Florida: Tornado Warnings – Everglades City

Day 200

NM Today: < 1

NM Total: 3576

Once again the weather alarm sounded on my phone to warn of extreme danger from tornadoes. This time at 4:45 a.m.  It went Eh – Eh – Eh, and this time Clark’s phone also registered extreme danger. What to do? What to do? Once again we had no “safe harbor”. The clubhouse is locked up tighter than a drum by 9:00 p.m. Once again the heavens had opened up to show no mercy as to the volume of rain pouring down. What else could we do? We stayed put on the boat. There seemed no other choice. Since we are at least tied to the dock, I figured we were in better shape than the numerous motorhomes on the property.

The initial warning message said tornadoes possible until 5:15, but then every 15 minutes we got an update that extended the time of the alert. The final alert showed 6:15 as the end of the advisory. It seemed like every time I managed to dose off, I heard “boink” “boink” “boink”, which is as close an approximation as I can get to the update sound coming from the Weather Network application on Clark’s phone.

Eventually we slept, but when morning rolled around and it was time to get going for the day, we were both very tired. With an 11:00 a.m. check out time, we had a few things to do to get ready to move the boat.  We walked up to the clubhouse to check out and request that the pump-out equipment be made available to us, so we could empty our holding tank before departing this marina. We managed to get up there and back during a break in the rain, but the weather was not through tormenting us.

Last night Clark and I fed a line for the cable connection under the floating dock so that we could watch some television. We had to run the line under the dock because the management at the marina fears lawsuits from tripping hazards. No cable connection existed on our power podium, but there was one on the podium supplying services to the nearest RV parking spot. Clark ran our wire up over the embankment and plugged into that box. This morning we had to disconnect the arrangement.

Of course just as we set to work to disconnect our cable and electrical power, it started to rain -- sprinkles at first and then heavier. Fortunately, at the first signs of rain, I ran and put on my raingear including my rain pants and jacket.  Even as the steady rain came down I kept dry.

My raincoat Clark gave me for Christmas
came in very handy today.

 Check out was at 11:00. We requested the pump-out equipment for 11:00. It was now 11:00 and time to leave our dock. No sooner did we cast off the last line than the heavens opened up and it absolutely poured down. To add to our fun lightning and thunder joined into the act.

We only had to move the boat a few hundred feet down to a different slip to reach the pump-out connection. As we made our way over there, I stood on the bow of our boat ready to tie up the boat in the midst of the storm. Right at that moment an airboat passed by us. I felt very sorry for the two passengers that I saw on the airboat. They were returning to port from their tour, and I wondered if it was cut short by the storm.

The passengers appeared to be a husband and wife. The wife had on no headgear – just the sound-reducing headphones; she was sitting up looking around as if it was not even raining. The husband had on a rain poncho and was doubled over on himself trying to stay dry. I could just imagine him saying, “What am I doing out here???” or “Why did I let her talk me into this?”

After we got two lines on the boat, Clark told me to get under cover from the rain as well as the lightning. Eventually the rain slowed down enough to make it semi-reasonable to be working outside. It rained steadily throughout the pump out exercise, but we got the job done.

The trip to the Rod and Gun Club marina was very short – less than a nautical mile. We managed to get our basic lines in place when the rains came down with a vengeance one more. Since we had registered the day before, we were in no hurry to run into the building to check in, so we sat inside the boat to wait it out. Boy did it rain!

Watching from the boat as the rain poured down

 With the rainy weather and the lack of sleep last night, we had a lazy afternoon. I finished my mystery that I was reading, and Clark read a magazine. He disappeared into our state room (bedroom) for a long time. I just thought he was reading in there, but at some point I looked in and saw him fast asleep on the bed. Cheater! I laid down on the couch then and dozed a bit myself.

