Weather

Record level rain recorded by me

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Our one official job is to check the rain gauge daily and report it by fax to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, fondly referred to as BOM. It rained so much yesterday, we read and emptied the gauge several times. This morning, while Tim walked the lighthouse road, in the pouring rain to see how the ditch drainage work held up, I took the fourth and final reading: a whopping 60.0 mm of rain in 24 hours: 2.4 inches. I don’t track the rain at home so don’t know how it compares but it was coming down thunderously. When I looked through the rain records for Deal Island, I found it is the most rain recorded in one day since 2009 when they had 79 mm.

As a result, we have clothes and the flag hanging up to dry and buckets strategically placed throughout the house to catch leaks.

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When I needed drinking water for coffee this morning, I had to don my foulies to go out to the water tank. I probably should have just let the pot outside to catch the rain directly instead of runoff from the roof.

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This means I don’t have to water the garden today and I can work on my knitting and spinning. I’m finishing a pair of socks and spinning some alpaca. But first, time for another batch of yogurt.

Here’s how the sky looked yesterday before the rains began. Maybe it will look that way again tomorrow.

Morning over the swashway of Dover and Erith Islands

I took a shower in a shower today

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Rain is predicted for today and tomorrow and lots of it. They were right about today. We had early morning visitors from the SV Enterprize, a replica of a local cargo ship from the 1800’s, headed to Hobart for the wooden boat festival. A few passengers walked up to the lighthouse and the rest poked about the museum. We went down to the cove to get photos of the ship and were met by a crew member in a dinghy who invited us aboard for tea. Another adventure.

She is a beautiful boat, made from Huon pine and salvaged timbers, all authentic. The spars are plantation Sequoia’s grown in Australia. The boat held 8 passengers and 8 crew; the passengers were recovering from rough seas. The ship’s Master, Kevin, couldn’t have been nicer. Unfortunately the rain began right about when we got aboard so we didn’t explore too much topsides. One of the passengers must have been really sick because he wanted to know if I was from Melbourne, Australia. I assure you, I have not gained an Australian accent.

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When we returned to the house, we were drenched to the bone but somehow my camera escaped unscathed My waterproof (not) watch has some condensation below the “crystal”. I hopped out of all my clothes and then heard a voice near the living room. I though it was from outside. I jumped into a dress and headed there to be greeted by one of the passengers, who had just returned from the lighthouse, standing in the living room looking for the rest of his shipmates. I may have been fully dressed when I got there.

Lightning Strikes

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Little Squally Cove and me

Weird communication zone, weather and spouse induced. Nice weather precludes the internet. Yesterday was fine and windy and we didn’t have internet all day. So, I enjoyed working in the garden, baking and a walk up Barn Hill.

Barn Hill with South Bluff in the background

Barn Hill is my favorite place of the week. It’s close to the house with tall cliffs and great views. Dragon's Tail Perhaps a man?

I explored the southeastern side with views over Dragon’s Tail.

And perhaps a man rock.

Today, there has been front after front rolling by with thunder, lightning and buckets of rain. Tim had just unplugged his computer when lightning struck the house and we saw a bright flash in the living room, where the phone, VHF, HF, internet, computers, fax, TV and copy machine live. The phone was out briefly but everything else seems to be in working order. Today, Tim is doing me a favor and won’t let me use the internet in an attempt to save my computer. In the meantime, he’s been surfing for hours.

There are two groups of kayakers hunkered down on the islands. Three are over on Erith Island who can’t go anywhere because of the weather and a lone kayaker is camped here, waiting to go to to Flinders Island. There is a strong headwind predicted for the next couple of days, 25-30 knots, so they will probably be here for the next few days. They arrived under their own power, 35 miles off the mainland, with another 35 miles to Flinders Island and then island hopping to the Tasmanian coast. In the meantime, the wind, rain and lightning keeps sweeping over the islands.

Yesterday, however, was fine. Fine is a legitimate term in Australia. It can be mainly fine, fine and windy, partly fine. I think it means clear or perhaps sunny. Two of the kayakers visited us yesterday and we were talking about brewing beer.An Australian company, Coopers , sells beer brewed in the bottle, which is not clarified. They use the slogan, “Cloudy but fine”. We wouldn’t get it in the states.

