Blown Away

The title tonight is the theme for this 30 hour windstorm we are experiencing. This massive cold front that has brought so much misery to North Carolina arrived here last night around 5:15pm. We had a line of squalls come through with not too terrific winds then the wind just died. It was supposed to usher in high winds but it just died. We were windless until about 9:15pm and then it started to blow and slowly build. By midnight we were over 20kts with higher gusts. The wind clocked to the North and we had only about 100yds of fetch but still the boat was swivelling and rocking on this mooring. This is especially bad at night because you always worry that maybe something holding you to that mooring might let go --- eeeeck.

It's a restless night whether on anchor or on a mooring. Even at a dock in high winds you have to worry about hitting pilings as the tide changes the depth and effective length of lines around you.

Naturally at 3am -- witching hour -- all hell breaks loose. My restless sleep is suddenly jarred by a crashing grating sound at the stern of the boat. Has another boat come adrift and hit us? Have we come adrift and hit something?

I jump out of bed and up to the deck in my skimpy PJs to look.. Well it is ominous in the dim lights, boats moving around, wavelets striking the boat but nothing seems amiss. It is too windy to open a side curtain with out damage so I go out through the aft curtain and look. The dinghy is riding behind the boat but not like I left it -- atharwtship - via the bridle line and a line attached to the lifting yoke on the motor. Then I see where the lifting eye had pulled out of the motor yoke. That wasn't such a good idea! I deliberate pulling the dinghy-motor out of the water but that is a big job normally and difficult in the dark. I watch the dinghy moving behind the boat. In the wind shadow of the boat its motion is not violent. It seems to like it. So I secure the line that came loose and head back to bed. Sleep is even more elusive now.

The damage to the yoke proved minor -- sun weakened threads had parted. We can repair that with a little sewing. What looked like a big deal in the dark proved only minor in the light of day.

The wind is still blowing mid 20s to 30 all day. That is uncomfortable and makes you anxious but no worse. I'm not alone. As I look around the harbour most boats have folks sitting in the cockpits watching the boat motion. It really is too rough to take the dinghy to town so we remain the whole day on the boat reading and sampling pieces of Key lime Pie that I bought from Vernon's yesterday. That is the best Key lime Pie although expensive -- here it is $17 for a nine inch pie.

Well it cold here tonight at 68 degrees and may dip to 58 by morning so we are having Chili followed of course by a slice of Key lime pie.