Good Morning Everybody,
As most of you know LaDawn and I have been hanging out in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico for the last few months. Somewhat sadly, we actually head for home in just a week.
Our stay has been wonderful over the last several weeks - but in just the last few days we have experienced quite an adventure.
Anyone listening to the news this past weekend surely heard about the category 4 hurricane named Blanca heading for Cabo San Lucas and the Baja peninsula. Uhhhhh, that would be directly towards us!
Things were looking somewhat dicey for a few days leading up to the storm making landfall today. The reality was that this storm was both the earliest and fastest growing hurricane in the region for many years. After last years horrific Hurricane Odile, needless to say everybody was worried.
As the week progressed Hurricane Blanca subsided from a Cat 4 storm to a much smaller but still quite intense Cat 1 storm. Well, Mother Nature is not always so predictable and before you knew it Blanca had grown back into a Cat 4 Hurricane by 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning and was heading our way with the strongest winds predicted to reach us by Sunday afternoon!
The staff at Alegranza, the beautiful luxury condo development in which we are staying, showed up and said it was time to put up the hurricane shutters. Within a few hours we were buttoned down and ready for the storm.
We made the run to the airport to pick up my daughter Elizabeth who would be joining us along with LaDawn’s son, Zak and daughter-in-law Emily for the week Unfortunately, no time at the pool today!
The good news was that by Sunday morning the storm had subsided back down to a Cat 1 hurricane still with blowing wings at 90 MPH! Most of the day was gray and cloudy with unusually high humidity and with very calm breezes you still had the feeling that something ominous was heading our way.
The good news that was coming from Weather Underground, the best app for monitoring storms like this had the track of the storm verging westward missing us by about 90 miles - a slight reprieve at least.
The five of us were beginning to settle in for a great dinner when the winds began picking up speed, the storm was getting closer. I thought, "Heck, how about a pre-hurricane swim about now."
The winds were hitting about 40 MPH on our 5th floor condo but I was hoping they would be reduced a bit at ground level. After dinner we settled in for the huffing and puffing of the White Fury - Hurricane Blanca!!!
The winds really starts picking up around 9:00 p.m. I couldn't resist - I grabbed a chair and headed out to our terrace. This was not the place to be sipping a nice glass of Chardonnay. The wind was whipping around like crazy and the entire experience gave one a brand new respect for Mother Nature. My super-windy time on the terrace also made me think of what the residents went through during Hurricane Odile just eight months earlier. Hurricane Odile was the most devastating hurricane to hit this area ever with winds hitting over 150 MPH!!! Yesterday evening was just a walk in the park by comparison.
DAZNOTE: Check out this YouTube video [link] of what Hurricane Odile did to Alegranza and San Jose del Cabo last year – unbelievable!!!
We all turned in about 11:00 p.m. and as we all lay in bed you could really hear the winds increase in velocity. One of our guests was a bit un-nerved by the intense whistling and blowing of the very stronger winds and spent the night in the bathroom on one of the matts from the chase lounge - pretty funny.
The wind was howling intensely but finally began to subside about 3:30 p.m. How do I know this - well, many of us were not having such a sound sleep last night;~)
By morning the storm had completely passed. We were up a 6:00 a.m. Anxious to remove the storm shutters and reclaim the terrace as ours once again. By 7:30 a.m. We are all back to normal enjoying the easy, albeit somewhat cooler, summer Cabo breezes.
All is good and as they say - No Bad Days in Cabo.
Hey gang that's it for me today. Everybody have a great day in your part of the world and I catch you again soon.
Adios for now,
David - the Hurricane Hunter.
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