An Ill Wind

The island was feeling the effects of another norte all last week. These are storms, more prevalent in the winter months, that come directly out of the northeast. They usually bring rain and cold winds.

The one that passed over us last week was a bit strange. No rain, but lots of strong, strong winds. Especially experienced by those of us on the open side of the island, directly facing the Caribbean.

The beach directly across from my house was seriously affected by the surging, relentlessly pounding waves.




For months this summer it had turned into a pretty little sandy beach. In fact, it was on this beach that turtles came on an almost nightly basis to lay their eggs. Now it is mostly exposed bedrock again.




In the middle of this picture you can see a rock outcropping. I have called this Crocodile Rock for years. It resembles a giant crocodile about to slide into the water. It is very rarely that the water even touches this rock. Last week, it was completed covered over by each approaching wave.




But, alas, the beaches were not the only thing affected by this ill wind. Turn around from the water and look at my house. (the two toned brown one on the left)




Here's what I wanted you to see. It is where the electricty from the main wire feeds into my house. I know, I know, primitive at best but I did not design the electrical system in Mexico.

This metal pole normally stands upright against the house. Of course, with years of salt erosion, it was rusted beyond belief. All it took was those days of strong winds to snap it off at the base and send it gyrating in dangerous circles.

It has now been very effectively replaced with PVC piping and is anchored to the house. One nice side effect....I now have an unobstructed view out the living room window!

I also took a little video of the wind induced wave action. Of course, this was taken once the winds had subsided a bit. I would never expose the lens of my camera to the amount of salt spray that was being produced during the worst of it.

One final piece of business, if you have this far. I sort of quit smoking last week. One week ago today as a matter of fact. That's why there were no posts last week. I was hardly in a mood to be nice! B is quitting also. But...in order to keep from killing each other, we had to change up the plan a bit. We had gone cold turkey for 58 hours and it just wasn't working. We have now launched a quit plan that has us each smoking only 4 cigarettes per day. From there we are going to reduce it to 3,2,1, ZERO! So far that plan is working. Keep your fingers crossed for us!