Stardate 08262011.0100

Did you ever get that sickening feeling way down in the deepest pit of your stomach that just keeps nagging at you and won't let you go to sleep or do anything? Well that's exactly what Irene has done to me. First it was the 5.8 earthquake we had here in MD and then right after that I heard the news of the probability of Irene coming right up the coast. And that's when it all started! The stomach just keeps turning and turning while your mind keeps playing the worst of the scenarios. There has been no rest or sleep for me in the past 48 hours and I still have 24 to go before Irene makes its presence known to those of us in the Chesapeake Bay. Then on top of all of this I have my job that requires me to be on emergency call during emergencies, that translates into possibly sleeping at work for the next couple of days until Irene passes and moves on to make some other lucky person feel the same as I did. The one saving grace I do hold on to is Midnight Breeze is located at Bay Bridge Marina and we have all new floating docks! The latest weather forecast has us getting tropical storm winds, six plus inches of rain and who knows how much surge. So the bottom line as of yesterday was ok how do I prepare for this? Never having to go through this before, I headed out on the docks to talk to other boaters. The first boater I talked to, sorry no names will be used, was having a hurricane party. No help there. I wandered the docks for about 30 minutes and found no one else! So back to the boat and make ready. The first thing I did was doubled up all the docking lines. That accomplished, I worked on the jib. Take it down or leave it up? Since I have never taken the jib down before and since I do not know how to the only thing I could do was secure it better and hope tomorrow someone will show me how to take it down. I did come up with an ingenious way, if I may say so, on securing it. First, with the help of a new found friend, a sail boater at that, we pulled the jib all the way out and brought it back in as tight as we could get it. Then I sat for hour thinking on how to secure the jib sheets. Wrapping them around the winches just would not do, Irene would make strings of them in a short time. So I came up with the idea of winding more sheet around the jib then tied both sheets starboard and port to the mid deck cleats. By doing this the sheets were evenly spaced at a good angle to the jib and would not be in any danger of chaffing, I hope. Ok what next? Walk around a think some more. After another hour I decided to work on the dinghy and davits. The marina won't let us keep the dinghy in the water or on the docks so I had to secure it the best way I could on the davits. I used a lot of padding and a wire bridle for better stability while it's being pummeled by the heavy winds. (I'm going to lose it I just know!) The other option which is still being worked out in my mind is to see if I can find someone to help me carry it over to the marina shed and store it there. That's going to be difficult since everyone will be working on their boat. Hope for the best that's all I can do now since time is getting short. Today, I had some help. Mary got home from work at 4:30pm and we decided to go work on the boat. When we arrived we decided to take down the rear canvas. With the two of us it took around an hour. (It's putting the canvas back up that's going to be a bitch)! Then we finally saw another boater working on his boat. At least he started to then stopped and sat down. Mary asked why he stopped and from experience I told her the first day is always for thinking things out before you act. I can say this, at 9PM as I left for work he was still thinking!!! With the canvas down, all that was left for tomorrow, our last good weather day, was one, can I get the dinghy situation settled with and two, should I take the jib down? I guess I'll think on that for awhile longer, it's not tomorrow yet! I plan on taking before and after shots and posting them as soon as I get a chance. Until then wish me luck, I have a good feeling I'll need every bit of it I can get.

Dave