It was an ordinary day. The rain has finally stopped. Yesterday afternoon the sky opened and sent buckets of water toward earth. We were on the beach when the beach boys started going up and down the beach, closing all the yellow umbrellas. They pointed to the east and said, "The wind is coming." We could see dark clouds and what looked like rain off in the distance. So we packed our beach bag and headed toward the car. Almost made it! With about 50 yards to go, it started with small raindrops. Raced for the car and slammed the doors shut just before the heavy rain started. Not long before we arrived back at Villa Jeluca, our home away from home on the Caribbean island of St. Martin. Rain on vacation is nothing new to us, since it rained about 75% of our visit last year. We questioned whether we should ever return to St. Martin again, but it was the first year ever that we had that much rain. We are back and even though it rains almost every night, the weather during the day has been picture perfect. That was until yesterday. The roof of the villa is metal and the rain striking it makes it sound like we are in the center of a drum. It gets so loud at times that you can't talk without yelling and you can forget about listening to the CD player or watching TV. During the night it sounded like an orchestra with the wind blowing and whistling and the constant beating of the drums on the roof. But, this morning, after opening the hurricane shutters in the villa, I could see the sun shining and a cloudless sky. I yelled to Carol the good news and headed down the hill to Orient Village to buy the morning croissants. Before long we were having our breakfast on the rear deck and soaking up the warmth from the sun. Then I turned on my computer to look at the local news. Cars were floating down the streets on the Dutch side of the island and many were without power and water. We had, on the average, 6-8 inches of rain since yesterday afternoon. Wow! After we finished, I took the breakfast glasses to the sink to wash them and ........ no water! Called the realtor and was told that most of the neighboring area was without water, and probably would be until lunchtime. No problem. We packed lunch and headed to the beach. What a beautiful day! The air temperature and water temperature were both about 85 degrees. Read for a while, then mosied into the warm Caribbean water to cool off. Take a drink and a noodle with you and you are set until you shrivel up. After afternoon "Happy Hour," we headed back to the villa pool, a shower and a trip to Orient Village for our evening meal. I turned on the shower and ......... nothing. "Carol, we still have no water." I called the realtor again to find out what to do. Within five minutes, Stephan arrived to see if he could figure out the problem for us. Seems the water had been restored to the island, but we still had none. Then he told me that our villa has well water since it is so high up on the mountain. And the pump has stopped functioning. He made a call and within 15 minutes a repairman arrived and we were told that it needed a new pump. Stores were closed now, so we would be without water for the evening. I asked him if we could take our shower in the villa's swimming pool. No problem, so we both jumped in to get wet, got out and lathered up, and dove back in to get the suds off of us. The chlorine smell could be covered up with aftershave or in Carol's part, with body lotion. We were good to go. We also used a bucket to get pool water to flush the toilets in the villa. Next morning the repair man arrived and after returning from the beach for the day, found that everything was back to normal. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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