Placid waters and a secluded anchorage. Cruising in the height of hurricane season is a gamble with big risks and rewards.

I had been searching for a traditional vessel to replace my Pearson 365 Ketch and had decided on a stout catboat. I had just returned from searching in New England where, once again, the trip was futile. Once home in Cape Coral, Florida, I again logged on to the CBA site. The website had just been updated and to my surprise I found an Atlantic City 24 catboat for sale practically next door in St. James City.

Only 20 minutes after ending my phone call I was knocking on the hull, boat awe struck. I talked with its owner Charles and was blown over with his years of experience. Charles was forced to sell the boat due to health reasons, but he had sailed the boat down from New Jersey to his home in southwest Florida and spun a web with his yarns of years of cruising in the Bahamas. He had sailed mostly in the southeast Bahamas near Abaco, Exuma, and Cat Island. He took me on deck to show me an anchor he kept in the forward end of the cockpit which he had named ‘Big Ma Mau’ and it must have weighed 60 pounds. With an appropriate Danforth on the bow, the Big Ma Mau was his insurance policy against mishap, which had proved itself many times over.

I eventually bought the boat and, reading its log, was transported back to a battle Charles and his wife had with Hurricane Erin and the lessons there in August, 1995: Little did I know that it would serve as a precursor to my own battle nearly ten years later.

‘Big Ma Mau held real good last night. Charles put out a lot of scope with floats thank goodness for a peaceful night. Really windy today! Tropical Storm Erin is moving through Bahamas today and Crossing S. Long Island now.

Our cruising friends, Donna and John seem to be OK hanging on to the Beacon piling. Erin turned into hurricane with winds of 70 mph by late afternoon and Charles is busy rigging all extra lines. We hooked to an old but sturdy piling and put out Danforth off starboard and are hoping weather doesn’t get too bad. We aren’t ‘fitted’ as well as we would like.

Weather turning bad. Boats buckled down and big yacht came in about 6:00 PM and went to the freight dock’

Tuesday, August 1, 1995 – Hurricane Erin came through with a vengeance. Last night was bad. The weather people kept saying storm was headed to Georgetown, Exumas and Andros while all the time it was headed Long Island, Cat Island, and Eleuthera. It hit us full force about 5:00 AM.

Charles was on deck trying to keep anchor lines from fouling in pilings near us. We fought it until about 7:30 a.m. then everything went calm as the eye passed over us. We worked our way out of the pilings around the finger pier. Charles rigged lines to tie off to mangroves helping us to stay offshore and just got it finished when other side of the hurricane started up. This side wasn’t quite as bad. Our friends Donna and John had problems too. The tide blew out during height of storm and they grounded and lost their tiller. I can’t tell if there’s other damage. We were able to haul in on lines to get back in deeper water. They are still hanging on beacon piling. Praying it all holds together. Still windy. What a time!!

Wednesday, August 2, 1995 - We thought Hurricane Erin was coming back. Bad squalls last night until about 11:00 PM. We slept like a log after that. Today is rainy, over cast grey day. Charles catching water. Late breakfast. The hurricane went up the Abacos and Grand Bahama Islands and made land fall in the U. S. at Vero Beach and is crossing Florida now and down graded to tropical storm with only 70 mph winds. John, Donna and I went ashore looking for bread. We talked to people on dock. Several boats had lots of damage.

One Cabo Rico broke its mast halfway up, after the roller furling came loose, and broke all lines except the ones secured before the last one broke. The 110-foot Almoviva from Europe pulled pilings loose from dock. They held themselves there with bow thrusters and engines. This storm was a ‘minimal’ hurricane.

One main thing about this experience was the lack of information and even the wrong reports. They were so off their forecast that the island’s people were not prepared, which if this storm had been really bad, there would have been more destruction and probably loss of life. This was my second hurricane and don’t want a third. Answered prayers regarding life and boats.’

It’s hard to imagine the brute forces that could lift a boat into the air. Gimili, moving the way her designers intended.

Living in SW Florida you become keenly aware of the Bermuda High and high pressure systems moving across the southeastern United States for these are variables that keep hurricanes away or bring them in for a visit. In less than 36 hours a thunderstorm had bloomed to a category one Hurricane Bonnie. We were lucky that Bonnie was moving quickly towards the panhandle. My thoughts were focused on Hurricane Charlie. While a Category One, my intuition was screaming to pack the family and have a hurricane party in Atlanta. I called my father in law and told him he was going to spend a few days with us. He told me I was panicking. I put the household on a full life safety Alert and had never in 15 years shown this level of preparedness.

Thursday, August 12, 2004--I blocked the boat cradle with 2" x 8" and lashed Gimli to it and calculated that it would take a 12-foot flood surge to lift her up. I collected my father in law from his condo as he respected the mandatory evacuation of the barrier islands. My sister-in -law who had just moved to Florida with two of her children, were staying with us as her furniture was not scheduled to be delivered for another week. Three of my four children and my spouse would all be in my home for the storm, nine in all. I had my charts and amused myself with thoughts of plotting Charlie’s path. We were prepared. We had extra water, food, a generator with plenty of gas and house was a live with cooks preparing meals. We were ready and we still had 24 hours to wait the storm’s arrival.

Friday, August 13, 2004 – Dawn breaks like any other summer day in Florida. Battleship clouds on the horizon moving back and forth looking for a target. It was warm and humid so a pool party was called for. The weather is forecast to deteriorate around 11:00 a.m. with the worst expected between 4–6 p.m. By now all local programming was a constant coverage of the storm, not unlike a Super Bowl Sunday, with hours of chatter before the event. Charlie was now a category two with the eye wall predicted to pass 50-60 miles off shore about 70 miles west of my home. We could experience tropical storm winds of 45-60 mph.

The National Hurricane Center continued to stand by their forecast of a direct hit in Tampa. Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated. Local meteorologists are voicing their concerns about a wobble or that Charlie is turning. We are glued to the TV set and 40 minutes later the wobble is a turn. A Category II is now a Category IV with 150 mph winds and heading for us. The eye wall is expected to past within 15 miles. I tell the group how these weathermen are blowing the whole thing out of context. I suggest we all sit down to a hot meal before the storm hits. Quietly, I take my spouse out of the room and instruct her to make sure our two safe rooms are ready with flashlights, blankets, water and the first aid kit. She said, ‘I thought you said the weathermen were panicking’ and I replied, ‘We don’t need nine more souls panicking in the house, one was enough- ME!’

We experienced 100-115 mph winds with no damage to our home. The JPEG movies and photos I took don’t do justice to what I witnessed in the storm. Older homes and mobile parks have been devastated. Gimli shifted about 24 inches to port and moved back 5 feet in the cradle. The dock lines I looped around the boat to the cradle were stretched out about three feet. An Atlantic City 24 has an 8,000 lb displacement and at times Gimli lifted off the cradle and was airborne.

I plan to re-read every passage in every book I own about storms as sea. After experiencing the fury firsthand, I can now fully appreciate those passages.