Friday, 6 November 2020 - Boy, I almost screwed up the Cruiser's Net this morning. I always announce on channel 16 about 5 minutes before the net that we will be conducting in on channel 68 at 9 am, and then I do the same on channel 68 to remind people. This morning, however, I reversed the order and forgot to switch back to channel 68. At 9 am, I started my net announcements and talked about 8 minutes before I stopped to ask for new arrivals to the harbor. Of course, everyone on channel 68 was wondering what happened to the net controller, me. Allen and Kate on S/V Mendocino Queen realize what might have happened and moved over to 16, but they couldn't get through to me until I quit transmitting. In the meantime, the Coast Guard was on 16 trying to tell me that talking on that channel, the emergency channel, was illegal, but, again, I couldn't hear them because I was still transmitting. When I finally asked for new boats to the harbor, Allen immediately jumped in and said, "Rick, you're on the wrong channel." Highly embarrassed, I moved over to channel 68 and began again. Oops! Today I finally finalized my decision to stay in the harbor and ride out the storm, now predicted to be a Tropical Storm with winds about 45 - 50 mph. The biggest factor that decision was that it's been windy all week and I believed that the waves in the open water of Florida Bay between here and Little Shark River would be high enough to make it awfully hard to see the hundreds of lobster and crab pots and that I might catch one or more, delaying my arrival by a considerable amount of time and making me arrive after dark, or worse, be stuck only part way there overnight in high waves. By about noon I realized that I probably should have sailed to Shark River today. Winds, contrary to the weather report, were only about 15 -20 mph and, apparently, the waves, at least according to the wildly variable internet reports, were only about one to two feet high. That would have been nice sailing, but I discovered it too late. It takes about 10 to 11 hours to sail up there so I would need to leave early in the morning and it takes about a half a day to get the boat ready to sail.

Saturday, 7 November - Still not being decided on whether I would stay on the boat, I prepared most things yesterday for high winds. I closed all the hatches and stowed lots of items where they can't fall off counters, shelves, and settees, etc., so Susie and I spent most of the day preparing things for foul weather at her house. High tide early Monday morning, when the storm is predicted to hit here will be 2.3 feet and there may also be a storm surge of from two to five feet. Her patio is about 26 inches above her dock, which is just under water at that high tide and her floor in her house is about six inches above that, so she may very well endure some flooding.

Sunday, 8 November - We were up a little earlier than usual this morning. The weatherman has upped the ante and mentioned the word "hurricane" again. That has convinced me that I'll be staying onshore with Susie tonight, so the first thing on the agenda this morning was to get me back to the harbor to finish preparations for the wind. I had about 4 inches of rain in the dinghy that I needed to bail, then went out to the boat, rechecked all the hatches, turned off all the electricity to everything except the masthead light, the bilge pump, got some more cash, removed the engine from the dinghy and raised it to the stern pulpit mount, raised the dinghy on the davits and strapped it snug against the davits, moved everything out of the cockpit, locked up, and begged and got a ride back to shore from my neighbor Bill Perkins of S/V La Nikki. Susie picked me up again and we spent the afternoon tying everything down outside the house and moving some of the furniture inside. Predicted tracks for Eta change hour by hour as does the predicted strength, varying from 50 to 75 mph sustained. The current track on NOAA's site shows it going precisely over Boot Key Harbor. I'm writing this at 9:15 pm and the wind we have about 20 mph winds and it's just starting to sprinkle for about the tenth time today. Actually, it's been a pretty nice day ever since I got back to Susie's around 1 pm. That will soon change, I'm sure.

Monday, 9 November - Well, it didn't change much. Susie and I stayed up watching TV so we could monitor the storm until a little after 2 am, but other than the tide coming in about 6 inches higher than normal, after they predicting a three to five foot storm surge, we didn't even notice strong winds or extremely heavy rain. To make a long story short, Eta was pretty much a non-event here and I won't deny, that is fine with me. With the late predictions for Eta returning to hurricane strength as it arrived here, I was beginning to regret not having sailed to Little Shark River again. This morning, I opened Susie's storm shutters back up and we moved all the heavy and large items from her patio back into place. We're still getting off and on showers and moderate winds, but the danger seems to have passed without harm here and I doubt that there will be any problems back at the boat when I return. The only problem I can imagine is if some other boat broke loose from its ground gear (Anchor or mooring lines) and hit my boat. I'll know soon for sure, but I still have to bum a ride from the docks out to my boat when I return to the harbor. That shouldn't be too hard. ...another bright spot this morning; there was a manatee in Susie's canal. On arriving back at the boat I moved everything back to its normal spot on the boat and relaunched the dinghy and remounted the outboard engine. All seems good.

Tuesday, 10 November - I asked on the Cruiser's Net this morning how much wind they got here in the harbor and someone said that they got one short blast at about 50 mph, but the rest of the harbor indicated that winds were mostly 30 mph or less. In fact, several said that the days leading up to the arrival were windier than the storm itself. I haven't heard of any real problems in the harbor. I guess the "Boot Key Bubble" protected us again. Anyway, all is well here in Marathon. I hope you are, too. I think the storm track for Eta is the wackiest ever recorded. It obviously is lost and doesn't know where it is or should be.

            Until next time.

                        "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!" - Hunter S. Thompson

                                          Rick