Sharks on the Sidewalk-Oswald in Oz

 

Braving Oswald

Aside from the huge trees, the navigation buoy, and the clumps of debris floating down the river at high speed, and the wind that stops then starts howling with gusto, and the people scurrying around their boats securing things and checking lines, and the fact that ferry service is shut down, news helicopters are flying overhead and the walkways and lower parts of the city are under water you’d hardly know ex-cyclone Oswald passed through Brisbane recently.

For a long holiday weekend this one sort of sucked. We started with a mild downpour—and giving up on doing anything outside we celebrated Australia Day and Robbie Burns day inside in tandem (Waltzing Matilda chased by scotch). Then the wind picked up and the rain fell harder.

Yesterday, as the storm ramped up even more, Ev and Maia headed into the city so she could start back to circus school. Maia called walking the streets eerie; an empty city (even emptier pubs), broken discarded umbrellas, wailing wind, and rain: so much rain that her raincoat and rain pants simply gave up the effort and turned to sponges.

watch for sharks is not a normal comment to make when walking on the sidewalk

 Last night we kept up on the news—listening as the evacuations kicked in—wondering if we’d be next. The rain fell harder (truly at this point it was more like a solid mass of water). Luckly we never got the worst of the wind and gusts rarely topped 35 knots. But with the city beside us acting as an echo chamber it was monstrously loud. Charlie the cat didn’t like it at all. And our phones kept ringing--message after message offering refuge, assistance, meals and help.

If you’ve ever tried to sleep through bucking and heaving, moaning and screaming (hmm—that reads wrong) you’ll know it’s not an easy thing. And then there was the unknown: what would we wake to.

The beautiful jacaranda at the Botanical Garden was severely damaged

The walkway is underwater

 

We woke to more noise. And by this time I was really, really sick of Oswald (shut up already!) sick of the damp (it seems if you essentially immerse your entire boat it springs leaks faster than you can fix them).

But the worst has passed, and many, many people have flooded and destroyed homes. We just have lots of wet towels, the risk of sharing the sidewalks with sharks and a bit of uncertainty as we wait for the flood to crest-sometime tomorrow or Weds.

Where we are--Mag Bay

Bahia Magdalena is a remote bay on the south west coast of the Baja. It’s 50km of shallow estuaries, white sand beaches and mangrove lagoons. There are only a couple of settlements on the bay—and they have the feel of a forgotten frontier to them. When we go into the village we’re surrounded by children; Cassandra and Alejandra are the most outgoing. We felt rich when the small dusty tienda had both eggs and onions in stock.

In September hurricane Jimena blew through the area destroying buildings and sinking boats and now, in January, most of the homes and the village church are still without roofs. But the kids are well dressed, they all have bikes and everyone greets us.

Despite the area’s poverty, or maybe because of it, there’s almost no development on the bay. Gray whales come here every year to give birth; migrating birds fill the wet lands; the waters are alive with marine life. A five minute dinghy ride from our anchorage takes us to places where our footprints are the only ones to mark the fine white sand.

Exploring is easy here—we’ve walked through the desert, swum in the clear waters and paddled through a mangrove lagoon. At night we watch the sky fill with stars so bright they’re reflected by the water.

Mag Bay isn’t the type of place to end up in travel articles or guide books, but it’s the type of place we set out for. It’s the kind of place that years from now, when we’re home and settled, we’ll remind each other of…