A Rainy Season

The other day our villa guests asked about the rain and Bob said, "Keep your plans and don't worry about the rain. It usually rains for five minutes and then the sun comes out again." Immediately after he said it, we were hit with a tropical wave that brought heavy downpours for most of the day. Still, what Bob said is true, and the weather report will call for "scattered showers" on just about any day of the week.

But when a tropical wave flows in from Africa, we get to enjoy cloudy days, rain showers and the occasional thunderstorm for a day or two. From our house we can see the dark clouds flowing in from the east and we can calculate that the rain will get to us about 10 minutes after it has obscured Buck Island. Sometimes the clouds come and blow right past us, and we can see the rain falling into the ocean just a short distance away to our North while we remain dry.

November is the rainy season here in St. Croix, and we have been getting lots of rain. On the not so positive side, our walks in the morning down our unpaved hill are muddy experiences, and the mosquitoes are breeding happily and come out with a vengeance in the late afternoons. Every outing requires a dousing of OFF. But these are minor discomforts that we don't give much thought to. On the positive side, our cisterns (huge tanks under the house that hold our water supply) are full. Everything is green and lush, and the rainbows are a common feature of the landscape.