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Joe
Joe
Hello, from a fairly new diver...
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OMG you were there for Wilma? :11: The building is well built, solid concrete - sounds carry well don't they? But how did you cover the sliding glass windows?
Next time, check NHC before you go to the airport.
:cowboy2: don
And don't be shy about posting. Click Forums above, tour the long list of choices, and jump in anywhere you're qualified. PM me with any questions, and I'll try to find a pretty good answer.
Next time, check NHC before you go to the airport.
:cowboy2: don
And don't be shy about posting. Click Forums above, tour the long list of choices, and jump in anywhere you're qualified. PM me with any questions, and I'll try to find a pretty good answer.
ProfessorAronnax
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Glad you made it through Wilma O.K. Welcome to SB!
OP
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Thanks, folks! The Casa del Mar is built like a fortress, and they boarded up all of the windows in the lobby, the doors, and the first floor, with sheets of plywood and then 45-degree struts that further supported them. Rafael, I'm sorry you were in Cancun for that monster... We were in pitch blackness for 43 hours, and after that, they allowed us to go into the inner courtyard to get some air and to retrieve our dive gear and stuff from our rooms. Wilma pounded on us for a total of 60 hours, and it was truly the experience of a lifetime. The sound was like a hundred freight trains all blowing their horns, a squadron of B-52's, and as though Hell had opened up and the voices of the damned were screaming and wailing.
The roof of the restaurant for the Casa del Mar collapsed, but the restaurant itself didn't seem to take much damage, really. (compared to other places that we saw on the island.) The dive shop took heavy damage, and the pier was completely wiped out. The two huge concrete piers for the cruise ships took a lot of damage, too. One was completely gone, and the other was missing a huge section right out of the middle. The overpass from the Casa del Mar's swimming pool deck over the highway, to the dive shop took heavy damage too. On the descending, dive-shop side, the stairs were gone. All of them. The day after, I went down and helped the dive-shop crew dig out the shop. It was full of slabs of concrete, ashphalt, chunks of concrete with rebar sticking out of them, rocks, ceiling tiles... I've never seen that level of devastation like what I saw over the area surrounding the Casa del Mar.
When we were circling to land on Cozumel, the island looked like a jungle... So lush and green... When we finally, (nearly a week after our scheduled departure date!) got a flight, as we were taking off, I looked out, and every leaf of every tree had been stripped.
The whole thing was an experience I will never forget. My dive team doesn't want me to go with them anymore: The first dive trip we took to Florida, to get certified, went without incident, but then we went back to do some diving and got evacuated because of Hurricane Emily. And now, the third dive trip I've been on, we got battered by Wh*re-icane Wilma. Um... 75% of my dive trips have ended in hurricanes. NOT GOOD!! LMAO
-Frank
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
The roof of the restaurant for the Casa del Mar collapsed, but the restaurant itself didn't seem to take much damage, really. (compared to other places that we saw on the island.) The dive shop took heavy damage, and the pier was completely wiped out. The two huge concrete piers for the cruise ships took a lot of damage, too. One was completely gone, and the other was missing a huge section right out of the middle. The overpass from the Casa del Mar's swimming pool deck over the highway, to the dive shop took heavy damage too. On the descending, dive-shop side, the stairs were gone. All of them. The day after, I went down and helped the dive-shop crew dig out the shop. It was full of slabs of concrete, ashphalt, chunks of concrete with rebar sticking out of them, rocks, ceiling tiles... I've never seen that level of devastation like what I saw over the area surrounding the Casa del Mar.
When we were circling to land on Cozumel, the island looked like a jungle... So lush and green... When we finally, (nearly a week after our scheduled departure date!) got a flight, as we were taking off, I looked out, and every leaf of every tree had been stripped.
The whole thing was an experience I will never forget. My dive team doesn't want me to go with them anymore: The first dive trip we took to Florida, to get certified, went without incident, but then we went back to do some diving and got evacuated because of Hurricane Emily. And now, the third dive trip I've been on, we got battered by Wh*re-icane Wilma. Um... 75% of my dive trips have ended in hurricanes. NOT GOOD!! LMAO
-Frank
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
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