Hurricane Dean

wreck of the Pilar del Caribe, Palisadoes, Jamaica

It seems like only yesterday that I was in Jamaica – last Jan-Feb in fact. The weather was almost idyllic. A different story this time of year when hurricanes roil up. The above photo by Andres Leighton of AP Photo shows the the wreck of the Pilar del Caribe which lies on the ocean side of the Palisadoes, the long strip of land that guards Kingston Harbour. Kingston Int. Airport lies adjacent to the wreck site.

Wishing my friends in Jamaica well.

More pics of the wreck …
Pictures from Jamaica.  ..
Mad Bull blog …
Jamaicans.com …
Jamaica Gleaner … Live radio coverage on Power 106FM …

Wild wet day

today's weather map

A wild windy day with lots of rain showers, including some hail. Small branches down in my street. The weather map might explain why. The rain radar is online.

Good to have more rain after a long very dry summer.

Windswept autumnal day at Port Noarlunga

Port Noarlunga jetty

Great to view from the warmth and protection of the car whilst driving along the clifftop above Port Noarlunga.

Reminded me of Adam Lindsay Gordon’s poem, “The Swimmer” (final verses):

See! girt with tempest and wing’d with thunder,
And clad with lightning and shod with sleet,
The strong winds treading the swift waves sunder
The flying rollers with frothy feet.
One gleam like a bloodshot sword-blade swims on
The sky-line, staining the green gulf crimson,
A death stroke fiercely dealt by a dim sun,
That strikes through his stormy winding-sheet.

Oh! brave white horses! you gather and gallop,
The storm sprite loosens the gusty reins;
Now the stoutest ship were the frailest shallop
In your hollow backs, or your high arch\’d manes.
I would ride as never a man has ridden
In your sleepy, swirling surges hidden,
I would ride as never a man has ridden
To gulfs foreshadow’d through straits forbidden,
Where no light wearies and no love wanes.
Where no love wanes.

Or perhaps even more of Judith Wright’s “The Surfer”:

…

For on the sand the grey-wolf sea lies, snarling,
cold twilight wind splits the waves’ hair and shows
the bones they worry in their wolf-teeth. O, wind blows
and sea crouches on sand, fawning and mouthing;
drops there and snatches again, drops and again snatches
its broken toys, its whitened pebbles and shells.

High Flight

Morning Glory cloud formation

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air ….

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew -

And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

- Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (1922-1941), No.412 Squadron RCAF

Morning glory cloud formation