Itsa gonna be an interesting sailing season in the Keys this year

Spent this evening reading all the updated news about Key West, particularly the sea state and clean up.

The warning is still out.....watch out for pilings, telephone poles, boats, houses, Flostsam/Jetsom, you name it.

Of course, my first thought was....

Oh, come on....its funny! (c) Disney

But, in all seriousness, yes. There's alot of stuff floating around out there and not to mention the verrrryyy skiiiinnnny boooottttom of the Keys has most likely been rearranged a bit. Okay. A lot.

Irma moved around SHIPWRECKS.  The Vandenberg MOVED (in 100+ feet of water, mind you). The radar dishes on board were damaged or destroyed.  That's really freaky.

When we went down to check on our baby, the normally beautiful turquoise/sapphire waters around Key West were murky and gray. Reports are still very silty and only 10 feet visibility.

I didn't get a picture, but we had some very abnormal looking things floating around our boat, we think it was soft corals and mangrove root structures, but they were creepy and looked like they were pulsing. 

We just got reports back from our rigging inspection (yes, Cat 4, rigging inspection-mandatory for us), all is well, new windex and one halyard. Probably mentioned that. However, load of our mind and the mast as well. Okay, bad joke.

We'll need to double check the onboard depth meter. Since our hand held depth meter shot craps, we'll have to do old fashioned soundings.  Our neighbor will loan us a lead weight. I'm just that much of a nerd, that I'm looking forward to this.

Tim's blessed thrusters shot craps, but the keel is going up and down. So, need to figure out if its just a battery issue or if the controllers freaked out again.

Ready to get back to my island away from home, give our baby some love, and give my islands some love.  Six more days.

The critters

One last thought about Irma.

The animals.

They don't know the full extent of the effects of the Key West Deer, but they know there's enough to propagate.

Sea turtles/manatees/dolphin--several heroic rescue stories concerning them.

Key West was remarkably devoid of it's normal chicken racket.  Roosters silent.  We found a bunch of chickens up in a tree. A week later. They still weren't ready to come down. A couple of roosters that were on the ground were like begging little puppies, got any food?

Walking around the marina I saw Iggy and Kermit, my two iguana buddies. Was so happy to see them. They were also still staggering around like a bacherlorette party on Duval street. I think they were thinking: now, I know my tree used to have leaves. What is up with that?

What broke my heart though was watching the Ospreys on the way down.  None of the nesting towers were around that I could see.  The nests were definitely gone.  So, they are just flying around in circles confused.  I watched one from our marina, and you could just hear it call out over and over.

Hurricanes suck.

What we did right/wrong/not at all or wouldn't have mattered anyway...

Okay.  What should we have done better? Mind you, no two hurricane prep scenarios are going to be the same.

Tim says: MOVE THE BOAT.

Oh, but what would be the fun in that. And sea state goes to shit long before the hurricane gets close, so unless I'm moving it in...say....June?  I'm not moving it 5 days before a hurricane hits. Hurricanes travel at least twice as fast as a sailboat.

PUT ON THE HARD.  Yeah, no, maybe?  Probably wouldn't be the best in the Keys. However, we had put our previous boat on the hard in Marathon. Checked in on that marina, because we had seriously considered doing it this time around, I discovered that wound up better off in our slip.  Marathon was on the ugly side of the storm and many boats in the boat yard were off their stands. Docks were not damaged, but destroyed.

There's one boat yard in Key West. You couldn't PAY ME to put our boat in it.  It's part live on your boat on the hard (full time), part working marina, part junk yard.  No way that crap is going be stowed away properly. Not only that, absolutely exposed.

COULD HAVE DONE BETTER.
Chafe guard. We did miraculously well, but since we wound up with loose lines, chafe wasn't an issue that much. In a post-Irma giddiness moment, Tim found the chafe guard he had left on the deck, still on the deck. WTF? 120 mph winds and that shit never left the deck.  Reminds me of tornadoes.


Take main sail down.  We got lucky. Even if our clew didn't fail, we risked  damage.

Make a diagram of all of the sea cocks to make sure we have them all closed.  We left the boat not sure that our galley sink was properly closed.

Boat documentation should have come with us.  Eventually we'll scan it all...soon.

DID WELL
On our flight down we drew a diagram using my iPad with the projected wind direction(s) our slip/piling/dock arrangement.  I think that really helped, really gave us a visual of what we were dealing with.

Divide and conquer.  We also planned out who was going to work on what. As a result, we had two people in motion always. When you have to run to your boat and then evacuate situation, it is a valuable thing to have that plan. It wasn't just a blue/pink situation, but what worked best for who's abilities. Tim also had to pick up supplies so dropping me off while he did that allowed me to get a lot done in that period of time.

