Photo: The storm over Miami's Marine Stadium. Taken several years ago during the adventure written about in the new book, SAIL WITH ME.
In this chapter's segment, my boat was experiencing mechanical difficulties. While I was repairing her, naturally a bad storm just had to blow through. I wasn't the only one in trouble:
...sorry about the typing at this moment- there's a parakeet stomping over my keyboard!

....This had been the problem the whole time. I didn't have a spare thermostat, but using the diesel in tropical weather without one for a short while wasn't a big deal. The engine's reassembly was interrupted by an afternoon thunderstorm that spewed an ugly, black wall cloud over us. The last thing Angel needed was to be threatened by a storm while she was partly disabled. I glanced at Rose's box and sighed.
Just before the storm's arrival, a family on a cruising sailboat had anchored a distance behind Defiant and parallel to a green sailboat. As the storm's powerful gust front hit, the green sailboat started to drag anchor. The man on the family sailboat jumped into his inflatable and bounced over to render aid.
While he was doing this, his own boat blew sideways and started to drag anchor. A woman and a group of kids were standing in the cockpit, watching their predicament and not doing a thing about it. One of the kids fell into the water with a great splash. The man raced back to his own boat to contend with the chaos...

Continued in book, found here (can get Kindle format too!):