AL SHAHEEN -
Sept 1, 2010
It’s the suspense that does it! For four days now we’ve been hearing about the hurricanes coming up to “get us” here in Nova Scotia – Danielle has dissipated offshore, but Earl is a category 4 and likely to hit us by Saturday and it seems likely to be a biggie. And hot on his heels is Fiona, then Gaston and this morning the news came in that a new named storm has just formed off the shore of Africa. Oi vey!!
Of course no-
One minute Earl’s aiming right at Nova Scotia, next few hours he’s turned more west
towards Maine, a few seconds ago he was turning north again, more towards us. Can’t
wait for Sunday to arrive!! Serious storm warnings out all down the east coast, Cape
Hateras, Nantucket, Maine etc: can’t imagine the devastation that will happen if
there’s a direct hit anywhere there. They’re all very low-
And of course everyone’s an expert! Everyone has a different story about anchoring,
everyone has a different story about where will be safe, everyone has a different
story about what to do. The yards are choc-
A few minutes ago, a concerned shoreside resident John Mosher dinghied out to us,
worried that his mother's dock might break loose and damage us -
After assessing all our options, listening to all the local experts, we’ve crept
into Princes Inlet in Mahone Bay, borrowed a huge 60 pound spade anchor from Morgan’s
Cloud (ours is a 45 pd CQR and perhaps just not up to the job), ploughed into the
mud here and put out a fair amount of scope. Taken all the sails off, the flags down,
anything that flaps or blows is either buried in a locker or removed – now we’ve
just got to wait and see what happens. Nerve-
Very good websites on www.stormpulse.com and www.nhc.noaa.gov (the official weather site) – take a look at those to see what’s happening, up to date. And put up a few prayers for us and all other idiots like us!
Other than that, we’ve had a great trip back down towards Mahone Bay, our eventual
haul-
We re-
The day we arrived in Sambro was one those those real stinkers, and everyone was
out on the beach – some in strange contraptions – this was a parasail with a difference
– towed behind a little motor-
It was a strange trip back – mainly motoring, very little wind at all and what there was dead on the nose – and for days on end, not another boat in sight! As if we’d dropped off the edge of the chart, where “ther be dragons”!!! The appearance of a sail was cause for a quick radio chat, just to prove there were others around! Until we hit Halifax – and then we were suddenly in the middle of a traffic jam – crossing the traffic separation scheme going in to Halifax Harbour, we had one tanker anchored just in front of us, one coming out towards us at 14 knots, and two steaming up behind us at 16 knots! Thank God for AIS, because we couldn’t see them visually until it was a bit too late. Halifax Traffic are a great crowd though – very laconic, very comforting, quite casual about making sure everyone’s in the picture, although it’s a bit weird to have the radio controller telling this huge tanker behind us to “watch out for Al Shaheen, due to cross your bows” when in actual fact if he hit us we’d be mincemeat and he wouldn’t even feel the bump!
We’ve been able to spend some time ‘boning’ up on the bird life – nothing else to do motoring all day (except on a really flat day when I could take my computer out on deck and do some editing!) Courtesy of a bird book from Coryn Gooch and another bought in Bedeck, we’ve got quite good at distinguishing a gull from a tern. Now all we have to do is decided which sort of gull and which breed of tern!! Hey, we all have to start somewhere!
It’s breathless aboard, stinking hot: the locals claim this is the hottest it’s been for years, and I’d go with that. Impossible to work on deck midday, the deck is just too hot to walk on (I always go barefeet), and the only thing to do is duck below for some respite and hope for a bit of a breeze. I guess all the wind has been sucked up into that damn Earl out there!
Diary of a Hurricane
1 Sept 2010
2pm: NOAA’s hurricane advisory says Danielle is fizzling, but Earl is likely to hit
us on Saturday 4th, and hit hard, and then Fiona and Gaston are following on their
heels. Earl is already a Category 4, which means potential wind speeds up to 131-
So, we have borrowed a huge 60 pound spade anchor to replace out little 35 pound CQR, and a 40 pound Fortress in case of emergency, from Morgan’s Cloud, and after much crew/skipper ‘discussion’ as to the best place to be in a blow, have anchored here in Princes Inlet, Mahone Bay to wait it out. The inlet’s fairly shallow, slightly open to the SE, but heavily protected by land mass and high trees to the other three sides of us.
All this endeavour seems quite ridiculous right now, however; the inlet’s like glass! Social evening ashore.
2 Sept 2010
2pm: Okay, Earl’s been down-
It lands up being your own decision in the end.
3 Sept 2010
9am: Up to Cat 4 again, the NOAA website still has the track moving around somewhat.
Considering it hasn’t even reached US landfall yet, and is only moving at 16 knots,
feels sometimes like we’re making a big fuss over nothing. Certainly the locals seem
very casual about it, no-
2pm: Okay, NOAA now has the eye coming dead overhead. All the water-
8pm: Earl’s down to Cat 2 they say, but that means potential winds of 96-
9pm: no major change to report, so bedding down on salon berths as our bunk is full of sail bags!
4 Sept 2010
1am: fridge motor is running non-
5am: no birds – is this the beginning? Some rain, not much, big globules, just enough to force us to close the hatches and make everything hot and sticky. John can’t sleep – major worry furrows on his brow. Suspense running high.
