My first Nor'easter

Thanks to a photographer for the Martha's Vineyard Times, I do have one picture of this event. Click here and scroll to the bottom of the page. The last photo on the page, the couple in yellow and red walking into the storm, is me and Rick. Around 3:30 pm, our curiosity and concern overtook us. We donned full foul weather gear and waited by the side of the road for the bus to come. Before it did, a kind couple took pity on us and gave us a ride to town. Walking down the hill at Owen Park, we could pick out High Country from the forest of masts because she's the only one with a radar reflector on the triatic stay. "Phew, at least she's still on her mooring," I thought. Boats were jumping around quite a bit and waves were already crashing over the breakwater. It wasn't even high tide yet. Down at the dock, while I took cover behind the lifeguard tower, Rick made his way to the end of the dock without being blown over. High Country was too far out to see much and we certainly didn't want to launch the dinghy, which we'd drug ashore the day before. We just hoped that our full day's preparation was enough. We had spent the previous day taking down sails, halyards, and booms, attaching two 1" lines to the mooring plus a length of chain, all of which had hose on for chafing and were made off on the sampson posts and then backed up around the main mast. Folks would dinghy past, eye up our preparations, and make comments that led us to think maybe we were overdoing it. But that's our style, a play well-rehearsed from many hurricane preps in the Caribbean. This time was similar, albeit much colder and no swimming down to the bottom to set anchors and run anchor rodes amongst the spider web we used to weave in Borck Creek, St. John.

Feeling reasonably assured that High Country would successfully ride out the storm, we bought our groceries and took the bus home. I prepared a chef salad with the remaining daylight, since by then the power had gone out. I love occasions like this when your normal activities (computer stuff, reading, anything involving electricity) are halted. You get to eat by candlelight and lie in bed in the darkness, drink rum, listen to Prairie Home Companion on the battery-powered radio, and slowly drift off to a blissful sleep......