December 13 - 17, 2000 -- Fernandina Forever

We got up this early this morning to see if we could leave. We decided that the weather was to iffy for us, so we stayed put. This turned out to be a good thing since I had what Mike had yesterday! On December 14, again, we got up early to no avail. The VHF weather has been predicting an oncoming front for days now, and since they keep saying it will hit in 12 hours, we don't leave. Instead, we dropped the dinghy and went into town. We walked to the convenience store and picked up milk. Then, we went to T-Ray's for lunch. We spent the rest of the day lounging. On December 15, we got up early again! Still the same forecast. Of course, if we had left two days ago, the front would have attacked with a vengeance! Instead, we took the dinghy in to town and went to the grocery store. On December 16, we slept in until 8:00 AM EST. When we got up, it was way foggy. After the fog started lifting, we tried to head to the St. Mary's to visit Lionheart. We figured that the fog had lifted completely near the boat, that it should have burned off elsewhere. We made it (what we thought) was almost to the sound when we decided the fog was to heavy to continue. Instead, we headed into the dinghy dock. We went to the Boat House looking for 2/0 gauge wire. They don't have any, but we did notice that they had fenders. So, we headed back to the boat. Lionheart called and said that the fog had lifted where he is, so we set out again and turned around again. The fog was still to heavy to see well on the Sound. We had a quick snack, and set out again. This time we made it all the way to St. Mary's. We visited with Lionheart and then headed into St. Mary's to have pizza with them. Afterward, we left and headed back to the boat. The sound ride was interesting. The wind had started to kick up, and because three rivers meet there, we had turbulence from the current, as well as wind waves! We were in a good foot and a half chop. This doesn't sound bad, until you stop to consider that our dinghy has a freeboard of about 18 inches as well! Fortunately, being an inflatable, even if a wave broke in the dinghy it would still float! The dink took it great with only needing to slow down to make the ride smoother. We got back to the boat and after a quick discussion, we decided to pull into the dock for the expected winds and thunderstorms. Once bitten twice shy. (See May 14 and 15, 2000 log) On December 17, the front that has been being forecast for the past 4 days finally came through and the winds have started! The highest gust was approximately 45 knots. The winds were consistently 25 to 35 knots for most of the day. We tried to go to the Boat House to buy more fenders, but they are closed on Sundays. We left them a message hoping that they would open for us as well as a few other boats here so we could buy some additional fenders. We then improvised with items we had on the boat. This worked well and protected the boat for the rest of the day. Around 2:00 PM we were both able to come inside. The winds had slowed down and the seas were less violent. During all of this I managed to equalize batteries! Around sunset, just as forecast, the winds dropped down to 10 knots. We looked at each other (exhausted) and decided that there was no chance we would be leaving tomorrow, we were just too tired