Having drinks at the pool bar at our hotel on Jekyll Island

The rest of September was pretty quiet. On weekdays we get up early so Ralph can get to work (although his commute is pretty great - a few minutes walk). Since Ralph is working, I started walking in the mornings with my friend Nancy after he leaves for work. We usually walk 4-5 miles, but we're slow.

Our wedding anniversary is October 2 so to celebrate we spent the weekend at a hotel on the beach at Jekyll Island. It was beautiful!

Unfortunately, a few days later hurricane Matthew took aim at us. The marina was crazy busy with people coming in to hide from the weather. Matthew passed us about 30 miles offshore, close enough for strong winds and lots of rain. However, since the winds were out of the north we had no waves, so it was actually calmer here than it was during Hermine. We have very tall pilings at this marina so even with the 3 ft. storm surge we were fine. Many boaters evacuated but, after carefully studying all the forecasts, we chose to stay on the property. We spent the afternoon and night during the strongest part of the storm in the clubhouse with several people who also stayed. We lost power for a day, but since we have solar panels we were fine on the boat. There was very little damage at the marina, some canvas and a couple of sails were torn on boats and a couple of cleats tore out. We are happy that hurricane season is almost over!