Hurricane Dean misses Antigua.....

Well hurricane winds missed antigua and although i thought we wouldn't get much of anything, we ended up getting some very large swell on the East and South coasts with winds generally out of the east between 25 and 35 mph all day. Several people recorded higher gusts but in general it never was consistantly more than 35 mph. We had several heavy showers until about 4:30 when the rains seemed to kick into overdrive. It is raining cats and dogs outside at the moment but as you can see from the image below, the main core of the storm has passed. Hurricane Dean missed Antigua but over 150 miles to our south St. Lucia seemed to have gotten hit pretty hard. MArtinique and Dominica seemed to get quite a bit of Dean's wrath too. You can read reports on http://www.stormcarib.com/ and i am sure there will be updates from the isalnds hardest hit and still in Dean's path over the next few days. The forecast shows a track towards the Dominican Republic's south coast, Haiti and directly for Jamaica. I hope it weakens but at the moment its been undergoing rapid growth and strengthening. I don't think Antigua had any damage from Dean at all except possibly some beach erosion. I drove around this morning and took a few photos. This one was Curtain Bluf's outer reef above Cades.

This link shows a sequence at Half moon bay. http://www.flickr.com/photos/antiguan/1150715774/ Next to that photo there are others from my drive. All good action and there seemed to be many people driving around looking for angry weather.

This afternoon i windsurfed with Ty who works with on our boats from time to time and with Xabier the owner of Wadadli Cats. The winds were pretty strong but it was loads of fun and we got some pretty cool jumps. My knee was very quickly protesting, but this kind of action only comes once in a blue moon and i had to get out there. Speaking about how seldom

we get crazy windsurfing conditions.....i always find it strange when people say that they thought we get this kinda stuff every year. Antigua has been directly hit by hurricanes 6 times since 1954 i think, and rarely gets these sort of conditions when they pass close by (150 miles). I dont think there was any damage and i know for a fact many people enjoyed the action here however strange that may be. We were lucky not to get hit, but the strong gusty winds made excellent windsurfing and some cool surfing for stevie and the gang. It should be warm and sunny by the end of the weekend. Speak later.