Island Woman's Culebra

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The stars came out

After a day of pretty horrendous weather with damaging flooding, the wee hours of this morning are calm, with the starry sky above pretty perfect for viewing the Leonids meteor shower. Which I did. There were some low lying clouds but it was still a good sky show, lying on my little dock, a beach towel between me and the dampness of the boards, a pillow under my head.

Engraving of the 1833 meteor storm

(probably the most intense Leonid meteor shower on record)

Somewhere I read that the best way to watch a meteor shower is to let your eyes go loose. The only way to understand that is to do it. As you stop directing your concentration, a shift happens, sort of like looking at those pictures designed to work on your optic nerves, showing you patterns that at first glance are invisible. There! A light flashed across the sky, to the far left...a little while longer, and yes! another, to the lower right.Oh, another!

I could feel a slow smile growing on my face, becoming aware that my thoughts had gone as loose as my eyes. Like being on the edge of sleep, your hearing shutting down, your awareness fading, only to be gently jolted back to consciousness by some small thing, I became aware that I wasn't really thinking about anything. That for a few minutes, the hamster wheel slowed and slowed to...nothing and all that existed were my eyes and the starry sky, a feeling for me as powerful as a meteor shower on earth. I'll have to get out there more often. Maybe earlier than the roosters start crowing...

Before the deluge took precedence, I was going to post some photos of the day before. While I could post some pretty dramatic photos of the flooding and resulting damage, I think not. There are enough negative things in the world and since this will be the talk for awhile around here, I'd rather not start the day with it. So here is a reminder that we live in a beautiful place (if man would just keep his hands off of it).

Balance - it's a beautiful thing

Tarpon series

Red tailed hawk high over the cart

Like the meteor shower early this morning, like weed flowers at our feet, we have to keep our eyes loose for the beauty that is out there - over our heads, in front of us at the next step. No, that's not voodoo hoodoo, it's just looking for the better things that ease the way for the rest of it...making life far more than simply bearable.

Have a cleaned up Tuesday; we will!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Buckets of rain

There is nothing to think about but pounding rain, basso fundo thunder, sharp flashes of lightning and a lifting of darkness. OH! and with the lifting, just now, a friend with a dinghy on my dock comes out to bail. So, I'd best do the same. In the lightning? Yikes.

Post bail...the rain slowed, the lightning stopped, just long enough for Jack and me to bail out our entirely full of water dinghies. Thank god for a good old Tortola dinghy with floatation built in or we both would have been doing the 'drag it off the bottom and hope the engine cane be purged' dance of curses. The last time I saw a dinghy (that was shared by me) that full was after a hurricane on St Thomas when our hard dinghy sank at the dock.. We didn't want to bring ashore, so we let it sink on purpose, engine safe inside. They do sink if turned upside down a few times ...

Non-caffinated drowned rat syndrome

One would think I'd have enough ego to not put this photo in this post. However, it's so weird and strange, I have to do it. Maybe it's the over 50 Woman Liberated thing, since frankly, I hate photos of myself. At least this one is worthy of hating, making it likable. If someone showed me this photo, I'd pretty much swear it wasn't me. Well, whoever she is, thanks for bailing 9478 gallons of water out of the dinghy!

Jack's fine foul weather gear (minus bucket hat)

I don't know how many foul weather jackets Jack and Francie have between them, but they are all on the boats. It's been a long time since any of us have had to go out in the rain around here. My foul weather jacket had been the home of perhaps generations of lizards and a couple of cockroaches, stuck way back in my closet. I shook it out and tried not to think about it. It is now under a roaring gush of water coming out of my rain gutter, getting de-grossed.