Blog Archive

Sunday 8 September 2019

Boat Anxiety

Boat Anxiety

For a week now We’ve been watching the awe inspiring satellite photos of Hurricane Dorian. A cataclysmic hurricane that stalled over the Bahamas and used it’s ferocious Category 5 strength to decimate those islands before weakening a little and roaring on towards the Carolinas. Death, mayhem and destruction follows in it’s wake but, with destroyed communications, the news takes time to filter out.

We are now sitting on a plane bound for Nova Scotia and due to arrive the day before Darian rips into Cape Breton where our boat is perched on a mooring awaiting this awesome force of nature. I have read everything I can about Hurricane preparation and have been rehearsing plans in my head as we fly, for the first time, into the path of a raging hurricane. 

But reading and mental preparation doesn’t quell the anxiety. If anything it exacerbates it with tales of anchor chains stretched to breaking point and boats tossed around like matchsticks. 

I just want to be on the boat doing stuff. Removing spray hoods, taking the blades off the wind generator, scouting out hurricane holes for a late arrival, setting anchors and shorelines and getting into a safe hotel before the winds build and Darian pounces. 

Until then we just shrug our shoulders and keep telling ourselves, ‘we are insured’ and ‘it’s just a piece of plastic’ and ‘maybe it will veer off into the North Atlantic?’ 

And we do this for fun?