July 3, 2014 Hurricane Arthur

Well, this post is kind of anti climatic, but in a good way.  We made it through our first hurricane.  We subscribe to a weather service.  So we get weather updates usually once a day.  But Chris Parker steps it up during rough weather.  We were getting notices 2-3 times a day this week.  He gives us his predictions, then compares it to NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) and a couple other sources.  The TV stations get their info form these guys.  So we don't feel bad not having a TV to watch the weather.

Dave got up during the night to check the weather and how the boat was tied up.  He said there was an eerie feeling in the air, like before a tornado.  We thought we would wake up with high winds in the morning, but it was like any other morning.  We could see stormy clouds off the coast.  We even sat outside for awhile and watched the weather and other boats.  The cargo ships were still moving.

We watched a sailboat out playing in the strong winds.  Dave was missing his buddies from back home that would normally go play with him when the wind would come up.

About 5:00, it was beautiful and calm.  We were really lucky that it stayed off shore.  I guess that is why we stayed here.  We didn't notice if there was any surge involved with this.  It was predicted that Charleston would get 3 feet.

Well, about 8:00, the dock decided we needed a hurricane survival party.  We had 8 people in our cockpit until way past our bedtime.  It was fun getting to know the neighbors, where they are from and where they are going.

We were grateful for all the well wishes we had from people that were in land locked states.

we expected rougher seas

Dave would have liked to play in the wind

2:00 radar-strange to see the eye of the storm so close to us

4:00 radar-decided we were in the clear

what we could see of the sunset that night-calm waters