It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

Beaufort   

I've thought for hours about how to begin this post. I'll just borrow the opening line from Snoopy's novel, "It was a dark and stormy night." Now, let's see how the rest of the story goes. The "heavy stuff" arrived just after the darkness. The wind had been mounting all day, coming directly onto our stern, but we could feel and hear the increase in intensity. Heavy rain was falling in sheets. The wind-driven rain was being pushed through the seam in the saloon's dutch door -- something we had never before seen. We had finished dinner, Barry was on a Zoom conference call, and I was downstairs working on yesterday's post. 

When out on the roof there arose such a clatter, I sprang from atop my bed to see what was the matter. Words cannot describe the sound. Barry and I hit the steps to the pilothouse at the same time shouting, "we've lost the solar panels." Somehow in a blur of action we managed to wrestle the 10'x6', 150 pound assembly off the pilothouse roof, down to the deck, flip it over the Portuguese bridge, and lash it down with spare dock lines. All of this was accomplished in pouring rain, 50 knot winds, and almost total darkness. We returned inside cold and soaking wet, changed into dry clothes, and watched the radar for the red to slowly move off of our position. Multiple times lightning flashed behind the heavy cloud cover and illuminated the other boats in our marina. The torrential rain did finally taper off, but the wind remained strong all night long. Neither one of us slept much at all. When the sun rose, wind-driven waves continued to roll through and break across creek, just a few feet from our stern. 

A quick inspection was made of our previous evening's handiwork. It was holding tightly and we found it to be quite impressive under the circumstances. We tried to recreate our actions and could not figure out how we managed to keep those panels from flying off of Crossroads. It truly was a miracle, with the hand of God holding it in place. The wind continued to blow in the mid-30s so we did little other than inspect the damage. One panel shattered. Two panels survived. Our morning was slow. Barry napped. I read (and maybe nodded off once or twice) in the pilothouse, keeping watch over our captured panels and other activity around the marina. I also watched as our dear friends on Paradigm Shift cast off in Palm Beach and began their journey to The Bahamas.  

The wind dropped below 20 knots after lunch and we went out for further inspection. The flying panel knocked our searchlight off the pilothouse roof, frayed the forestay which stabilizes our mast, and bent our VHF antenna. We gained a few new chips in the gelcoat and a small dent in or bow rail. With our shopping list in hand we were able to get the marina's courtesy car and head over the river to the West Marine in Morehead City. Barry received two referrals for folks who might be able to rebuild our bimini/panel frame and called them. Both said they would come visit us tomorrow by noon. Fingers crossed. Only one thing remained -- disassemble the panels and get the pieces stowed away. Our friend Fernando came over and gave us a hand. The process went a little smoother than I anticipated and we were lashing down the two good panels behind our cockpit ladder as the sun was setting.

What a beautiful display and what a difference a day makes. The colors of the sunset were intense and varied and the wind had dropped to a breeze. Judy joined us at the marina office and we all four went out for dinner. Sunset Run will leave tomorrow morning and continue south. We are thankful that our issue is not as involved as it could have been. That said, we need to get it fixed before we can move on. We're hoping we get good news tomorrow. I said a few days ago that Beaufort was one of our favorite stops. Looks like we'll be seeing a bit more of it than we ever anticipated.