Having a computer during hurricane season is a mixed blessing. Emails bring updates every few hours, radar images let you get a shivery sort of nearness to something large and unpreventable coming toward something small and unmovable, like an island. Like us.
This was the year we were told there would be at least 14 named hurricanes. We got up to Jose, with a mix of tropical storms and hurricanes in the naming. Only three looked worrisome, but it was enough to keep us glued to the screen for hours a day. It was enough to keep the doorway of our office unusually busy, as friends and strangers passed by to check the hourly print outs we taped to the open shutters. Conversations and online updates played out over and over in the same vein. "Doesn't it look like it's veering north?" "When will you move your boat?" "How much did it move since the 8:30 update?" And old hurricane stories. Boats lost, lives lost. How bad was it for you? Where did you spend the storm? Where are you going this time?
The wall with the hurricane tracking chart grew dense with lines following each storm, as if somehow, knowing exactly where it was, we had more control. As if we could urge it north, away from us, even knowing that north meant some other island would be in the path. We thought of friends who had sailed south to Trinidad, Grenada, and Venezuala, and wondered why we didn't go. We all swore we would go somewhere else next year. Even America was looking good.
But with all the bluster and all the tracking, the most frightening storms DID go north. They smashed the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the eastern coast of the United States. They ran and raged to Nova Scotia. They left us alone except for rain and wind. Hurricane Thanksgving Day arrived, and we gave thanks...until about 2 that afternoon.
"You know there's a hurricane headed right here?" a friend asked, as we were heading over to buy the paper. What?? I'd been deleting my NOAA weather emails without even looking at them for over a week. It was time to go back to the screen.
From the 17th of October, we waited (all those little numbers are advisories, which in the case of this hurricane were totally confusing as to where Jose was really going). The turning point is on St. Thomas.
And there was Jose, not a week away, but a couple days away, growing and rolling in our direction. With groans and whines we proclaimed "This wasn't fair!" But Nature doesn't quite go on our time tables, and Jose was real, close and looking very personal. It was time to move the boats.
It is a strange feeling standing on a headland, while the wind whips around you, water crashes on the rocks below, with rain threatens above, to watch a parade of boats streaming in to hurricane holes. They came from the east end, the west end, the middle of the island. They came because there are known places in the mangroves that are as safe as it's possible to be around our section of St. Thomas. Schooners and sloops, catamarans and houseboats, luxury trawlers, and 'held together with gum and spit' inbetweens motored in, sailed in, were towed in. First come, first serve is the rule in hurricane holes, alongside helping out anyone near you, for their safety and your own. Finally a time comes when all the access is closed, lines tied back and forth across the channels, hatches sealed, provisions bought, and the waiting begins.
Tim had helped a number of people get secured, as well as taken care of a couple boats he watches as part of his job as a marine surveyor. The last boats had straggled in, we had moved everything in our office past the waterline of Hurricane Marilyn (the height of the bar in Finn McCools, where some friends rode Marilyn out, perched on top of the bar and hoping it would stop there...it did). I was getting nervous, wondering when our boat would get moved, and if the channel would still be open.
We took the dinghy out to the boat, secured everything inside, duct taped all the hatches, put in the companion way door and pulled the anchors. Why was the engine acting weird? But it started tand we began to head over to Tim's spot in the mangroves. Because of the shallow draft design of this boat, we could get where few could go...in a shallow spot far enough away from other boats so if they did break free, we wouldn't be in the line of smash. Tying up to the mangroves, dropping anchors, and patting Elinor Louise, we hoped it was enough and headed back to land. We were going to stay with Rob and Roxanne, partly because they didn't mind Charlie (our dog) and partly because if it was going to be bad and long term, we wanted to be with people we liked a lot. So did they.
This gives you a little thrill to see on your screen! See those tiny black dots at the leading edge? That's us.
