It is nine o’clock in the morning on Saturday 22 October 2022 as I begin this essay. As with most of my efforts, it will be timed to post early Monday morning (in this case, the 24th). If it appears unfinished, it will be because we have lost power and only what I had completed before that time will be posted.
Sometime in July, I looked out into the fall months to target a time where I could decamp to somewhere warm for a spell of hybrid work-play time, something my chosen profession enables through the magic of the internet, email, Zoom, Teams, etc. Having identified a prime window, I then checked The Kitten’s schedule to see if there were any immovable events there. Seeing none, I secured round trip flights for the two of us to Puerta Vallarta (hoping she would wish to accompany me, which she did!), the closest major airport to Sayulita, a delightful little beach/surfer town in Nayarit. We’ve been here before, and the combination of great lodging/Air BnB’s with a hopping little town full of restaurants and shops (easily walked to, though many choose to rent golf carts, not me) makes for a delightful visit.
Catherine is far better than I at selecting the lodgings on our trips, and she knocked it out of the park this time. We are in the top two floors of a building constructed of reinforced concrete, nicely appointed with superb views (sun views are tough in Sayulita, as its orientation puts hills in the way of both sunrise and sunset, but I am not complaining) of the Pacific Ocean.
Now—if I had chosen to alight to the Caribbean in search of warm relaxation in the month of October, my brain would absolutely have said to me “beware of hurricanes, maybe put it off a month”. But I did not choose the Caribbean, I chose the Pacific Coast of Mexico, and I did not take Hurricanes into account. Not that it necessarily would have stopped me if I had accounted for them—I simply didn’t do it at all. When we landed a few days ago, I began to account for them when the first inklings of Hurricane Roslyn began to attract my attention. As I write this, hurricane strength winds are expected about 11 hours from now in our location, with the following 24 hours plus after that bringing us the worst of it.
I’ve sheltered in place for a number of hurricanes in my day, but always in the good ole US of A; and while I am confident of the integrity of the structure we are in, I would be shocked and amazed if we did not lose power, and potentially lose it for days (we leave Wednesday, with Mon-Wed forecasts as delightful). Hell, we lose power in the good old US of A pretty consistently during big storms. It seems clear also that there will be a good bit of rainfall (4-6 inches) and coastal flooding. Bottom line is, we’re in for a fun next 48+ hours.
We have a few things still to take care of. We’ve moved all the furniture off of the balconies and into the apartment at the urging of our Air BnB hosts (who occupy the duplicate dwelling next door, he having designed the building), and we’ve stocked up on food. We’ll boil some eggs soon, and I’ll cook up a bunch of chicken wings to add to the larder (tuna, bread, salad, apples). We have plenty of water and candles, though it appears we have no lighter or matches. So a little later, I’ll head into town to see if I can find fire, and perhaps some more peanut butter as the Kitten’s “smoothies” have taken more of a hit on the supply than I had anticipated. Additionally, we purposely ordered more food than we could eat at dinner the past few nights, so we have a few tacos, etc. in the fridge which we can get at early in the power loss game.
To the extent that I have fears/anxieties about all this, the main one is the possibility of mudslides/road cut offs that could get in the way or our escape on Wednesday. Pretty sure I/we can manage without power for four days, but I would dearly like to make my flight home. I was somewhat surprised yesterday as we hit the markets for supplies that there seemed to be little in the way of collective hysteria/anxiety building. Conversations with restaurant staff revealed a blasé approach that I simultaneously admired and questioned. We ate at a beachside restaurant last night that as I surveyed it, appeared to me to be operating on borrowed time given what was approaching.
This morning (Saturday) at about nine, we saw a catamaran get underway from its anchorage the next cove over, motoring at about five knots toward whatever safe harbor/hurricane evasion course was available to it. Catherine—being a very skilled sailor—and I, calling upon increasingly addled memories of sea-faring—agreed that they were about a day late in pursuing their escape. We wished them well.
UPDATE: 22 OCT 2022 1219 hrs.
Just back from provisioning, which included the ingestion of a goodly-sized steak burrito. We now have four (3.5 really) containers of peanut butter, enough potato chips alone to provision us, additional chocolate, and more milk for smoothies that I fear a lack of electricity will preclude the mixing of. We found lighters, and when I specified 2 of them, the Kitten questioned my decision. I cited the Naval Special Warfare credo of “one is none, two is one”, and she was not as impressed as I believed she ought to have been. I’ve collected up all the candles I can find in the house, and it looks like we have a goodly supply (ten).
