Chased by Oma

February 22

The other day I woke early and went for a walk on the beach, its about a 1/2 km from our cabin, there was just me the beach and billions of litres of ocean crashing on the shore. Its hard to describe how infinitely small I felt…just one rogue wave and I’m gone to Venezuela. That didn’t happen but little did I know that a cyclone was building about 900kms off shore; but still naive to this we decided to go for a swim in the ocean (its a hot sunny day so why not), after getting pounded by the waves for about 15 minutes we realized the current was exceptionally strong and the waves seemed strangely big and erratic...and then Anthony says 'hey, what's this?' pointing to dozens of smallish blue blobs on the beach. Turns out we were swimming at king tide (the highest tide of the year), on a full moon (so its even higher) with a cyclone stirring the waters like a slurpee machine thus delivering millions of blue bottle jellyfish (look them up)...and Lord only knows what else (!) into the shore. Dumb landlocked Canadians. 

By the sheer grace of God we didn't get sucked out to see or get stung by the jellyfish. But we knew something wasn't right. Heading back to the cabin, some of the locals seemed surprised that we didn't know what was going on. A cyclone named Oma was bearing down on the coast and thus the beaches were treacherous and everyone was tying things down and taking shelter for what was about to come. All the major beaches across the coast were closed and people were bracing for the worst.  

I wouldn’t say we panicked when we heard the word ‘cyclone’, but when you live near the ocean in a remote cabin with the only help nearby being a 3 foot lizard one gets a little nervous. With a few more talks with the locals Shonet and I decided to pack a few things, bundle the kids up and catch the ferry across before the storm would have a chance to strand us. 

So, here we are on the main land staying at the YWAM base (feeling like refugees) in the Gold Coast hunkering down while the winds are building to 50km/hr. The storm has been downgraded today but the potential for torrential rain and flooding still remains. We’re used to snow storms not cyclones. Glad to be on the mainland. Kids had fun talking about how Oma is chasing us off the island, they love their Oma back home but this Oma doesn't bake cookies.