With all the varying predictions of Irene's path now agreeing with each other it was obvious that hurricane Irene would not miss us and like thousands of other boaters in the area we were now looking for a safe marina or anchorage where Alexia can be as protected as possible.

We have several days to go before Irene's arrival and William spent a huge amount of time checking out marinas and anchorages before making our decision to take refuge in the Chester River and to go as far up river as possible to avoid the most of any storm surge which had been predicted to be as high as 12ft.

Most of the marinas in the area do not have floating docks and as you can see from our picture it would only take a few inches of water before these slips at Rolph's Wharf Marina might be under water and Alexia would be floating over the top of the posts.

We decided that Alexia would be more secure at anchor than in a marina and we take shelter behind some thickly wooded high ground further up the Chester River, putting out two anchors and all our chain plus deploying the sentinel for extra anchor stability. In the event, the eye passed about 50 miles offshore and we had nothing more than 35-45 knots for several hours.

We were lucky others were not so fortunate.