So What Does a Sailor Dad Want for Father’s Day?

Never mind, I already got it. Meghan graduated from Western Washington University this weekend. She’s smiling and Dad is way proud.
Paul

Andrea Blows Through

Here’s the MeteoMan electronic barometer over the last 40 hours. You can see the pressure dip when Andrea passed offshore of us. Not much wind, max 28kts, but lots of water. The Gorilla Tape on the open ports was about 80% effective.
After dark a large tug boat came in behind us to tie up for the storm.
Chris leaves today for 3 to 6 weeks working in Zambia. They haven’t settled on the scope work yet. I’m setting up to haul the boat this week. Just waiting on the delivery of a new rudder bearing before I schedule the haul out.
Paul

Tropical Storm Andrea

The remnants of Tropical Storm Barbara in the Pacific apparently crossed Mexico at Tehuantepec, regrouped in the Gulf of Mexico, and transformed into an Atlantic tropical storm named Andrea. It would have been better to rename the storm Andrew after this transsexual transformation. So that leaves us with an early season storm to deal with – as opposed to Sandy that was a late season storm last year. This time we are at anchor in Deltaville Virginia.
It is pretty wet here. The tides are much higher than normal. You see the water almost at the top of this fixed dock that we are anchored off of. The wind so far has stayed under 30kts. Not sure what it will get to as the marine weather forecast seems to be very different from the National Hurricane Center forecast. So far the marine forecast has been way off in wind direction and wind speed.
Mid morning I went to the bow to let more chain out on our anchor and to extend the snubbers. I let out another 15 or 20 feet. The water depth is only 10 feet here. As I was checking the snubber lines in the drenching rain I looked up to see this green hull sloop dragging her anchor, coming right down on us. I grabbed the air horn and gently aroused the boat’s owner. Chris and I held some fenders as she bounced off Georgia’s hull and came to rest behind us. Her anchor grabbed somewhere about our midships and she looks pretty secure behind us now, if not a little wet and shy.
The big boat project underway now is the port removal and rebedding. Currently six of the ports are out, leaving some large holes in the boat. Given the deluge going on now, it is pretty hard to keep water out of the taped up holes. Not so good.
During the sanding and grinding I did my very best Dexter imitation. It really isn’t a kill room, just a dust laboratory.
Paul