The Tempest

On Sunday evening, I pottered down into Peel for a half decent curry in one of the pubs and killed a bit of time as Rob's ferry wasn't due to arrive till 11pm. 

Rob was all ready and on his way on the Manannan from Liverpool.

Eventually, at about 8.30 I decided I'd ride into Douglas and see what was going on there; maybe grab a pint in Bushy's on the Prom.....(Bushy's Beer Tent)

Ah yes, this is the Manx not TT week - Bushy's was nowhere to be seen - the Prom was .....empty. So I got myself a large brew in the ferry terminal and read the paper from front to back twice till I got kicked out of Costa!

Rob arrived on time and we rode back to the campsite and settled down for the night. My nice tidy tent, big for 1, suddenly became very untidy and small for 2, with gear scattered all over the porch bit. This was to become relevant during the night.......

We settled down to sleep. During the night the most monumental storm blew in. It battered down all night and there was a really strong wind raging down the valley. I was really quite convinced that the tent would go at some point - it felt like it was only the weight of us being in it that was holding it down. Morning came and the weather was no better. We flicked on the radio and were not surprised to hear that racing had been postponed to Tuesday. When we eventually dared poke our heads out the sleeping pods, we had one of those "ohhhh sh...." moments. The porch was under an inch of water; our helmets were sat in it and had soaked it all up the linings; our jackets were soaked - it was mayhem. We did the only sensible thing - zipped up and went back to sleep.

When we eventually got up, the place was like a disaster zone - there were tents broken and twisted all over the place. The place was a mudbath. The council run swimming pool next door was open and it became a refugee centre for displaced campers!! They did a good breakfast there and were doing a roaring trade. 

Rob's Manx Hot Chocolate at the Pool

We walked into Peel and managed to get some stuff to make up some extra guys lines to secure the tent.

The storm eventually subsided late in the afternoon and we were relatively unscathed. The big green 8 berth tent behind us (pre-Tempest, you can see it in the big photo at the top of this blog) was flattened. The guy next door with the Beemer used some of the debris to fix his tent, which had also collapsed, but he decided he'd had enough and changed his ferry booking to the next day.

Later on, it dried up enough for us to venture out to Ramsey on the bike for fish and chips. Good old Doris - she'd been out in the driving rain for the best part of a day and started first push of the button. The roads were really awash in places with streams running across them. Couldn't believe that this was the racetrack!!

The day after the Tempest - tent behind looking worse for wear;
the one to the left was by this time in the bin!