Surviving our first hurricane

Well, okay, it wasn't technically a hurricane by the time it got here but these storms are unpredictable at best (and deadly at worst) so the watchword is caution. Of course you may ask (as I did) if we are so damn cautious how in the world did we get ourselves into this position. The truth is that hurricane season is generally considered to be over in November; by this time of year conditions don't usually support development of storms of this magnitude, or if they do develop out in the Atlantic they do not commonly come ashore in the US.

Knowing this we planned to arrive in Mobile in November, but this year Mother Nature decided to mess with us and so we found ourselves waiting for Hurricane Ida. We were both a little uneasy, well, make that downright edgy. As you know Miss Lauren Grace was sitting on the hard, insurance companies like this because in their experience boats ashore do not sustain as much damage as boats in the water. We didn't like the way it felt as the boat was buffeted by the wind. Generally when a boat is in the water she is better supported and does not shudder as much, also when a boat is anchored (as in a thunderstorm) she lies with her bow to the wind and presents less resistance; throughout this storm the wind was on our stern.

About noon on Monday the storm was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm that was also when the rain started. We worked until nearly dark finishing our preparations (detailed here Monday evening) and then all we could do was wait. Sometime mid-afternoon they were predicting landfall around 2:00 a.m., at some point they moved that up to midnight which was fine with us as we were ready to get it over with. Even though we were very tired from a long day of hard work we were too edgy for sleep so we spent the evening watching the storm on the local weather and on the computer (do we know how to have fun or what!). As we watched the storm was slowing down and landfall was being pushed back; finally about 2:00 a.m. I was unable to keep my eyes open any more and fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. At some point Larry must have crashed as well because when I awoke around 4:45 am he was sleeping. The wind was from the North and our stern was facing North, our stateroom (a fancy word for bedroom) is in the stern and I think that there was a change in the sound of the wind but whatever it was I couldn't go back to sleep so I got up and checked the computer only to find that Ida had slowed down and was taking her sweet time. That was probably good news because the longer she spent over the cool water of the Northern Gulf the less punch she would pack when she did come ashore. The bad news was we were still waiting. Larry got up and checked outside where it was still raining hard then he went back to bed.

The record shows that Ida first came ashore on Dauphin Island at 5:40 am on November 10, 2009. For those not familiar with Alabama geography Dauphin Island is about 20 miles or so South of Mobile , it is a barrier island on the Western mouth of Mobile Bay. After Dauphin she crossed the bay and came ashore again near Bon Secour which is on the Southeastern tip of the bay. then she churned North up the bay. Because the eye wall had fallen apart we did not get the wind shift that generally accompanies a hurricane and the winds continued strong and gusty from the North/Northeast.

We had been expecting a storm surge and an extremely high tide, the arrival of the storm coincided with high tide and by 5:30 there was about 2' of water in the lot at Dog River Marina. This photo was taken about 6:30 am because I forgot all about getting the camera earlier.

In the photo above where you see the posts there is a dock behind those boats that is underwater, the long silver things you see are sailboat masts that were on blocks beside the dock, as you can see they are awash.

By the time I remembered to start taking pictures the tide was already going out and by 7:30 the dock was awash as you can see

And by 8:30 the flotsam had been stranded on the lot and things were mostly dry.
Here is Miss Lauren Grace with here pretty new bottom paint, the big timber you see floated under us on the tide, amazing that it could come in between the blocks that are supporting the keep and come to rest against the forward block. The final photo of the flags was taken about noon and you can see that the wind was still quite strong.

The day continued raw, windy and rainy but this morning (Wednesday) dawned bright and sunny, although still quite windy. So today we spent the entire day drying out the lockers on the flybridge (and all the contents) and then returning the "stuff" to the locker. We took the opportunity to re-arrange things a bit as well as divest ourselves of some stuff that we decided we don't need to haul around anymore. There was even water inside the table on our sundeck that my brother-in-law Hank made for us to keep our spare props in! We had stuff (ropes, bag chairs, swim flippers, fishing tackle) spread out all over the foredeck to dry in the sun.

To summarize we have spent a day preparing, a day drying out and putting things back together (and we still aren't finished), and some tense hours just waiting. What did we learn from Ida? Perhaps just that we can.

"On the hard" and waiting for Ida.

I have had a few questions about the photos that I included in the last post showing Miss Lauren Grace out of the water so perhaps a little explanation is in order for the non-boaters out there.

The blue contraption that you see in the photo is called a travel lift, you can see way better photos if you click on the link. Simply put it has two big slings that are suspended between the two sides. The lift is driven by the operator out onto two concrete piers that have conveniently been placed at exactly the same distance apart as the legs of the lift. The slings are lowered deep into the water and the boat is driven in between the concrete piers. The operator slowly tightens the slings and lifts the boat out of the water, then he drives the lift (with the boat resting in the slings) over the ground to a parking spot where the boat is slowly lowered and supported by blocks placed under her keel. At that point the lift is driven away from the boat and stands are placed to help support the hull while she is on land, aka "the hard".

