Man, oh man....the weather was rotten today and this little clip of the storm, early in the day before it started doing all the damage to Sam's boat. The video was taken early on, before it got really bad, but you get the picture. The new head line we put on broke from all the pressure and our neighbor was kind enough to notice the boat was loose in the front and he roped it back up for us. Sam and his parents were in New Jersey visiting his Grandparents and so I was left with the mess of the storm. I mean, sure I could have left but I didn't think that was such a good idea. We had several leaks on the top of our sliding patio doors, which has never happened before. It was just the wind....it was driving so hard and in never gave up. Then there was the boat which really was getting beaten up. Our neighbor Ray and his friend were out on the docks trying to get his jetski back on its pad because the waves were so bad that they knocked it off into the water and it was ramming into the bulk head. By the time I noticed him, he was in a wet suit, with life vest on, riding the thing in the waves with ropes tied on it and his friend trying to help by pulling it on the pad. I finally told him that it was useless, the waves were just to rough. We ended up using all our extra rope and we tied it up from four directions between our pilings and his in the front and off our dock cleats in the rear. Our other neighbor Jeff and his wife, Paula came outside too. Jeff was the guy who put the new head line on after the new one broke. He was helping secure a large boat for an older gentleman on the other side of Ray. The old guy uses a cane so the wind was enough to keep him on the sidelines. Jeff helped us with Rays jetski, explained to Ray that he had to keep an eye on the old guys boat because if it broke loose, it was going to smash into Rays boat that was on a special floating lift. Then I went in search of more rope and had to make do with a waterski line which we tied to the front of the boat and ran the cord over to one of Jeff's pilings, hoping it would help keep Sam's boat out of the dock. We already had a small hole in the side, but it is a foam core boat so it wasn't in danger of sinking yet.
Over the course of the day, the storm didn't let up...it just pounded us and at one point the tie on the back of the boat broke. I went to ask Jeff if he had anymore rope and was searching for more too, when we met up in the backyard, we both decided it was useless to try to tie it up. The waves were so large, at least 5 foot swells that it would throw the boat into and on top of the dock. There was no safe way for us to get a rope onto the boat. At that point, when the boat would hit a wave, the front would fly up very high, so high that when it hit the bottom of the wave, the back of the boat, engine and all went up so high you couldn't see the front of the boat at all....just the engine and the bottom of the boat. I said, "Oh, hell no, we are not going out there."
I went back inside, drenched from the spray and changed my clothes again....and decided I was going to watch a movie. That is when the power went out. I didn't know it until later, but two large trees blew over and took out powerlines. One of them hit a small transformer and there was a small explosion. I dug out the candles, lit them because it was so dark from the storm and the basement, even though its a walk-out was way to dark to navigate. I was left with nothing to do but take a nap. So, an hour and a half later, the Leaches called and said they were coming to visit with pizza. I told them we had no electricity and Jim said that was OK, he just needed a break from the work he was doing at home and since I couldn't leave, the were coming to me. Just before they arrived our power came on. We were sitting in the kitchen, listening to the roar of the wind and Jean said she would not want to live on the water. The asked me if I wanted to sleep over at their house because it would be safer but I told them, this backyard had never has water in it...even during that really bad storm that damaged the bulkhead years ago. The weather at her house had been windy but not like this...but its a 10 minute difference between our homes. We lost some flashing of the house along the roof line. I found it in the front yard. Lovely. We were laughing because the trees were stripped of most of their leaves. It actually looked like late fall but the leaves on the ground were green instead of scarlet and orange.
They headed home as it was getting dark. When Sam and Family came home at 10:30 PM., the poor boat had started to fill up with water. Sam wanted to turn the sump pump on and I told him it was useless, that the battery was underwater but he said he would bail. At that point the waves had calmed down enough and Cliff encouraged him to do it. Nancy and I said he could only if he wore a life vest and even though Cliff was out there, I went out also. We got Sam in the boat and he started scooping out water while I put a new line on the back of the boat and we put the floats back along the dock. The waves had pushed them out of the way earlier but it had calmed down enough that we could get them to stay. After I tied it up, and Sam got a lot of water out of the front, I went in the garage and found the hand pump. Cliff went inside and Sam and I pumped out the internal chamber by the engine. It really had to be done because the boat was back heavy at that point and more water was coming in. Once we got that done, we checked the other ties and then I noticed that there were two really new, really nice float cushions in the water, the ones that run about $40.00 each, so we used an oar and fished them out from Rays dock. Then we decided to string them between Sam's boat and the dock. We had to get back in the boat and take the anchor out and the attached rope. We unwound the end and cut rope off the other side so we wouldn't have to detatch the anchor. We had to stand in the kitchen, tape the rope, cut it, and with a candle, melt the ends so they wouldn't unravel. There was a pool of water under us and the towel that we were standing on was soaked. Cliff was on the sofa watching TV and I made him go find a candle and light it for me. Lets face it, he needed to be useful. lol. Once we went outside, attached the float and decided that was all we could do, Sam went in upstairs...I went in downstairs, ran for the bathroom and took a long hot shower. My Dartmouth sweatshirt was so darn heavy when I picked it up off the tile and tossed it in the washer.
Last year when we heard there was a storm headed our way we had the boat stored away because it was predicted to be bad. This morning, they heard that it wasn't supposed to be that bad....yeah, famous last words. Anyway, the poor boat is beat to hell. If the holes are above the water line, they can probably be fixed...if not, oh well! Those are the breaks of life I guess. The worst part is I found out from Sam that Nancy had taken a risk and had not insured the boat this year. I mean, they are friggin' lawyers and make a ton of money a year....so Why? I have no idea....but there wasn't anything else that could have been done to protect it, short of storing it away. Live and learn, live and learn
