Hurricane damage

"Tim" is Maho blog follower, a previous volunteer worker, and a returning volunteer this fall and had posted the following comment yesterday: "Good to hear that Maho survived another bout with nature, but that's the "nature" of eco-resorts, they are able to bend and roll with the punches! Looks like I'll have some cabins to repair come October."

He couldn't be more right! The tents here at Maho seem to work with nature in more ways than not, one being in the face of an angry Irene. While most tents had little or no damage, there were a few that will take us some time to repair. We'll most likely not start working on the bigger repairs until sometime in October, in case another storm passes through just after the repair is made.

Highlighted below is an example of a tent and the damage caused to it. This tent was damaged in part because those familiar "roll downs" were left down during the storm. You would think putting down the barrier would help protect the tent from rains and winds, not quite: Having the roll down "down" actually causes more damage to the tent and allows more water and debris to enter, not to mention the time and expense of repair. During a storm like this we have very high winds that cause the roll down to act as a sail, banging against the screen until it breaks, eventually opening up the entire window. Unfortunately we had a few tents where the roll downs were left down or fell down during the storm, pictured below is an example.

Here we have the picture of a roll down, properly attached to the top of the screen with rope. During really big storms we would hope to have all tent roll downs look this way.

Pictured below we have a roll down left down during the storm, and the damage it has done to the bottom of the screen.

Worst case scenario is when the roll down has been blown off, also damaging the screen.....allowing the maximum possible wind, rain and debris into the tent during the storm:

We've been very busy this past weekend dealing with that white mess of clouds that goes by the name of Hurricane Irene. Somewhere below the area of white in the picture above would be land, and more specifically St. John & Maho Bay. While we did need to close Maho and evacuate, the good news is that we're all safe and Maho is open for business again.

No major damage to report, but a heck of a lot of branches and debris to clear over the next couple of days.

what we do in the summer, part 1

Many guests, as well as friends and family, are curious as to what it is we do in the summer. Maho Bay Camps is unique from other vacation spots on St. John in that we don't close for part of the year, our tent cottages are available to rent throughout the summer and fall. While lots of jobs are seasonal at Maho to reflect the time of year we have the most guests, many of us are here through the summer and fall. Vacationing here during our "season" vs. August is quite different, especially when comparing the number of tents booked.

So what do we do with all those empty tents? Two major projects this time of year would be making plenty of repairs and preparing each tent for our hurricane season.

Although it appears we're creating a massive skylight in the tent pictured below, it's actually getting a complete makeover: You can see the wood in the foreground right was in desperate need of replacement, along with plenty of other similar areas. New supports to help stabilize the tent, along with new screens and "Stanley cloth" - the white areas pictured below. Last will be the new roof!

If you're planning on being here for your vacation in the next couple of months don't be surprised if you see our maintenance crew working on a tent like this one. We promise the tent you'll be in will have a roof :)

Tropical Storm Fay

By now you have heard of Fay. Just yesterday she got her name legally changed from Invest 92 (aka The Joker) to Fay. The Joker formed overnight in the mid Atlantic on Sunday August 10th. Although no models predicted it forming into a hurricane, the track of the tropical wave had the Northern Antilles in its sites (thats our neck of the woods). No one was even sure if it would become a tropical depression, but we have to watch it because its out there. Within 2 days a whole new path had been predicted which would route it out to sea and it was weakening. That's good news for us, we don't have to worry about watching it anymore. Then, the morning of the 13th, everything has changed. What was Invest 92 had been unofficially dubbed "The Joker". The path has changed and it had started to intensify again. They officially categorized it a Tropical Depression (tropical wave --> depression --> storm --> hurricane). Where did that path change to? It looked as though all four model predictions had their lines drawn straight through St. John. Sure enough, Thursday night at around 11pm the light show started. We've definitely had worse thunderstorms, but it still didn't provide for a great nights sleep. The rain was much needed on the island and there was no damage, so we are thankful for that. So although we did have an encounter with this storm, we caught it, or it caught us, early on before any intensification. We will still be watching to see the effects it has on Cuba and the States.

Rhymes with Murricane Reason

Well, its that time of the year again. Instead of turning coffee on first thing in the morning, we will be turning on the weather channel. If its good news, we'll proceed to the coffee. If its bad news, we won't need the coffee. For the next 5 months we will be watching Africa to see what could potentially be coming our way. Its amazing to think that the storms effecting this half of the world started in the other half. The same applies to the Saraha Dust we wrote about previously. The National Hurricane Center has a great website to track storms as does the Weather Underground with Jeff Master's "WunderBlog".