Monday, August 29, 2011

a visit with irene

She came, she made herself heard, and she left. Just like that.
Of course storm prep with sailors always ends up being half macho fest/ half dock party. There's talk of knots (both wind speed and the tying kind) and names of other storms weathered are dropped like
A-list celebrities at a Hollywood party. Isabelle. Floyd. Yeah, been there, done that.

Doug and I joked that we may have taken the spark out of the man-fest just a wee bit as we made our preparations with Naia in the Ergo. Yes, very important manly work here.
(hey mama, it's getting WINDY! check out that hair!)

The short of it is this... we studied the forecast very, very carefully. And we made the informed decision to keep the boat at the marina (rather than evacuate to a hurricane hole) and stay aboard as long as it was comfortable. We knew with the hurricane passing to our east that the the prevailing winds would be northerlies. What does this mean? In short, no storm surge in our area. And we were literally right on the line between one county that had a Category 1 warning and another that had a Tropical Storm warning. We get some butt kicking Nor'easters here that bring winds that strong every fall, so we knew the boat could take it. We prepared, yes, but we had some fun too.
(the red baron is fighting the storm clouds on our carefully wrapped stack pack)

(some neighboring boats evacuated...)

(many neighbors pitched in to make the docks safer for everyone.)

(dock carts tucked away and Zach's bait bucket tied as only a 7 year old can to the fencing there. i wonder if he will ever be able to get it off now?)

(ready for anything...)

Right around dinner time with the boat a-dancing and the winds a-howling Zach informed us that he wanted to go to Plan B. Or maybe we should call it Plan SJ. We told him if things got bad we would walk up the hill to Super Jen's place and crash over there. Well he's no fool. He knows hanging at Super Jen's place (aka World Headquarters) equals amazing food and a movie night. So he said he'd feel more comfortable going over, ahem, right at dinner time :) And afterwards declared that the best part of hurricanes was the food. Oh that strawberry shortcake.... mmmmmmm! Doug stayed with the boat and walked the docks checking other boats too.

The next morning the blow stopped as if someone flipped a switch.

First business item... free ice cream! The fuel dock office lost power (we don't have power issueson the boat except for air conditioning and heat, neither of which we need this time of year, because we run on solar) and the marina had to get rid of all of their frozen treats stat. Why yes, we will, thank you!
Then the blue skies beckoned and we decided to make it a beach day. The water was washed clean along with the breeze and the sand. I have never seen the Chesapeake Bay that empty and quiet. I think it was a healthy pause. 
We collected sea glass, played on the jetty, poked at dead jellyfish, and came home wind blown and sun kissed. Really, not a bad weekend.
Thank you everyone for the well wishes and I hope other east coast folks faired as well as we did in the storm.
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