Life on the margins of the tropic belt

Clouds after the storm, Trinidad

If you're into nature

or the weather, here at 10 degrees latitude North, the daily sky show is for you.

After a pristine and clear morning

the clouds start to build up. They come in low and dark, nearly black, with fluffy curls flying under their belly. The speed at which these curls move indicate the wind speed of the gust to come.

Then comes the rain

Pouring from the sky as if a huge bucket was turned upside down. The massive rain cools the air, boiling since the early morning. It washes the decks and clears the Saharan dust from the sky.

Usually within 30 minutes

the clouds continue west leaving behind this magnificent display of forms, shapes and light in constant flux.

As the evening approaches

lightning storms begin hitting the ground across the water, in mainland Central America on the Venetzuellan coast. This striking show may last for several hours and at enormous rate, sometimes 10,000 strikes in a couple of hours.

It is indeed a great display

as long as it's not on top of us, but further out.

I've been lucky

No major storms this far into the hurricane season. Even when Dorian passed by early in its life, I hardly got a few squalls. In addition, the bay here is situated so that most of the heavy clouds split before it, move out to sea or over the mountain to the north.

It's incredibly hot and humid

and the water is opaque with micro life and unfortunately pollution, so this is far from a tropical paradise. But life on the margins of the belt was never supposed to be paradise for me, just a sanctuary here in Trinidad