Here in Australia we have had the longest hottest summer since I moved home from the Caribbean and winter just never seemed to arrive. Even May was still quite warm, but now June has arrived with a bang. All of last week there were flood warnings for the upcoming weekend while during the week the sun shone down. This photo shows the calm before the storm.
On our property here in a lush valley we have no town water, we have only tanks to collect and store the water for our household, not unlike a boat actually! With flood warnings in place I was shimmying around the roof of our cottage cleaning out the gutters to make sure there could be no blockages and we could collect every drop of rain. Our tanks were LOW after the never ending dry summer. Saturday morning the rain started and not with a slight drizzle, but with an instant downpour that didn't ease. By early afternoon the tanks were overflowing, but still it didn't ease. Here is a photo of our tanks.
I am now lying in bed early Sunday morning listening to the rain and wind battering our steel roof and thinking of how nice it is to be snuggled up safe in a "still" bed, no longer having to worry about the anchor dragging!
My mind instantly took me back to Union Island in The Grenadines and to my worst night sleep ever at anchor. Union island is a very pretty island, click on this link to read more about it. We arrived the day before a big blow of wind and the main anchorage is on the windward side of the island and strewn with reef. The reef offers protection from the big seas but there was no protection from the wind. This photo here shows the anchorage from the air, and I put a little red X to show where we were.
It took us forever to anchor the boat in such a tiny anchorage which already had lots of visiting boats. So you basically drop the anchor and then reverse back on it to let out lots of heavy chain and to pull back on the anchor to dig it into the sand. Once we did that it seemed as though the reef was 6 foot from the back step!
I couldn't sleep that night, I moved my bed to the cockpit and watched. The wind blew so strong that I thought if one link of that chain broke we'd have about 5 seconds until we were on the reef! SO today I am grateful to now live on dry land. However mishaps do happen to landlubbers too, and I spotted this unfortunate new Mercedes in the Creek down the road from our house this morning. Yes, it was quite a storm.
So as most of you are coming into Summer now, it can also be a stormy time of year.
Stay safe my island friends, and have a sensational summer.
If any of you find yourself in Wickford, Rhode Island this summer, check out one of our cute new stores, Blue Hydrangea. Cute name & I love the starfish in the window.
Island smiles.... Kim x
