In the eye of the storm

That´s where we were around 30 hours ago. Tropical cyclone Rene hit Tonga and the Ha'apai Islands around midnight local time on Sunday night. Thankfully we had enough preparation time, so we took our boat Malolo out of the water, packed basically the entire office into boxes and locked ourselves including dog and cat in our apartment. It all started with slightly stronger winds than we normally get here, then torrential rain set in and around 11 am on Monday morning we had the strongest winds of between 90 and 130 knots (around 150 mph) and sheets of tin roof were ripped off the shed next door and landed in the Tongan Visitor´s Bureau´s garden.

At around 2pm on Monday everything went dead calm all of a sudden. We were in the infamous eye of the storm. Knowing that this would not last for a long time, we left our house and ventures around the town center to see if there was any damage. Thankfully it was not too bad, no houses were seriuosly damaged and there were no cars or cows flying past our heads. However, a few of the biggest trees that I have ever seen got ripped out of the ground and turned onto their sides. Miraculously every single one missed the surrounding houses. The shed behind the firestation collapsed completely.

Our boat Malolo all tied up and ready to withstand the elements.

Boys will be boys - Brian conquering the tree in front of the post office.

The former shed beside the fire station.

The Tongans were not particularly concerned about all the madness going on around them and - as always when it´s raining or bad weather in general - went down to the wharf to go for a swim. We did not have power, internet or water for about 24 hours (water is still off), but around midday today, the power came back on and everything is more or less back to normal. Everyone is tidying up tons of leaves in their yards, the radios are blaring the same old songs again and we Palangis (white people) are - despite having lived here for 3 years - still greeted with "Byyyyyyeeeeeeee."