I've got to laugh at the emails I've gotten from friends in MN: "So are you concerned about Earl?". Only in MN, so far from big water, could someone seriously ask that! The short answer: "Hell, yeah!". After not feeling any effects from the passing of Hurricane Danielle, we are now in serious countdown mode until Hurricane Earl reaches VA sometime after midnight on Thursday, Sept 2nd. We manage to stay fairly calm and focused when it's just us, prepping the boat for the storm. However, make the mistake to go up to the pool, and YIKES, the panic is infectious!
The local talk is all about "are you staying or are you going?", and everyone has a horror story about someone who stayed (or went) and was never the same for the experience. Most of the boaters are staying, and most of the people living in houses along the beach are leaving -- which makes sense to me -- so why do they stare at us in disbelief:, and ask: "Are you serious? You'd stay on a boat?". Of course, we feel a boat is more secure than a house in conditions like this ... we are not going to flood our basement or lose shingles from our roof or have a tree branch come crashing down. We are independent when it comes to food, electricity and water ... and we are on a floating dock, for pete's sake, so we'll rise with the tide.
We are actually more concerned about leaving the boat and not being able to get back to the marina for several days because the road along the coast will flood and be impassable, leaving us stuck on the outside, looking in. Since we have no car, we aren't concerned about being stuck in the marina, unable to get out. However, we did book a reservation at a local motel, far from the coast, for Thursday night, just in case.
Today's hurricane forecasts are still a "wait and watch" prediction for the Norfolk area. The current projected path is for Earl to come in towards Cape Hatteras and then veer off to the north, which would be the best case scenario for us. We'd be hit with the weakest quadrant of the hurricane which means lots of rain and wind around 40 knots .... we've been in that much wind before, and our only concern is whether or not we should take down our canvas bimini and dodger (the material that covers the top of our cockpit). The plus side is that enclosing the cockpit would keep a lot of the rain out of the cockpit and away from our companion-way entrance. The risk is that high winds would damage the canvas...ultimately a costly risk.
However, should Earl not veer off to the north, and continue on a westerly course towards land, then we are in a position to take a hit head on. And that's another story altogether (a scary one!).
So while the weather is hot and sunny, we go about the business of tying everything down and storing everything away that we usually keep tied on deck. We are tied to the dock at 4 points, and we'll put on double dock lines. We secure the sails by putting extra line around our furling head sails (to prevent them from catching wind and unfurling themselves during the storm -- really bad) and extra line to secure the main sail to the boom.
Dan is putting extra ties to secure our dinghy on the davits.
Please turn north, Earl!
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