Tropical Storm Paloma

I don't think that Paloma will amount to much here at GTMO -- it appears that the main path will be farther north. That being said, we are still taking the required precautions such as buying food and water in the event the power goes out. (Postscript: I wrote this early Saturday a.m., and now by 3:00 p.m., it looks like Paloma is now a Category 4 Hurricane, so we might have a little more excitement than we thought.)

(NEW Postscript dated November 9: Paloma has passed us by -- Vince probably experienced the worst of it last night on the boat coming home about 10:30 -- he said that the waves were quite turbulent and everyone was really tossed around on the boat. Selfishly, I'm glad I missed that!!!)

Vince is working a day shift tomorrow and has already been advised that he and Boomer may be "stuck" on the other side of the bay if the base gets closed. So, he is taking extra clothes and food with him when he goes to work. When Vince first arrived here in early September, Hurricane Ike was just making its way across Cuba, and the base was closed for two days. When the commander closes the base, you are not to even leave your house.

We are fortunate -- since we live in the concrete bunkers we would not have to be evacuated to other housing as might happen to others. So, the worst might be that the base closes, Vince is on the other side of the bay, and Fergus and I are restricted to our quarters. I did buy a deck of cards so I will need to teach Fergus how to play rummy.

The photo above looks stormy, but was actually taken at sunrise about a week ago -- the rising sun cast a very interesting light on the mangrove swamp which prompted the photo. Mangroves are amazing trees -- they are able to live in salt water but exclude over 90% of the salt from their root system. They provide habitat for all kinds of marine life, while protecting shorelines from storms.

This particular area on the leeward side of the bay is also protected due to a population of manatees (which I haven't seen yet). Old folklore says that sailors long ago, who hadn't seen women for months, would see a manatee and optimistically think they were seeing a woman. Thus, the term mermaid (maiden of the sea) was launched, so to speak. Personally, I think the sailors just had consumed too much grog.