The Phoney Storm

As if hurricane Fabian hadn't messed up our wedding plans sufficiently, we came off our round of golf yesterday afternoon to learn that Tropical Storm Juan was bearing down on Bermuda. The Government panicked and announced that the Causeway and airport would be closed all day today, the cruise ships left their berths to head out to deeper water, while first reports suggested that the storm would be here by midnight.

The first casualty of this mass hysteria was my stag night. Jon, Sunil and I were sat on our cooler full of beer waiting for the taxi to take us to Hamilton when Jay called. Concerned about reports of gusts of 50 knots he said he needed to have his boat back on its moorings by 11pm and as a result would be unable to take us back to St. George's that night. With the Causeway to be shut all day Friday and the possibility of seas too rough to get back by boat, not wanting to risk being stranded the wrong side of the bridge until Saturday morning we could do nothing but call the whole thing off.

So instead the three of us filled our flasks with rum and whiskey and went up to Griffins at the St. George's Club for a stag dinner of fish chowder, wahoo and Corona. We then took our beers into the bar and spent a very laid back hour or two smoking the biggest Cuban cigars St. George's had to offer. It was a really nice way to spend the evening, but not the stag night I had wanted.

We were expecting to step outside at the end of the evening and be buffeted by high winds and soaked by torrential rain. But there was barely a breeze. Juan was nowhere to be seen. This morning, it was the same story. As I sit here writing this it's almost noon and the palm trees outside the window are doing nothing more than swaying slightly in a gentle wind. But of course, that didn't stop them from closing the Causeway at 9.30am this morning.

The second casualty has been the arrival of my friend JJ from Singapore. He should have been here in fifteen minutes time, and indeed I'm quite sure the plane could have happily landed in the weather we currently have. But his flight was cancelled on account of the phoney storm. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed he can still get on the flight tomorrow, which will see him landing here just four hours before the wedding is due to start.

The problems haven't stopped there. With no Causeway, there's no way for everyone in St. George's to get to the rehearsal at the church this evening and so we've had to cancel that. And with no way for people from the rest of the Island to get into St. George's, tonight's pre-wedding dinner at San Giorgio's is going to have a severely curtailed guest list.

Yet still there's not the slightest sign of any kind of storm.