I've always said that life is better on the beach... and I believed it, and I probably still do in 99 percent of the times. However, the last thing I expected in 2017, the day after Valentine's Day, was to be visited by Cyclone Dineo. In other parts of the world they are also known as Hurricanes.
Silver fish lodge is situated on the beach. In fact, when it's spring high tide, the sea comes under the deck of the bar. I built the buildings with the floor being 5 bricks above the ground level. I did this in case of a cyclone, in case of storm surge....... I also built the walls double brick, to withstand whatever mother nature will throw at us in the tropics.
With radar tracking, I knew we were in trouble when this monster reformed in the Indian Ocean Channel between Mozambique and Madagascar in the second week of February 2017. It was a massive system, and it was heading our way. I've been in and out of Mozambique for 25 years and have had my share of inclement weather in the tropics. We've ducked and dived and been lucky in this time. We've seen systems hit other parts of the coast, but as is usual with watching something on television, one is immune to feeling.
Dineo proved to be our nemeses and the eye hit Morrenbene (10 km away as the crow flies) in the early morning hours of Feb 15th. We had a direct hit. Winds were reported to be 200 km/hr, and the storm surge (which is the lifting of the sea water directly under the cyclone), was measured at 1.5 meters above the spring high tide mark. The result was devastation.
My Bars deck was smashed like balsa wood. It's made of Simbiri, (also known as ironwood) which is a heavy, strong wood. In fact, when I installed it, they told me that even termites can't/ don't want to bite and burrow into it- it's too hard......Well, that was no match for Dineo. My canvas pulldowns were shredded like paper, and furniture smashed. 10 years of guests photos with trophy fish were destroyed. The wind was a factor, pushing my water tower over, breaking my roofs, and throwing things around. However, the real damage was when the storm surge came through the lodge. On average, it came through about 1m deep, smashing and moving everything that wasn't bolted down. It smashed my sliding doors, broke furniture and drowned whatever was on floor level. My beautiful Craig Bertram Smith fishing paintings was flung off the walls and thrown away. I recovered gas bottles 5- 600 meters behind the lodge, my water tank also somewhere there. Boats on trailers were moved. Some things were never recovered. We suffered extensive damage. Much of my hard work was reduced to rubble in a few hours.
How does one recover from a direct hit from a cyclone? For two days, I wandered around not knowing where to start. Comms were down, but I heard through the bush telegraph of the destruction. Comms started recovering after four days with intermittent signal. That's when I realised how lucky I was.
I started seeing that some people had lost their homes- raised to the ground, and left with little, or no possessions. Some people had lost loved ones... It was a real disaster. I was left with damage, but nothing that time won't heal.
We've cleaned up and started recovering. It will take time, but we will be operational from the 13th March.
I've heard reports that there are fish around. I believe there are plenty of Bonita tuna, and skipjack tuna in the bay. I also saw a local fisherman carrying a dorado. Things, it appears, are looking up.
Lets go fishing guys. When the fish are there, little else matters. In five years time, this won't either.