Storm in Boot Key Harbor

CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO ENLARGE

Click here for a local news story on the storm.

On Wednesday, November 25th we got a huge wake up call from a storm passing through Boot Key Harbor. At 3:00 AM we hear a loud noise and the boat healed about 30 degrees to starboard and then 30 degrees to port. Whooaaa...we rushed to the companionway and all we could see was the tarp (the big white one you see in the pic laying in the cockpit) blown off and hanging from the lifelines. We were able to save it later when the rain let up. The rain was coming down hard and the wind was howling. The wind was clocked at about 60 MPH sustained with the highest gusts at 117 and 120 MPH.
The picture on the right shows where the awning used to be, one of it's bars is still standing. Oh well I think I can fix it. Later we were listening to people in the harbor on the VHF radio and some of them fared much worse. One broke loose from it's mooring (the boats line broke not the mooring ball line) and no one was aboard. It was a 3o foot boat loose in the anchorage and had already hit one boat. It was still raining but a couple boats spotted it and got in their dinghies to get it under control and back on a mooring ball. GOOD JOB to them! We also heard some people got hit by lighting. The lightning storm was so bad it actually looked like daylight right before it hit. It looked like somebody left a flood light on and it was flickering. Somebody got on the radio and said they were watching their solar panels hanging by a thread. It was at that point that we looked at each other and said 'what about our solar panel?' So we go look and sure enough...gone. The picture shows where it used to be.

When dawn broke it was raining like crazy and rained most of the day. We got pretty wet, but at least the winds died a bit.





So although our life is mostly pleasure and fun there are those moments of SHEER TERROR...the pics below show a calm day and our view of the golf course and a nice sunset. That's how we like to remember it! Cheers and Happy Holidays to all Mike and Kim on Ka'imi