The dive shop at Elbow Beach was a casualty of Hurricane Helene, even though the storm never got closer than 450 miles from the Island.

Spectacular sea swells and waves generated by the powerful weather system hundreds of miles away had a devastating effect on South Shore beaches, particularly at Elbow Beach where tons of sand was clawed back into the ocean and water reached the sea wall and flooded the dive shop overnight.

Flippers and a number of other small items were washed out to sea after manager John Rhodes and instructor Adam Goodfellow managed to open the doors yesterday morning to find knee high water throughout the shop.

Normally the shop would have been emptied to protect it from the water but the strength of the sea swell from Helene had been unexpected. Mr. Rhodes said: ?We emptied the shop for Florence but had not expected the tide would come up this far today.?

He expects the shop to be back to normal within the next week.