We have spent most of today getting ready for Hurricane Ida. Actually she was downgraded to a Tropical Storm about noon but precaution was still the order of the day and so we moved everything that could blow loose or blow off out of harm's way. You don't realize just how much "stuff" this is until you have to put it somewhere; I mean if we had somewhere else to put it it wouldn't have been there to begin with. For example the seat cushions on the flybridge live on the flybridge, there is no room for them elsewhere; likewise the cushions for the chairs on the sundeck. Ditto for the long handled brushes, the boat fenders, flags and coolers. We put the window coverings, the fenders, the buckets and the cushions in the back of the truck; which, conveniently, we had moved down here from Northern Alabama this weekend while Ida was busy blowing up into a Category 2 storm.

The biggest job was taking down all of that new canvas enclosure we had installed last summer and carefully rolling it in sheets so as not to scratch it. This process involves at least 15 zippers and more snaps than we can count. Of course by this time it was raining and so we had to carefully dry the Strataglas before we covered and rolled it.

Finally we moved the truck a few miles up the road to a parking lot at the grocery store to protect it from the possible storm surge. So now we are sitting inside waiting for Ida to arrive, with "stuff" stacked on every available surface. We have a path to walk through and a seat for each of us down in the cabin. Perhaps the best description would be "organized chaos", with emphasis on chaos. It feels like we are camping out in our own living room.

Stay tuned and we will fill you in once the storm passes.

Hello from Mobile, Alabama

Here we are in Mobile, AL at good ole Dog River Marina waiting to see what Hurricane Ida is going to do. Miss Ida has come calling very late in the season but that does not necessarily make her any less dangerous. Then again the water temperature is cooling and so she may fizzle out before she gets here, time will tell.

We arrived in Mobile last Friday and the wind was blowing from the SE, this meant that the weather was warm and humid and the waves on Mobile Bay would be up, and on our bow. Really we started picking up waves for the last 10-15 miles down the river. The worst part of the trip was on the river due to all of the floating debris (in the form of large logs) which was difficult to see because of the waves. Yes we could have waited a day, but a cold front was forecast to come through overnight and we reasoned that the next day would be just as windy from a different direction (N/NW) and with the wind on our stern we would wallow down the bay in the cold. We opted to travel while it was sunny, dry and warm.

Miss Lauren Grace has been hauled out to have her bottom painted and some new zincs installed, a minor transmission repair and new cutlass bearings will complete her "well baby" check-up.

Since she was lifted out of the water last Monday the painting & zincs are completed; now we are waiting to see what the storm will do before she is disabled (by uncoupling the engine shafts) to fix the cutlass bearings. That is because if Ida heads this way (considered by many to be a slim possibility) we will need to take her back up the river to hide out until the storm passes; if the storm fizzles then she will get her new bearings early next week and we will be on our way East to enjoy the Florida Panhandle.

Our ride down river from Demopolis was mostly uneventful but we did have the most frustrating locking at Demopolis that we have EVER experienced at any lock. Our departure from the marina was seriously delayed due to early morning fog that we thought would never burn off. Quite a number of boats in the marina and a nearby anchorage were calling the lock on both the VHF radio and the phone (which probably ticked him off) and his response was always the same: “I won’t lock anyone until this fog clears” along with the information that he had “a northbound tow in the pit and cannot lock anything until he leaves and I cannot force him to leave until he is ready”. Eventually a Southbound tow moved down to a position above the lock (moving in the fog) and so now there are two tows ahead of all the pleasure craft. Finally about 10:00 am the lock called for all southbound pleasure craft that want to lock down to come and hold above the lock”. Off we go; the southbound tow is already in the lock and he does not have to be split so we expect things to go reasonably quickly. Only it does not. The lockmaster decided to call the boats in one by one and tell them exactly where to tie up and only when a boat was secured did he call for the next boat, it took forever to stack the boats in the lock. Then, just as the last boat was getting secured, two more boats called and ask him to hold the lock. He still had one pin left and he did hold for them which cost us another 15-20 minutes. When the water level in the chamber was down he called us one by one and told us we could untie and exit. Never have we had a locking like this in the U.S. By the time we exited Demopolis lock over 2 1/2 hours had elapsed since he called us down! Needless to say our mileage for the day was disappointing, however I did have plenty of time to take this great shot of the roller dam there.

On the bright side due the delay at Demopolis lock changing the pace of our travel south we found a delightful anchorage that we had never used before. We had not known there was such a pretty little lake just off of the waterway about 64 miles above Mobile. A couple of sources mentioned Three Rivers Lake but others did not, everything I could find was complimentary and so we decided to give it a shot and we are sure glad we did because we enjoyed a restful night and met new friends Sue & Dave aboard "Saltwater Therapy" in the process.

I must say that the homes along the Lower Tenn-Tom are a sore disappointment after the beautiful environs of the Tennessee River.

Along the way we saw a couple of boat names that we particularly appreciated. “Alligator Hilton” was an 80’ houseboat with two satellite antennas (for TV reception) and a hot tub on the top deck. We could only speculate on the origin of the moniker “Locomotive Breath”, on a sailboat no less! And we couldn’t help but chuckle when we saw a big Grand Banks with “Wrong Knee” emblazoned on her stern; yep, it was just what you thought an operation on the wrong knee earned him a new Grand Banks for his pain and suffering!