We’re all buttoned up here at The Little Hacienda, AKA The Little Bunker, but it looks like we may have dodged this bullet.  After several days over the Bahamas, Dorian finally started north and northwest this morning, crawling out at 2 mph, then increasing to about 5 in mid afternoon.  It’s taken a little wobble to the west, but by the time it’s up near us it’s supposed to start turning east, and be close to a hundred miles offshore.

Big increase in rain bands cycling through today, but it hasn’t amounted to much, around .7 inch by our rain gauge.  Very wild surf, with the winds driving water far up onto the dune, winds peaking at about 16-17 mph, nothing much yet. High tide was around noon, and the water was up to the vegetation when I went down to look.  Another high around midnight, but we don’t think it’ll breach A1A.  Dorian is supposed to be farther out than Matthew, which tore up the dunes along here, and took out chunks of A1A in places.  Doesn’t look like we’ll get that.

We’re actually under a mandatory evacuation order, something, as Governor of Skinny Island, we find impertinent, and always decide for ourselves before leaving.  But apparently a number of the island residents have heeded that call.  It’s been comfortably deserted around here today.  Absolutely nobody on the beach this morning, and we hardly ever see A1A this deserted.

Our remaining anxiety, then, is the power going out, always the worst thing about these storms.  After Matthew and Irma, and the several that blew through in ’04, we were without power for days, up to and past a week.  For several reasons, we have opted not to get a generator.  We’ve got plenty of ice, and we’ve already shut down the A/C, and enjoying the cross-ventilation, so we’re comfortable and acclimated.  Pekoe, our amazing and very cool cat, keeps asking, as he did while we were being blasted by the deluge this time last year in the tent at Big Bend National Park, “Is this camping, Papa?”

Yes, dear one, it is.