Lemonade

Here’s the storm update:

Don’t watch CNN or the Weather Channel or any of the other network hype-a-thons. They may have accurate predictions, but their graphics and rhetoric are so over the top they make the viewers freak out. (Mom and Dad, I’m talking to you. I’m also talking to myself.)

Anyway, we had all the time in the world over the past week or two to prepare for the storm. To move to a safe place to hide from the storm.

Unfortunately, the storm path was so uncertain, we moved ourselves right into the path of the storm. Ah. 

So here we are in New Bern, North Carolina. Two days before landfall of a historic hurricane. Peak hurricane season. Pretty much right on top of New Bern. Well played, Cupcake.

Good news? We are in a well-recommended marina, way up a river, about as far from the sea as we can get on this entire trip. The marina claims it has never lost a boat to a hurricane.

Bad news? The people at the marina say if the hurricane remains category 4 or lower we will probably be fine. But if it reaches category 5 or higher, they anticipate losing every one of the 500+ boats here. Oh boy.

More good news? Moss, Ellen, and I are all optimists. We can’t change the outcome, we have done what we can to prepare (more on that later), so here we go. Moss just told me we can change our outcome. She means we can’t change the outcome of the storm, but we can change what happens to us during the storm. And how we react to anything. This trip is an adventure. This is part of that adventure.

So what is going to happen to us during the storm? Taking the lemons and making lemonade. We will pick up a rental car tomorrow morning, load it with everything that fits and we can’t live without. And then we will drive to Washington, DC to visit our boy Simon. (Moss points out that Simon will then have something to blog about. We think he should blog about the party he throws his pals because of all the food we are bringing from Cupcake’s fridge.)

Storm prep: up a river, in a basin, tied every which way to a dock and pilings. Chafing gear applied at all chafe points. Boat stripped of sails, sun canvas, solar panels, jerry cans, boom, anything that can catch the wind and isn’t bolted down. Watermaker pickled so it doesn’t grow nasty on the membrane. Composting toiled clean and empty. (Ellen has visions of returning to a a flooded boat with poop floating in it like the pool scene in Caddy Shack.) Hatches and portholes closed (of course, come on.) Double lines at all the stern, marina staff tending to the lines at the bow (24/7 even at the height of the storm!)

We’ve heard they will be out on the docks even at night, even when the storm surge raises the water level 2, 3, 4, 5 feet over the top of the docks. Wow. Moss points out it is hard to believe what I am writing. We will know if it all works when we return. When? Maybe Saturday, maybe Sunday. Maybe next week. Who knows?

When we thought we were going to be staying at a hotel in New Bern (now it seems a bad idea, state of emergency and all that) I was intrigued and worried about what it would be like to experience a hurricane first hand. Days of howling wind and insane downpours. Thunder. Lightning. (Will it be dark? Will it be loud?) Intrigued to know what it would be like, worried that it would freak me out permanently.

Now it appears we will leave the area on a bright (hot, of course) calm day. And we won’t return until the weather is settled again. I’m sure we will return to destruction, possibly devastation. But if all goes according to plan, we will miss the actual violence the storm brings. That’s a curious thought.

Now, about the people here. We have finally, in the past week or so, felt like we live on Cupcake, that this boat is our home and our life. (Great timing, hmm?) And we have also gotten to spend time with friendly, open, giving sailors who also live on their boats, or near their boats. 

This marina is filled with liveaboards (one couple just sold everything and moved aboard last month). We were in the swimming pool (come on, it has been hot, we have been working hard, Moss is a fish out of the water when she is out of the water) and two guys here on vacation heard our situation and gave us a ride to Walmart to get a cooler so we can keep our perishable food cold long enough to give it to Simon and his roommates.

Then walking the dock back to Cupcake this afternoon we got an offer of some firehose from a cruiser who had dozens of feet of the stuff. He gave us a tour of his boat (air conditioned, ahh) and then about eight feet of super durable chafing gear. Tomorrow I will install it at all the chafe points where our lines rub on anything.

Another couple is letting us store Mr. Flowerpot in their storage unit. All we need to do is help them move their dinghy to storage as well. People are so friendly and welcoming. There is an end-of-the-world vibe here, people are resigned but not gloomy. Realistic but amusing. It may be a different scene when we return. That’ll be part of the adventure, I suppose.

Yesterday we were in Oriental, NC. (Favorite business: Oriental Dental. Though we could open a psychiatrist office: Oriental Mental. Or a real estate office: Oriental Rental. Or a body shop: Oriental Dental. Or become a guidance counselor: Oriental Gentle. Or a pre-school: Oriental Fundamental. Or a recycling company: Oriental Environmental. Or a urologist: Oriental Genital. And a vegetarian restaurant: Oriental Lentil. You get the picture. It was a fun walk through town.) 

If there’s anything left to Oriental when we get back, we are looking forward to spending more time there. Lots of sailboats, very sailor-focused place. Ellen did think the breakwater could have used a few feet more rock on it. That’s a reason we didn’t stay there. We are now  20 miles up the river.

Ok, I will try to get some photos of the boat stripped for the storm. That’s it.