Surviving the Storm or Idiots in the Mist

October 27, 2005

Friday, October 21, 2005 - Vero Beach Municipal Marina, Vero Beach, FL
By Tom

With all of the excitement of getting ready to leave for the Bahamas I was unable to sleep. Instead I got Amy up at 5 am and we made use of our rental truck to go back to Walmart and finish the provisioning. I had to bribe Amy and the ferrets with a trip to McDonald's for breakfast before they would agree to go.

We were done and back at the boat by 7 am and Amy went back to sleep while Mila and Milo helped me put everything away. Afterwards, we used the truck to get propane and a few other odds and ends before I returned said truck to Enterprise. The Enterprise dude gave me a ride back to the marina which was way cool. Last year the Hertz dude said he was too busy to give me a ride back so I had to cab it.

Hertz sucks, go with Enterprise if you need a car in Vero.

The hurricane continues to take it sweet ass time deciding on what to do, so here we sit

Saturday, October 22, 2005 - Vero Beach Municipal Marina, Vero Beach, FL
By Tom

Another day of waiting on the hurricane. We spent the morning hanging out in a little cafe in town. Amy had some form of coffee, I did not.

The marina asked us to move to another spot to free up the t-head for some mega yacht. I didn't mind moving, but the staff here is extremely rude. It seems they only employ adolescently challenged sub 25 year old males here. The dock master is pretty good, but the rest of the staff seem incompetent at best and down right idiotic at worst.

I saw a few of them loitering around today in the rain and it looked like a scene from Idiots in the Mist. (Jane Goodall reference)

The new spot we moved to allows us to tie the boat up on both sides, so if the hurricane isn't forecasted to be too bad, we may ride it out right here.

Still waiting

Sunday, October 23, 2005 - Vero Beach Municipal Marina, Vero Beach, FL
By Amy

Short log today. The hurricane is coming, so we are doing all of our hurricane prep work. All of the canvas and sails are being taken off and we are tripling the lines that hold us in place.

Wilma is forecasted to hit us as a strong category 2 storm. Guess we'll see in the morning

Monday, October 24, 2005 - Vero Beach Municipal Marina, Vero Beach, FL
By Amy

No log - riding out Wilma

Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - Mooring Field, Vero Beach, FL
By Tom

And we're back. That pretty well sucked ass.

Wilma struck right on cue. The only good thing I can say about it was it was a short lived experience.

Around 9 am or so, the wind started cranking up. By 11 am it was steady at 60 - 70 knots with gusts going into the 80's. By noon we started to see the backside of Wilma and thats when it got ugly. The winds held at 80 - 90 and gusts were reported as high as 115! That's a lot of wind.

Team Dream Catcher survived without injury. For most of the storm I sat in the cockpit in my foul weather gear and my swimming mask. I guess I looked like an ass, but I got to see the show first hand.

Other boats in the marina and on the mooring balls did not fair as well. At various points in the storm I saw 4 sailboats, 3 sport fish and one non descript dock float past on their way out to sea. Unfortunately for this forsaken armada, there was a large bridge in their way and the bridge's construction proved superior to that of the fleet. Needless to say they will be picking up several large pieces of boat for the next few days.

In the marina we had one boat sink, a few wash up on shore and one 55 Sea Ray hole itself on its own swim platform. That takes skill. Two mega yachts also sustained pretty good damage tied up to the t-head where we were before.

The bad part of the storm lasted about 3 hours and then things quickly subsided. By evening the storm was gone, the winds were calm and we had a beautiful sunset. Heads quickly emerged from the shelters and people began taking stock of the damage. See accompanying pictures for supporting evidence.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - Mooring Field, Vero Beach, FL
By Tom

We left the dock today and moved back out to a much less expensive mooring ball. I think it's number 16

The Towboat US people showed up today and began recovering the broken and battered boats. The did manage to ram a 70 foot mega yacht with the partially sunken 55 foot Sea Ray. I'd hate to be that tow boat driver.

The bus service was running again today, so we went into town to assess the damage. Most areas had electric back on, but phone lines were down everywhere so all transactions were on a cash only basis. We did manage to score some sweet deals on steak at the local Publix.

The local bar opened back up for happy hour, so we dinghied over and traded hurricane stories with the other patrons.

The power came back on at the marina sometime today, so the lounge with the two tv's and the soda machines was open again. The winds have picked up considerably so we are bug free and happily floating on our mooring.

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - Mooring Field, Vero Beach, FL
By Amy

This morning's check of the weather forecast showed a possible window opening for the crossing tonight. Amy rode into town to do last minute gathering of fresh stuff while I prepared the boat for offshore.

Once done, I rechecked the weather only to find out that NOAA had changed their mind and that now it would be 8 to 10 foot seas in the gulf stream. Bastards!

We decided not to venture out tonight, but we did decide that we would leave Vero tomorrow regardless. Next stop, Manatee Pocket.