Tropical Rains on Sanibel

We have been on the island for two weeks now, the time has flown.

After 13 days of non stop sun and breezes, the summer weather is setting in.

The past two late afternoons, as is typical from June through September, the skies darkened. The winds picked up. The rain began to plop, plop on the roofs and trees. Then it poured out of buckets. Buckets and buckets of pouring rain. Buckets and buckets of roaring rain. Sometimes it is so loud, you can do nothing else but sit and listen to the rain. It's a true tropical rain. There is a beauty to it that is more ethereal than real.

The island needed a good drenching, and it is getting it. Not interfering with a full day of beaching or biking, the rains hold off until after 4, sometimes after 6. They are usually accompanied with loud thunder claps and brilliant bolts of lightning.

They will pound the trees and bushes ruthlessly for an hour or two. Then they will stop as suddenly as they began.

These are tropical rains, and they help to create yet another way to measure the day.

With non stop sunshine, one feels the island is without structure. The sun shines: you wake up to it, you see it disappear, always at the same time.

The rains create a natural segue. There is the time before the rain. Then the rain itself. And the time after the rain. It's the morning, noon, and nighttime of a 24 hour period.

Soon, you will be able to set your watch to it.