Labor Day: Intermission during shark week for dock line 101.

Well TS Lee missed us by a 200 miles or more but as he ripped through Louisiana and Mississippi on his way to the Appalachian Mountains he created a vacuum.  Trying to fill that vacuum the winds Saturday were clipping by at 20+ knots all day.  Then Sunday the day was a little calmer.  But yesterday, Monday, was ALL day long at 30-40+ knots!  Thanks to www.windfinder.com I had a good warning several days in advance.  We were having 2-4 foot waves here at this corner of the marina.  There is a 2 mile fetch from the SW to the stern of my boat!  I'm glad the Kiwi was here to block most of it!

A little bit like "Shaken, not stirred, please"

How many kids do you know that don't even flinch that his house is a blender?

But, the salt spray crashing over the 70' Kiwi sends him running. lol

Good thing is the peak 40kt time frame came with almost no rain, just a few drops.  Because for most of the day we "locals" at the dock and the dock staff chased breaking dock lines.  One of the pylons pulled sideways on Randal's boat and he asked to borrow a line from Gemini Dreams to help secure to another pylon.  The Hunter 28.5 broke a stern line and was rubbing a pylon.  Randal and I replaced it with line the owner had on board and put a square knot in the line that broke (the replacement soon broke).  The old Hunter Cherubini broke a line and eventually 3 guys showed up and retied her (Big politics on that boat between the owner and the caretaker!).  The owners of the 25'er were here and I offered another line to them as I could see some chafing on there bow line.

Just a little breezy today,  I disregarded the 90+ but had a few in the 70's

18.4 foot seas and Big gusts

I even added some old anchor line to make another spring line on Gemini Dreams (I have three of my lines out elsewhere and two tying gear down).  With Gemini Dreams taking the brunt of the waves I was worried about the solar panels crashing into the pylon with the right combination of wind and wave.  This pulled the bow too close to the dock.  So Randal and I tried to tighten the bow spring line! LOL First we lost ground then we could only gain it back and not get any further away than we started.  Plan B!  I dropped the anchor from the roller and gained 6".  This is all that I needed.

With all tied and everything done we decided to take a walk and check out the "local's"anchoring over at the "No Name Anchorage".  The barnacles grow so fast here you can not use line to make a mooring.   The barnacles continually "saw" the line making it weaker.  The FWL boat was out by noon the next day to document and tag the grounded boats.

 Turn the volume down!

 3 boats on shore!  3rd time this summer for the one on the right!

I'm glad we have 140' of chain on board!

Today is calm and cool, I think it was down in the upper 50's this morning.  That is a big change from our daily 90's!  It's time to re-camp for now.  Time to put up the rain-sun tarp, reorganize the cockpit and wash the salt off of everything.  Time to reclaim the lines for next time.

Tucked in a bayou just a couple miles away s/v Mini Pearl and s/v Raindrop probably had a peaceful day with only a few leaves falling.

s/v Mini Pearl and s/v Raindrop.

If you are curious what Tin did during most of this you could probably guess.  HE FISHED!  This is George.  He follows Tin all around even before Tin started feeding him.  He didn't fly too well last week when we noticed him stalking us.  We also have a friendly Pelican here, his name is Aristotle.

At least it wasn't a real storm!  The "mommy alarm" didn't even go off!
W