OK this has been a hectic couple of weeks. First we had a severe storm. Hurricane force winds driving rain, sleet, the works. Well someone got that at least. Here in Nanaimo we got lots of rain but most of the town didn't get much more than that. The biggest thing I had to deal with was pulling a downspout to clear a clog so the gutters worked properly again. Clog cleared, me soaked, all is well again.

You see we have the line of mountains down the middle of the island sheltering us from whatever comes in from across the Pacific. This is why we live on the land facing leeward side of the island. It's not as spectacular but it is safer that way. Compared to Tofino or Port Renfrew we have a lot milder climate. On the other side though they had truly monstrous storm waves rolling toward the shore. But then that's why Tofino is a mecca for surfers. When everyone else is batting down the hatches, there's always a small cadre dressed in Neoprene, heading toward the beach. The worse the storm the more likely you are to see a tiny figure in black riding the maelstrom.

And Speaking of Port Renfrew, this was a rough week for them. Understand that along the East side of the island where we are, we have very secure utilities. Multiple lines run from Victoria to Nanaimo, and on to Campbell River. There is a lot of redundancy on this side so we don't tend to have many outages and those that do happen are normally short. The smaller communities on the island though, especially those on the west side tend to be at the end of long lines from the eastern spine. Power, telephone, internet each tend to be over single cables with no redundancy. This week, just after the big storm, Port Renfrew lost telephone and Internet. When I first heard this I thought, 'Well no big. So they can't surf the web or call out'. Later on I found out that this has really shut the town down. Debit and credit card machines don't work. Cash machines are off line. Banks are mostly down because they can't communicate with the home office in Victoria or Vancouver. Many cash registers are down because need to be connected to external systems based in Victoria. Emergency, alarm, and 911 services were out. All cell phones were out. Most TV Cable systems were out. Even calls within Port Renfrew were dead because all traffic is routed through a switching centre on the other side of the break. Their connection went down last Saturday. It was restored on Tuesday but went down again a few hours later and is still down. The one strange thing was that for years Port Renfrew had made due with a single line for telephone and data. It was sometimes iffy but it worked. Last month Telus, the main provider over there, decided to upgrade the line and add a second backup line.

So far the residents aren't impressed with their improvements.

On Friday the problem at Port Renfrew took on a dark turn. When the huge earthquake hit Japan the whole of the pacific basin went on a Tsunami alert or warning. I suspect because nobody could call them, Port Renfrew only found out by listening to CBC Radio. Fortunately up here the tsunami was small. Only a metre at Tofino. A lot of this has to do with the geometry of the west coast. The BC coast is oriented northwest-southeast and so the wave was striking the us at a fairly steep angle, minimizing the impact. Further south along Oregon and California the coast is more directly north-south so it caught the surge more head on and it was much more destructive. Brookings Oregon and Crescent City California were especially hard hit. Once again it wasn't huge crashing waves. The surge flowed into the bays and pushed boats around, tore docks loose and just trashed the harbours. Most of the fishing fleet based in Brookings has been damaged. With the economic downturn it's been a tough couple of years for them already. They didn't need this right now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyGaoTgq54g

The damage south of us was much worse than anything we got here. Of course it's trivial compared to what's happened in Japan. This Friday I raised a glass of Saki wishing them the best. They have a long road ahead, but if anyone can recover from this, it's the Japanese. I picked up a fresh bottle of Saki for the occasion and decided to try a different one this time. I picked up Hakutsuru, Junmai Ginjo. It's delicious, smooth with a round texture, but slightly fruity unlike the dryer Sakis I've had in the past. I think I have a new favourite saki. It's really good and if you can find it you might give it a try. (Suggestion not valid for Jessica, Jacob or anyone that likes Bud.)

One last thought.
We visited Japan and they had the huge earthquake.
We visited China and they had a huge earthquake
We visited Turkey and they had a huge earthquake
We visited Greece and they had a huge earthquake.
We visited Argentina and Chile, right next door, had a huge earthquake.

We are scheduled to visit Minnesota this summer.
Are you sure you want us to?

Doug & Marsha

PIX: None this week 'cuz the weather has been so atrocious.