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.
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