2022: Hurricane Nicole Jacksonville FL

 8 - 11 November 2022

When we arrived at Lamb's Yacht Center, they assigned us a side tie in the fairway leading up to their fuel dock. This was fine with one negative exception that the bird feces on the roof next to our dockage blew off the roof with every gust of wind and landed on our deck. When I went out to look around the marina in the morning after our first night here, the starboard side of the boat was covered end to end in, thankfully, dry bird poop. I pulled out a broom and swept it clean. As I walked away, I could hear the sound of more falling to the deck I had just swept. I could see that I had a job for life if I so desired. 

Some folks we know from past encounters are also here at this marina. The folks on "Gypsies Palace" came over and invited us to go with them and some other boaters to a nearby Mexican restaurant for Taco Tuesday. We figured it might be our last opportunity to get out before the storm arrived. Six of us went to the restaurant just a short walk down the street. It was a fun outing, and we got to make new friends.

The next day, because Hurricane Nicole was predicted to be coming our way, the dockmaster decided to move us to a covered slip. We can lower our mast and did not expect to be in danger of hitting the ceiling of the slip with the mast lowered. Other, taller, boats were moved out of covered slips to allow them room to rise with the tide. I did one last sweep of bird doo, and we moved to the new spot for the duration of the storm.

We used fenders and fender boards when we had the side-tie assignment. After we got into the covered slip, we used lines tied to both sides and all corners of our boat to keep the boat from hitting either side of the slip. With so many lines, we did not bother putting out fenders or boards. I thought I might have difficulty getting on / off the vessel, but that turned out to never be an issue. 

After we had ourselves tied with extra, doubled-up lines and chafe guards on lines, we went for a walk around the marina to check things out. We were told that fire boats would be coming into the marina as the storm got closer, and sure enough, we saw them docking.

Other than the excitement of boat shifting in the marina, everything appeared pretty normal. We noticed some work boats in the marina. They are busy adding slips and making improvements to the facility.

Noticed this barge must have been here a while.
It is growing weeds in place on the barge itself.

We saw this crane on the barge. Clark remarked that it would make a lot of damage if it blew over in a hurricane!

As we lay in bed last night and this morning, we could hear the wind and feel the boat pulling on the lines. We were anxious to find out the storm status. We checked the radar and turned on the local news. The weather progress reports continued non-stop throughout the day. 

The storm came in just north of West Palm Beach. Friends of ours in Vero Beach spent a full day of hard work putting shutters up to protect their windows. A boating friend side tied to a dock in Daytona Beach worried about a direct hit. Folks on the west coast of Florida dreaded this storm covering territory already decimated by Hurricane Ian just over a month ago. 

Towns in the local area, such as on the St. John's River, still had high-water conditions from Ian and could not take any more water. The weatherman said that the wind would act as a cork in the end of the St. John's River and not allow water to flow out at low tide. The next high tide would simply add to the first. A storm surge of up to 5 feet above astronomical high tide was anticipated.

When we stepped outside, Clark immediately said he could smell something burning. He took off to investigate and came back with a report of a sailboat on fire on the other side of the bridge.

Normal view of bridge from LYC

The view from our side of the bridge was obscured by the smoke. We saw a video taken from the other side of the bridge posted later.

At the time the fire alarm was given, the fire boat had been hauled out of the water at Lamb's Yacht Center. Before the fire boat could go fight the fire, someone from the marina had to come and put the boat back in the water!

Fire boat rushing to the scene

At first we noticed a faint smell of burning plastic. As the fire progressed the smell was overpowering. When Clark came back from taking his pictures, he said even his hands smelled of smoke, and he was no where near the fire itself.

Video of black smoke before fire boat arrived ...

Video showing black smoke changing to white as fire boat does its job ...

Fire boat back at dock after the excitement is over

Meanwhile, these kids are oblivious to the fact there is a hurricane warning or a boat fire in progress.

Other than the boat wiggling a bit in the wind - yanking on lines this way and that, we had no issues during the storm itself. Various sections of the marina flooded. High water cut off access to one of the docks, so anyone on a boat on that dock either had to stay on their boat or wade through water to get to their boat. 

Over and over on the news reports, people were advised not to go out and not to walk in the water since there would be no telling what might be in it. As we watched the news, we saw the cameras focused on one guy who was with his golf cart that was 1/3 submerged in the water. He tried driving it and then pushing it to no avail. Eventually he walked over and talked to the woman reporting the weather. 

He said he had come out for cigarettes and toilet paper. Clark wondered why he even thought a store would be open given the street was a river. The man said he was from Miami and was familiar with hurricanes. The reporter said they wondered why with several days' notice he had to wait to mid-storm to go looking for supplies.

At high tide we noticed some flooding in the marina. Clark and I walked around and took pictures.

Area under construction - water rising

Water level up

  

Walkway out to one of the docks here

As we waited for the storm to hit, we walked the docks checking out the boats - many with their masts lowered in the covered slips like us. I noticed "Chasing 80" across the way on the next dock over, so after checking out the dock we were on, we walked over to that dock. As we walked out to see them, I told Clark we could not stay too long as I did not want to be wading as we left the dock.

Later it's underwater

On our tour of the marina, we walked over to checkout the new dock next to Cedar Point. The walkway to Cedar Point was under water.

Normally we walk through here - 
note the picnic table.

I told Clark we could swing with our toes in the water.
He did not take me up on the suggestion.

The area below is where the boats are hauled and work is done. 

The area shown below was recently raised to prevent flooding under normal high tide conditions. It still flooded with Hurricane Nicole.

Other than looking at some extra water on the grounds of the marina, Hurricane Nicole turned into a non-event for us specifically. Even as late as Friday we noticed the water levels higher than usual, but we put our mast back up and took off the extra lines. As we picked up one set of lines to put away, Clark got a bit of a surprise.

Clark found a crab under our bow line.

The crab appeared to watch Clark and at some point he made a break for it and scurried away.

I find it frustrating to be in limbo. Earlier in the day we tried to call Enterprise to confirm our car rental for today. Since we decided to schedule pickup for Veteran's Day, Clark wanted confirmation that the place was open and could give us a car. After 30 minutes plus on hold waiting for an agent, I told Clark we should just use the courtesy car we had reserved from the marina, drive over, and either find them open and pickup a car, or find them closed and modify our pickup date. I refused to sit on hold the entire day with everything up in the air. 

Finally, I convinced Clark to drive to Enterprise. Surprise! We found them open and extremely busy. We got our car and returned to the marina. 

We thought that we would be moving our boat today - out of the covered slip used by another, taller boat as their usual slip. As of 5:00 the dockmaster had not returned Clark's call to get a new slip assignment. Once again we were in limbo as to what we should do. Finally Clark found a boat owner at the marina who had an alternate contact number for the dockmaster, and Clark got to talk to him. The answer - we are moving back to the side tie where we can look forward to shoveling bird doo off our walkway as it falls from the roof nearby.

The boat will stay put for a few days as we take care of business in New Jersey before continuing our travels towards the Florida Keys.