Grand Cayman Hurricane Charley

[Vic McAlister]

Thanks Drew....

Glad to hear it.... by the way, how is the hurricane party??? Have a few for me...

Vic

 

[miked]

To Drew, Casey, and all the other folks in GC: best of luck, and hopes for as gentle a "Charley" as possible.

If All goes well I'll be in GC on Saturday, diving on Sunday(I hope!!)
Good luck,
Mike

 

[Drew Sailbum]

Charley is currently located about 40 miles east of GC, but only projecting hurricane force winds about 30miles from center. It's still plenty windy and tons of rain, but nothing too bad at this point.

 

[nbdiver]

Thanks for the updates Drew. I am hopeful that things will be back to normal when I get there on Wednesday morning. I am just hoping my connection thru Miami is not a pain in the arse!

 

[zf2nt]

They will take a direct hit, but at least it will only be a catagory 1, and not like the catagory 3-4 that hit them a couple years back.

I am sure there will be some damage, but they should come out of it OK.

It looks to me like Charley is sliding right between Grand Cayman and the Sister Islands. Cayman Brac has already seen the worst impact, and there are no reports of damage. This one is just a baby...but I still expect to find the equvalent of a Jamaican landfill washed up on my beach when I get back to Little Cayman in a few weeks.

From previous experience, I would expect the vis to be back to normal a week after the storm moves through.

The problem people going to CI in the near future may have is airline connections out of MIA or TPA. Unless this thing weakens significantly over Cuba--which is not expected--it's going to be around for a while.

 

[-hh]

Caymanites.....

Projections on visability next week. Heavy rains tend to murk the waters.. I will be on Brac Tuesday.

Any other dive comments would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Vic

I was on the Brac for Hurricane Lily two years ago. By the time the seas were calm enough to go back out on the diveboat (~2 days), the viz was fine...100ft or so.

TS Isadore which came in a week before Lily actually stirred things up worse than Lily, mostly because it moved away more slowly. There will be murk in near shore, but by the time you get out to the Wall, it will be pretty much clear.

The current "Winds over open sea" Metro report for today (Thursday) is:

Sister Islands: South to southeast 40 to 50 knots with higher gusts this morning decreasing to 20 to 30 knots by evening.

Its going to take awhile for the seas from 40kt winds to calm down, so its probably not going to be particularly calm by tomorrow morning's 9AM diveboat departures. Probably the earliest dive would be Firday afternoon, but since most customers turn over on Saturdays, there may not be many takers. Ditto for Saturday AM too. The first real groups to head out will probably be on Sunday, and it should be OK by then.

By next Tuesday, the waters will be back to normal.


-hh

 

[jkennedy]

Hey Vic, if you are going to the Brac everything is cool. Charley was not to bad and they needed the water. Have fun and enjoy the Brac.I shall return........Diving is always great at Reef Divers.........

 

[Drew Sailbum]

The only outage I experienced as a loss of most, but not all, of the cable TV channels. Never lost power, phone, or internet.

Just a few minutes ago the TV service was fully restored. Things are getting back to normal.

If the Brac & LC fared as well, then I'd say that we dodged the worst of it.

Finally, I can personally attest that cisterns are full and overflowing. That is a bit of good news as things had been a bit dry this summer.

 

[Vic McAlister]

Thanks again everyone for the input.... Glad to hear that All you Caymanites are ok and back to normal...

See ya'll Tuesday on the Brac.

Vic

 

[caymancase]

Charley was a pussy cat to us on GC. Even when he was 40 miles away, I still didn't even lose satellite TV. Some swift breezes and got enough needed rain to water the lawn Dang... gotta mow again!
I'm pretty sure we'll be back out diving tomorrow morning once we see what the conditions are like on the North Side.
We lucked out this time... hope all our friends in Florida fare as well as we did with Charley.