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04/18/2007: "A stormy weekend"

The storm has passed. The storm that started out beating up on Texas and then moved across the country to dump rain and snow on the Northeast states caused some problems here. It started out with forecasts of strong winds and heavy rain and for once the weather people were right. The front moved into the area after midnight Saturday and the effects were still being felt until late Monday. The barometer kept dropping all day Sunday until it bottomed out around 29.1 inches. About the only other times it drops that low is during a hurricane. The wind picked up from the south and blew in the 30 – 40 knot range on Sunday, with gusts into the 50’s, and it rained. Many areas set new records for rainfall. We are below average for rain this year so it did help to bring up the averages but caused problems once the ground was saturated. Monday the winds continued blowing 20 – 30 knots with higher gusts but were now from the west and the rain had stopped.

We weren’t in any danger, just very uncomfortable. We doubled up and adjusted the docklines and added extra chafing gear. The most annoying part was that the waves were hitting us on the stern and as the boat would rise and fall some of the waves would hit under the stern with a very loud slap. Inside it sounded like someone outside beating on the hull with a mallet. There was a lot of bouncing around and heeling over as the gusts would pass by. By mid-afternoon the rain let up with occasional showers coming through. We got caught in one of these when we left the boat to take care of some laundry. Unfortunately we left the hatch open when we went ashore. We were a sight, running down the dock in the rain to get things closed up again.

Monday was a nicer day, partly cloudy and warmer, but the winds were still blowing in the 20’s and 30’s and we were back at work again. By Thursday everything had calmed down. Other parts of the state were not as lucky, since there are still about 15,000 people without power an Wednesday.

Of course, June is the beginning of hurricane season so we can expect more storms to hit later this summer. Maybe we will be lucky and not get hit by any major storms this year.