"Here Comes the Story of the Hurricane"

The One the Authorities Gave An Unpronounceable Name......*

Isaias.  That's the best they could come up with?  Not Irene, or Imogene, or Idaho, or Ignatius, or Isabell, or Ivy, or even just plain Isaiah?  No, it was Isaias.  (Which is, I am told, Portuguese for Isaiah).  Diversity run amuck, IMHO.  But that is a story for another day.

Isaias came to call on August 3rd.  We watched the various weather prognosticators and tried to devise the appropriate course of action.  We spent quite a bit of time securing the boat with doubled lines and fenders, securing lose gear, and helping our neighbors do the same.  And debating endlessly whether to leave our canvas up to try to protect the bridge and cockpit (at the risk of getting it shredded) or to take it down and just let the wind blow right thru (guaranteeing a good soaking. ) 

But Isaias was a fickle fellow who vacillated between a tropical storm well offshore and a Category One hurricane plowing right thru North Carolina and Virginia.  So once minute we were committed to staying aboard Irish Lass and the next we were headed for stout construction on high ground.  But once we saw the storm hit NC as a full-fledged hurricane with a projected path right over the top of our York River marina, we bailed to the nearest Best Western.

We passed the night in a mediocre hotel room with a hyper-active AC unit (Maggie was thrilled to have her own bed), dining on take-out Mexican food and worrying about the boat.  We were awakened at 4:00 AM by a tornado warning and the sound of falling tree limbs in the parking lot.   Once the power failed at the hotel, there was little incentive to stick around, so we loaded up the rental car and headed back to the marina on August 4th. 

We found Irish Lass suffering from nothing more than a case of soaked cockpit carpets (we had left the canvas rolled up).  WHEW!  The storm had picked up speed once onshore, so it did not linger long on any one place.  WHEW! Our neighbors who stuck it our reported that things rocked and rolled a bit.  But the on-shore path of the storm negated any significant storm surge.  WHEW! The only lasting impact is that the marina was without power for almost 48 hours. so, now we know our generator will run for long periods of time.  WHEW! 

And that, friends and neighbors, was the story of the hurricane..... (WHEW......yawn.......)

(* With apologies to Rueben Carter and Bob Dylan)