Hampton - at a dock preparing for a hurricane

More preparations - bring the dinghy in close to the dock

The 11:00 pm projection last night had Joaquin going right over the top of us - we would be in the eye of the hurricane!! However, as the projections progressed, the track turned more and more to the east to bring Joaquin out over water and not landfall. That is very good news for us although Joaquin is still in the Bahamas, these are all projections.

We are in a two slip dock and we were given permission to tie off to the to other side where normally another boat would be. That takes us off the dock enough so we don't touch. Friday is the start of high winds out of the northeast, a good direction for us since we have a six story garage between us and the winds. There will still be a surge with the easterly winds and we're watching that via the weather buoy at the mouth of the bay.  As of tonight, the surge is only 2 feet but I'm sure that will change with the approach of the hurricane. However, already there are boats coming into the marina from docks further out in the bay. This afternoon we got the fire boat in and docked next to us. They were further out at a marina on the bay where they were getting waves already over the breakwater, not good! They are safely ensconced with a spiderweb of lines.

The fireboat came in from an outer marina - safer there

Needless to say, we are watching every hurricane update. We're using the main NOAA site as well as the iPad apps Hurricane HD and Hurricane Tracker.   Both have their good points. We continue to use PocketGrib which predicted the seaward path of the hurricane before NOAA did, we've found it the most accurate of all for wind forecasts.

So it seems we'll be here until Tuesday according to the forecasts. We of an age where we like nice, easy rides when we can chose. Besides, at $0.75/ft and $10/day weekend car rental, it's easy to take here. The first of the high winds start Friday, 20 to 25 kts with gusts to 30 for the next three days. We have a car rental for the weekend so we plan to make lemonade out of this.