Waterspout!!! (Posted 11/25/09)

This posting should serve as a nice contrast to the one posted yesterday and show you that living on a boat is not ALWAYS fun and games!

Last night at about 2:30 AM there was a thunderstorm with lightning close by. When a strike hit fairly close, I awoke Linda and had her get up and move away from the metal fittings that hold the ends of the wires that hold up the mast as these are close to the bed and lightning follows the wires down. It is best to be as far from them as possible in the event the mast is struck by lightning!

While we were waiting for the storm to pass and it showed on the radar that it was almost past us, I thought about going out and climbing into the dinghy as it had a large amount of water in it and needed to be bailed out. I then heard a "freight train" coming at us and there are NO trains in the Keys!!! I had always been told that an approaching tornado or waterspout sounded like a freight train coming. I just had time to think "Oh, NO!!!" and tell Linda to get on the cabin floor and hold on just as the waterspout (a tornado over water) hit us directly! Enchantress heeled way over(leaned over)to port and then to starboard and back and forth several times. The wind screamed, the waves were suddenly huge, the dinghy was jumping up on the waves higher than the cockpit! And then the canvas enclosure for our cockpit was torn loose! I grabbed a corner of the canvas while standing in the main hatchway (the opening to the cabin from the cockpit) and held on to keep it from flying away and being lost forever.

It was all over in just a couple of minutes. I went out in the rain and took the canvas enclosure the rest of the way off and stuffed it up under the dodger. When we turned on the marine radio to see how everyone else in the harbor had faired, people were reporting in with damage reports and to check on each other. A couple of people who had wind speed indicators had clocked the winds at up to 117 mph!!!!! That's well into hurricane force winds!! The most we had ever experienced before was 60 mph in a very, very severe thunderstorm!

Everyone in the harbor was shaken and had never experienced a waterspout before. Several reported having had a "knock-down"!!(the boat knocked completely over on its side by the wind and then righting itself like a Tommy Tippy Doll due to the heavy keel) Fortunately, we didn't go over THAT FAR!! :-) I estimated that we only went over about 45 degrees which was scary enough! The boat next to us (the owner was not onboard) had broken the ropes holding it to its mooring bouy and gone adrift and was over against the docks at the condos! Another boat reported being hit by lightning and all electrical and electronic equipment was fried and wires melted. Wind generators had their blades torn off. Many dinghies had flipped over and the outboard motors were upside down and underwater. Canvas sail covers, sun awnings, biminis and dodgers were torn or shredded. A trimaran (three hulled boat) had flipped over and stayed upside down (no one on board !) Lots of gasoline cans, water jugs, oars and cushions were blown off boats. Some dinghies broke loose but were later found and returned to their owners.

Fortunately, as far as we could learn this morning listening to the Cruisers Net on the marine radio, no one was seriously injured and no boats were sunk. We sustained no actual damage and were able to put the canvas cockpit enclosure back up this morning (a little stretched out of shape).

Were we shaken and scared? You can bet we were!!! Hopefully, that is a once in a lifetime experience!!! One that we do NOT want to experience again anytime soon!!

So we are fine, Enchantress and Little One (our dinghy) are fine, and we have a new "sea story" (tall tale) to tell. :-)