Rainy Season
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 28/May/2010 12:27, 34 days ago
OK, so the rainy season has been with us for almost a week now. It is progressively getting heavier and for longer periods. No more of the heavy rain for an hour and then back to sunshine. Last night it seemed to rain heavily all night and hasn't let up this morning. There are however occasional breaks and I now wonder why we didn't take advantage of the invitation from Anna to go swimming at the Pegasus pool yesterday afternoon during one of the few sunny periods. Ah, now I remember, I wasn't feeling up to it, I have a bad cold.It is difficult to imagine what the summer's going to be like. It certainly won't be what we're used to but fortunately I enjoy stormy weather. The heavier the rain, the more I enjoy it so I'm actually looking forward to experiencing a Jamaican summer.I braved the rain and nipped over to the shopping centre in my Mountain Equipment Co-Op rain jacket which is far too warm for Jamaica but it kept me dry. I lost my umbrella just before the girls arrived so I had to buy a new one, fast. I found a big huge man-sized umbrella which will do the trick. Girl-sized umbrellas are just too small for the tropics. I also tried to find an underwater camera to take photos but could only find Kodak disposables with film. Do they still print film in Jamaica? Since I don't have a scanner here, that's of no use to me. Well, I suppose, if they still print I could have copies put on a CD. I might do that yet.In the meantime, George and the other volunteers returned to work today. Here's what George emailed me this morning."Candace, Alastair and I eventually got picked up by Ricky, the taxi driver, at about 8:45. There were torrents of water running down the roads almost up to the top of the curbs, and that's impressive in itself because most of the curbs are about a foot higher than the roadway, none of your teeny Canadian curbs that might be 2 or 3 inches at most. It's still raining here and probably at Valencia Apartments too where you are. Hardly anyone is around at DRF except for the volunteers and puddles of water and small lakes here and there inside. The parking lot is about 90% or more submerged and has one lone car parked at the far corner at the most uphill point.There was about 1/2 inch of water in the volunteers work room through which ran a number of electrical cords, but that is under control now although the ceiling is still dripping water. Needless to say cleaning up the water was way more important than doing database stuff. I'll hold off on my new computer until Monday just in case there are any short-circuits that might fry the memory.The funniest thing I found was on my patrol looking for instant coffee - which I didn't find; however I found a cute brown salt tin about the size of a cocoa can. I'm half in mind to borrow it at the end of the day and bring it back so you can photo it and post it on your blog. You might be able to find it on the Internet, but maybe not as the can almost looks 1950's vintage. The product is Morton Salt of Chicago, Illinois (company name Morton International Inc) showing a little girl walking along under the heavy rain with an umbrella and the caption, relevant for salt and the weather today, of "When it rains, it pours". I thought this was quite apt."And as well as that email I received another from Bernadette advising that this year's hurricane season is expected to be 85% above normal. The advise from the FCO (Foreign& Commonwealth Office - the British equivalent of DFAIT) states that "The conditions expected this year have historically produced some very active Atlantic hurricane seasons. The 2010 hurricane season could see activity comparable to a number of extremely active seasons since 1995. If the 2010 activity reaches the upper end of our predicted ranges, it will be one of the most active seasons on record (since 1887)." So it's looking like I'm going to experience "real" Caribbean weather this summer and a good thing I enjoy rain.