POST SANDY
10/30/2012 11:05 AM
Early light revealed that this harbor seemed to have survived nicely. It is still raining and the winds are still blowing around 25 knots. The marina office is somewhat sheltered from the straight winds and yet they saw over 50 knots last night. The boats on K dock and on the moorings most likely saw much higher winds. I doubt we actually experienced hurricane force winds. The damage elsewhere is heavy and in some Atlantic shore communities, it is complete. From our perspective we were fortunate to have the winds from a direction that put the pressure on the nose of Why Knot and the boats on our dock. The long fetch never saw the wind as far as we can tell. That wind direction also mitigated the storm surge. Harbors oriented in different directions may have an entirely different outcome particularly on the Eastern Shore. Now that the winds have shifted somewhat to the south, there will be a bit of a storm surge here. High tide will occur around 1530 today and we expect the dock to go under then. So, we have not yet plugged in Why Knot.
I checked WK early this morning and found her with a slight grin. The only evidence of the wind was a spring line that chafed a bit on a piling, not the one to which it was tied but one in between. I checked the power situation and her batteries kept the freezer up and running. It took about twenty minutes on the generator to bring them back to full charge at 50 amp/hr input. We will wait until after high tide today to go back on shore power.
Retrospect: In the seven years we have owned Why Knot, starting with Katrina whilst in New Orleans, she has endured three close encounters with hurricanes and numerous encounters with tropical storms and damaging thunderstorms. Without risking damaging her juju, she has taken some hits but has also been a lucky survivor. It is entirely chance that she is still swimming. My first hurricane was during my childhood in Seadrift, Texas in the late 50’s. I paid little attention to them until we put our first boat in Port Lavaca, Texas a long time ago. Each one brings on concern and intense attention until they spool past the boat and disappear into history. We are so fortunate to have not lost a boat to a storm whereas many crews we’ve know have lost several. From a purely nautical point of view, our thoughts are of the damage to the sea towns, the marine interests, to those who risk their lives to save lives and especially to crews that have lost their lives such as the captain and crew member of HMS Bounty now sitting on the bottom off Cape Hatteras.
Note: The Bounty was built for the Marlon Brando movie by the same name in the ‘60s and later used in movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean©.