Also, common sense things.  We are a very multi-leveled boat, but I got all area rugs, equipment, shoes and whatever else off of the floor.  Any of that can absorb water if there's ingress and absorbed water adds weight. Weight adds strain to lines.

Patience.  Mostly on my part.  I married somebody who LOVES to analyze. I'm a shit or get off the pot kinda gal.  I realized he needed to do what he needed to do, so I think I only yapped at him once.

Kindness. I don't think I gave Tim credit for sending me down below to get water and cool down. Because it wasn't just hot before the storm, it was 1000% humidity/barometer dropping/heat index of the sun/no wind hot.  I overheat, been hospitalized twice with heat stroke, my body has never been the same. So, to Tim, thanks my love.

DIDN'T MATTER ANYWAY
Category 4 storm. Eye wall 15 miles away. Enough said. Initial winds NE shifting to west. 120 mph gust clocked in Key West. (which promptly removed all meteorological equipment on the island)

Piling failure.  Many pilings at many marinas failed. I shouldn't get irritated, but when you suspect something and it happens? Also, our neighbor on the other side had bugged out (smart guy) so we didn't have that counter balance on our port pilings. I think if we had that, we would have kept off of the dock finger.  We knew they gave, so having a counter weight would have helped. Sooo, I'm blaming Capt. Robin. ;-)

What also alarmed us is that one of the marina staff said they and gone around and straightened pilings out. WHAT? WHATWHATWHAT? If they's gots bended over, they's nots working. Don't straighten them, mark them for replacement.  So we'll be checking our other pilings and if they still have a lot of give, we'll be talking to the marina. They'll probably want to charge us for our toe rail carving their piling up.

Mother Nature is unpredictable.  We planned for a storm surge we didn't get.  Good thing and bad. We should have had our base lines a bit shorter than we did. But, then again, piling failure-all bets off.

Did we get lucky. OH HELL YES WE GOT LUCKY.  We don't doubt that for a moment.

What do we do this point forward? We'll have to discuss. Key West is not that pleasant in the summer, so getting the boat up north and put to bed would probably be best, but best laid plans balanced against work/family/life--not always the easiest to pull off.

We'll see. Hat tip to Bob Bitchin: Our ordeal was an adventure--because we made it that way.  

Post mortem and observations....

We had a purpose to walking around and looking at boats besides morbid curiosity. It was to see what worked and what didn't, because we can all do better next time.

So, here goes with what we experienced, what we observed, and what happened.  I may have opinions, but I DO NOT HAVE JUDGEMENTS on what people did or did not do, I wasn't in their shoes, I don't know what their particular situation was/is. Of course, we're boaters--everybody has an opinion. It is easy to armchair quarterback, and I'm not intending to do that, but sharing information helps everybody...c'est ne pas?

GET OFF MOORINGS.  I realize there is a million reasons that you think your boat will be safer on a mooring than not, and I totally understand. But the fact is for the Keys, mooring fields took a major hit. Boot Key Harbor, Boca Chica, and Key West anchorage/mooring field by Christmas Tree/Tank Island were smacked hard.  The mooring may be strong, but the boat won't be, or the line won't be or another boat crashes into you because they didn't prepare.  Reportedly boats have been found as far north as Melbourne from Key West. Boats wound up on resort property in Key West, you really don't want that headache. Get off the mooring.

Next biggie.  Headsails.  Take them off. Don't be this guy:

Every boat we saw, except one, that didn't remove their headsail. The sail was destroyed.  Take it down. Save your sail and your sheets.  Wrap the halyard around the jib stay. If you had to file a hurricane plan with your insurer and you say you are taking down your head sail and you didn't. You probably won't get paid.

Main Sail-Furling/Stack Pack:  Okay. Mixed bag on this one. We decided to not remove our furling head sail because we could get her rolled into the mast pretty darn tight, with little windage and we have an incredibly strong and well-built clew hardware.  I added snubbers to the main sheet and outhaul to help offset the load of the winds. That may have helped?  No damage to our sail or mainsheet hardware.

However, we did see somebody that left their furling main and the clew hardware failed and the entire clew of the sail was destroyed, not to mention what a pain it will be to unfurl and drop it now.  After seeing that, our headsail will most likely come down next time.

Stack packs. Be like THIS guy. If you aren't removing it. You better strap that sucker down. Halyard removed and wrapped around mast. Tie downs every 4-6 inches. SUCCESS.  FYI--this boat was pretty exposed in relation to Irma.

