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The wind was ferocious. It was the first time I had been
in a storm with such strong wind. The whole house whistled, one of the shutters blew off, Olivier's wing lifted and pulled all the pegs out of the ground. Olivier and Reynald's tent started to blow away even though
it was behind the house out of the direct windblast. It started to rain, sheets of water against the shutters. The palm trees were almost flattened. The electricity went off. The sea went wild, turning into white
foam and the tops of the waves became a spray that mixed with sand from the beach and blasted the house. We struggled in the wind to keep the wings from flying away – we placed four huge concrete blocks on top of
Olivier's wing …. and his trike, my trike and a concrete statue onto my wing. I estimated the wind to be about 120 km/h. Amidst the drama and fight to keep the wings from flying away Greg and Olivier found time to
scream with laughter when I stepped in dog sh*t! I didn't find it funny at all!!
We heard reports of cars being blown over in the road
and containers in the port being rolled around by the wind. We were very thankful that we had such a safe place for the trikes and ourselves and that we were no longer on the beach.
At about 3 pm the load whistling noise of the wind
suddenly stopped …..within 5 minutes the wind settled down to about 60 km/h and the rain slowed. Phew!
Olivier and I both agreed that it would be terrible
to be in the air in weather conditions like that. Scary thought.
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