1722 hrs, 8/31/19: It was a beautiful day on Skinny Island; a good breeze off the ocean; temp in the upper 80s, a shower once off the ocean.  We turned off the air last night, and let it blow through The Little Hacienda all day.  Even with the shutters down, it blows nicely through. Pekoe lays on the tile near the front door and lets it ruffle his fur.  None of us care much for A/C.  Plenty local wind swell on the Atlantic, but nothing yet from Dorian.  We went for a nice battering swim in choppy, warm water this afternoon, then watched the 5 pm advisory from the National Hurricane Center.

It looks like we’re going to dodge this one.  All the models put the storm offshore and moving north, though we won’t know for sure for a couple days.  Feeling it for the northern Bahamas.  They look like they’re going to sustain a direct hit of maybe a Cat 5 storm as it slows before turning north.  As always, in our experience, the weather just before a hurricane is about the best we get all year; scudding clouds, plenty of sun, and a cooling breeze.  Maybe it’s just anticipation of bad weather to come that makes it so nice, but I don’t think so.  It’s different.

There’s been more hurricanes either brushing or passing over us since Floyd in 1999, than ever in recorded storm history here on Skinny Island.  Something is changing.  We’ve ridden out some of them here in The Little Hacienda and, in a word, it’s stimulating.  We are always inclined to stay put, and we’re not exactly sure why.  Some of it has to do with wanting to be here to secure the house and all, but it’s more than that.  I think it has to do with, for better or worse, our predilection for being with what we have been given, this special space, and our intimate association with it.  There is a wonderful passage early in Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream, where he talks about just such a thing with his character who has a house in the Bahamas chain.  He describes the kind of storms that can come through, and how there are some that nothing can survive.  In that event, he says, he would want to go with the house.  We are not there yet, but we are close, and we understand.

Anyway, none of that.  If Dorian stays offshore, we will stay; if it blows in, we’ll leave.  Stay tuned.