Hurricane Irene vs. Helena Scuba

Port Lucaya Market

She was just a blip on the radar screen in the Atlantic when I caught the plane for Freeport, Grand Bahama. She could have traveled a hundred different paths but no, she had to make a bee line for Freeport. By the time we did our first dive on Saturday afternoon Irene was named a tropical storm and was located just east of Martinique. Our dive group from Helena Scuba was staying at Pelican Bay and diving with UNEXSO in Port Lucaya on the southern coast of Grand Bahama. We were aware of Irene but not worried, she was far away, and if she headed our direction surely she could not get here before we had to fly out a week later. Sunday morning dawned sunny, hot and humid. We did two great dives in the morning, had lunch at the Dive-In (a small open restaurant located next to the large pool at UNEXSO), did an afternoon dive, soaked in the hotel pool then cleaned up for dinner in the Lucaya Marketplace. This is the typical dive trip schedule: breakfast, dive, dive, lunch, dive, drink, pool time, shower, dinner, drink, bed, and repeat. 


Monday morning Irene was still just a tropical storm located off Puerto Rico with the chance of coming our way on Friday, but we did not care, Friday was our day of no diving before we fly out on Saturday.  It would be fun to spend Friday experiencing the force of a storm from the secure hotel room with games, drinks and munchies.  It is all part of the adventure!  Last year our dive group once spent a day stuck in Belize City weathering Tropical Storm Alex.  We had a lot fun sitting in the bar eating lunch and watching World Cup Football (soccer for us Americans) with other storm refugees from all around the world.  Monday went just as smooth as Sunday, but also included a great dive with about 20 Caribbean Reef Sharks.  When we returned from the afternoon dive we found a “Hurricane Alert” letter from the hotel notifying us of Irene, stating that they are watching her and will update us in the next 24 hours.  At dinner we all talked about staying or going, most of us wanted to stay.  So what if we missed diving on Thursday, again, it is part of the adventure.  The one dive none of wanted to miss was the dolphin dive; we had never before encounter dolphins on a dive.  This dive was going to be the highlight of the trip, thankfully it was scheduled for Wednesday morning, so there was a good chance, at this point, of making that dive.   After dinner and a nice walk along the beach we returned to the room and turned on The Weather Channel, only to learn that Irene was now a category 1 hurricane soon to be upgraded to a category 2 with potential to be a category 3 very soon.  This was a game changer.  It seemed that Freeport could be hit with a storm that could cause catastrophic damage. 

Empty Beach Before Hurricane Irene

Tuesday morning dawned with a nice letter under door informing us that the Bahamas had been placed under a hurricane watch and stating, “We are kindly advising all of our guests to leave the island immediately.”  This is the nice way of saying, “Get the hell out!”  So we went to check with the dive shop to find out when they would shut down the diving to prepare for the storm.  The manager told us they were closing on Wednesday and she very strongly suggested that we should leave as soon as possible.   The last time Freeport had a storm of this magnitude the airport was closed for 10 days and the sea port was closed for a month.  Well this was the death blow to our Bahamian dive vacation.  We went to the hotel lobby to try to make arrangements to leave.

Trying to get out was more difficult than experiencing the storm would have been.  The airlines at the local airport were not answering the phone.  The Continental help desk had a hold time of 14 minutes, so while I was waiting on the phone others went to the computer to try to get flights out.  One lady was able to get a ticket on the last flight out on Wednesday afternoon but all other flights out were completely booked.  The Continental help desk was somehow able to get me out early Wednesday morning with connections all the way to Seattle and I was home on Wednesday night.  The other five people in my group were finally able to purchase tickets on a charter flight leaving right away. 

Even though Irene chased us away from the Bahamas barely half way into our trip we all had a good time while we were there.  Thankfully Hurricane Irene was not too hard on Freeport but she was not so kind to Nassau, other parts of the Bahamas and the Eastern US.  Now it is time to start planning the next dive trip…..