St James Marina - Tying off for Matthew

Tide Minders added to all pilings

There is a 4.5 ft tidal range here and with Matthew and the chance of a storm surge, it will be even higher. When we arrived I saw many boats using "Tide Minders". They are a bunch of rollers that you string together on a line around a piling. As the tide changes, the rollers will ride up and down the piling even if there are barnacles present. With the hurricane approaching I wanted all the help I could get.

Back to Miami?!

It looks like Matthew is turning to the east even sooner than predicted earlier. Our windiest day is now projected to be Sunday with winds topping out at 42 kts with an occasional higher gust. That is far from hurricane strength and we feel fairly secure here. However, the ICW through South Carolina and Georgia is taking a beating. When the weather returns to normal next week we are concerned that the ICW may still be impassible due to high water. So I signed up for a month here with the intention of staying two weeks, it was less expensive to take the monthly rate than pay the weekly rate for two weeks. Hopefully, after two weeks they will have the ICW cleared.