Rant #1,766: Be Good, Matthew

Hurricane Matthew is set to roar up the East Coast today and into the weekend, and since "hell hath no fury," as the saying goes, nobody really knows whether this storm is going to leave its mark or just cause some temporary discomfort.

Or be the male equivalent of Hurricane Sandy.

Matthew has made its mark on the Caribbean, and mainly on Haiti, although it has also hit parts of Cuba and some other areas in this system.

Poor Haiti, perhaps the poorest country in the hemisphere, it gets hit again, and again, and again, seemingly without respite.

Anyway, the couple of sentences I have just written are basically a prelude to a very different type of bon voyage post, because believe it or not, my wife, my son and I are scheduled to go on a cruise beginning on Saturday, and right now, at this moment, I don't know what is going to happen.

Our cruise is supposed to leave Miami on Saturday afternoon, and we are supposed to visit spots in Puerto Rico, St. Maarten, St. Kitts, and Grand Turk.

Matthew certainly had some impact on these areas, but only Puerto Rico was really directly affected, and that was a few days ago, and I haven't heard any reports of devastation like I heard happened in Haiti, so we should be good to go with where we are going.

That is not the problem. The problem is actually getting there.

We are supposed to take a plane out of Long Island's MacArthur Airport early on Saturday morning, and fly down to Fort Lauderdale.

Even if the storm is at its worst at that point, the plane should be able to fly over the storm, and we should get to Florida without a problem.

The hitch is when we are on the ground.

Once we get to Fort Lauderdale--hopefully, we can even land there--we have to get to Miami, which is minutes away. We are supposed to take a shuttle directly to the cruise ship dock, and we set sail in the afternoon.

Now, if Matthew rips through Florida, and there is flooding and other devastation, I can't see how we are going to get to our point of destination, which is Miami, which reports have said is battening down the hatches, preparing for a rough go while Matthew goes by--or unfortunately, worst case scenario--scales right into its environs.

Thus, we don't know if we can get to our destination, or even whether Carnival Cruise Lines will postpone or even cancel our cruise.

We have no idea at this point.

And if the cruise goes on as scheduled, if we can't get there, we do have cruise insurance, so Carnival will give us a stipend to fly to the first port of call to pick up the ship there.

What a hassle this has become! And to be in the dark about the whole thing makes it that much worse for my family and the others we are sailing with.

Look, I am not downplaying the devastation on the people who live in these areas in the least. I remember Hurricane Sandy and what it did to Long Island, which has still not fully recovered from that horrible weather disturbance all this time later.

But I am concerned about our cruise, a vacation that my wife and I paid for well before we knew we had won a trip to Korea.

I am most concerned about our son, and the others we are going with, more than myself or my wife. We at least have been away this year, they have not. A vacation that is scuttled is not fair to them, but it might be inevitable if Matthew does to Florida what it did to Haiti.

Several other cruises have already been canceled or had their destinations changed because of Matthew, and it could happen to our cruise, too.

(I did check yesterday with Carnival, and the company had this message:

From Carnival Cruise Lines ...

"Carnival Splendor – 10/8/16 Departure
The Carnival Splendor cruise departing Oct. 8 remains as scheduled. At this time, there are no changes to the ship’s itinerary. Should any changes become necessary, we will provide an update accordingly."

My worry is that we won't be able to get there in time, but I will be checking back with their site each day to see if there are nay changes being made.

I have to take a wait-and-see attitude, since I believe the port where the ship will be and where we are boarding has been closed due to the coming hurricane.

As for our own environs, right now, it looks like the hurricane will impact the weather in the Northeast, but not to a great extent. It might bring high winds and rain, but nothing like is forecast for further south, including the Carolinas.

Again, everything changes seemingly by the hour with this hurricane, so who knows where it will be--and what it has done--by Saturday?

So yes, this is my annual bon voyage column, but there is no swimsuit-clad Annette to wish us safe passage, because it looks like we might need a bit more than Annette to help us this weekend.

If everything goes according to plan, my next blog entry won't be until at least the week of Monday, October 17.

And that is a problem in itself, because I am slated to have surgery on my wisdom tooth on that very day, so I might actually be out of commission for a day or two after that.

But if the cruise is canceled, or postponed or somehow changed, I might just be back reporting to you on Monday.

Let's hope that does not happen. Speak to you again during the week of October 17.

Wish me luck!