By late afternoon, I was ready to take a trip up to the building to use the facilities. I stepped outside, looked over the side of the boat, and gulped. No way was I getting over to the land. The tide had risen significantly since we tied up, and the bulkhead was way down there and way over there. I came inside to put on sneakers to assist with getting off the boat. (I had on sandals which are definitely not cut out for climbing.) I also changed into long pants since the temperature had dropped during the course of the afternoon, and the boat was very wet. If I had to climb over the side, I wanted clothes covering me as I did it.

I mentioned to Clark that I could not get off the boat, so he got up to come survey the situation. He said, “I don’t see where the problem is.” Egads! He climbed off like the gazelle he is and put down a step for me to climb onto. It was not much of a help, but it was something to aim for. As I started to climb off the boat, Clark decided to help more by pulling the boat closer to shore. Unfortunately for me, I was holding onto the boat rail to support myself during disembarking. When he pulled the boat closer to shore, my thumb was smashed in between the boat rail and the piling that sat just there.

It hurt so much that all I could do was yell, “Ow, Ow, Ow”. I heard him say, “What?” I guess he finally figured out my problem because he either let go of the boat or pushed the boat away, I do not know which, but I could get my thumb out. Fortunately it was not broken just hurt like hell. I am so tired of being injured. I just started to sob but pulled myself together enough to go use the restroom. I was in and out in record time. All I could think about was getting ice on my hand.

I had worried about getting back on the boat with the height and distance issue, but when I got back, somehow I scrambled on board. I grabbed the ice and sat on the sofa feeling forlorn and sorry for myself. As I sat there, eventually I began to wonder what was taking Clark so long to come back to the boat. As it turned out, he was waiting for me inside the building wondering why I was taking so long in the restroom.

I refused to get off the boat to go look for him, so I went to stand in the cockpit figuring he might look out at the boat at some point and see me there. As soon as I stepped outside, a woman came over and asked if I was from Rumson. I said, “Yes”. She said that she had lived there herself at some point and her sister lives there currently. I did not know her sister, so she said her farewells and walked away. When Clark heard talking, he poked his head out the door of the building and saw me on board, so he joined me there.

I refused to put down my ice pack, so my left hand was incapacitated. Using my right hand only, I gave a modicum of support to Clark as he adjusted the lines to move the boat back so that the railing and the piling would not get me again. As we sat on the sofa a little while later, I told him he would need to make dinner.

Funny how he translated that statement. He said, “They serve dinner here, but I was planning to eat lunch here one day – not dinner.” My response, “I don’t want to eat in a restaurant. I want you to cook.” Given the look on his face, I might as well have asked him to fly to the moon. He said I would have to walk / talk him through it.

The menu I selected was chili dogs with left over vegetables. Even the chili was leftover, so all he had to do was cook the hotdogs. I don’t know how it could get any simpler than that. Even so I had to give step-by-step instructions from what food to pull out to what pans to use and where to find them.  I also decided that since I had planned to make him his applesauce cake for dessert, he should cook that too.

All said and done, he did well. The only problem was that he wandered off every few minutes to do some unrelated task. Put up the boat curtains. Zip up the full enclosure. … I had to keep calling him back to the task at hand. I said, “If I cooked like you do, we wouldn’t eat dinner until midnight every night. Stay focused.”

As we were talking today, we agreed that tonight’s marina has some pros and cons. We decided that the pros are that it is much quieter than the other location in Everglades City – no airboats flying by all day long. We also like the much shorter walk to the building to use the head. Of course the down side of this location is the hurdle of getting to the shore to get to the building to use the head. Also a con, we have no television here whatsoever – neither cable nor over-the-air signal.

As far as my left hand is concerned, the base of my thumb is tender and redder than my other thumb. I don’t see any significant swelling on that hand. Although it feels a little stiff, I can bend my thumb without serious pain, so nothing is broken. The injury mostly got me out of cooking and washing the dishes, so there’s a plus! I had thought I might do some knitting since there is no television, but that plan went out the window when my hand got squashed. Ah well, I guess I’ll get to read another book instead.