The town is alive, and relatively calm. I was walking through the streets with a small box full of provisions, but saw little evidence of this practice (stocking up) being generally shared. It appears that as long as the coastline presents a NW/SE inclination, the storm is happy to move WNW/NNW. The problem is that just south of us, the coastline squares up to more of a North/South inclination, and the storm is expected to turn NNE accordingly. There are reports that she is a Cat 4 storm right now, expected to hit landfall Sunday as a Cat 3. We’ll see how all that shakes out.
There are a lot of surfers out, although the surf is still sorta pitiful. Things should get sporty for them late this afternoon—presumably they aren’t tracking the storm quite as closely as they might.
UPDATE: 22 OCT 2022 2035 hrs
So, two weddings were happening on the beach this evening including fireworks a few minutes ago, so we got that goin’ for us. Nipped into town—quieter than its been, the first restaurant we stopped at was closing its doors as we approached, but we wound up having a nice meal (Mahi-mahi “Tamarindo”) just down the street. It is pitch dark out, with a little rain but really no wind yet. From the latest track data, it looks like the eye of the storm will intersect the Mexican coast north of us, but we appear still to be in the “hurricane strength winds” zone.
I cooked up some hard boiled eggs, bacon, some chicken wings, and a pot of coffee for refrigerating. I have a feeling that by the time I wake up tomorrow morning, we may not have power. Again—we have PLENTY of food to get us to Wednesday departure.
Expecting tropical storm winds at about 0100 local tonight. Hurricane by 0800.
UPDATE: 23 OCT 2022 1550 hrs
Well, we were largely spared, as Roslyn stayed moving North and only skirted us before making landfall north of here. We had some water intrusion through one of the windows on the first floor, but we were otherwise unmolested. We lost power somewhere around 0600, but it was back on within a few minutes of waking at 0800, although we only just recently got the internet back—which is why I’m posting this last update and putting the wraps on this edition.
We took a long walk around today surveying the very little damage that there was. A tent or two left up on the beach, flattened, a lot of palm fronds and driftwood, and a bit of a sinkhole on the main artery in town, but otherwise Sayulita came through pretty unscathed. There were a few balconies visible from ours where the occupants (we’d seen them) did little or nothing to prepare for the storm, while we were good little doobies and not only cleared the two balconies of furniture and grills, etc., but we sent photos of our finished work to the Air BnB Lord. Maybe they knew something we didn’t. Things were a little quiet on our walk, but the beach is full again now and the surge waters have receded. Plenty of mud in the streets, but that is par for the course here.
The Coming Election
It appears that the Dobbs-driven euphoria on the left may have come a little too soon to impact the mid-terms. For the longest time, I’ve thought the GOP would take the House…barely…while the D’s would keep the Senate. But the constant grind of inflation and deflation (of savings and investments) appears to have ground down whatever ebullient surge the D’s got from the Supreme Court doing its job, and now I think the GOP will win back the House comfortably, and will likely eke out a majority in the Senate. The PA Senate race is a toss-up, with legitimate questions as to Fetterman’s fitness for office AT THIS TIME being (of course) turned into anti-handicap messaging. The public questioning of Illinois Senator Mark Kirk’s fitness for office seemingly is lost to history. And I have a suspicion that Herschel Walker will take the seat from Senator Warnock in Georgia.
I am of mixed mind on these developments. I think the GOP is a terrible vessel for anyone’s hopes of countering the incompetence of the Democratic White House, Senate, and House of Representatives. I think Walker, Oz and Johnson (WI) are idiots who deserve to lose, but who have been gifted with flawed opponents. The thought of THIS GOP wielding Congressional Power does not energize me, as it has been unable since 2014 to present itself as a responsible governing party. I trust Mitch in the Senate, but the flotsam masquerading as adults in the House are not to be trusted, unless one is interested in tribal payback, at which they are likely to be superb.
I do however, want the Biden agenda stopped in its tracks. The laughability of Biden criticizing the (admittedly looney) Truss/UK economic agenda (tax cuts during inflation) while putting forward an equally looney/head in the sand agenda replete with Uncle Sugar pumping money into an already overheated economy—is manifest.
Winter is coming, in more ways than one.
An Observation
What do you (faithful readers) think is the likelihood that the female in a heterosexual relationship chooses the table for a couple when they are dining out? By this I mean, they arrive together, and there are options available. Maybe 85%? Why do you think that is?
How about the likelihood of refusing the table selected by staff in favor of another? Maybe north of 90% the choice of the female? I contribute mightily to the other 10%, as my terrible hearing often has me moving toward nulls in the piped-in music or away from large parties.
So, we are tied; one hurricane each this season. Six more weeks or so to go!