SAFELY TIED TO THE DOCK – OR SO WE THOUGHT!!
01 October 2010 | Catskill River New York
Cheryl - Heavy rain and flooding
Before leaving Minnesota we thought of several possible scenarios of what might go wrong and what we would do if it happened. This is one we didn't think about - being tied to the dock at a marina then all hell breaks loose after 12 inches of rain and the docks start breaking up - the docks with boats attached to them. We are at Hop-O-Nose Marina which is on the Catskill River, a mile or so off the Hudson River in New York. We arrived here on Wednesday to have the mast re-stepped. All went well and we are now a sailing vessel again.
It started raining yesterday morning, rained all day and night then at about 8:00 this morning Bill wakes me up (an extremely rare occasion for me to sleep in past 6:00) and tells me to get dressed immediately, grab a couple of important items and get off the boat. The river was flooding and it was only going to get worse when high tide hit at 9:15. Whole trees were being pushed past us in the river going at a tremendous speed. The end docks started breaking up and the first 4 boats broke loose and raced by us. By about 10:00 the docks looked like an accordion and we thought we we might loose Walk A-Bout. Two more boats with the dock in between them were the next to break loose and come speeding by. We really lucked out and so far not a scratch on her. We are currently wedged between two docks in kind of a v position tied to both the crane on the concrete and a large tree, we think the worst is over and should be safe back on the boat. The rains stopped at about 5:00 this evening, the water level has gone down significantly and the remaining docks appear to be staying put so we are going to attempt to stay the night on the boat. Many people cannot even get on their boats because of the damage to the docks. Several of the boats are jammed up together but it appears to be only minor damage to their boats.
When we first met Dean and Chris on Rubaiyat Dean came on Walk A-Bout and smudged the boat for us - a Native American custom to bring good luck to the boat. Thank you Dean!
We did take lots of pics so take a look in the picture gallery under Hop-O-Nose.