Gustav is messing me up

Here in the Dominican Republic, we had Tropical Storm Fay pass over a week or two ago dumping about 15 inches of rain at my house. Today, we have Hurricane Gustav going over Port au Prince, Haiti and dumping an inordinate amount of rain here once again. Don't get me wrong, we need the rain, but let me explain my problem.

I have been working on flattening the sides and top of the English workbench I am building. Given that the glue up was fairly rough and I am using a Jack plane that I really don't like, it is a fairly big project even though the bench will only be 6 feet long.

My plane has a cheap iron in it (I have a nice Hock iron, but I am saving it for a woodie plane), and in the best of times I have to keep it waxed or oiled in storage and, I have to sharpen it at least every couple of hours when I am working the southern yellow pine for my bench.

Today I sneaked out to the carport for an hour or so before lunch to do some planing. I did make some progress, but it wasn't easy. Ugh. Even though I have successfully kept the wood out of the rain in our carport, it has been so humid for so long, that the wood is changing its properties. It is becoming more sponge-like almost as though it had been soaked in water. This is causing the soft fibers of the wood to have a stronger tendency to tear out from between the stiffer fibers instead of cutting cleanly, but even worse, when combined with the current relative humidity, my plane iron is dulling almost instantly. Literally after just a few passes, the edge was gone. While it will still cut enough to do rough work for a while, fine work is pretty much out of the question.

At this point, I think I am going to have to wait for dryer weather before I can do any final flattening of the top and sides.

All in all, I guess I should be thankful. In Port au Prince, they are getting pounded by the hurricane as I write. It could have hit here.

Edited: The hurricane went by yesterday, but to get an idea of how humid it is, the bathroom mirror has been fogged up all morning (nobody took a shower this morning and the area is pretty well ventilated) and the tile floors in the whole house are still damp from condensation.