Sitting Milton out in a motel

Hurricane Milton was not to be messed with so we decided to spend the next two days ashore. Ann had the idea to cook a two day supply of chicken casserole since we had a refrigerator and microwave in the motel room. Any meal at a restaurant, even if it was open (most were closed) would not be a gourmet experience - much less with the joy of standing in line for service with everyone else displaced by Milton. 

The boat prep included removing all canvass which we did yesterday. This morning it was closing all seacocks and adding more lines (you can never have too many lines in a hurricane). The sailor's question is,”Is that extra line I have on board of better use in a locker or tied to a cleat leading ashore?” A line in a locker never saved a boat. Lines seldom break, when they fail it’s from chafing so you have to watch that they do not rub against anything when they stretch from a gust of wind.

Our room was ready early so we moved in by 10:00 am as you can see above. The motel is supposed to supply a free breakfast but the staff needed to be with their family as the eye goes over us Thursday, we will be here all until Friday morning.

The rest of today was spent watching Milton approach and the more than 50 tornado warnings associated with the storm even though it hadn’t even come ashore yet.  The photo is from this afternoon. The red lines circle the tornado warning areas. The red arrow points at Titusville. There were lots of videos of tornadoes on TV today, not encouraging for us with Fleetwing docked nearby, hoping they did not approach Titusville - so far, so good. 

So we’re snug, protected in a motel room, and watching much, too much TV about Milton.