HURRICANE day. I was woken by a rare event - Liz got up before me. In a half slumber I could hear some talking but after shouting Liz I soon realised that she was outside. She was with the Aussie girls, who after an exploration, told Liz that there was a mandatory evacuation in place. It seemed that the hurricane was still on course to hit us.

I headed out straight away to get the low down. I was heading to the police station but took the opportunity of talking to everyone I passed on the street. This time I was going to get the true picture from the 'seen it all before' locals. Again they were completely relaxed, many had said they have been here all their lives and you will be OK. Questions about what category has hit here before, how high does the water get and other questions made me think that things would be fine.

The police station had two red flags up but not the black one which meant forceful evacuation. The police, however, when asked "is it dangerous" and "where should we go" said yes, you need to get to high ground on the mainland. The last boat out was moved forward to 8:30am and by the time I had left the police station I decided that there is no point taking any chances and we should try and get on this boat.

On the way back I bumped into a backpacker and she told me that apparently they had stopped the buses out of Belize City. She was origionally going to leave but decided to stay as they didn't want to be stuck in Belize city: one it was exactly where the hurricane was heading and two, it is a dangerous city.

I found Liz and told her the news - we were going to stay put. Pretty much all the backpackers had left or were about to go. Liz was worried about the flimsy structure of our hotel and wanted to stay somewhere else more substantial. Also, we were the only poeple left at this place. I was a bit worried that if the huricane intensified we would be sitting ducks in a place just feet from the sea and next to palm trees.

The plan was to find somewhere really safe. A local suggested the China Town Hotel, which is a concrete building. The place was ideal in terms of taking the worst of the storm and still cheaper than taking the boat out. The local said that once someone took the room on the top floor in order to film a previous storm. Liz took the more conservative option however of taking the next one down facing away from the sea.

Going back to get our stuff, it became apparent that although the locals were not worried about the storm they were less confident about the damage it might cause. Windows were being boarded up, boats taken away, signs taken down and places were closing up. When we went out to get food and water we had to try every shop to get bread - the last shop on the island had some.

The owner of the sports bar tried to get us into his place for breakfast as he would be closing soon and he was the last place open. We knew it could be a while on bread and cheese so took the opportunity to have a descent meal.

The TV in the bar had the storm predictions: hurricane Richard (or 'Dick' as he was known here) was heading directly for Belize city with 90mph average winds expected to intensify. Warnings of extensive flooding and landslides for Guatemala (so you are not safe there either).

Outside the wind had picked up considerably. The normally invisible off shore reef could be seen as a wall of monster waves. As we ate the breakfast the waves increased to what looked like distant islands rising up and then dissappearing. We made a hasty retreat back to the hotel - the rain was coming.

Going back we passed the que for the last boat out of Caye Caulker - there seemed a lot of people waiting to get on a small boat in high seas.

For some locals it was party time. We got all kinds of hurricane party offers (bring your own). After a few jokes about waking up out at sea the next day I headed back to the hotel for the time being at least.

We got back to the hotel where Liz made use of the TV - kind of useful as we would be inside all day. The weather steadily got worse, by 2pm the TV started losing reception with the satellite. Looking out of the window you could see the dish wobbling in the wind. The hurricane was not expected to hit land until 8pm.

In fact at 7pm a local heard that the eye was 6 miles inland - so the worst of the storm had gone. In fact the hurricane was not that bad despite being very close to the eye in Caye Caulker just north of Belize city.

So the winds are dropping now and the rain is unlikely to affect us on the tiny Caye Caulker. Looks like we are going to be fine - good move to stay.