I won't name names in order to protect the guilty, but somebody we know didn't secure their stack pack/remove the halyard and in fact left some of the sail up.  Result? They lost their mast. Their mast landed on the neighbors fishing boat.  That's going to be an awkward conversation at the next neighborhood cookout.  Lazy doesn't pay folks--it will just piss people off.

Dinghies:  Ours went into the shed. Well, it was already in the shed, but would have wound up their irregardless.  Not an option for everybody, I realize. So what to do?  Big risk of trying to strap it to your foredeck. I wouldn't want to risk my deck hardware.  If you are near a marina, you can most likely have them store it for you. Other than that. Get it off the davits and into the water, tied off well, and tied off for storm surge.  Our neighbor (charter boat) dropped theirs, added water to it for weight, but left it tied to the davits.  Result: Boat flat and davits destroyed. Or, if not destroyed, really, really screwed up.

Tying off: This is where we got personally bit in the ass somewhat. The forecast was for possibly 10 feet storm surge. Remember that we had to plan with the information we had at the time and get out, no do-overs.  As a result, we might have been a bit loose because storm surge only wound up being 3-4 feet.  We also had a piling fail and two pilings that were loose. Failed piling + loose lines = Bouncing around in the slip.  However, great success in keeping off the sea wall. 

When we left we had noticed our neighbor had their boat tied off with a VERY VERY short breast line.  That line failed, along with another.  So, the moral of the story is: what's the happy medium?
We noticed variations on this theme with all of our boat inspections.

Side note: One of the many things we got lucky on. We nose into our slip and our neighbor backs in. (lots of fun to watch considering its a bareboat charter, but I digress)  Because of that our masts were offset.  We had boat neighbors lose spreaders because the masts locked up.

Random other things: Toe rail cap rails (usually a stainless steel strip on the toe rail), a lot of those got pried loose when dancing with a piling.  Once they were pried loose fiberglass/gel coat/ports started getting damaged.  Tim had considered at one point putting a SS cap rail on our teak toe rail.  Umm-no.  Teak won out over piling.

Cleats on pilings. Some pilings have nails/cleats/whatnot on them. These also wound up doing some damage. A big motor yacht in our marina lost a port over that.  Not to mention getting the gelcoat chewed up.

As I get more information from folks on what failed on their boat, I'll probably add another 'just so you know' post.

Until then...stay safe.

Looky-loos

Now that Elysium's been checked out, its time to wander around and see the state of things.

Yes.  Disaster tourism at its finest.

We see people working on the power in the marina, which gets Timmy all excited because power to the boat means a/c.  It was not to be that evening--adding to the crankiness of overheated husband.
To his defense, they did say they were going to get all the pedestals tested and fixed by the end of the day...and then we watch the truck roll out at 4:30pm.

Marina was in pretty good shape overall, lots of pilings down and lots of trees damaged.

We went to check out the other Stock Island marinas, but they all had security personnel so we couldn't check on boats that we knew the owners of.

So, off to visit the ghost town that is Old Town Key West.  I could get used to that, I tell you. For once Duval Street didn't smell like old booze, vomit and sadness.

BUT IT WAS TOO QUIET. Creepy.

Went full circle and wound up at Schooner Wharf bar.  Locals there giving hugs and greeting returning friends.  Found out one of the bartenders lost his boat, but considering that's his one and only house...he was pretty upbeat about it.  Soon war stories of evacuees and war stories of those who stayed were shared. 

Everything old school, cash only and counting change by hand.  Gotta love it.  After several more beverages, we all decided that Elysium's tramp stamp should stay. (It isn't)

Off to Mallory Square for sunset.  All. To. Ourselves.  The local homeless contributed their version of the celebration by raucously singing and drumming off key. Yes, you can drum off key, they had it perfected. Not off beat...off key.

Never made it down to Southernmost point to pay our respects, but she's getting patched up nicely I hear.

The building where our storage unit is at.
Things were a little dirty inside.

Hard to tell in picture, but this hunk of concrete is about 1 1/2 in thick.
NO IDEA where it came from.  But not on my boat, so good.

Our normally shady treelined beach...not so much anymore.

Boats between our marina and the NAS. Not supposed to be there.
Moored boats didn't fair well.

Oooooof.

Nope. Not supposed to be like that.

ATONs are a little worse for the wear also.  No night sailing for us for awhile.

Boaters worst nightmare.  Think you got everything well in hand.
This was in the Historic Bight.

Mallory Square ... empty.

Mallory Square--beaten up.

Bricks just got washed away by wave action.
Even at high tide there's still a good 5 feet from water level to pier.

Bridge from Mallory Square to Margaritaville Resort

Some things will never change....

Little Irma humor.

