The Grand Goave River is almost a quarter mile wide.  Often it is a trickle and we walk across it.  Sometimes it meanders with enough volume to force us to walk or drive around it.  I have heard stories of the river raging full width as well as the tales from the storm that wiped out the concrete bridge and tumbled it to the sea.

Today Tropical Storm Isaac delivered my wish with fury.  The storm was polite enough to hold back until we completed pouring concrete on MoHI’s main stairs and railings, though it was very late by the time I got to Mirlitone.  At midnight the sea churned and the wind blew so hard the rain skittered off the metal roof instead of pounding directly overhead.  By morning the wind died down but the rain increased.  Early this afternoon Lex decided to evacuate Mirlitone, so we piled into cars and trekked up to the school, driving through several sections of three foot deep muddy water where the drainage channel overflowed its banks along the way.

When we reached the bridge, a crowd in colorful slickers and huge umbrellas watched the water roil to the sea.  The rapids were huge, ten foot in some sections, littered with limbs and roots as the mountains erode into the sea. By the end of the storm the river bed will be wider than ever.

The Bay of Gonave from Mirlitone.  The dark section that appears to be a sand bar is a swirling mix of roots and limbs.

The Grand Goave River

Monster rapid