June 2, 2010

We are still in St Pierce, we keep finding reasons to stay, but we are definitely leaving tomorrow. We were going to go anchor right outside of this marina so we could just pull up the anchor and leave early. Good thing we are procrastinators by nature, because we had another squall come through today.

We were having a nice time with another family that stopped by the boat, Deason got to play with some nice kids. Suddenly the sky got real dark, and the lightning started. Just like the other night, the temperature dropped and the wind clocked around and was coming out of the north. The rain became torrential, and it was even hailing. The wind was blowing at 50knots, we actually turned on our electronics to get wind readings, since we were semi-safe tied up at the dock.

We were all watching the storm from inside, when we see two sailboats being dragged into the channel. It appeared that one boat was unoccupied while the other had a lone sailor aboard. The smaller unoccupied boat was dragging the larger boat. The captain seemed to be trying his hardest to pull free, but in that weather it was difficult. After about 15 mins of mayhem the skies lighted up and the wind died down, only to have it start up again, only this time the wind whipped around and was coming out of the SE. We were right under the eye of the storm. The two boats that were headed into the channel and eventually on to the sandy shore were now headed right towards us after the wind changed direction. The smaller boat seemed to have had his anchor line wrapped around one of the pilings, and the larger boat finally had someone come to his rescue to help him get free. At this time we actually feared that the smaller boat was going to come right at us because it was still dragging.. Chris lowered the dinghy hoping that we would be able to put it between us and the on coming boat. Luckily that wasn't necessary because the storm was finally passing and everything went back to normal.

We found out later that the sailboat that dragged, drags all the time, and has caused this marina some problems blocking the channel. Last week it was up against the bridge. It is for sale, and the owner doesn't deal with it so it has become everyones problem. We are glad that we had procrastinated and did not go out there to anchor, and we decided to stay at this dock while that boat is out there in the anchorage.

We will definitely be departing tomorrow, I want to get as far away from Florida and these silly squalls as possible. Now we know why the insurance companies want you out of Florida by June 1st it gets ugly in the blink of an eye.