Hurricane Sandy

Tuesday was when a different adventure started. Woke up to rain, lots of it. And wind. At breakfast we discovered that a tropical storm was heading for us, and due to turn into a hurricane before hitting us on Wednesday.

So, we had a relaxing day in the villa. Reading, listening to music, watching TV. Stuart managed to get 3 swims in, despite the rain. I didn't!




Had a bottle of champagne in the evening on our balcony



And then got a jitney in the pouring rain and ate in the Chinese restaurant.

Wednesday morning dawned, lots of rain, and at breakfast we were briefed that a hurricane was indeed on the way, all resort transport was stopping, most restaurants were closing apart from the two main ones, and those of us in villas high up should get to the main house and weather it out there. This was the view from our balcony when we got up.

So, armed with iPad, books, iPhone etc, we got to the lounge at 11am in the last jitney to travel. The wind got up, the rain came down. The resort was completely boarded up



And the resort staff were in hard hats, waterproofs and wellies, with very large machetes stuffed in them....



So, we sat it out. Gradually things got worse, and I think the main hurricane hit us about 4pm. There were 110mph winds and driving rain. Palm trees were falling all around. I saw this one fall, it was quite spectacular.




The resort had closed all the bars, " to keep us safe", and stopped all transport, but some people chose to walk up the hillside to their villas, despite the wind and falling trees!

We read, played games, chatted to people. It was all very jolly, but boring by the time we'd been there 8 hours. We were lucky that we could go outside under the huge porch to watch the storm, and you can see how bad it was

Eventually, about an army of men went out with machetes to clear the paths, and then about 8pm jitneys started running again, and we got back to our villa. The devastation we passed on the way was amazing, loads of trees down, and there was a palm tree in our pool. Our room had a small amount of flooding but not much.

It was certainly an experience, and quite exciting rather than scary. But that was because the resort was extremely well organised and we were in a safe place. I can't imagine what it must have been like for some of the residents of Jamaica, who certainly don't live in well built houses.



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