westbaylodge - Hurricane Felix

Hello from beautiful, sunny West Bay beach beach. I want to thank everyone who sent emails wishing us well and said they were praying for us. We had 50+ and most of them were people who have stayed here in the past. It really feels great to know we made such an impression on so many people. See the prayers really worked. Well, yesterday was really an uneventful day (other than it was my birthday). Early Monday morning it looked like we were to receive a direct hit from the hurricane at a Cat 5. By Monday early afternoon we had everything boarded up and tied down and the office cleared out. We knew our home and the bungalows would be fine. By the late afternoon the hurricane was heading south/west and away from us. By then most tourist had been asked to leave and a lot of locals even left. I guess in this case it is a very good thing we are not a beach front hotel. We have 2 couples who decided to stay and not cut their vacation short and see what happened. They helped us get everything ready. Milos's brother is also staying with us and Jacob is back home again. so it was looking like we would have 8 people, 9 parrots (2 are my friends) 1 toucan and 5 cats all in the house. We have the generator and lots of food so we would have been fine. Yesterday we went to the beach to go swimming and it was great, very calm water and there were only a few people. We did get a small rain shower for a few minutes then some drizzle in the afternoon. No wind at all, though I heard the south side got 30 mile winds for a time. Last night we had some more rain. This morning it looks like it did here on Sunday. The only problem here was there were no restaurants or bars open for our guests. Well, we decided to have a great lobster feast here. Milos BBQ'd lots of lobster tails and we had all that food on hand so it made sense and a birthday party for me. We all ate until we were so full. Today they are back at the beach.
The reason we have so many parrots is we had our 2 then we bought a beautiful purple headed amazon that talks like crazy and makes everyone laugh. His name is Hamish. He is named after a lovely 9 year old who stayed with his family for 2 weeks in August. Then I ordered 2 babies from a man who was raising them until they were old enough. The man showed up with all 6 babies that he was raising. I had to buy 4 3 month olds for us. They are so funny. They are learning to stand on the perch but keep falling now and then. They eat mashed banana with corn meal then stick their beaks in the small seeds. They end up with this big ball stuck to their beaks. Right now we have all 6 back in a cage until my friend gets back. In the mornings during breakfast it sounds like an aviary here with all our birds singing, including Mirah the toucan. Jacob was very surprised when he got back.
Honduran independence weekend is Sept 14-16. There will be the festivals, parade and the fishing tournament. It should be fun again this year, although I do wish that it was a "catch & release" style and not just a large fish hanging in West end until for days.
I think it is time to head to the beach for a swim on such a beautiful 88' day.
Celeste