Hiding from Hurricane Isaac in the Ditch

Flash back to Thursday Aug 24, I had just got off work and I'm so happy to be home for the weekend!  I have friday off and the weather...  well it looks fair to me, and a red sky at night must mean good things right?  Except we have this little storm brewing out in the atlantic and vaguely coming in our direction.  Rosa and I had wanted to go on a trip to Panama City this weekend, but given the nature of the beast we decided to stay put and maybe go to Destin Friday.  Well by Friday the storm's extended forecast had it pointed at us, sending us into hurricane prep mode.

Phase I: Walmart trip for canned and fresh foods, as well as all those little things I put off until such occasions.  I even bought a crate of bottled water despite our 150 gallons of potable water.  Fill up the boat with diesel, the truck with gas, ensure adequate propane.  Purchase sufficient wine and spirits for 3 weeks.  Get enough fresh meat to fill the freezer.  Clean the boat and fill the water tanks.  Buy 2 Clive Cussler books.  Get ammunition from storage, enough for a bunch of zombies.  Do laundry.  Rosa helped me run these errands and was a great help, although she was a tad upset about the ammo.

Phase II: Take inventory of all lines and anchors.  Wait!  Big problem here, I just sold the Hunter with 3 complete chain and rope sets, do'oh! I think I had intended to buy a new anchor, chain, and rope after I sold the Hunter but never got around to it.  West Marine was instantly sold out, probably by Thursday.  All I had on the boat was the primary anchor/chain/rope it came with.  40' of 3/8" chain, 250' of 3/4" rope attached to a 35# CQR, very nice but not enough.  I also have a nice aluminum danforth with 10' of 3/8" chain (sufficient for a stern anchor) and a 22# Bruce (too small for this boat) without chain.   This made me nervous, but I figured I could make it all work.

Phase III: Rosa cooked a fantastic Hello Kitty Fondant double-layer chocolate cake for Sommer the dock baby.  I've been to every one of Summer's 6 birthdays, and I met her mom when she was pregnant, so this was fun, although we all remembered that this was the first of Sommer's birthdays that Uncle Pat missed.  Rosa's cake was fantastic, professional, it could have even won awards.  She does so well cooking on the boat!

Saturday morning we did a bit more hurricane prep, then we went over to Sommer's birthday.  It was nice, and everybody loved Rosa's cake.  Sommer released some balloons for her uncle Pat.  I happened to notice that Larry's anchor and rode from his boat was laying on the ground.  About 250' of 1/2" rope, perfect!  Can I borrow it, "Yes", awesome!  After a nice party we went back to the boat and checked the weather to find a Cat III (predicted) aimed right at us!  Whoa, time to scram!

Rosa helped me get the boat ready to rock, and in an hour we were sailing out.  Rosa is really enjoying sailing our new boat, so I snapped this pic while she was raising the main.  We decided to sail to Hogtowne Bayou and stay the night and sail to the Ditch the next day.  The weather was just beautiful, and this was the first time Rosa's been to Hogtowne. There wasn't really too much to see there as we didn't go all the way in, but we both enjoyed a good view of the stars.

The night was calm until about 1am at which point a breeze combined with a fetch to rock us and keep us up almost all night.  Bummer, but this caused us to wake up early sunday and head into the ditch.  Around this time I contacted my boss and asked him for the day (or a week) off work for the storm.  The ditch area is rather pretty.  It starts like a bayou and turns into a sand canyon with walls higher than my mast!

We anchored preliminarily near some downed pine trees, but the tides caused strong currents that reversed us, at one point out into the path of what looked like a coal barge.  So I learned number 1, must have 2 anchors in the ditch for station keeping.  However in the ditch we are protected from winds by the canyon walls, and there aren't any waves.

 We went exploring and climbed the canyon walls.  It's pretty fun to look down on the boat from above mast height.  Notice the 3 anchors here.

That anchoring situation lasted until the tide changed and we got pushed aground.  I like my boats floating so we had to reanchor.  This time the boat was turned around from the above picture, slightly further out in the channel.  However that was the WRONG WAY to be turned, as we found out Monday morning when we had 40kts of wind blowing up our stern.  This was way too much wind to do any normal reanchoring, so we had to improvise!  So, we took the excess stern anchor rope and ran it around the boat to the bow, where it was lead into the roller and cleated off.  Then Rosa helped me get the rope off the stern cleat, and with speed and force the boat turned 180 until the stern anchor was the new bow anchor.  Rosa helped me pull up the previous bow anchor (we are both getting muscles) and re-set it.  We had cast off the side anchor and tied a fender to it, so after some recuperation we used the dinghy (in 30-40kt winds) to go and retrieve it.  It was a pretty easy thing except a TREE was hung up in it, and I had to fight it free in a 2kt current (more muscles).  Anyway, it was retrieved and all of monday and tuesday were easy, pointed into the wind.

We didn't have any rain, so we read books and watched movies and tried to amuse ourselves.  The anchors and current ensured we were pointed dead upwind, and there were no waves or rocking.  In fact it was downright boring, which is an acceptable outcome.  Wednesday morning we motorsailed home in 20-25 kts and got back to the dock in 3.5 hrs which was smokin' fast!  We both had a bit of fun and learned a bit about hurricane prep.  If we have to go to the Ditch in the future I'm certain we'll be safe, and right now I'm shopping for proper anchoring gear for next time.