Thursday, 11 August 2016

128. Tropical Storm Earl


Tropical Storm Earl passed close by Grand Cayman; bad enough for Living the Dream to want their hurricane buoy back. So I tied up at the Yacht Club for a stormy night, next to my friends on Jolly Roger. Always good to see them.


I moved quite early, before things got too bad and then watched as boats started dragging and the dock filled up. I helped Leonardo, an Italian sailor, tie up his huge yacht after he abandoned his anchor. A real bare bones pirate I think, the boat’s name had worn off, so had all the paint. There was no glass in most of the port holes and holes in the dash where the instruments should be.

He came crashing into the dock, I heard something break off and fall into the water as I secured his lines. He didn’t have any fenders. After a couple of seconds in shock, I quickly went to get one of my fenders while Leonardo tried to hold off his probably ten ton boat from being smashed against the concrete dock by big waves and 30 knot winds.

I tied a fender to the dock, and watched the huge boat bounce off it instead of scraping and crunching concrete. But it was way too small for such a big yacht; every time the boat hit, it was squashed flat like a pancake. Leonardo went off to try and borrow some more.

No comments:

Post a Comment