Day 190
NM Today: 14
NM Total:
3575
The weather
alarm sounded on my phone at 4:00 a.m. – Eh – Eh – Eh with the following
message:
Extreme Danger
Tornadoes in the Vicinity until 4:15 a.m.
Take cover immediately
My heart was
racing as I took stock of the situation. The wind was howling and it was
pouring cats and dogs out there. I thought about the marina layout and could
not come up with any place that I felt would offer me protection from a
tornado. I knew getting off the boat in the middle of the night would be treacherous
with the boat movement from the winds and the wet slippery decks especially
since even getting off the boat in daylight at this particular marina with its fixed
dock can be very challenging depending on the tide level.
I take my
cues from Clark. He had heard the phone alarm and looked at his phone and rolled over
to go back to sleep. Given all the information I had at hand I decided that
staying on board was as good a place as any. As I heard the thunder and lightning
outside the boat with the rain pouring down, I prayed and prayed for safe
passage through the storm. Eventually the storm subsided and I went back to
sleep.
In the
morning when I got off the boat to go use the head, I walked past another boater,
John from Buffalo NY. Our conversation went like this:
“Good Morning!” John said. “Quite a night
last night, hay?”
“Yes, my phone went off at 4:00 a.m. – eh, eh,
eh!”
“And you stayed on your boat?!”
“Yes, I had no idea where to go to be safer.”
“We got off our boat and went up to the
restrooms.”
Now thinking
about the layout of the marina building, I truly do not know that the restrooms
were safer than my boat. A whole lot of building sits over the restrooms to
come down on a person’s head if they are under it all. As I entered the
restroom facilities I even examined the construction and did not find it reassuring
as a potential tornado shelter.
When I told
Clark about my discussion with John from Buffalo, I discovered that he was
unaware of any Verizon message indicating imminent danger. His phone message at
4:00 a.m., also from Verizon, was only a tornado watch message. It seems that
John and I got the extreme danger message while Clark and another nearby boater
with Verizon got the watch only message. Go figure!
Using Google I did a search on tornadoes in Florida and found that Sarasota, where we visited not so long ago, sustained building damage and two people died last night. I understand from the news that tornadoes are expected over the next few weeks. I had no idea I would need to worry about tornadoes on this boating trip!
I later asked
Clark if he would have moved to the restrooms had he seen the ‘extreme danger’
message, and his definitive answer was “maybe”.
With all the tornado warnings and incidents in southwest Florida at this
time I need to start identifying a plan of action when I arrive at each marina.
Next time I get an “extreme danger” message on my phone, I will be sure to show
it to Clark so that we can make a joint assessment of the situation.
With the
storm the marina experienced high waters and suffered some ill effects.
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| Sign nearly under water |
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| Junk on walkway showing water had been higher still |
Looking at
the Weather Bug app on my phone when I woke this morning, I saw that we had rain
predicted for 9:00 and high winds starting at 10:00. I looked at my ‘rainy days’
app to see how soon the 9:00 rain would arrive. It appeared that I had about 5
minutes, 10 at most, to get dressed, get off the boat, hit the head, and get
back on board before the rains came. I told Clark the time schedule and we both
got dressed in record time. Shortly after we got back on board, the sun disappeared
and the rain started. Fortunately it was a small passing storm and not a
torrential downpour.
Afterwards
the sun came out and it appeared to be a beautiful day. I checked ‘weather bug’
again and it showed winds of 31 mph at 10:00. When winds reach 32 mph, they are
labeled gale force winds. Right on schedule at 10:01 the winds came, and boy
did they come!
Clark’s
hearing is pretty amazing (unless I am talking to him when he seems not to be
able to hear at all). He was concerned because he could hear metal banging. I
could not hear it at all even after he pointed out the noise. He searched the
boat for the source but could not discover any until he realized that the noise
was not coming from our boat but from the metal roof of a marina building that
appeared to be in danger of having the roof peel off in the wind. (see pictures
and videos below)
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| view of marina from our boat note palm trees and flat roofed building in back |
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| Shredded Flags at marina due to high winds |
Our boater
friends on Melinda B had plans to
leave the marina at 10:45 for a five-hour trip to Fort Meyers. We noticed at
11:15 they had not left, so we walked over to see them. After considering the
wind conditions they decided to change their travel plans and stay one more
night at Palm Island Marina.
Clark
planned to leave today to head to an anchorage in Pelican Bay with a target
departure time of 1:00. Melinda B’s
decision to stay put did not influence Clark’s travel plans. We did delay our
departure slightly. We left the marina at 1:50. Bob from Melinda B saw us getting ready to depart and came over to help us
with our lines and say farewell. By that time the winds had subsided to only 27
mph.
Getting off
the dock in the marina was the trickiest part of the trip. As we passed by
John-from-Buffalo’s boat, he yelled to us, “You are hardy souls! You are hardy
souls!” I loosely translated that to mean “you are crazy people!” The
trip was uneventful except for one place where we had to change direction and
took the wind on the beam (side of the boat). We rocked and had to catch items
as they fell off the bench seats and slid across the deck of the boat; otherwise,
the ride was relatively calm.
I was happy
after we dropped anchor that Clark had no plans to go ashore at Cayo Costa State
Park. The wind was still up and the
water had more movement than I felt like dealing with in our dinghy. He said we
will explore tomorrow before we pull up anchor. With that good news I took my
novel and laid down in bed to read. Ten minutes later I was asleep. I can only
assume that my 4:00 tornado episode deprived me of enough sleep to leave me
needing a nap.
I woke up at
6:00 after my two-hour nap – just in time to see the sunset and make dinner. I
made one of our favorite dishes Mediterranean Tilapia which turned out yummy.
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| Sunset at Cayo Costa State Park in Florida |
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