Work first, fun later.
With Hurricane Earl forecasted to remain offshore, we witnessed surprisingly little preparations by local boat owners. It appeared that everyone believed the “weather guessers” and no one felt that things could change for the worse. Given the HUGE deductible on our insurance policy for damage caused by “named storms,” we weren’t taking any chances! After all, the couple of hours of labor invested in stripping our boat and rigging extra lines and fenders, although (with hindsight) unnecessary this time, was good practice for the next time, which we know will ultimately come.
Hopefully our friends north and south of here fair as well as we did!
All sails were removed. We wanted to swap out that headsail for our jib anyway.
All of our fenders and boards were deployed.
We rigged our anchor bridle to a post on the adjacent property to keep us away for the dock. It worked so well we had to ease it to get off the boat.
It was funny watching Rebecca trying to tie that line from a kayak!
Everything was removed from the boat (barbeque, life-sling, etc.)
and the dinghy was deflated and stored.
Storm preparations completed, we were off to explore Annapolis.
Our visit began at Chick & Ruth’s Delly
Downtown at “Ego Alley”
Good food, drinks and music with friends… a great way to end the evening. And no storm!
We love Chick and Ruth’s, hope you didn’t try the six pound milk shake.
Um, no, we didn’t, but I was tempted. That and the 3 lb. burger!
Is that “John’s” boat in the background at Ego Alley? Is he following you cause he really wants a sailboat?
Have a great weekend!
LOL… stalker:)
We’re happy it passed us by as well. Glad you are getting time to “do” Annapolis., there is an awful lot to do around here too. We hope to see you guys sometime soon. Have fun putting the boat back together 🙂
Thanks Cindy. I commented to Rebecca yesterday that we should have brought your telephone number with us when we were in town. We’ll give you a call later today.
Prudent preparations, guys 🙂 Never, ever rely on someone else’s choice of storm prep to guide your own. That sort of thinking is what gets 300 boats washed up on the piers in Florida now and then.
The “next time” most certainly will come- the NHC has been saying there are unusually good hurricane formation conditions this year. Fiona looks like it might fizzle, but there are a few more brewing near the Cape Verde islands…. I find it rather refreshing reading NHC forecasts, mainly because of the “forecast discussion” where the meteorologist in charge talks about how far off he thinks their models could be and what else might happen that isn’t in the storm track charts.
As we’ve heard time and time again, you can’t $@%# with mother nature. Best to play it safe.
So glad to hear that you avoided the hurricane! As life-time residents of Louisiana, we’re used to preparing for a hurricane, although we haven’t had a sailboat the past hurricane seasons. Sometimes we’re tempted to not go through all of the preparations when a hurricane “might” be headed our way, but since you never know the outcome it’s always good to just do it.
Yes, I’m sure it’s easy to be lulled into complacency with many false positives.
Good call on the storm preps just in case. Ericka was concerned about you guys when we first heard of the storm and saw where you were. So we decided to join you. Right now we’re on the other side of the Delmarva, in Dewey Beach, to visit Mom for Labor Day. Basically we dared Earl to mess with us, but it doesn’t look like he was up for the challenge. Hopefully he doesn’t change his mind, for both our sakes. 😛
Annapolis is a great town. We were fortunate enough to live there for a short time and loved it. 🙂 Enjoy your time there.
The posts and pics continue to be great. Thanks a lot for the blog!
Hi guys! I hope you are enjoying your visit and I’m glad that none of us had to really contend with Earl.
As my mother always used to say… ‘it’s better to be safe than sorry’.
Very true.
Glad you practiced without the real thing. We were thinking of you here in extremely hot and humid Valetta.
hehe… grazie! 🙂
I’m glad that you only had a “practice” preparation! Better to do the prep and not need it than to not do it, and need it! Good use of Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared”! I’m so glad you are getting explore Annapolis. I’ve not been there for about 18 years, and didn’t have time to check out all the neat stuff. No that I don’t have to get back to work—-!
Perfect time to visit, Helen!
Ahhh Chick and Ruth’s….an Annapolis institution. We followed your same route bringing Liberty down from Rhode Island but did not get a chance to stop at Chick and Ruths as we had 70 miles to go that day so we cleared out early. Did you like Cape May? We did not even go ashore. We were anchored near the CG station and were getting waked every couple of minutes by the fishing and tourist boats so we cleared out of there at 3PM and made the run to the Chesapeake overnight.
Cape May was nice. We stayed at a marina the first day and that was good. The anchorage definitely had a lot of fast boats with large wakes but in truth, no worse for us than the anchorage behind the statue of liberty. It was actually kind of strange anchoring WITHOUT a lot of wakes after all those rough nights.
It is really impossible to expereince Cape May without bicycles or some other means of visiting the town, which is several miles from the marinas.
We always anchored near the Fisherman’s Memorial, at the west end of the harbor and furthest from the traffic. Quiet… but shallow and only to be used with a working knowledge of the tides.
I don’t think we could have been in any shallower water without sitting on our keels.
As a famous ancient mariner said once,” Cover Thy Arse”
Here, here!
Mraz-a-mataz! Appreciate your omitting the audio. Great fun. A hurricane party without the guest of honor. 🙂
25 kts out of the west tomorrow. Hank that jib on and let’s go.
The jib is on and the boat has been cleaned.
“Don’t blubber like lubbers when I turn up my keel”
…been practicing:)
And we need a more professional recording to do the audio justice. 😉
Did you notice the beauty in “ego alley”………Rebecca that is…….As my dad told me when he taught me about the birds and the bees…..an ounce of prevention is worth its weight in gold…..
How could I not notice?
I suppose those from the Chesapeake area are used to hurricanes every summer, that predictably skim the coast and then head to England or the Banks. Even when they do track up the Chesapeake, all that is required is good lines in a marina NOT exposed to waves or surge – one well up a river or creek, not one of the new quick-access marinas that are often so fashionable and expensive .
We sailed the last leg of our Delmarva trip today, from Bodkin creek (near Baltimore) to Deale. Sustained 20 knots winds with gusts to 30 knots made for a quick down wind passage, with a peak boat speed of 14 knots.
In Chesapeake City we ran into Tom, who noticed we had a PDQ and mentioned meeting a traveling couple on a PDQ in the New York canal system. It wasn’t hard to put things together and start a conversation.
That’s hilarious that you ran into Tom. Sounds like you had a great sail!
Hurricane Prep – That kind of cheap insurance is often the best insurance!