Late Night Leo and Life Leading up to Hurricane Beryl

It’s 10:16 pm Thursday night and I’m doing a last read through of this post so I can hit publish and hopefully go relax. I say hopefully as strong winds rattle my soul, especially if they cut into my sleep time. Right now we are in the calm before the storm and the island is quietly waiting and silently praying. Prayers for this who have already been affected by the storm. More prayers that Beryl keeps downgrading for us and Belize stays safe. And of course our hearts go out to Mexico as they are the ones who are awaiting a stronger hit, for them, it’s still hurricane status. And future prayers for the states, hoping Texas does not get weather.

Storms can be so unpredictable, you just never know. While it started out looing very bad for us, it shifted and we were downgraded to a tropical storm with 10-20mph winds.

Other than one short fast heavy shower this week you would never imagine we were about to face effects of our first Hurricane of 2024.

The pic below may look normal to you at first. However if you look closely, you will notice that the cars are parked in front of Super Buy instead of in their spaces. They had Middle street parking wired off and went down to using one entrance well in advance of any weather.

Its becoming raincoat weather even though it’s been hot, mostly dry and partly sunny the past few days. I saw a few carts with rain covers. I finally saw one with no roof too, was expecting that sooner. It’s a thing that people will sometimes remove their rooves in the event of hurricane force winds.

I had no plans go go anywhere but… my visiting woo girl, Crystal hit me up on WhatsApp. How could I refuse a pic of her, our friend Rob and the world famous Coconut Leo along with an invite to join them and the crew at Nauti Crab for the weekly Tuesday night races.

That led to a late night tree climb a bit further down the beach. There’s no better way to take your mind off an impending hurricane than hanging out on the beach with your friends watching Leo doing his aerial acrobatics.

Thankfully for us the storm is moving west northwest, unfortunately that puts Mexico in it’s path. We are definitely going to get some rain, its predicted up to 6 inches. I am just hoping it stays on the outside. Although I’ve been in my current apartment about 9 months, this is my first hurricane in this location. The pic below was from Wednesday afternoon, no indication that tropical storm Beryl was heading our way or that town was starting to prepare.

Evacuation was not mandatory and for both water taxi and island hopper planes the cut off to leave was Wednesday. So far Philip Goldson International Airport remains open.

Every time I went out I saw a few more places boarded up around town. Fruteria Michelli on Middle St had theirs up on Thursday Moring and they weren’t the only ones. Other places that chose not to be open so they could have their business well prepared in advance. Casa Pan Dulce Bakery opted to close up their town location and use only the Boca del Rio bakery. As far as groceries go, I noticed a potato shortage, the fridges were getting light at the fruit market and several of they dry bins were empty..

And a few feet north, it could have been any other day than one leading up to a major storm. A cool colorful new mural was going up.

While this next picture depicts nothing about getting ready for Beryl, I have always loved this stretch of Middle Street. It also shows that in spite of the weather we are about to get hit with, parts of the island looked normal leading up to it.

My Thursday morning view brought sunshine, frigate birds, a fisherman, and a boat being towed to the back canals for safety. It also brought the sounds of drills as a few more people around town were putting up boards. My main weather related chores for today were moving my washing machine and sun loungers in along with moving my gas tank out. Thankfully my neighbor Joel was willing to disconnect it for me and I just out it downstairs in the mechanic shop for safe keeping.

We had a very fast patch of a rain cloud without showers. This left me wishful thinking that we stay dry longer. It could still be an unnerving night though as winds are expected to pick up. Thankfully we are well outside the model contour line which puts at only a 5% chance of winds above 39mph.

These last 3 pics are what I dubbed the “Spaghetti Oracle” and they were posted on the Belize subreddit by cassiuswright. After the latest National Hurricane Center update went up he posted models below in comment and they became my favorite go to. As you can see each day the spaghetti model shows Belize as more in the clear.

Its time to close down my laptop and put my full attention to the Millionaire Matchmaker Marathon. See you on the other side and I am hoping I will tell you I stayed safe and dry.