Shaken, not stirred

So far, in our short time living aboard, we've had two nights on the boat when the weather was rough enough to pay attention.   One was as couple nights ago, where the winds were in the mid 20s mph.

Since I'm a novice, I don't know what counts as severe, but here's my sense so far.

Just before Halloween this year, we had a pretty major wind and rain storm come through.  Across the state there were 30-50 sustained mph winds, several 40-70 mph wind gusts, which is in hurricane territory. Plus there were several inches of rain. 

The marina issued instructions on how to protect your boat: lay out extra dock lines, put out more fenders (big inflatable vinyl cylinders hanging from the sides of the boat to prevent collisions) , get rid of loose items on the deck, and take down any "windage": big things that might act like a sail and pull the boat like canvas / plastic biminis or deck covers.  They also added their own lines to all the boats, and tied them and the docks together across the marina fairways.

On that night, 300,000 people in Massachusetts lost power, and there was lots of flooding.  We were very lucky and didn't have any lasting impacts.  But it sure was a rough night. The boat was swaying hard in all directions, as fast as it could pull against the lines.  The boat was creaking quite ferociously, and when it wasn't the wind was whipping by with a nasty whine.

I spent most of the night moving all over the boat looking for damage.  Being so new (and still so) , I had no idea how much was too much for the boat, so I thought every creak and wail was Betty falling to pieces.  I had our life jackets and possessions ready to go if needed. 

Because the wind was blowing so hard, and rain was pouring so fast, I found four places in the boat where water was being pushed in a little, three of them in the aft cabin.  It's on my list to find the path of those leaks.

I didn't sleep a moment the whole night.

But Alice did. 

Alice slept the sleep of the just, totally undisturbed or worried.  She was happily purring through the night in her blankets. 

It was then I realized that Alice is a natural mariner.  She was born with sea legs.

The picture here is of the dock outside our boat being repaired.  The storm broke part of it in half.