The Imperfect Storm

Hi Kids-

Well... We survived Arlene... It wasn't pretty.

I headed out at dawn yesterday to start checking things- I went to check on the boats, the grounds, the dock- everything was ok early in the day. Later, not so good.
The brunt of the storm wasn't until later- Things probably were the worst around 11:00 AM...
Around 10:00 the seas in the harbor were 3-5 feet. The patrol boats and the research boats were taking a beating. The wind was coming directly out of the south-southeast, straight onto the dock, so the boats were pointing right into the wind and waves. Add to it a storm surge and a very high tide, and you have a recipe for sunken boats. We were able to get the boats pumped out later in the evening and got the engines started up, so we had no permanant damage to the boats...

We had the Coast Guard call us around 10 pm Thursday night, reporting a de-masted sailboat 9 miles southwest of Loggerhead Key; They were rescued later (around 2:30 AM)... We also had several boats in the harbor drag anchor and then had problems getting hooked back up. In addition, we had the Coast Guard calling to find several boats that were overdue to Key West... Some were here in the harbor or on the west side of the island, and some weren't here...
We had a bunch of cosmetic damage- branches down, stuff blown around, closure signs missing, damage to the displays on the dock, etc... We also had 3 of the pencil bouys that mark the closed area off Bush Key wash up here on Garden Key. Hunter and I took care of most of the debris around the island this (Saturday) morning. We took 5 loads of branches, palm fronds and other flotsam and jetsam up to the burn pile and off to the recycling bins. We had a full morning starting at 6:30am...

(Why were we up at 6:30 this morning after a very long day yesterday, you might ask? Well, I'll tell you... At about 5:30 we had a termite swarm in our quarters... This place is alive with termites- everyone's quarters has 'em... that's why no one brings their own furniture out here. Everything made of wood is eventually infested. And to add to the fun, every couple weeks in the summer a group will strike out and look for new wood... So this morning we had a swarm in our room... Did Hunter freak out? Yep, you know it.)

Let's see, what else... Over on Loggerhead the took some damage to the water intakes for the RO water system... the waves over there were huge- they were crashing over the dock... It was pretty bad over there.

From the "Things that make you go Hmmmm" Department: There were 6 chugs, boats from Cuban migrants, on the beaches over at Loggerhead before the storm... Now there are 7. Hmmm... The volunteers haven't said anything about any emaciated latinos coming to the door and trying to surrender...

If you want to see the pictures- look here:
DRTO June at listen2unclejay.com
It will give you an idea of when we dealt with yesterday...

TBG out...