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"It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You'd wake up in a concert and think, wow, how did I get here?"
- John Lennon
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Never have I met such a rude, ignorant, incorrigible waste of perfectly good oxygen in all my life. I say incorrigible yet he is probably somewhere in the middle of the pacific looking to ruin someone else's hard earned holiday as he dissipates into a small group of clouds as if he never existed to begin with.
Anyway, here is how it all went down.
Friday - 19th February 2016
Concern started to build on Friday afternoon when we became aware that Fiji airways had cancelled their flights back to Melbourne from Nadi (Nandi) for the next day, the day that we were supposed to fly out ourselves. We were flying with Virgin Australia and were hoping that they would disregard safety precautions and fly anyway. It's funny how one tends to rationalise in such situations. We ate dinner at the resort next door. Mamacita is our favorite dining location in the resort island of Denarau. My wife ordered the enormous Chipotle Chicken Burrito and I ordered the Fish and Chips. Yes, I ordered the least Mexican dish on the menu, but I already had the burrito earlier in the week.
We ordered chimichangas for dessert. They were fantastic. Follow EatLikeLoPizzo on Facebook to see the food photos.
Before bed we signed up for status updates for our flight. So far the flight was to leave as planned.
Saturday - 20th February 2016
After devouring bowel cancer and coma inducing amounts of bacon at the daily breakfast buffet at our resort, we walked to the foyer to check the notice board for the status of our good mate TC Winston. On our short walk my wife received a text message. The message was not good news. I know this because as my wife was reading it she stopped and said "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god..." and so on. Also, when she is concerned she tends to walk backwards, which after 4+ years of marriage I am yet to understand why. It is kind of cute. When she managed to build a distance of around 4 meters I asked her to express herself with more words and less footsteps. It turned out that our flight was cancelled.
Saturday was a big day for us, we went from expecting to be able to escape the wrath of the biggest asshole shitstorm that the Southern Hemisphere has ever seen to being essentially stuck in said shit storm.
To the front desk! They'll help us out!
"Sorry sir, we are fully booked. You will need to check out at 11am as planned. We would call the other resorts for you but they are all booked out. Why don't you try online?" I am not shitting you, we were without shelter, albeit for a short period of time, but it was suddenly concerning nonetheless.
It was around 9am. We had just over 2 hours to organise accomodation, have showers, rebook flights and call the insurance company. Hotels.com was my job while Marleena called Virgin Australia. Earliest flight back was Wednesday, now I had a date to book the hotel. Local resorts were disappearing before my eyes.
Hilton have something! Wait, nope. All gone once you click on the link.
Would you like to look at other rooms with this hotel? Fuck yes! Long story short we got a 1 bedroom apartment at the Hilton, and let me tell you, if you are looking for a place to bunker down during a tropical cyclone, this is probably the best place to do it. Right now I am typing this post up on our 1st level balcony in brilliant sunshine, watching the ocean and listening to Tiny Dancer as if the entire ordeal didn't happen.
Anyway, we walked the 2 kilometers or so to the Hilton with our luggage and managed to check in before two busloads of tourists who were evacuated from their small island resorts swarmed in and packed out the foyer. If my wife had just stepped out of the pool she would have had less water dripping off her. We were sweating like a couple of hookers waiting in line for confession.
The room would be ready at 3pm, currently it was around 1pm. We see people getting out of taxis with boxes of bottled water and jump on a golf cart back to their room.
This seems like a good idea! We catch a sneaky taxi to port and stock up on water, noodles and various unhealthy snacks. Hey, if we are going to die in a tropical cyclone lets do it happy right?
We get back from frantic shopping and the room is ready thankfully, because it looks like another busload of tourists has just disembarked and turned the lobby into a sweaty congregation of varying ethnicity. As I am waiting for the keys to be set up I hear a couple next to us complain that they got to their room and there was already a couple in there when they opened the door. They had just arrived too... oh dear. Please make this uneventful. I suddenly start believing in a higher being but can't decide who to pray to.
"I will give you your key sir as the room has been cleaned but I will just need you to wait to the side until I can confirm that it has been released by management."
Fuck that shit for a joke, lets go to our room! At this point the winds are picking up and the humidity is sitting at 100%. So we immediately disobey orders and hot foot it to the room. There is no one in there. No one else tries to come in either. The air-conditioner is blasting and fans spinning making the room feel like an igloo. It was as if God had setup a heaven franchised hotel room just inside the gates of hell.
Tropical Cyclone Winston
We are advised to do a few things to prepare for the storm which is just a few short hours away. We fill the bath to 3/4 with water in case the water pump in the hotel dies. The patio furniture was already moved into the room. The guy came around and put tape on the windows... not much of it. Our neighbour and I looked at each other concerned at what such a small amount of masking tape could possibly do, but anyway. The glass didn't break. My auntie in-law who volunteers with the SES in Victoria took us through some procedures to make sure we are ready to do a runner if it turns out the area was to go to the crapper "wear your clothes and shoes to bed!" So we were good to go.
By the time we watch 2 episodes of the third season of The X Files the winds started to pick up and it definitely was an interesting night. We pulled the blinds down and pushed some furniture against them and tried to sleep. We didn't sleep...
Power didn't stay off at any point, in fact after a couple of dropouts we pretty much kept power throughout the entire ordeal, which meant we could keep families updated on our situation via WhatsApp.
Now lets not forget that we are in a 5 star establishment with solid concrete walls surrounding us. We were far from being in any sort of danger in my opinion, but it was nice to hear people were concerned for our safety.
The storm itself was certainly impressive. I won't look at a pissy Melbourne lightning show the same again. Essentially this has ruined all other storms for me going forward. Thanks a lot Winston you asshole!
Sunday - 21st February 2016
I snuck out of our room during red alert the morning after the cyclone hit. It was amazing what damage can be done in such a short period of time. For a few hours that morning it was fairly still. We checked the radar and the entire cyclone had passed us. It's over right? Nope. While I was out walking it started to rain quite heavily and within about an hour we had what I would consider another cyclone. It was amazing to see it happen in the daylight. What was different to the night before was that the winds weren't quite as strong, but still like nothing I have ever experienced previously. This new storm also brought with it lightning which (if I follow the counting rule) was striking pretty much at our feet. I have never heard lightning crack that loud and that close.
Placing our hands on the glass doors we could actually feel the pressure of the wind bending it. At one point I tried to open the sliding door to do some filming but wasn't able to budge it.
Monday - 22nd February 2016
So today, as I write this we have seen very strange changing weather. My fellow Melbournians will know what I am talking about as we experience it on an almost daily basis for most of the year, it's just that Fiji is doing it at a more intense level. We went for a walk along the beach after breakfast and assessed the damage. A lot of debris was washed up on the beach which we couldn't really tell whether it was from our own island or the island we could see off into the distance. Anyway, the weather was nice this morning... and humid. Around lunchtime it was pissing down, and again with strong winds. Again it cleared up throughout the day, but at about 9:30pm we managed to get another lightning storm with a crazy amount of rain.
So that; until this point, was our experience with TC fucking Winston and his bullshit life ruining shenanigans.
So far 15 people have lost their lives to this cyclone and our thoughts are going out to their families. Lets hope this beautiful country and it's beautiful people are able to rebuild and get back to their normal lives as soon as possible.
Bula from sunny, stormy, sunny again Fiji!
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