Norwester's + Wind = Angry Sea

Here in the Cayman Islands we don't have Noreaster's like up in the States. Down here we have Norwester's!! Pretty interesting, right? In the last few weeks we've had three Norwester's go through and they bring in cold fronts. The last three weeks or so, all but a few days have been heavenly temperature and humidity wise. You just couldn't ask for better weather than we've had. Over the course of last week and maybe even longer I had noticed that there were no cruise ships over at the dock in George Town. Remember, I haven't lived down here to long! I thought maybe the bad economy was affecting the tourism which I'm sure it is. Anyway, Dennis made his daily trip to the hospital last Wednesday to visit the sick and came by my office when he came back. He was telling me that they had the main street closed in George Town down by the Sea and the water was coming up there. He said the waves were crashing in on the shores, etc. and they must have been up to 100 feet high! I was telling him not to tell my anymore, because I wanted to go see it but had to stay in the office and work until the end of the day :o( He told me he'd take me down there when I was finished!! In the meantime, we went to the cafeteria to eat lunch and sat with some of the teachers. Dennis was telling them about the "Angry Sea", how rough it was and that the main street was closed. Then the subject of no cruise ships came up. Here we were told that when a Norwester comes through here and the Sea is so very rough that they take the ships further East about 2 ~ 3 miles and dock there at South Sound. They then bus the tourists up to George Town. So that's why I wasn't seeing the ships across the Sea from us!! When I finished working, we headed to George Town right away. Dennis said the Sea had died down compared to what it was when he was there several hours earlier that day. But I still got some good pictures. It seems I just couldn't quite get the waves crashing in!

The next three pictures were taken from Burger King parking lot

See where the cranes are? That's the dock where cargo ships come to unload. Needless to say it was totally cleared of cargo.

Do you see those little tents? That's the dock that the cruise ships usually come to. Majority of the time it was covered with water from the crashing waves!!

Finally, here are the cruise ships docked only between 2 ~ 3 miles down from where they normally are. Look how calm the water is!! I would never believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself. It was unbelievable!!!

A lot of fishing boats docked at the end of a long day!