Capt. Mike and I returned to Brunswick, Georgia after a delightful summer vacation in Colorado. Less than two weeks back into boat life and boat projects, the National Hurricane Center forecast projected that Hurricane Idalia could pass right over us. Yikes! Time to test the claim that Brunswick Landing Marina is a safe hurricane hole!

Hurricane season in the Atlantic officially runs from 1 June to 30 November every year and historically the risk of dangerously strong storms is the highest in September and October. But because “you never know” we prepped our floating home for hurricanes when we left her back at the end of May. We removed her jib and staysail, replaced the running rigging with thinner messenger lines, covered the portlights with plastic, and secured the dinghy very tightly in the davits on the stern. We’re glad we did all that, because the marina experienced some very strong storms while we were gone – even to the point of bending the stainless tubing that supports our solar panels. And doing all that work in May meant we had a head start on prepping for Idalia.

Two days before the hurricane, we rented a car and drove to St Augustine to bring all three of our sails to a sail loft for inspection and repairs. On the way home, we stopped at Costco in Jacksonville to start provisioning non-perishables for the upcoming cruising season. Just our luck to do that on a day when all of Florida was buying bottled water, toilet paper, and canned goods. I was tempted to joke with the check-out clerk, “This is my first hurricane. Do you think I’ve got enough food?” 🤣

The day before the storm, everyone in the marina worked all day to prepare, helping each other out as needed. We doubled all our dock lines and applied new chafe gear, lashed down the bimini and solar panels, filled the water tanks, tested the radio and wind instruments, and packed go bags. We adjusted the lines on the abandoned boat in the slip next to ours and removed or secured anything in the marina that could fly around and cause damage in high winds. We checked on a few boats belonging to friends who were still out of town. And of course we checked every new storm forecast – studying the smallest details: What’s the latest storm track? Will Brunswick be under a Tropical Storm Warning, or a Hurricane Watch? How much storm surge should we expect? What’s the earliest time we can expect tropical storm force winds? What’s the probability we could see hurricane force winds? Finally, we collapsed into bed, fairly confident we’d done as much as we could possibly do to prepare.

I woke up the next morning around 5:30 to the sound of rain. Went back to sleep and woke again around 7:00 to the first howling winds. We nervously waited for the NHC to release their 8am products so we could evaluate what we were in for and what had changed overnight, and whether we should stay in the marina or catch an Uber to a hotel. Luckily, Idalia had tracked west overnight, now forecast to hit land in a lightly populated region of Florida’s Big Bend, and meaning we wouldn’t get hit with the full strength of the storm. So we decided to stay, knowing we might be uncomfortable, but we wouldn’t be unsafe.

I stuck it out on the boat until 11:30 am when we really started bouncing in the slip and when our wind instruments showed sustained winds of 25-35 and gusts of 52 knots 😲 I brought valuables, electronics, rain gear, and snacks up to the marina Yacht Club to wait it out. I’m not sure which was scarier – listening to the wind howl on the boat, or listening to TV News anchors trying to terrify us. The local news was filming from Dock 4 of our marina!

Capt. Mike joined me on land about 15 minutes before the power went out. No more scary tv broadcasts, but no more AC or phone chargers either. One transient visitor to the marina made me laugh because every time he walked into the yacht club he was wearing a bright red life vest and carrying a boat hook with a radio clipped to his belt – prepared for battle! We could keep an eye on Happy from the patio of the yacht club and kept track of how the rest of the marina was handling the winds by listening to the VHF radio. A water fixture broke on Dock 9, sending a geyser skyward until the water was shut off. Dock 4 lost some bolts and started to slowly break apart until the marina could hold it together temporarily with ratchet straps. But the worst effects of the storm were on Dock 0, the closest to the ocean, which experienced the brunt of the wind and the most fetch and waves. Three big motor yachts tied crosswise to the wind were repeatedly pushed onto the concrete dock, experiencing quite a bit of hull damage before the dock was evacuated, but not a single boat sank. A catamaran on that same dock hadn’t prepped for the storm and their jib was shredded by the high winds. Another improperly prepped boat on the hard in the boatyard had the wind unfurl their jib, giving it something for the wind to grab onto, eventually knocking the boat off its stands and knocking over the next two boats in the row. 😢

Finally, around 5:00, the winds shifted to the west indicating Idalia had passed north and the storm was fading. The yacht club filled with lots of relieved sailors, comparing stories and photos and breaking out a beer or a dram of rum to celebrate our good fortune. We all agreed we were very lucky in the westerly track the storm took, as well as the fact that it passed us at low tide. We’d been concerned that a tropical storm during full moon king tides could lead to crazy high tides and flooding but we lucked out. We appreciated the dramatic stripe of sunset beneath the heavy lingering clouds because “red sky at night means sailor’s delight” on our way to a secret candle-lit post-hurricane party in town. Happy lived to sail another day!