Ghost Rider: Early September 2017: Hurricane Irma

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Early September 2017: Hurricane Irma

THROUGH 12-SEP

We are still sticking close to North Palm Beach marinas, although quite honestly we feel we and the boat are ready to start cruising. But, as we had hinted with the last post, the bigger issue has been weather – of the tropical kind.

A Busy Season in Tropical Storms. All This Was After
Harvey Had FUBAR'd Southeast Texas.

As we began writing this post last week, Hurricane Irma had just spooled up to a category 5 storm and seemed to have intentions of plowing through the northern Antilles, the Bahamas, and then into the U.S. coastline. It did all of that and took on Cuba as well. But as we studied its potential paths we simply could not find a direction to sortie that did not put both boat and ourselves in jeopardy – any turn we could take after departing Lake Worth Inlet had a high probability of putting us directly in harm’s way.

OPC Marina Empties Out Followig the Evac Order. That's Ghost Rider
Looking Lonely in the Center of the Pic. The Floating Docks There Are
Certified for a Hurricane - As Long As No Boats Are Tied to Them.

At Loggerhead We Had the Slip Just One Away from the Seawall, and Did Our Best
to Heavily Fender in Addition to Triple-Tying and Adding Chafe Proection Sleeves.
The Bimini Top is Also Collapsed & Rolled, Same for the RIB, and All Antennae
Are Down & Secured with Multiple Ties & Wraps.

So we sat, waited and watched. And we built our hurricane preparation checklist (which ended up taking up two full pages.) Old Port Cove marina issued evacuation orders late in the week, but we knew James had a slip for us up in Loggerhead Marina, a well-regarded hurricane hole just north of here and further up the more protected ICW. We were one of the last to leave OPC, and the normally crowded marina had an eerie aura about it as we passed dozens of empty slips on the way out on Friday, 09-Sep at 0930.

A Closeup of the Radar Arch. The Rolled & Taped Bimini is Visible; the Radar
Antenna is Tied & Taped; Those Vents are the Engine Room Exhaust, Covered with
Baking Mats and Taped.

The short trip up the ICW to Loggerhead was uneventful, even with some traffic congestion at the two drawbridges that we had to negotiate. We had Ghost Rider tucked into her new Loggerhead slip by 1030, with several Yacht Tech folks and Bernie Francis greeting us there to lend a hand with our storm preps. Bernie was kind enough to hang out with us for several hours to guide us in designing our “spider web” triple-tie-up. Once that was done (we used 17 lines) and we had her defended with 12 properly inflated fenders, we went to work on everything else on the boat….tying up, taping up, taping down, or taking down stuff -- basically stripping the outside and giving it the lowest windage profile that we could. After that we emptied the fridge and two freezers, taking all the perishables over to our friend’s nearby home. Once we were satisfied that we had done all that we could to prep the boat – it took us two days – we cut the power and turned off the inverter and all circuit breakers except for the bilge pumps.

Gorgeous and Safe Place for a Hurricane Party

Late on Sat afternoon, 10-Sep, we piloted our rental car a short 15 minute drive to stay with our good friends, Bernie & Silvia Carballo, who have a beautiful two story home in Admirals Cove, Jupiter. Their place is built like a fortress and has an enormous whole-house generator that’s plumbed to the city’s natural gas supply….apart from the adjacent canal system, it was the perfect place to ride out a big storm. And they had successfully weathered Cat-3 Wilma there back in 2005. We can't think of a better place for a hurricane party.

It was about this time NOAA / NHC began depicting a storm track that was shifting to the west following its hard turn to the north – better for us and the boat, not so much for our left coast friends, nor our Fort Myers condo and car. The cone of uncertainty still pretty much covered the entire state of Florida, and with the size of this beast it was a given everyone in the state would encounter hurricane force winds.

What the RIB Tender Looked Like After Deflating & Tying Down.

By the time Irma slammed into the lower Florida Keys early Sunday, 10-Sep, it was a Cat-3, having been weakened a bit by its run along the northern Cuban coastline. But its 120 MPH winds and surge nevertheless devastated the island chain. It was still a Cat-3 storm when it barreled through Marco and Naples, but luckily for FMY Irma coasted inland a bit from there and weakened some more. That’s about the time when we got the worst of it on the east coast as well – around 75 MPH sustained winds for several hours. While the entire state got a wicked strafing, fortunately it wasn’t nearly as bad as the original forecast had predicted.

That's James Knight Prepping His Sailboat -- Moored Directly
Behind Ghost Rider at Loggerhead Marina.

Early on Monday morning, 11-Sep, we received a text message (around 0630) from James reporting that the boat looked fine; a short while later we picked our way through debris (in Bernie’s Navigator, since our rental car was still hidden away in a locked up parking garage) and made our way back to the boat at Loggerhead Marina around 0800. Ghost Rider was looking very well indeed. All the mooring lines, chafe protection and fenders were completely intact, as were all antennas and most other taped or secured areas. The only (minor) issue we found was that the two engine room intake covers we had taped on had departed and are likely in another county by now. (The lesson there is don’t use non-skid, non-stick baking mats for that – they truly are non-stick. On the other hand, we now are even bigger fans of the 3M line of vinyl tapes.) That resulted in some pooled water in the lazarette on top of the two aft fuel tanks, but was an easy shop-vac cleanup.

Rick Getting Dizzy Working on the Stuff Up Top.

It took us most of another day to de-rig all the storm preps, but that’s a lot easier and certainly more satisfying than making all those preparations. To top it all off we also heard from good friends of ours who had stayed in our Fort Myers condo to escape the predicted surge levels there – they were safe, the condo was fine, and so was our car. The same was true for their home, and those of all our good friends on the west coast of Florida.

In the end we just got really lucky. Certainly there was luck with the storm path and decreased intensity as it headed north; but we are also lucky to have the friendship and counsel of people like James Knight, Bernie Francis and Silvia & Bernie Carballo.

That said, we are mindful that scores of others were not so fortunate with this bruiser of a storm, and they have a long, painful road to recovery ahead. Our thoughts are with them. And the randomness of this messy experience is very sobering.

Here is Ghost Rider AFTER the Storm. Everything is Still in Prep Mode
But We Thought She Looked Pretty Damned Good.

This Hangs Over the Entry to Ghost Rider II's Stateroom Door. When Cher Painted This for
Us She Was Either Prescient or Really Good at Asking for Intervention. Either Way, It Sure
Seems an Appropriate Way to Conclude This Post, and We Thank Her.

Finally, here are some additional before, during and after pictures that hopefully will give you a sense of what is required when you are dumb enough to try and ride out one of these storms: