Good grief!!! Will these storms never end! The day started out pretty well, we left the dock at 7am, there was no wind, but the seas were flat calm. We motored until about noon time. The generator over heated once during our motoring and needed a little rest, but we left the compartment open it and it seemed to alleviate that problem. The lack of wind made it possible for love bugs to fly out to our boat, while they don't bite, they were quite annoying, and I spent the morning trying to keep Dahlia from eating the ones that would land in the cockpit.
Around 12:00 the wind picked up and we were able to raise the sails, with a nice east wind we were doing 5+ knots.
Then around 2:30 the blackness that was just over land south of us started to creep around us, not wanting to take any chances we dropped all the sails and started the generator up again to motor east hoping to run away from the thing. Not long after that, the storm appeared to be surrounding us, we had all the hatches closed and while the kids and I were in the shelter of inside the boat, Chris was in his foul weather jacket at the helm. At 3:15 this thing hit us, Chris screamed for goggles so he could see, and told us to get below.
I felt the boat turn quickly into the storm, Chris said it was the hardest thing he had to do was to turn into the black monster.
While the hardest thing I had to do, was keep smiling for the kids. Deason was OK for a while having already been through two of these storms, but it started to take its toll on him. He started saying "I hope Dad is alright, and I want the sun to come out". All I could say was "Dad is safe, and the sun will be out soon", in my head I was saying "I hope". Dahlia was completely unaffected, she just couldn't figure out why she couldn't sit up, thankfully we were on the bunk and her falling over all the time became quite funny. She thought so too!
We do a lot of making up songs in this family, so to make Deason laugh I started singing the "soggy pants" song in honor of Dahlia's diaper. That seemed to help, Deason is a pretty easy audience when it comes to making him laugh.
Chris informed me later that the winds outside were 45knots and he couldn't see past his nose, the goggles didn't really help because they just kept fogging up. They just prevented him from getting pelted in the eyes with rain and hail. He did say that he saw some lighting that was too close and some small water spouts...oh boy! Easy to find the humor in all of this once it is over...in all reality I keep having dreams about our boat being airlifted out of Florida, and not on a water spout.
We decided against anchoring because of all the crazy weather, plus we are not covered until we leave this state. So we would rather be safe than sorry, and safe for me is snuggled up to a dock.
We pull into the dock with the help of a really nice couple, it wasn't the most graceful docking, we couldn't seem to land. We went from port side to starboard, and back to port trying to get tied on. We finally got in, and after heading up to the club house to retrieve the hidden key the girl was suppose to leave for me, we figured out that we were actually at the wrong dock.
We overshot by one dock, and had docked up at a yacht club. We were helped by yacht club members, not dock attendants.
It actually worked out quite nice, the people were super friendly, and their transient rate was only $1.35/ft. much cheaper than the other dock. So we will stay here for the night, and dream of giant helicopters flying us away!
Around 12:00 the wind picked up and we were able to raise the sails, with a nice east wind we were doing 5+ knots.
Then around 2:30 the blackness that was just over land south of us started to creep around us, not wanting to take any chances we dropped all the sails and started the generator up again to motor east hoping to run away from the thing. Not long after that, the storm appeared to be surrounding us, we had all the hatches closed and while the kids and I were in the shelter of inside the boat, Chris was in his foul weather jacket at the helm. At 3:15 this thing hit us, Chris screamed for goggles so he could see, and told us to get below.
I felt the boat turn quickly into the storm, Chris said it was the hardest thing he had to do was to turn into the black monster.
While the hardest thing I had to do, was keep smiling for the kids. Deason was OK for a while having already been through two of these storms, but it started to take its toll on him. He started saying "I hope Dad is alright, and I want the sun to come out". All I could say was "Dad is safe, and the sun will be out soon", in my head I was saying "I hope". Dahlia was completely unaffected, she just couldn't figure out why she couldn't sit up, thankfully we were on the bunk and her falling over all the time became quite funny. She thought so too!
We do a lot of making up songs in this family, so to make Deason laugh I started singing the "soggy pants" song in honor of Dahlia's diaper. That seemed to help, Deason is a pretty easy audience when it comes to making him laugh.
Chris informed me later that the winds outside were 45knots and he couldn't see past his nose, the goggles didn't really help because they just kept fogging up. They just prevented him from getting pelted in the eyes with rain and hail. He did say that he saw some lighting that was too close and some small water spouts...oh boy! Easy to find the humor in all of this once it is over...in all reality I keep having dreams about our boat being airlifted out of Florida, and not on a water spout.
We decided against anchoring because of all the crazy weather, plus we are not covered until we leave this state. So we would rather be safe than sorry, and safe for me is snuggled up to a dock.
We pull into the dock with the help of a really nice couple, it wasn't the most graceful docking, we couldn't seem to land. We went from port side to starboard, and back to port trying to get tied on. We finally got in, and after heading up to the club house to retrieve the hidden key the girl was suppose to leave for me, we figured out that we were actually at the wrong dock.
We overshot by one dock, and had docked up at a yacht club. We were helped by yacht club members, not dock attendants.
It actually worked out quite nice, the people were super friendly, and their transient rate was only $1.35/ft. much cheaper than the other dock. So we will stay here for the night, and dream of giant helicopters flying us away!
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