Vieques, PR - September 2017 - Chapter 3 - Hurricane Maria Approaches

Crazy; that's the best way to explain this house sitting assignment in Vieques Puerto Rico. This is the fourth consecutive year I've been here, so I've seen and experienced a lot on the island, but this trip, by far was the most exciting.

First, we dealt with hurricane Irma (posted earlier) then hurricane Maria. This posting and one that will be published next Tuesday will cover my experiences with Maria.

Hurricane Irma track

 

Hurricane Maria track

As many of you know, while traveling, I like to ‘live like the locals’ and on this house sitting assignment, I truly did that. What an adventure.

Vieques, PR - September 2017 - Chapter 2 - We Dodged A Bullet

WOW what a journey. This post will entail some reading, but a lot has gone on with the preparation, arrival, and aftermath of hurricane Irma. While we didn’t get hit directly, we did experience winds and rain. The majority of damage on the island was limited to trees, which in turn took out power.

Hurricane Irma tracked north of Puerto Rico

We’ll start with my arriving to Vieques about 2 hours early.

Vieques, PR - September 2017 - Chapter 1 - Into the eye of a storm

Late last week, I arrived home from house sitting in Naples Florida to prepare for the next leg of my summer, southerly migration. As I awoke, the morning was calm and illuminated with clear blue skies; but I knew that was only here, not my destination of Puerto Rico.

For the past few days, the local news channels had been mentioning a tropical system that had developed off the African coast and further development was expected. Within about 30 hours the system had grown from a tropical storm, to a major, category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of 115mph, and it had since become known as Hurricane Irma. While it’s still too early to determine an accurate track, Puerto Rico is within the cone which is the ‘most probable path’ of the storm.

Naples, FL - Aug 2017 - Sun is back in the Sunshine State - Chapter 2

The week started with rain, but today it has moved on. The sky is now a brilliant blue with the white puffy clouds that let your imagination run wild. Gazing skyward, I decided to revisit the Naples Botanical Gardens. A short drive from where I’m staying, this is one of my favorite places that is close to walk the well maintained paved trails with boardwalks and a bird watching tower. Walking these trails, you’ll not only be able to enjoy the natural beauty, but get about 3 miles of exercise.