sappho leaving and flood warning

I have a complaint to make. I have discovered why Sappho walks so quickly. Evidently the girl has a peculiar ability to speed up time, which means she has to walk at a near run to make sure she keeps up with her own time-manipulation sickness. Although the evidence would suggest that Sappho has been here for two weeks, I can reveal that the actual real time has been only around 10 days, or a week in Bajan time. Bummer. And although I'm sad to see her go, I'm looking forward to another two weeks' worth of vacation in the six days that I have left here, as I have changed my plans and am heading back East instead of West, and will be slowing right down to Bathsheba pace. Nice.

Having said all that, the weather forecast for the foreseeable future is still rain all the way. It's so bad that a flood warning was issued at around 5pm yesterday, to remain in effect until 8pm tonight, or longer if the rain continues. And it shows every sign of being here to stay.

Yesterday we celebrated Sappho's last full day on the island by going sailing with Brian Parravicino again on Sinbad. After 20 minutes of humid haze and the lightest imaginable breeze, we spent the rest of the day in torrents of liquid sunshine and with the motor on. Quite possibly the worst day 'sailing' I've ever had. Swimming in the rain and seeing yet more turtles and huge friendly fish still made the trip worthwhile, and Brian's cooking was as delectable as ever. Shame about the 11 others on board who started drinking gin, rum, vodka and everything else they could lay their hands on from about 10.30am, and making not-so-intelligent observations about the rain, etc., and then repeating the same platitudes and subtle-as-a-brick innuendoes as often as possible on the offchance that some poor bugger aboard had escaped hearing the first, second or third time around... well, they were from Wales, so maybe that's an excuse.

We left the jolly sailors on board and got a ride to shore from the Fox (Brian's crew) at around 3:30pm, just in time to catch another liberal dousing and to do a bit of shopping in the West coast mall opposite Surfside beach bar in Holetown, grab a coffee and hang out for a bit waiting for the rain to ease up. All of this faffing about saw us finally setting off for home around 4:30.... perfect timing to catch not part but all of the daily rush hour (exacerbated by the rain) and enjoying a particularly pleasant 90 minutes travelling about 100 metres in the Cheapside market area of Bridgetown. Oh joy.

Today will be filled with packing, trips to the airport and a move over to the East coast for me, where I hope to ignore the rain and finally accept the many offers of surfing lessons from the dudes down at the Soupbowl, as wet will be the only way to be, so I might as well get wetter.

Fly safe, Sappho, and thanks for all the fish (and turtles).