Most people know that lush tropical islands are that way in part due to lots of rain. What many people do not know is that most of it falls in VERY short peiods of time. Sometimes it happens faster than the island can take it, or in our case, our little bungalow.

I was scheduled to go diving this morning, but the plan changed due to nasty weather overnight. When we went to bed, it was a pleasant evening and very few clouds showing. Sometime in the early hours of the morning this changed ... dramatically! We were awakened around 5:00 by howling winds and torrential rains. We got up to check around the house and found the usual leaks had already overflowed out of the buckets. More surprising was wet counter tops in the kitchen along a wall that never seemed to get wet. The rains had swirled so much they were coming in from the east which they never seem to. We closed up the windows as best we could and tried to go back to sleep. About 5:30 Val let out a scream and I looked over to see water pouring in from the ceiling directly over her. Not a drip or two, but gallons of water pouring in. Seems it had been collecting in the rafter space above the ceiling and had found a low spot directly over her and finally let loose. Needless to say, we didn't get any more sleep that morning. It took the better part of the day to wash the sheets and dry them, and to dry out the mattress.

Ahhh, life in the tropics. Several locals said they hadn't seen such rain since the last Cyclone (Hurricane in our half of the world). The season has officialy started now and we're hoping to be gone before the first big one hits.

Until next time, Happy Trails,

Eric