Since I’m incredible at planning ahead (not really), I already had a post lined up to recap the past two weeks. But then Friday night, a huge storm hit us. It had been a scorching week, and the guys working on the land development were exhausted and sunburned. We were all looking forward to the weekend. We took a swim around sunset, but when the wind started picking up, we left our clothes in the hammocks and went back to the house.
The wind grew stronger, so I went back to the deck to grab the clothes, but they had been thrown into the water by then. It was already dark, but I managed to retrieve some clothes and a towel, hoping to get the rest in the morning. After another 20 minutes of heavy winds, my boyfriend (BF) went down to check on the boat and found it dangerously bouncing and threatening to break the deck we had just fixed.
He shouted for me to help him get the boat onto the land, but it was already filled with water and very heavy. We had to dive into the water with big waves and barely managed to move it closer to the shore. In the morning, we found the boat in a pretty bad state with one of its seats washed ashore. We couldn’t remove the motor since it was screwed in, and we were only able to save the gas tank that night. The rest of the wood was washed away.
In the morning, we woke up early to gather what we could find nearby. We managed to find a few clothes, motor oil bottles, and some wood, but many things were still missing. Thankfully, BF’s fishing box was intact, although filled with water, and his cane was stored safely.
On the deck, we took down the hammocks, which had suffered some damage as well. While trying to get the boat back to land, we lost power, which took 24 hours to restore. We’ll have to consume a lot of food quickly this week to avoid wastage from the thawed food during the power cut.
We inspected the roof terrace in the morning and found it flooded, with part of the plastic roof uprooted by the wind. We had planted some new trees and palm trees from the land development, but we’re not sure if they’ll survive. One of the big trees at the back of the house also broke but thankfully didn’t damage the roof. Our neighbor’s bare land accelerated the wind from behind and helped break our tree.
The small house we had spent so long fixing up lost three pieces of its plastic roof. However, with the help of the land workers on Saturday morning, we managed to put it back together and reattach it. The kitchen had been raining all night, and one of the bedrooms had an open part, leaving us with a wet mattress and a messy house.
All in all, it will take a few more hours to fix the garden and the boat, but it was more of a big scare than anything else. We slept soundly in the new room that night, enjoying the cool breeze. It was strange and unexpected since this isn’t a hurricane zone, unlike Belize or the Caribbean coast. Oddly, almost no damage occurred in the village except for one guy who lost his roof. It felt like we were at a junction of strong opposite winds, creating a mini-tornado just for us. What a way to start the week!
In case you were wondering, we don’t have home insurance, but the financial damages aren’t too significant. As usual, when things go wrong, I try to find three good aspects:
1. No animals were hurt. Our chicks, ducks, geese, and turkeys found safe spots to spend the night.
2. We’re about to leave for Europe and the capital city, respectively. It would have been much worse if we weren’t there. The handyman will stay in our absence, but by himself, he couldn’t have done much.
3. We saved the deck. If the boat had continued banging against it, it could have collapsed, resulting in plenty of work and cost to rebuild it.
The architect is coming this week to formally draft the plots, and we have a ton of work ahead. By the time you read this, we will have spent the entire weekend cleaning to be ready.
That’s it for now, have a good week!