Friday, April 15, 2011

Friday, April 15, 2011:

Kind of cloudy early on today, but the sky cleared so we decided to head to the beach. We got everything together and headed towards the beach!  This is what we saw on the way to the beach....look at the weather here:

**On your left is this: 

Yuck!

**On your right is this:

Yay!

Unfortunately the beach was on the “yuck” side!  We got there and saw the wall of rain slowly moving over Anse Marcel and Mont Vernon. We took cover at Pedro’s, ordered a drink and waited for it to pass.  It was a thick wall of rain to be sure. At times it was so thick you couldn’t even see the mountains past Mont Vernon! You definitely couldn’t see Anguilla! Check out these pictures:

** Round 1:

 ...seems to clear...

 Round 2! ... the mountains disappear!

 finally cleared!

But the rain finally headed SE towards the ocean. Odd direction – usually it comes from the SE! We thought the coast was clear and took our gear to the sand.  Then the wind changed directions…and the heavy wall of rain headed back NW over Mont Vernon again! Only a little closer to us! Uh oh! It hung over the mountains for a while, then the wind changed…again…and it went back SE and out to the ocean.  This time to stay. 

We saw Patty and talked to her a while, and the sun came out for about a half hour.  Unfortunately it didn’t last and the clouds hanging over the mountains in the center of the island started to head our way!  We knew it wasn’t going to be pretty when we heard thunder! Then the wind picked up and plucked a few umbrellas out of the sand.  That’s our clue…time to leave the beach and head back to the apartment! We didn’t make it to the car and it had started raining already. We quickly loaded our things and got in. Then it started to rain, and rain hard all the way back to the apartment.

We walked through the deluge of rain and finally got up to the apartment. We opened the door and the floor was covered with water.  The water was coming under the door and it was running into the kitchen under the cabinets and into bedroom. Ugh! We quickly threw our beach towels on the floor and mopped up the water as best we could.  Luckily none of our stuff got wet.  It’s going to be a long night.  (I’m reminded of the tropical storm in Mazatlan when water poured in the windows and under the door!)  Gerald went down to the office to tell them what was going on and to get a towel or something to put at the base of the door to stop the water from coming in.  They said they would send someone around 7 to look at it!!! Great.

The rain is still pouring down and the breeze is cool.  We shed our wet clothes and settled in.  Gerald took a nap and I read my Nook…and dozed off a little too!

At 7:30 we got a call from the front desk.  He’s going to come up look at the door to see why water is getting through. I could tell him why! How about the gaping crack in the top and bottom of the door? Plus there is no threshold or anything to stop it from running under the door! There is a seal strip, but it doesn’t even touch the floor. There is a reason for it but it has to be put on properly! Oh well! He came and looked at it, relatively unconcerned, and said he would send someone to fix it tomorrow and also would have the maids bring a new towel for the floor if we needed it. It’s better than nothing.  For now, we’ll just keep the towel shoved at the base of the door to help stop the water from running in.

We ate dinner, watched TV then Gerald went to bed while I worked on uploading pictures and videos. (or tried anyway!)