Monday, August 28, 2006

Ernesto Update

Last night, we returned to Stardust at 8:30 after a wonderful dinner out with the Bostiks. Whitefoot was gone, having chewed through her leash. Kathy and Rachel were beside themselves. I dinghied back to shore, but in a different direction from where we had come. I saw a couple walking a dog on a leash, but something was odd in the way they were behaving. So I beached the dinghy and ran to where they were last seen. A man was holding Whitefoot by her partly chewed leash. His wife had gone to their condo to call the number of our vet on the back of her tag. A quick lucky find, otherwise it would have been a miserable night for all of us. (Well not Whitefoot. She probably would have spent a comfy night in a deluxe condo). So now we need a wire inside a web leash. (Chain is no good, it would drag all over the deck). All’s well that ends well.
Storm prep began today. We scouted potential anchorages, and will decide in the morning which one is best for the expected wind direction. There has been a high tide all day which would have prevented us from going under the causeway. The mast is 63 feet high and that is what the causeway scale read all day. We know from experience that the mast-top antenna scrapes the bridges at 63 and a half feet. Sure don’t want to take off the mast-top wind instruments, or worse.
I installed a new bilge pump float switch. The old one was intermittent. No good with a tropical storm coming. So the good news is that Ernesto is expected to remain a tropical storm until passing Florida, possibly becoming a hurricane off the Georgia coast. The bad news is that the storm track is right on top of us tonight. It’s been changing, tracking more easterly with the hour. Maybe we’ll wake to a new track tomorrow which puts it out to sea.
We’ll move the boat tomorrow, put out both anchors, and then head for Georgia Bostik’s house for the night, possibly the next 2 nights. Joe is out of town flying for Northwest Airlines.
Out of the 17 boats anchored around us, only two owners arrived today to prep their boats. We don’t want to be around here for the storm. Who knows where these boats will end up. The anchor lines are frayed, and the boats have a significant coating of barnacles- they haven’t been moved in a long time.
We feel good about the impending storm. It helps not to keep watching all the hoopla and hype on tv. Mainly we track the storm on the computer. So we’ll go to bed comfortably tonight, and will be comfortable if not free of stress at Georgia’s tomorrow.

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