I was a very brave lady. In fact you might substitute the word silly for brave; oh well. Everyone else except two tall Americans had cancelled their bookings.
The things is, to get to BVI I had to take 3 different airplanes with waiting in between as the prognosis of the storm got worse for BVI and I was unaware. When I arrived Irma was already rated as a number 4 and the revised storm path had the eye coming right over Tortola where I was staying. OOPS!! As far as my plans for SCUBA diving, I could forget about that because all the dive boats filled up some extra cans of gas and motored away as far and as fast as possible. Boats that didn't leave mostly ended up in the middle of the island upside down. There was one place that was called hurricane bay where it was supposed to be safe to anchor to ride out a storm. Alas not so. Several boats that tested this theory disappeared completely and have not been seen since.
After my supper Wanda and James,the proprietors of Sebastian's, told me they had moved me from a first floor room to a second floor room. My new room had a concrete roof so it should not fly off. Well that was good. They failed to explain that the second floor room was good because the storm surge, the wave of high water, was expected to be over 20 feet. In this case a second floor room was a very good idea. Also the room had stormproof windows. I was all set. As I started unpacking I decided not to put anything in the bottom drawers of the dresser just in case.
When I unpacked I found a necklace that Dan had slipped into my bag. This day was my 67th birthday. I called to thank him and to report that I had arrived safely. I wandered downstairs and a lady asked me if I wanted to buy any hurricane supplies from their little store. I thought about it. After Irma arrived there might be no electricity. And no water!!!
I bought a lot of packets of crackers and cookies, called biscuits for some reason (It is the British Virgin Islands -dt), maybe 8 packets each holding 8 to 10 biskies. I bought a jar of peanut butter. I bought a large plastic jar, about a quart, of tiny ginger snaps. I bought three candy bars. And to drink I bought a large size bottle of water - two liter; it was the last water they had except 20 liter bottles. I bought 4 cans of PEPSI and two plastic 1-liter plastic bottles of COKE. I bought 4 glass bottles of a grapefruit drink. I had no can opener for these. I bought four 12 oz bottles of juice drink - two of carrot orange, one of carrot mango, one of pear Hawaiian punch. I was pretty sure I would not like these - I would be wrong. I figured I was prepared for a couple of days - how long could it be - wrong again. These supplies cost over $40.
I was settling in when Victor and some other guy came up with two 5-gallon buckets of seawater for flushing. They also brought up 3 plastic gallons of drinking water. I think this is when the birthday flowers from Dan arrived. It was a large bowl of yellow roses and some tropical pink flowers. Everyone was impressed. I put them on my dresser. I felt loved. I knew I would be okay now. I arranged my small bag with my passport, my money, my credit cards, and my medicine around my neck. I got my two books to read. Wanda came up to give me my instructions and my key.
First of all I was perfectly safe. The roofs never came off when they were made of concrete. This turned out to be untrue but my roof stayed on. Irma had been upgraded to a level 5, the highest intensity hurricane. It had 190 mph winds. The eye was supposed to come right over where we were. When it did it would seem like the hurricane was over but it was not. I was not to come out until Wanda or James or Victor came for me. I would be all right. Wanda gave me the key and told me to lock the door when she left and not to let in anyone but her or James or Victor.
No one told me why this was but I knew. After the hurricane came LOOTING. I moved the food close to the bed opened a can of PEPSI and a candy bar. I peered out the window, which was clearly labeled storm proof. The wind had picked up but there was not much rain. I kept my shoes on as I lay down and tried to read. I could not pay attention to the book and I kept getting up to peer out the window. I decided this hurricane was not going to amount to much. I hoped it at least had an eye; I was wrong again. I decided to use the potty while it was still flushable. I peeked out the tiny bathroom window and saw there was no surge under us yet. This was good.
I tried to read but that proved difficult as the wind noise kept getting louder. Suddenly there was a huge crash and I saw a large tree fly by. A couple seconds later a big flat blue thing that I thought was a roof sailed by. "We are not in Kansas anymore," I thought. The rain suddenly fell in sheets which the wind swirled in patterns like curtains blowing. CRACK!! CRASH!! BANG!!! The two large stormproof windows, broke out shattered and were gone. A sheet of rain washed over me. The wind blew my breath away. "Oh SH_T!" I thought. I frantically grabbed all my crackers and drinks and retreated to the bathroom. I yanked shut the door which was resisting until the latch caught. I peered cautiously out the small window which was intact. The water was rising rapidly. Every few seconds there was a clear view and each time this happened there were fewer houses and trees in sight. What had been a beautiful tropical neighborhood with flowers and trees and gayly colored houses was turning into a rocky moonscape littered with broken houses and trees. The Sebastian trembled as each wave crashed against the lower floor. Thank goodness I was on the second floor. Then slowly the winds quieted and the rain stopped. The water drained away. We were in the eye. I noticed that I was breathing fast as if I had been running. So much for being a brave lady I thought as I tried to concentrate on breathing slowly. I probably should do something but I couldn't think what. Don't go out I remembered.
"Rebecca are you OK?" Wanda called."Yes," I replied. "We are going to move you to the room next door. Its windows did not break," Wanda explained. I emerged from the bathroom. The mattress was torn from the bed and lay twisted on the floor waterlogged and covered with shattered glass. The bedspread was stretched across one side of the room. My flower arrangement was still beautiful and intact. My phone was damp and did not work. The book I had been reading was in soaked clumps of pages. As I poured water and glass from my duffle bag I noticed that there was an inch or two of water on the floor. It came in the windows I thought. The waves did not get that high. Wanda and I stuffed all my undamaged stuff in the duffle. We brought in my dive equipment and my flowers too. Victor arranged all my food and drink with a large pile already on the desk in one corner. Victor's window had broken too. The roof had blown off Wanda and James's place so the four of us were holed up in the one undamaged room. Also there was Ally who was Wanda's cat. James was carting up buckets of flushing water. Victor was bringing food and water. Wanda was bringing dry pillows and blankets I sat on the bed trying to breathe slowly. Ally, every few minutes would let loose one very grumpy meow. She did not like this hurricane one bit and she expected us to make it stop. It was beginning to get darker and the wind was picking up when a lady whose house had blown completely away showed up asking for shelter. In the next few minutes three more refugees appeared. The eye had passed and the second half of Irma was upon us.
Thus ends the first part of Mrs.T's essay on the Irma adventure. Still more harrowing things to come. And I was concerned that Irma was headed towards Rachel's in north-central Florida. Plus Harvey had recently paid a visit to our friend JT land her family just west of Houston; she seems to have gotten through that relatively unscathed thankfully. And Mexico had deadly earthquakes; nothing untoward in Bucerias.
To see pictures and other stories of Irma in Tortola check out the BBC, The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/17/tortola-hurricane-irma-british-virgin-islands , or other British news services.
As you can guess Rebecca eventually made it back to Philo. But that is for the next parts of the story.; I will be encouraging her to write more while things are still fresh in her memory. Stay tuned and feel free to share.
Dan and Rebecca
www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com
Sent from Outlook
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