Thursday night we cooked and drank, played cribbage, read books, and finally went to bed. It seemed like the middle of the night when the wind began to blow and howl, the rain came pounding down and it appeared Jose was on the scene. But at dawn, there was no wind or rain at all! I took Charlie outside for a look and a walkabout. Fog covered the top of the mountain, very unusual here; we were really in a cloud. But it was still, and I thought "This must be the eye of the storm." Three hours later, with still not a breath of wind or a drop of rain, we turned on the Weather Channel, only to laugh when the weeatherman said, "There is Jose...right, right right there! over St. Thomas!" THIS was the storm? Amazing.
They dropped the hurricane warning for us but left it up for the British Virgin Islands, which we could now see clearly through the lifting fog. The BVI's are close enough to St. Thomas that if you had a fairly strong flashlight, you could signal each other. We felt like we should call over and see how the hurricane was treating them, since we were just in a tropical storm warning now. That too was dropped, and then the wind and rain began, harder than in the middle of the night. What the hell was going on?.Jose was turning out to be No Play Jose.
Even with the weather, or maybe especially because of it, cabin fever was setting in. Rob and Roxanne took off to see how their boat was, and we followed shortly after to check on the office and Elinor Louise. Dodging some fallen branches, and scattered small debis, we went up another mountain overlooking the boat, where she lay safe and secure. Back at Compass Point Marina where we have our office, all was well except for our tied-up-to-the-dock and stern anchored dinghy floating placidly under about 5 inches of wind rough water...and that didn't matter as we'd taken the engine off to keep it high and dry in the office. But the wind was still blowing way too hard to even consider raising the dinghy up when it would only be awash and sink again. Instead, we made the lagoon bar rounds, checked on friends who'd stayed on their boats, and went back up the mountain. More food, more drink, more sleep, sandwiched between going outside to run around in the wind.
After three nights on land, the wind died enough to head out to the boat, which was safely bobbing around, dry inside and ready to go back home to False Entrance. We untied her lines, pulled the anchors out of the mucky stuff and started the engine for home. By now enough boats had pulled lines up that the channel was a clear run. The water in False Entrance had cleared as well, back to its usual pristine greens and blues, and the second we had the boat on the mooring, we jumped in, swimming, laughing, and celebrating how incredibly good it was to be home.
In St. Martin and Antigua, there were boats destroyed, roofs torn off and general minor hurricane damage, but less than expected, and no lives were lost. No one here complained about the days taken out of our lives to prepare for Jose, because it could have been us. Instead, Tim learned how to play cribbage, I realized again how glad I am to live on the boat instead of ashore, and our friendship with Rob and Roxanne has grown.
I still glance at the weather email, because in truth, hurricane season has a few weeks to run, even if it "never happens this late." It was and it wasn't frightening, and I know next year, given the same scenario, I'll feel fear and calm again.. On the one hand...when you have seen the damage a large storm can bring, it's terrifying. But then, if you prepare as best as you possibly can, you finally say...this is all I can do. I chose to live here, and we'll see what happens. Now, are we SURE we have enough wine and rum?
November 15th - Hurricane Lenny P.S.
This has got to be a joke...but apparently not. After being away in the BVI's for two days helping a friend show off his charter boats, Tim and I walked into Bottoms Up for dinner to be greeted by Michelle behind the bar. Not with Hey, how did the weekend go? but rather, There's a storm coming! Really, I'm not kidding, it will be a hurricane by tonight, and it's headed east. East? For a couple of seconds it didn't even make sense that we needed to be concerned, hurricanes don't come out of the east...except when they do...like Lenny.
This morning, five boats have already moved out of False Entrance to the mangroves. Everyone is going about taking care of business very, very quietly. A call on my machine from a friend on St. Croix invited us over for the storm and to just stay until Thanksgiving, and there is not much more tempting than to just say, screw it, let's run away and stay in a nice apartment for awhile...but we can't.
It's time to pack up the office again. We've ordered new anchor lines as Jose showed us the old ones are shot...it's going to be a busy day. Lenny, Lenny, why didn't you just stop at the gas station and ask directions???
