July 9
We are closely watching Hurricane Dennis to make sure he doesn't come any closer to the west coast of Florida than predicted. Of course, anybody who lives in a hurricane prone area knows that the best place to watch for a hurricane is in a bar. So, after a slow start to the morning, we went with Brian & Tammy to have breakfast about 11:00. We found a little place similar to our old favorite back home, Skipper's. They serve breakfast anytime, so we enjoyed a good breakfast. From there, we went down the street to Woody's which is on the water, and had Bloody Mary's.
Woody's is right on St. Pete Beach, by a little opening into a cove behind some condo's. So, we could see the waves hitting the seawall and watched a cameraman from the local FOX station get some "dramatic" footage. While we were there, a heavy squall came through, lasting all of about five minutes. This seemed to be the routine for the day. After Woody's we headed north along the shore, to John's Pass. At a small public beach area, we parked and watched the surfers playing in the heavy surf. Storms like this are a surfer's dream since they stir up larger waves than they usually get here.
After John's Pass, we went further north and stopped at another bar. This research stuff is hard to do. So far the consensus is the storm will barely brush the coast, so we are not too worried about doing any real prep to the boats. About 4:00, we headed back to the boats. Barb & Tammy went to do some laundry, while Brian and I watched The Weather Channel. We are expecting our friends Danielle & John from Ft. Meyers to join us for the evening. Their friends think they are crazy for going north to enjoy the storm again after it had already passed Ft. Meyers. They arrived a little after 6:00 and were hungry, so off we went to The Conch Republic for dinner. Of course there were some rum drinks consumed with dinner.
On the way back to the boat, we stopped in St. Pete Beach again for a night cap. We had a choice of Woody's again, or a place called Philthy Phil's. We saw that Philthy Phil's had a band playing, so we stopped to see what they were like. Tammy jumped out of the car and opened the front door to hear what they were playing. It was Margaritaville! So we parked and went in. The band was two guys with guitars and they both sang. There were only a few other customers, so when they asked if there were any requests, and we said "obscure Buffett", they indulged us. They played five or six songs that we all knew and sang along to, but you won't hear your normal cover band doing. It was a great ending to the night.
July 10
Danielle and John spent the night on Brian & Tammy's boat. Since they aren't cruising anymore, they have a little bit more room in their v-berth, and they also have two cars to move stuff to when there are guests. The night was pretty rolly, since we were getting the heaviest of the storm then. The wind was blowing about 20mph with gusts to about 30. The rain came in big bursts as it had been all day. I slept well until about 6:30 when a gust awoke me. I thought it would be prudent to check outside, so out I went. The water was up to the pier level. The docks here do not float. I got off the boat and put a little more slack in my bow lines so that as the boat rose, they wouldn't be stretched extremely tight. I saw Jim the dockmaster walking around checking on things. He said the water was receding already and we shouldn't have any problem. So, after checking the weather on the computer, I went back to bed.
About 8:30, I got up again. I poked my head outside, and was surprised to see the water about a foot higher than it had been at 6:30. Everything was ok, but the finger pier was about 8 to 10 inches under water, and the sidewalk was covered. I hopped down off the boat, which was a good feat to do without slipping or splashing myself too bad. I checked the dock lines and all was well. Now I had to get back on the boat. Barb had come on deck, so she handed me one of my pickle buckets. I set it upside down on the dock and then she snagged the handle with the boat hook so it would not float away. As soon as I stepped up and on deck, she pulled the bucket up behind me. Since nobody was out and about yet, we went back to sleep for another hour. By 10:00, the water was receding and was back down to the dock level.
We got together with the others and went to Sloppy Joe's for lunch. After we got back, Danielle & John had to head back to Ft. Meyers. Brian had gotten a call from a friend telling him there was significant damage at a marina in downtown St. Pete, so we headed down there to check it out. The Vinoy Marina is relatively small. It is across the street from a nice hotel. It is fairly open to the bay waters, which given the strong south winds we had was a bad thing. Even Sunday afternoon, there was a very heavy rolling action going on there. This marina has floating docks, but they weren't attached to the cement pilings the same as they did it back in Texas. Two of the three docks had significant damage where the boards that are bolted along the sides of the concrete just snapped. Most of the boats on these docks seemed to be ok, except for some cosmetic damage where broken dock parts scratched them. The third dock though was totally destroyed. By the time we got there, they had towed all but one of the boats to a nearby channel where many boatyards are. The one remaining sailboat had some significant damage, but it was floating. We drove around to the area where they towed boats, and saw several with damage, and one 60-foot motor yacht that sunk at the dock after they towed it over there. We did find a nice little bar tucked in amongst all the boatyards though, so we had to stop and have a beer.
We did stop by The Harborage Marina where our friends Dan & Jaime's boat is, and they were fine. Pretty amazing that just a mile or so away from the damaged marina, their marina had no damage, but it has a large seawall that stops the swell from the bay entirely.
After this, we went back to the boats, ordered pizza, and watched a couple of real bad movies that we had brought with us. Remember, if the DVD is in the bargain bin at a bargain store, there is probably a good reason.
July 11
Today, Brian & Tammy had to go to work. We did some boat chores. I changed the oil in the motor, and removed the remains of my TV antennae from the arch on the back of the boat. This is the second attempt I have made to mount this antennae back there, and obviously it isn't going to work that way since the offshore motion of the boat has broken it twice. Barb made a prototype replacement screen for the side port windows. The original screen frames were made from flat plastic that has gotten brittle over the years and most of them have broken. Replacements from West Marine cost about $20 to $30 per port. What Barb did was take the spring steel frame out of a cheap laundry hamper and make a frame to sew no-see-um screen to. The sewing on the first one isn't pretty, but it looks like the plan will work.
Mid-afternoon Dan & Jaime came by to visit. We had more to talk about than we had time for the other day, and they wanted to see my arch and davit system. It was built by the same guy who built theirs, but they didn't get davits, just an arch. After they left, Barb cooked jambalaya for dinner and when Brian & Tammy got home, we ate on their boat and watched another movie. This one was on TV, and wasn't as bad as last night's.
The main thing we thought about all day was our plans. We had originally planned to leave here Tuesday, but there is already another storm brewing in the Atlantic. So, we did a lot of checking on weather websites to try and guess the track of the storm, and we did a lot of course planning on my navigation software. We have decided to go ahead and leave in the morning, but instead of hopping down the coast, stopping every night, we are going to go to Marathon non-stop. That will take about 36 hours and put us in there Wednesday afternoon. By then, we should know which way the storm is going. We can hunker down there, boogie on up the keys to Miami, or if need be, turn around and come back. Hopefully, the storm will keep going west into the Gulf and not turn north into the Keys or up the east coast of FL.
GPS N 27-45.184 W 82-44.218 Miles made good this leg 0.