Please join me for Monday Live 7pm EDT on my FB and YouTube channels! Here’s an update from my first mate’s log.

While on shore yesterday we made the acquaintance of Dave, an extreme-surfer who invited us for dinner in his catamaran. We were enthralled by his stories of surfing in hurricane Katrina’s 30 foot waves. As we were enjoying some wine after dinner I noticed the wind and rain picking up. We piled into his inflatable dinghy and rode a short distance to our boat while the wind and waves whipped around. It was exciting to feel it coming in, and was glad that we had secured a mooring in anticipation of Ida’s early arrival. We all nestled into our respective boats and closed the hatches. The storm howled  and rocked the boat from side to side all night. I could hear the creaking of the ropes straining against the 4500 pound mooring. Ida had taken a slight right turn, putting Cuttyhunk directly in its path. I could hear the storm easing as we approached the eye of the storm, then whipping again on the other side. Fortunately it had weakened from a hurricane to a gale, but still made for very little sleep.

As the sky was just starting to lighten, perhaps 5am, Bryan poked his head out of the companionway to find that the dinghy was nearly submerged. By the time he pulled the painter in, the rain and waves had submerged it entirely. He pulled it in, pouring out the water as much as possible. He then leaned over the side and bailed water out, still in the pouring rain, until it raised its sides enough to withstand the remaining rain. Finally the rain stopped mid morning. We heard that New York City and other areas had experienced major flooding.
Bryan and I talked about leaving for Block Island but the ocean waves were still listed at average 6-8 feet so we opted to stay another night in Cuttyhunk and rest up for another long day through night sail.