from the crow's nest

Well, the boat has been lifted, lifted, lifted. The plants are tucked away and the patio furniture stowed safely awaiting TS Henri's arrival. The rain started about 30 minutes ago - up until then we only had sprinkles. Henri is sitting 85 miles west of St. Petersburg and moving at approximately 8 miles per hour. They keep saying the storm will move north, northeast but so far it has dead headed due east, straight for us.

The pelicans are loving it. They can soar and soar without flapping a wing. I'm waiting for the frigate birds who appear every fall for the rain storms. They will dive from amazing heights and shake the water off their wings. I've never seen them dive into the water like an osprey -- I think their dive is strictly to rid themselves of excess water.

I tried to get doppler and satellite information from the local TV stations websites. What a poor performance that was. On one station I asked for rainfall prediction and got a scanty page with local tide information. Their other pages loaded in layers and never arrived at a decent viewing point. The other station doesn't have server capacity to manage the traffic evidently. I tried two loads and finally gave up. Such a loss of credibility they just earned. Too bad. Maybe its deliberate? Do they want us to turn off the computer and tune in the TV????