Ita

It would be an exaggeration to say "we survived Ita" as in reality it blew itself out before it got to us - according to data from Oz Cyclone Chasers it was a borderline Cat 1 /2 as it moved south from Port Douglas area. That said we have now got our first Aus cyclone under our belt and it did have its moments.

Tish was told not to go into work on Friday as it was expected to start having an impact half way through her late shift so we used the time to finish getting ready - everything was out the garden in the shed; water containers filled, bath filled and a few extra dried provisions bought - although there was a massive run on food in the shops as people panic bought - the best I saw was someone buying 240eggs and 30+ litres of milk!
Having done all that we could we went onto the beach in the afternoon - if it was going to hit Friday night and be as severe as the initial forecasts then we wanted to burn some energy off the children first as it could be a while before they went out.
The sea was starting to swell a bit but nothing much

Tish and I thought that anyone on this was going to be in for a rough night...

Friday night turned out to be a non event for us, and more importantly nowhere near as bad an event as predicted for people in Cooktown / Cape Flattery / Hopevale where Ita came ashore. It seems as though she made landfall as she was in the process of replacing the eyewall and as such she was not as tight or intense as she would have been otherwise.
We woke up on Saturday to wind and rain that slowly started to build during the day.
I went our first thing with Cameron to see what was going on

who when he thought I wasn't watching opened his coat to see if he could fly...
The seas were starting to get a bit more impressive

 As it started to get much more blustery at lunch time I went out for one final look just to see if anything was happening

From about 1pm the weather deteriorated quite fast and we had extremely heavy rain and severe gusts, the wind strengthened throughout the afternoon and evening. The forecast track was updated and refined constantly and by 5pm it was clear that we were going to get hit full on by Ita as she moved down the coast - luckily by the time she hit us she was only a Cat 1 borderline Cat 2 so whilst interesting was not the catastrophic force that had been forecast.
Still images don't reall do it any justice so we took a few poor videos of it from the safety of the deck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fFFsE0m3TU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b86n5biwr8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Sb484buvI

It came over during the night but if I'm honest apart from a couple of loud bangs as things bounced off the roof and the drone of the wind that you got used to not much else happened!

By 4am it had all blown through and the morning was nice and calm so I took the children back onto the beach to see what if anything had happened, the answer was not too much
The skies though were superb

As you can imagine I spent Saturday afternoon with the bins hoping for some seabirds to fly past, the morning was very quiet with just a single Lesser Frigatebird but the afternoon picked up and we had three hours of really interesting birding including one Aus tick for me.
The light conditions were not good so took only a couple of pics

small group of Lesser Frigatebirds over the house.

I had hoped this morning that there would be some birds relocating themselves by following the coastline north again but it has been very disappointing. There are still 30+ Lesser Frigatebirds a long way off shore and I did have two small groups of Lesser's with one Great Frigatebird over the house but thats been all.
The downside of the storm for the birds of course has been the extra stress it has put on them. A number of them have not survived the ordeal, here in Yorkeys I know that there have been several grounded Sooty terns at least one of which has not survived

Some have been picked up and taken to Vets etc but there are many others that will be found dead over the next couple of days.