Christine Hudnall

Cumulonimbus storm clouds over Highlands and Okeechobee Counties, Florida

It all started the week before last when I dragged my Mom out storm chasing with me. I was not able to get any structural shots of the storms, but I was able to get some cloud shots. We drove down some roads that we probably should not have and browsed on some that we look forward to going back to. We missed the hail in one storm we went through, and got caught in rain so thick in another that we had to turn around and find a different route.

There is one not so pleasant thing about chasing around my neck of the woods, it is not always easy finding roads that go where you need them to. Take east-west for instance, we can go south to 98 or 70 or north to 60 if we want to go east / 64 if we want to go west, but there are not other roads that take you all the way. And some of the back roads, well, I wouldn’t want to break down on them, especially not if Baby Firefly or any of her family could be around. ;)

Down in the tropics we had been watching some waves, some low pressure areas, a couple not doing much except dumping rain where they do not need any more rain, but others a little more persistent and turning into Tropical Storm Nana, Hurricane Omar and Tropical Depression Sixteen.

Cumulonimbus storm clouds over Highlands and Okeechobee Counties, Florida

Family wise, the one we were watching was Omar. A week ago this past Thursday we got a phone call from one of my cousins, her and her husband would be stopping the next day on their way down to Fort Lauderdale, to catch a cruise ship. Would just be stopping for late lunch/early dinner type thing. Where they were headed, in case you haven’t guessed it by now, is the Caribbean. Have a wonderful time, but keep your eyes on tropics, especially the area right below Puerto Rico and the islands. (My mom was able to meet them at Olive Garden, but unfortunately I wasn’t able, which stinks, it has been I think, 3 or 4 years! But I sent info about storms with Mom and of course, sent them newest updates as well as link to the National Hurricane Center.)

Of course, I went online and found the destination map for their cruise and what do we see, they are supposed to be heading to St. Thomas and St. Maarten as part of their stops. Sent off an e-mail on Monday, the 13th, not knowing if they would be able to read it (turns out yes, but no replies because it cost a small fortune to do e-mail on board they found out).

TD Nana is the one between Africa and Lesser Antilles - moving W-NW @ 7mph. TD Fifteen (if it keeps up - soon to be TS Omar) - is the one that is causing problems over the islands right now. It is below PR, but is causing Flash Flood Warnings since yesterday - moving NW @ 2mph (it is just drifting as of right now).

I read the map again of where they are heading and what stops, for how long, etc., and see now that they should have left one island and heading toward St. Maarten, I switch over to the Hurricane Center site, then pull up the satellite loop. Hmmm, it is now Tuesday, and TD 15, has not only become Tropical Storm Omar, but surpassed it turning into Hurricane Omar. Luckily their ship has a bridge cam, so of course we would check it, and finally, it showed that they had turned around and were heading to Grand Turk, which was on their list, but as last stop before heading home. (Stop by Dewdrop’s blog and you can see all the satellite images that she grabbed and I forgot to as I was watching - Duh!)

Thankfully Hurricane Omar buzzed right by the islands on a course for the Atlantic, could almost hear the sigh of relief from those that live in the Caribbean as it squeezed on by. So, off I go to look at the bridge cam again and now they have them down at Ocho Rios, Jamaica. So, I go and look at the satellite loop again, gee, isn’t that Tropical Depression Sixteen sitting out there? It really did make me wonder about who makes the decisions as to change course on the ship, when I next saw that they were over at Grand Cayman.

Here is what my cousin had to say about the cruise, in e-mail to me before reaching home:

Cost a small fortune to do email on board! So Frank paid bills, and I stayed off the computer. LOL!

All is well. We disembarked this morning about 9:30 and are now about 50 miles south of Savannah.

Cruise was great. We changed course (a very smart move!) just south of the Turks and Caicos as our itinerary had us heading straight for St. Thomas and St. Maarten - right into the storm. We were supposed to visit those two islands, then circle around and visit Grand Turk on our way back to Florida. Things got a bit bumpy (not real bad, we just all looked drunk as we tried to walk - LOL!) before the powers that be granted us permission to change course to avoid Omar. (duh)

We headed back to Grand Turk and made that our next island. (Our first was Princess Cays - a very small island on the southern tip of Eleuthera, owned by the Princess Cruise Lines.) Grand Turk was a lovely beach, small shopping area, but only 4 hours because of our change in itinerary made our stay all too short.

Next we visited Ocho Rios in Jamaica. Crowded. Seedy. Overrun with people hawking anything and everything. We hadn’t scheduled a tour (as we weren’t prepared for that island) so stayed close to port. Margaritaville does serve the best margaritas that I’d ever had, so the island wasn’t a total loss! Actually, we’d like to go back - perhaps only once - but to book a tour to see what else the island has to offer. We may be disappointed, but I’d hate to base an opinion on what little we saw.

Then on to Grand Cayman…. LOTS of shops - too many to visit with as hot and humid as it was that day. We did “go to Hell” and found they didn’t even have hand baskets! But the coral there looks like cypress knees sticking out of the water. Blacker than the ace of spades, but white inside where it has broken off. Definitely not lava, as lava is black in its entirety. I did take pictures and will post as soon as I have a little more time. We also went to the Tortuga Rum factory. Never had flavored rum before but it was delicious. Will definitely add it to our holiday stash.

We left Grand Cayman about 6 pm Friday, and arrived back in Ft. Lauderdale at 6 am Sunday. Saturday was just a nice relaxing day at sea - or it should have been if we’d not had to have our suitcases packed and outside of our room by 6 pm - BEFORE we went to dinner! Yikes!

Yes, I was busy keeping up with the storms, but also, worrying about Dewdrop (see link above), because she had a procedure done on her back, but there had been no relief yet, even after she finally started to rest. So, of course she has been on my mind and in my prayers. And then one of my sisters decided to drop by for a mini vacation and as I’m trying desparately to get out a blog post (this one) that I started back on the 9th of October, I am waylaid once again.

Between family, storms and things not working like I wanted them to inside the blog, this post is now coming to you today, 12 days after I started it! Gee, could I get any slower.

And for those that have looked and kept seeing a locked post (passworded), this is the post, nothing secretive, just wasn’t ready to be seen by all. Happy now Chris?! ;-)