More rain and strong winds!

  We certainly don’t have tropical heat to complain about any longer!  And I really don’t miss it.  What I do miss is the dry weather we were lucky enough to have had during our July in Turkey and August in Cyprus.  Rain and winds, not so good for motorbike travel.  We did bike in the rain in Malaysia, but it was warm rain and there was usually an overpass or restaurant where you could wait it out.  Cyprus has long stretches of nothing that offers protection so we really wouldn’t want to get caught out in anything other than a light drizzle; certainly not one of the intense hail storms.  Oddly, I do remember cycling in one in Boones Mill, Virginia and freezing my feet.   And biking on the Blue Ridge Parkway when it was closed to car traffic due to snow.  But you don’t pedal a motorbike; you just sit and get cold.  And that was then;  I’m almost 20 years older now.  Good Grief! 

Ru

Thursday’s Hail Storm

We moved onto DoraMac in February 2006 so experienced some cold Chinese weather, but not hail storms like we’ve had in Cyprus.  And that cold, damp February in China was years ago. Sweltering in tropical heat for years since then had dimmed that memory and we were sure we’d enjoy a winter on the boat. Now, not so sure. Actually, it’s not the cold that we mind; it’s the wet and wind. Can’t ride the motorbike in the rain and certainly not in gale winds like we had today.

Rain was predicted for Thursday’s 9am Deks’ walk.  Denise said she goes rain or shine, but we opted out because by 8:45 the early rain still hadn’t cleared. By 9:30 it had so shortly after that I took myself for a walk up the paved road to Sipahi just for the exercise. I walked for about 90 minutes in the very light warm drizzle. By mid-day the sky turned dark and by mid-afternoon we had our second hail storm since we’ve returned. It was pretty amazing to experience it on the boat.

Hail hitting the water

Walking on the teak deck afterwards was like walking on ice marbles

Hail in the cockpit

The force of the storm created enough run off from the hills that it turned the blue marina water brown.

By about 3 pm the storm had stopped and the sky had cleared enough for us to motorbike into town. We needed to pick up our motorbike insurance papers and also some small blades Randal had ordered. They were to have been delivered by 3 pm. I put on about 5 layers of clothing including an old pair of snow-skiing pants that Randal had bought years ago. I don’t know what had possessed either of us to have loaded them on our palate for China but I’m glad we did. I wore them over my jeans and it really makes a difference. I can pull them up about 4 inches above my waist keeping my back warm too. And since the legs zip half way up the calf and snap, I can get them on and off over my shoes. So we bundled up, biked to town and were told that the weather had been too awful for either the insurance papers or the blades to have been delivered. Today, Friday, was no better. We had no hail, but we had 35 knot winds indicated in the marina and rain. Tomorrow’s forecast is for sunny weather so we can finally get out for a walk and a ride to town. Maybe we’ll even bike to Dipkarpaz down the coast. Maybe.