This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)
cruising adventures on the Great Loop!
DAY 149 - August 27, 2017
You may wonder how we fill up day after day in a marina. So do we!
Yesterday we walked up to the grocery store for a few things and that was about it! I finished a book on my Kindle, and Patty started a new book on hers. I rode my bike out to Harbor Country Marine, but it was closed. This is kind of strange, since it is a boat dealership and marine supply store. Working people, I would think, shopping for a boat probably need to be looking on a weekend.
The marina emptied out earlier than we expected today. Most of the boats in the slips here were gone by early afternoon! A big Meridian 41 yacht pulled in with a Gold Looper flag (the burgee you can get after you have completed the Great Loop), and we chatted with the gentleman on the boat. They had done their Loop ten years ago. I am hoping we will get a chance to talk with them a bit more.
Patty also chatted with a man on a smaller boat moored next to us that also had a Gold Looper burgee, who didn't say when he finished his Loop, but he cautioned us about insurance restrictions in boat policies that disclaim coverage in certain areas for hurricane season. We have been aware of those restrictions generally before we started, but we did not check our policy or inquire specifically, because there is no way we can avoid traveling through those areas in hurricane season and still get back to Washington for Christmas. Should we be having second thoughts, especially the way Hurricane Harvey battered Houston?
We have the Red Cross Hurricane app that will send out alerts, but we need some advice about what to do if we get an alert! One alternative that we don't favor is to leave the boat north of the restricted area, which seems to be the Tenn-Tom to Florida, and return to finish to cross our wake during a safer time period. I think that would mean leaving the boat somewhere around Green Turtle Bay in Kentucky, which is where we would be just before starting the Tenn-Tom Waterway to Mobile. A lot to think about here.
Tonight we had a wonderful sentimental evening in the cockpit listening to the music that has meant the most to us over our fifty years together. It's funny, but listening to the music from our lives together is one thing that always gets me misty eyed, and tonight was no exception!
Pat,
ReplyDeleteMany of us boat in Florida, Mississippi and Alabama year around. Some of us have had our boats survive being under the eye of a Cat 3 hurricane, with gusts to 135 knots (or Cat 4). The insurance not covering, is mostly large boats which cannot get out of the water.
Many of us have a hurricane plan. For the most part, that is "get out of Dodge". It means trailering your boat out of the immediate flood zone. It may mean putting the boat on the hard in a marine shipyard and then chaining it down, so it will not blow over. For many of us, this means getting back up a river or Bayou--where you are safe from the winds, and securely anchor or tie to trees.
I don't know what the Red Cross App does. But we all have our favorite hurricane tracking apps as well as watching TV and the National Weather Service. Most storm trackers will give you a pretty good warning 5 days out. The storms can change in the last few hours, both in path and intensity, but by then, you have taken the precautions necessary to be safe.
Come one down--it cools off a little after one of those hurricanes...but our prayers are for those along the Texas Gulf Coast--that was where we were 13 years ago with Ivan.