January 14-15, 2016 Gale and tornado warnings WPB

Still in a holding pattern.  Did lots of cooking, napping, reading, etc.  I googled where Jimmy Buffett  lives and found his home on a map and on Google Earth.  It is about 1/2 way between where we were just anchored and where we are now.  But it’s not on the shore, so we couldn’t dinghy over to say hello.

On Friday we had some excitement.  About 1:30, Gloria called to see if we were listening to the local weather.  We weren’t.  She said a straight line squall with winds 60-70 mph were expected to hit our area at 2:00.  As soon as I hung up with her, our phones sent us a weather alert with a tornado watch for our area.  We let out more chain for our anchor, took in our hatch scoop that brings air in but keeps out the rain, and tucked up any cushions we had in the cockpit.  Dave had already tied up our dinghy on the davits last night.  Dave started the engine to be ready in case we had to move our boat.  There were other boats in the area.  And one by us was moving and resetting his anchor.  You never know if another boat will come loose and head towards you.  By 2:00, we could see a black wall of clouds moving our way.  And then we were hit by heavy rain.  I went below and got a couple dry bags.  I packed our laptop, my purse, and Dave’s wallet in one.  In another I packed our bathroom shaving kit/toiletries and a change of clothes for me.  When you look around, you figure everything is replaceable. 

We did rock and roll, but it wasn’t bad.  Dave said our wind indicator didn’t show anything over 30mph.  He said one advantage of the wind was not having to feel the wake of the big boats that go by.  We were glad we were at the boat to prepare it for the worst.  The first time we were on board with a tornado watch, I wondered whether we should go to shore to a shelter.  But we just decided that “if it was your time…….”.