Dorian
There is something about boat life that forces you to slow down no matter how much of a hurry you are in. We often rush along trying to get ready for whatever we have defined as the next thing we need to do only to be slowed down or stopped completely by missing parts, non-existent parts, work obligations, other boat related issues, or weather.
We had a guest on board Rána this week and we had hoped to take her out sailing. We got everything ready. The weather was going to be great, and even the tide was going to be ideal. It seemed like nothing could get in our way. Enter Dorian to slow everything down.
As soon as we heard about Hurricane Dorian we started thinking about how it might affect us here in our little hurricane hole. It is hard to image much damage can happen here since it rarely does. This season has been especially mild on the weather front so it was almost a surprise to see this one sneak up. It shouldn’t have been.
Dorian slowly developed and the possible paths came into focus. At first it was going to be a smaller tropical storm and would barely come near us. Then it worked its way into a much into a larger problem. It slowly creeped up to higher and higher speeds as it became a category 2, then 3, then 4, then it became the largest hurricane to ever hit the Bahamas at a massive category 5. Even though the news made efforts to sensationalize the storm and we typically avoid that sort of thing, it was hard to deny that it was looking very intimidating.
As Dorian crossed through the Atlantic toward our home we watched it hit the Bahamas, first at Abaco then Grand Bahama islands. It was devastating to these islands and the people living on them. They had prepared but they did not know it would be as large as it became. Dorian tore through houses and flipped over vehicles. People were left with only bits of their lives still in place. It was horrible to watch on the news the things that happened to these people and our hearts go out to them.
Unfortunately, the hurricane stalled just over Grand Bahama Island and just off its coast. This meant for us that things were changing and the path was becoming more unclear again. Some paths looked as if it would hit us straight on and be devastating and others suggested it would pass by us like a mild summer weather pattern.
We were meant to start our first day of homeschooling for the year but instead of learning what we had planned we refocused on learning about hurricanes. Deirdre supplied us with her very own spaghetti model to show what she had learned.
In the darkness of uncertainty, we decided to start our hurricane preparations for the boat and our family no matter what was going to happen. Everyone, even people living in large comfortable well built homes, should have a plan for disaster. They do not happen all that often and some areas are more prone then others but they do happen. The people with even a minimal plan in place are the ones who survive and come out okay.
Our plan started off with getting all windage off the top of the boat. This meant we had to take down or tie down anything that could catch wind. Our mainsail is a furling main meaning it rolls up and in our case, it rolls up inside our mast. This is a pretty protected place for it to be so we rolled it up as far as it would go then tied it down to make sure it couldn’t unroll. We pulled down our headsail and tightened all of our halyards and sheets (ropes).
We spent time getting our solar panels secured and removing our brand-new canvas. We also added several extra dock lines including lines between our boat and the boat next to us to help protect each of us from hitting the dock.
We used zip ties to make the ends of rope and other things secure in places where they could whip around. Someone may have gone a little crazy with them…
Once we felt like we had fully prepared Rána for the possibility of a storm we started working on the plan for the living things on our boat. We are very fortunate to have a good friend that lives nearby. Her and her family graciously offered to let us come stay with them during the storm so we would have a safer place to be.
As the storm moved closer and closer to us it started to slowly push further out into the Atlantic. We still couldn’t tell how far out it would pass us so in the interest of safety we took our friend up on staying with her.
When Dorian finally came it was not much more than some minor rain and medium wind. We left our instruments on in the boat to record the weather during the storm. This showed that we had maximum wind speeds of 49 knots or about 56 miles per hour but the average was down around 22 knots or 25 miles per hour. We realized we could have stayed on the boat but in the end it worked out pretty well. Staying with our friend was a welcomed change from our normal routine. We all got the chance to hang out. The adults did puzzles while the kids played various games.
