Bullseye – November 10, 2022, Vero Beach, Florida, USA

And just like that, we have been through two hurricanes in the last month.  Hurricane Nicole is the first hurricane to make landfall in November in over 40 years and only one of three in the last 100 years.  The odds were in our favor when we launched the boat to catch a crossing window and we expected to be in the Bahamas by now.  Clearly, we are not.  It started out likely to be a tropical storm so we prepper the boat for the high winds by adding more mooring lines, removing as much windage as we could (removing the dodger are made for starters), and lashing down the main sail.  We made a quick run to the grocery store since it was the last time we would be able to go for a while and we came across this on our dinghy ride.  It was inoperable but interesting none the less.

As the storm got closer, it was clear we were in for worse conditions than originally thought and Sailing Hubby decided it was time to get off the boat since there was nothing more we could do and the conditions on the boat would be very unpleasant at best.  We headed to the local Holiday Inn on Tuesday to wait out the hurricane.

We walked to the boat, pouring rain or not, twice a day. Good way to get our walk in since the marina was only about a mile and a half away. The finger docks were flooded, coastal flooding had started, but as of today, our boat & dinghy survived the worst, which was 75 mph winds with gusts closer to 85. The last time we experienced this type of wind was our first real squall in Royal Island, Bahamas and it was rather terrifying! I am glad we are on land.

The coast was hit pretty hard, and I am grateful we were in the intercoastal and dodged this bullet. Ironically it isn’t our first hurricane together and one of our friends who is weathering the storm in the Bahamas said “Gee, you guys are in great spirits since you almost lost everything.” I hadn’t thought of it quite that way til he said it and our perspective was we really didn’t want to lose the boat, but we had each other, insurance, and our passports. All is well.