Walking around there were people handing out food. For free. Wouldn't take money.  Just glad to see people safe.  Heroes of the day. Especially our buddy Pete, he did this starting the day after the storm hit.  A local bar also handed out food for folks.  No need to break into our supplies.

If you are in Key West. Give this man some money.
(Pete's actually a bald guy-that's just a friend helping right now)

Spag & Meatballs for dinner.  Thanks Sandbar!

Elysium's new look

We finally arrived at our marina.  No electricity but water was working, but boil only.  I told Tim I didn't want any added to the boat.

The marina had the club house open so that helped out a lot.

First thing we noticed was the boat barn by our boat (say that 3 times real fast) was damaged.  Luckily the missing panels were by the building-as opposed to wrapped around our mast.

Mind you, these barns are supposed to rated to 150+ mph or so.

No time to assess the marina damage let's see our girl.

Wow. Nice tramp stamp Irma gave you lady.  Observe it for awhile, it becomes oddly entrancing. Irma spirograph.

Teak rail-1. Piling-0. 

Except for a small area that you can see above, all of this is where the teak ground the piling
into sawdust. Amazing.

Down below, cross fingers..... DRY.  DRY DRY DRY DRY DRY.  Not smelly.  A little trashed like a yard sale underway, but DRY DRY DRY.

All lines, halyards, outhaul and mainsheet snubbers intact.  A bit of chafe.

SO HOW THE HELL DID SHE GET SO BANGED UP IF OUR LINES WERE OKAY?

Oh, I see.

The piling isn't supposed to be like this.

Nor like this either.  Elysium and Lorac are literally holding the piling by their lines.

On top of that, the other two pilings are bit dubious themselves. We noticed that leaving before the storm, you can move them about a foot by hand.

So. One failed piling + 2 dubious pilings * lines set for a storm surge we didn't get (missed it by 7 feet, thanks NOAA) = banged up Elysium.

Our bet was that Elysium would be a total loss or not enough damage to cover the deductible.  Guess what we have? 

Oh, I mentioned the marina didn't have electricity yet.  Guess who decides not to work much to the pissed offedness of my husband.  Mr. Fischer-Panda. Of course.  Not Irma's fault.  We've diagnosed that problem we think. Will update if Tim's theory is correct.

Driving through the Keys post Irma. (pictures)

As we were driving through the 18 mile stretch (the area between Florida City and the Jew Fish creek bridge) Tim comments:  It doesn't look like anything has happened.

Well, its the Everglades dear.  A nuclear bomb could go off and you wouldn't tell the difference.

Key Largo/Tavernier had been open for 4-5 days at this point and it was in full clean up mode. Water was back on, however a boil notice had been posted so when we stopped to get something to eat, all soda/ice machines were off. The Wendy's seemed a bit stymied by this and our options were bottled water or a Frosty.  We were also amused by the response we got from the high school aged girl when we mentioned that they brought the road sign in.  It's big, so it was an impressive feat and we thought really, really smart.

Her response:  "I don't know why they did that."  Oh, oh! But I do!

Also, really sweet to see was the "Welcome Back, Key West!" signs made-albeit on hurricane debris-but nice to see.

 So the pictures below are us heading south to Key West. Not necessarily in order because they are a mish mash of camera pics with phone pics.  There was no stopping once we got past Tavernier.
Some of the debris you see is from cleanup, but in some areas it is where they took a front loader and used it has a plow to clear the road and the debris was just where it landed.  I captioned pics to explain more.

Mangroves. Completely without leaves.

One of the many boats that were either washed out from a yard or just washed up.

This is mostly cleanup debris here.  Remnants of docks and tiki huts.

Lots of ice machines were caught up in the storm surge.

Below are some pictures of the military staging areas.  There were still many checkpoints in place for neighborhoods near where the eye of Irma went over.

Temporary camp set up at the Marathon airport.

Below are pictures from the worst hit area of the Keys.  You really can see the difference between the 'dirty' side of a storm and the opposite side of the eye.  Key West was on the 'good' side of the storm, if you could call it that.

Debris just scraped to the side of the road.

Sand that had washed over the road.

Linemen hard at work to get power back on.

The sheds you see belong on the other side of the road, storm surge moved them into the road.

Numerous gas stations did not fair well with their island covers.

No leaves whatsoever.

Part of an RV park that got a lot of media attention.

Really don't understand why that didn't get hooked up to a truck and hauled out.

Collapsed building.

One place where road was washed away and they got it replaced and painted.

It is supposed to be GREEN here.

Add caption

Another gas station.  I think some building code updates might be in order.

This poor guy. Tried to get his truck and camper to 'high' ground and still got washed over.

I have a lot more pics, but I think you get the idea. We got smacked around. 

On to Key West.