6am: 25 knots of wind suddenly, rain falling more heavily now. NOAA now adamant we
(Mahone Bay/Halifax) will get a direct hit. Wind SE as predicted, Earl now moving
at 32 knots towards us, faster than before but at least not as strong. Now down to
Cat 1 (74-
7am: coffee time – we’re awake anyway! Engine on to charge batteries, flattened by
fridge running all night. Now constant 20-
8am: 44°24’.847N 064°19’.952 W Have started to note positions in case we drag. No point in putting the anchor alarm on, as it’s likely to go off every few minutes. Barometer down from 1003 mb at 5.30am to 994 mb now – big drop. Guess this is it. I’ve taken my computer out, working on an edit to give myself something to do.
9am: 44°24’.847N 064°19’.954W Spade rock steady in 26-
9.15am: Baromoter 990 mb, falling fast. I’m editing Zerelda’s fantasy story – dragons and demons more acceptable than what’s happening outside! Sky and general surroundings quite dark, white horses on inlet.
9.40am: Winds 30-
10.30am:
44°24’.849N 064°19’.954 Still holding steady although Al Shaheen heels and
bounces horribly in major gusts – have to hang onto my computer! Winds gusting 40
knots regularly now – hard driving rain, steep choppy seas built up in the inlet.
Can’t believe I was saying it was like glass yesterday! Wifi has disappeared – no
lights ashore, so I guess no power there. Only VHF connection.
10.35am: DSC Mayday call – s/v Summer Delight, 43 ft yacht, solo sailor in trouble.
Poor guy! Followed up by coastguard, co-
Have just packed all necessities into grab-
10.55am: 44°24’.851N 064°19’.958. Solo sailor has abandoned his boat and is swimming
to land so I guess it can be done – locals there to rescue him. Spade anchor holding
well – have to put one of these on the Christmas list. Horrid nasty hobby-
11.10am: 44°24’.852N 064°19’.956. Tied grab-
11.30 am: 50.7 knots! Although John says he thinks the wind instrument’s under-
Stuck my head out of the cockpit – and a little bird just went past! Can’t say it was flying, but it at least was managing to steer!! Couldn’t tell you what it was – doubt he was even sure himself at that point. Didn’t his mother give him the ‘keep your head down in a hurricane’ lecture?
Two men in yellow slickers appeared on a roadside dock to tie their canoes down – in 50 knots of wind? Bit late, I’d say! Sail tie has worked loose on the mainsail, flapping frantically and slowly unwinding, but there’s no way we’re going out there to tie it up again! Will read instead. John’s staring out the companionway with a worried look on his face. Barometer down to 968 millibars.
11.40 am: 44°24’.871N 064°19’.969. Have we dragged?
11.45am: 44°24’.876N, 064°19’.972. Yes, about 50m. Now what? Howling friggin’ hurricane
out there. Still constant 35-
12.00 noon: Sudden drop in the wind – down to 25 knots. Quick chat with Morgan’s Cloud, and we took the gap to dive up to the bow to let out more chain. He says that’ll dig it in again. Now 44°24’.882N 064°19’.935W.
Of course, to do that we have to unwrap the chain from around the Samson post where
John has put it to take some load off, (never seen him do that before!) undo the
snubber as usual, unclip the Blake slip (first time I’ve ever seen this contraption
too!) that is now also on the anchor chain (and this is done with a hammer!!) then
a mad release of more chain... then a frantic re-
12.15pm: Suddenly calm. Wind’s dropped, 10-
John would like lunch.
VHF calls coming in re damage etc: someone tore all the cleats off his stern on the dock, several moorings broken loose, but nothing too drastic, it appears. The papers tomorrow will have some full stories, I’m sure.
12.45pm: 44°24’.874N 064°19’.924.Dead dead calm: unbelievable that only an hour ago we were hanging on by our toenails. Barometer now 975 mb, rising slowly, wind down to 9 knots. Just finished a lunch of bacon butties. Two fishing boats talking on VHF have just ‘confirmed’ it’s all over – “that’s okay Bert, it’s over, Mum said it’s clear now” – even fishermen have Mums! So, how long do we have to wait for the “back side” to arrive? And will it be harder? Still don’t like our position now relative to R6 or his dock, which is breaking loose already.
1.15pm: 44°24’.837N 064°19’.926W. Re-
2pm: Amazing! Sun’s shining, the birds are back, blue skies above – still lots of heavy black clouds screaming across the sky, lots of wind howling through the trees on the tops of the hills around us, but down here, it’s like a Caribbean anchorage, John says! Is it all over? No wifi, so can’t check NOAA internet site, VHF weather channel still giving an 8am forecast, so that’s not much help!
3.15pm: 44°24’.836N 064°19’.915W. Occasional gusts up to 30 knots again, but infrequent
and short-
6.15pm: life resumes its normal pattern. Ospreys chirping, wind blowing gently, G&Ts
on tap! Scott and Candace from Rosebud came over, to congratulate us on our smart
re-
Jan said their instruments measured 69 knots; John on Morgan’s Cloud says he saw
64 knots, so it seems ours were definitely under-
Interesting statistic: it is 6 years ago almost to the day that Al Shaheen survived Hurricane Ivan in Grenada, West Indies – 7th September 2004 to be exact.
5 Sept 2010
10am: now the cleaning up begins! The VHF has been going mad this morning, as people
are salvaging lost docks, dinghies that blew away, moorings that broke loose -
...hey Chester, you ther by the island?
...yeah just here.
....you see her?
...yeah.
...she aground?
...aground? She’s up in the fuckin’ trees!
But no reports of lives lost, and that’s the most important. Al Shaheen (and all aboard) came through her second hurricane; boat unscathed, crew and skipper a little wiser and a little greyer!
Ps late Sunday: one death – guy’s whose boat broke its mooring and he tried to swim from shore to salvage her. Not a good idea.
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