BUT NOW THE SUN IS RISING CALM AND BRIGHT ...

AFTER THE STORM

 William Wordsworth


There was a roaring in the wind all night;

The rain came heavily and fell in floods;

But now the sun is rising calm and bright;

The birds are singing in the distant woods;

Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;

The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;

And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

        etc.

This morning I slept in to just after 7AM.

The previous few nights I've been awake and unable to sleep from 3AM onwards  but now that the wind has dropped I can rest easier.

Although the forecasters thought that Cyclone Tam might be worse than Cyclone Gabriel of two years ago, the Whangarei Heads area seems to have got away unscathed apart from some trees down, power outages, boat groundings etc, certainly not as bad as before.

I cleared debris (tree branches) from around the house and checked for damage. The only significant thing I saw was a trellis panel that encloses the under-deck area has been blown in. I'll fix this when the ground dries out a bit. We might still get rain and thunderstorms today and tomorrow.

I drove around to my sister's holiday house a few bays away (they are in Scotland at present) to check for damage. All was OK which was a relief. After Gabriel the roads were munted and impassable and they lost some really big trees.

On the way back, at Taurikura I saw a lot of cars parked and people on the beach opposite the tennis club. I remembered reading on Neighbourly/Facebook about a dolphin stranding yesterday so stopped and went to see. 

Apparently the dolphin had got into difficulties in the big surf at Ocean Beach and had to be rescued by the Project Jonah people. They brought it around to the sheltered Taurikura Bay and put it there to destress and reorient itself.

It was still there this morning, swimming slowly around and I guess, getting its strength back. I think that it's frightened to go back out into the big water.

There were a lot of Project Jonah volunteers on the beach watching, along with parents and little kids. It was heartwarming to see the care shown to this creature. I took a video which hopefully shows it cruising around.