The garden started by the caretakers before us continues to produce. We’ve been eating carrots, beets, silverbeet, cabbage, lettuce, radishes, peas and beans. Tomatoes, cucumbers and corn are on their way. I only hope we do as well for the next caretakers.

Beans, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce Beetroot, sliverbeet, carrots, spring onions and tomatoes Corn is sprouting

We saw the Clouds of Magellen and a satellite on New Year’s Eve

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We had a number of people visit from boats anchored in the cove closest to our house. PC310088.JPG I was doubtful a barbecue would take place because the wind was “fresh”. The sky was the clearest it has been and the weather was mild, it was 100f in Melbourne during the day. But the party happened and we went down to the cove. While we were looking at the stars, we saw a satellite pass overhead. We have seen the Southern Cross and the Milky Way but Tim mentioned that there were clouds in the same place over a couple of nights. They looked like another galaxy. It turns out they are. We saw the clouds of Magellen, which are galaxies orbiting our galaxy. The mind boggles.

.Joey trying to go home

  Then today, when I left the compound to walk to Winter Cove, I saw the smallest wallaby Joey yet. it was tiny and gangly. I watched for a while but needed to pass and it clambered into its pouch. At Winter Cove, I found a small skull, seagull or tern is my best guess. The day went from seeing objects at the limit of the naked eye’s visibility to small creatures along the tracks

We’ve become Wallaby wranglers and we are getting pretty good at it. We had about four wallabies in the outer circle of gates and over a few days, we managed to get all but two out. Wallaby near the water tank

Then, I went to get drinking water and found one in the inner compound, right next to the house. They chew on the grass, which is good, but leave wallaby poop around, which isn’t so good. We used some amazing teamwork and got it out the front gate.

It was a beautiful day to take a walk and I went to Winter Cove, about 4 kms from house. The only problem was these new little flies have arrived. They don’t bite or anything but are “in your face”.

I got to the beach and saw the catamaran anchored nicely and found a small bird skull.

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Rainbows and Christmas trees

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Our day began with a double rainbow. A few squalls blew through and then it was sunny and windy for a change.

The rainbows end here
Tim mowing the lawn with the tow behind mower and the Ute
Tim used the truck to mow the trails and I went along for the ride.
We checked up on our visitors. No one was anchored in Garden Cove because it was too rough. Very beautiful, but rough. We found them in Winter Cove, tucked in nicely. By the footprints we found on the beach, we had just missed them.
Garden Cove
Our Christmas Tree Along the way, we spotted the perfect Christmas tree. It’s strange to be gearing up for Christmas in sunny, relatively warm weather. Will Santa find us here? Yesterday was our summer solstice and the longest day of the year. He doesn’t have a long enough night to do everything he needs to do.
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Do skies lie?

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Yesterday was laundry day and it’s a good thing I did it. The wind whipped clothes dry in no time. It’s unlikely we’ll see the sun the next few days and a gale is predicted. Time to put away potential flying objects.Wash day
I’ll never get meteorology. This morning’s sky looked as pretty and benign as last night’s.
This morning
Morning sky before the gale

Last night
Sunset 9/29/10

Earl stood us up

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How weird is this? The hurricane passed us by and I have to admit, I am a little disappointed. It was on my mind all week. We don’t have television but we checked every updated weather report to follow it’s projected path. I read about cones of probablity and the 100-200-300 Mariner’s rule, which visually display the probability of a storm’s path. First it was predicted to be offshore, then about 35 miles away and in the end…I slept through it. I stayed awake until midnight but all the action took place while I was sleeping. Hurricanes are much more dramatic when they happen during daylight hours.

The day began with an amazing sunrise sky. In the afternoon, it got dark when the fog rolled in. Other than the red sky in the morning, I couldn’t see any signs that would have warned me that a storm was brewing and headed this way.

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I finished up the three sweaters I have been working on for my friend’s daughters. Today is sunny and the winds are gusty so it is a perfect laundry day. I will wash and block them. I designed all three sweaters and at least I had fun working on them. The castle picture is from Barbara Walker and I used Ann Budd’s set in sleeve sweater. The aran sweater is a raglan cardigan knit in pieces with 3 stitch patterns. The last is a top down raglan with a slip stitch pattern from Barbara Walker. Now I am knitting a hat to keep me warm when we head to Seguin Island in Maine, next week for the month.

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